#Also in my defense about staying up and playing a video game until 1 am. I am anxious therefore. video game

[ajxrn-archive]

it’s 1 am I stayed up playing project sekai.. I fear the hyperfixation is grabbing me perhaps it is fanart time..

[theofficefantasyfootball]

WEEK 5 - Wrap Up

The Pursuit of a Championship

Do you ever feel like you give and give and give to your fantasy team and all they do is take from you? They take your heart, they take your Sunday's away from your friends and families and eventually they take your money. We just completed week 5 and just like Will Smith in the Pursuit of Happiness - it just tears me up when my life and my family have to suffer because of these little Millionaires, running around playing a game and yet they can't do the basic job assigned to them and get the win. If you are feeling the same - just know you are not alone. Stay strong and find a good bathroom in a train station to sleep in if you have to...just find a way to make it to the playoffs...and it will all be worth it!

MOOSES ON THE LOOSES vs TuPADRE

Yes again. Mitch won again. Thank the lord that he didn't win High Point again, but he won and in fantasy football that's all you want each week. He beat the guy that use to be feared in this league....Andy Gullahorn. But since he teamed up with his son (not saying that's the reason just stating a fact) he is 1-4. Moose is 4-1. I feel like we are in backward worlds right now. What the hell is going on? I don't really have much more to say about this wrap up. Moose has been tough to beat and that scares me because I face him in week 6. Maybe he has had all the winning he can take? Congrats Mitch.

LANAKILA vs HOWARD

Well, 161 points. Mind Blown. 10 point bonus for a defensive shut out. 23 from Mahomes, 25 from Achane, 24 from Kittle, 12 from Pacheco, 11 from his kicker and 42 from Saints D...Gentleman meet Cliff Young - our high point of the week winner a 4-1 record this season. This has to be a tough one for Rob because he had such an amazing week as well. Any other week it's a major win and likely also a high point win...but instead he goes home with nothing. See above intro and video...that's what I am talking about. Rob was robbed of a W. Cliff - congrats!

BOOMER SOONER vs BACKDOOR BANDITS

Stu texted me mid day on Sunday talking about how terrible his fantasy team is this year. And yes, he was 1-3 at the time of the call...but later that night the 49ers played the Cowboys and Purdy put up 34 fantasy points and 49ers Defense another 24...so throw in a great day from Diggs and Stu ends up with a total of 121 points and moves to 2-3. Kyle continues to struggle. He had a huge week from Etienne with 37.40 fantasy points but none of his other players seemed to care. Kyle joins a few others at 1-4. Stay strong Brother in Law.

TREE HUGGERS vs LONG LEFT BALLERS

Well this one wasn't what i expected it to be. I thought these two undefeated teams - facing each other...that it would come down to the wire with two high scoring games. But, Bebo turned in a modest 80 points and Scott finished Sunday with 72.50 with Devante Adams and Jordan Love still to play...so I am going to predict that Scott get's more than 8 points from these two guys and takes down Bebo early on Monday night. So, Scott Krippayne will go into week 6 as the only unbeaten team in the Office League. Congrats Scott...amazing year you are having. Bebo, I am sure it was a fluke and you will be back at it next week. (Update - Scott did win but it wasn't until mid 3rd quarter till he pulled it off and with all the Jordan Love INT'S he almost gave it back to Bebo.

TRADE WITH ME vs FUNK GUY

Well, this one was actually a fun one to watch! Funk Guy, sitting at 1-3 against Trade with Me also at 1-3...both wanting a win but neither one locking it down on Sunday. Dana was done going into Monday night with 79.12 and Brett is sitting at 70.94 but still has Christian Watson to play. So a mere 8.18 yards from Watson...basically 22 yards and a TD. Watson was pretty quiet until the 3rd quarter when he had a huge play that brought Watson up to 83 yards but he also had an odd 5 yard rushing loss so he needed 1 more point...which he got with a few minutes left in the game...so in what seems like a common situation for Dana - it comes down to the wire and he loses by .42 of a point. WOW! Congrats Brett...close one!

MALIK MY BALLS vs MR AWESOME

And finally, my match up of the week. I was so excited to play against Gabe this week. First off, because I like Gabe. He's a really great guy. Secondly because he has yet to win this year so I figured...here's an easy win week...that will be nice. Third, because when I logged on Thursday night to see if he had any players in - DJ Moore was on his bench and he already had like 24 points and ended up with 51. So, again I am thinking...winner winner...dogged a bullet...free win. Fast forward to later on Sunday and all is going to plan until Breece Hall broke out for 177 yards and a TD and put up 30 points. I expected Tyreek to go off ...but a JET putting up huge points? Come on now! So as we go into Monday night...I am done and have 123.36. Gabe is sitting at 101.32 but has Josh Jacobs and Daniel Carlson (kicker). So 22.04 points between these two. By the start of the 4th quarter Jacobs ran in a TD and cut the margin to 5. All i can do is sit and watch the game slip away and slowly it does. Then with just 2 min left - Gabe's kicker Carlson missed a 52 yarder - it hit the upright and bounced out...which would have given him the win. I escaped barely and Gabe moves to 0-5. Thanks Gabe for being such a good friend and letting me win!

SURVIVOR

This week we say goodbye to Stu, Kyle and Dana...leaving Rob, Gully, Mitch and Scott. Let's go boys...Rob already has his pick in!

CHEERLEADER OF THE WEEK (VIDEO EDITION)

Why post a pic when you can have video...get to know Elizabeth from our very own Tennessee Titans.

[qingxintea]

➼ chongyun || hiraeth

tw: mention of knives (no violence), kidnapping, explosion _______

you angled your camera to catch your face and upper body correctly and adjusted your blinds for the correct lighting. you put thin pieces of yellow and pink paper over your lamp to give off a sunset lighting sort of aesthetic in your minimalist room. your tiny cacao tree sat in the corner of your room, setting some sort of simple beach vibe.

then, you began to stream.

you watched as majority of your followers came to view as you sat in your rolly gaming chair. the greetings came rushing in and you noticed two of your friends had came along too, xingqiu and chongyun.

"hey gang, it's kingexplosionmurder here with your weekly sunday stream," you smiled and watched as comments came in asking you to notice them. beginning to select randomly, you flicked a short strand of hair behind your ear. "you have been noticed, yourlocalsugardaddy," you blessed them. and you swore you chose randomly.

on the other side of the screen, chongyun's face slightly flushed before eating his popsicle again. yes, that was his username, selected by xingqiu after the guhua heir was somehow able to trick him into selecting so. the situation must've been that he accidentally consumed some jueyun chili's, that was also xingqiu's doing.

he watched you smile as you explained your schedule for this stream, when he noticed you suddenly began laughing. it sounded genuine, he wanted to believe it was genuine, but there was a trace of disappointment in it. he observed your face, noticing you were looking at the chat box. "i agree too, scarymoose."

scarymoose: this streamer's kinda dog shit ngl 😐

by instinct, his fingers grazed over the keyboard as he analyzed the tone. this kid wasn't joking around with himself, he was really out to bring you down. he exhaled, shaking his head, wondering how you would deal in the situation.

yourlocalsugardaddy: miss karen this isn't yelp 🙄

he wasn't content with that yet, things could've gone onto more serious matters, but he knew you liked to keep your chat clean and peaceful. you went to the farther extents to keep that from happening, agreeing with rude comments yourself as a said joke, but actually have it sometimes harming you.

so chongyun tried his best to keep you happy.

redrumreaper: yo moose chill 😳

he recognized his friend xingqiu also trying to calm the situation as you just laughed it off and attempted to continue, sooner enough just beginning to ignore all his comments. some other viewers came up to your defense but in all honesty, you wanted to move on.

"s-so, i found some silk flowers outside of wangshuu inn yesterday, aren't they pretty?" you took a tiny bouquet of the said silk flowers and presented it to your viewers, holding it next to your cheek. the pink tone of the flowers matched the color of your cheeks and made for a nice picture. chongyun would've screenshotted it, but he respected your privacy.

yourlocaldumba$$: yes they're so pretty we love you 😍

13lue13erry: yes ong ong 💕 thiccer than my granny

Straw13erry: don't bring madame ping into this 💀💀

colino: are you sure it's alright to take from someone's legally owned property ?? much less from their garden

Straw13erry: u mean ur neighbors don't harvest ur flowers every day? 🙄 privilege spoke 🤚

yourlocalsugardaddy: vv pretty 😳

redrumreaper: simp 💀

you slightly choked over on your side and xingqiu calling chongyun a simp, for you. quickly clearing your throat, you regained your composure. your viewers could see that your cheeks had been dusted with a darker shade now.

13lue13erry: 👀

Straw13erry: 👀

yourlocaldumba$$: 👀

redrumreaper: 👀

sireluck: 💀

bazinga: 👀

dandelionn: 👀

poetichoe: 👀

"okay- anyways," you pushed that aside, watching the chain of 👀's coming in. you weren't too sure at what they were referring to, but just assumed that they were interested in xingqiu exposing chongyun. but, there was no way chongyun really felt like that, right? it was just a friendly compliment from what you believed. "just a tiny flex but y'all guys, i am so cracked at apex, not gonna lie. for all the new followers out there," you randomly commented. 'and to change the subject.'

"actually, you know what? fuck the schedule, let's go to trolling little eight year old kids posting selfies on instagram. due to certain reasons i'm just not gonna be blurring their usernames out, but please don't spam these people, i don't wanna be cancelled 💗" you sweetly smiled as you pulled up instagram and started streaming on your phone.

of course your sus notifications ruined it 🤡🤡

because xingqiu took advantage of the situation, sending messages to your discord. nothing mentioning your romantic life because he knew better than that, but just trolling. 'HEY GANG. ITS ME, TONY, AND TODAY WE'RE GONNA SEE IF IM FASTER THAN THIS MOUSE TRAP.' 'TURNS OUT, I AM NOT FASTER THAN THIS MOUSE TRAP.' 'AN UPDATE, IT HURTS. ALRIGHT. BYE GUYS.' you tried hard to contain your laughter, but certain giggles came out in the end, giggles that made chongyun's heart flutter.

xingqiu just kept spamming without a stop, to the point that you accidentally clicked into the notification instead of someone's username on a selfie post. so now everyone could see your group chat with xingqiu, chongyun, and a few other viewers that were actually your other friends.

13lue13erry: oh no 🤡

Straw13erry: 🗿

yourlocaldumba$$: HAHAHAHA WE'RE EXPOSED 🤡👌

just water support boy 😔: image.png

oh my god he's sending chongyun catboy edits. you made this concerning noise, glad no one really seemed to know who chongyun really was on twitch. you went back to instagram, beginning to dm a random kid, ignoring the situation that had just happened.

chongyun choked, slight heat running to his cheeks. what the fuck was xingqiu doing- how did he even get those pictures? maybe it was that one time xingqiu forced him to go to a furry con, but how did he ever get the time to photograph these? he nervously fidgeted and played with his fingers.

13lue13erry: 🤡

Straw13erry: 🤡

yourlocaldumba$$: 🤡

redrumreaper: 🤡

<— oraoraoraor

kingexplosionmurder: chav check

oraoraoraor: what

kingexplosionmurder: chav: check 😹😹

oraoraoraor: bruh

oraoraoraor: who tf are you

kingexplosionmurder: hope you like baddies cause i'm bad at everything 💗

oraoraoraor: bruh ok i'm blocking

kingexplosionmurder: stop dming me

oraoraoraor: 😐

kingexplosionmurder: stop dming me

oraoraoraor: wtf

kingexplosionmurder: stop dming me

oraoraoraor: wait wait UR that one twitch streamer?

kingexplosionmurder: stop dming me

oraoraoraor: ig ur fans gonna be so disappointed in you

kingexplosionmurder: stop dming me

oraoraoraor: hahaha wtf i'm gonna post this and tag you

kingexplosionmurder: stop dming me

afterwards you sent a barrage of really cursed images and left the person on read when they tried to complain and get a reaction out of you. you chuckled, extremely satisfied with yourself. this is what your viewers followed you for. you went on hunting for another user, "GO Y/N GO" filling up your chat.

you were just about to dm this other kid until you heard a ring from your doorbell. "oh what the fuck, i didn't invite anyone. but you know what, i'll pull something up to entertain y'all guys while i'm afk." searching on youtube, you typed in 'banana fish ep. 1' and clicked on the longest video you saw. then you got up from your chair, making your way to the front door.

you didn't mute yourself before because you thought there was really no need to, and you underestimated your mic sensitivity. god did you wish that you could go back and time and do just that.

twisting the doorknob, you opened your door and was met with... a certain, someone.

someone that you recognized and has caused you so much pain, and it was all so fun and games before they had to come along. "bruh. aight what you here for fam?" you played it super chill, though you were really sick and tired of this person's shit.

"(y/n). we need to talk," her stern voice made you flinch as you just stared straight into her eyes. you simply nodded your head and crossed your arms, shifting your weight onto your right leg. "we're thinking of taking you back home."

your froze, your breath hitching as you just stood there, waiting for her to go on. clenching your fists and looking down, you stayed silent for a little moment and questioned, "...why?"

"well, you have a stable income source, right?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips. "you can finally be of use to us," she clasped her hands together, a bright smile on her face. your finger twitched, awaiting an explanation. "you're a streamer, yeah? so you can be a useful asset to our family name."

"...you only want me to come back so i can make you all seem... good?"

and here you thought, just for a second, that you would be accepted back into the place where you really belonged. your shoulders slumped, as small tears began to well up in your eyes. "and for our profitable gain of course, it would be a shame to not acquire that from you."

you composed yourself and looked up. "im afraid my profit can only cover for one person, and it would be myself that i focus to make a suitable and independent living out of. you've kicked me out ever since i've graduated from college and had me fend for myself, now inviting me back once i have a stable job?" you breathed, fiddling with the sleeves of your black hoodie.

"oh, not inviting, dear. taking."

confused by her words, you let your guard down as she suddenly pushed a warm cloth over your mouth as you let out a constrained scream. you tried to break free of her grasp, reaching for the switchblade in your pocket, but the drowsing chemicals from the cloth took control of you and you felt disoriented. "you... bitch..."

your head hit the floor.

》●✿ time ● skip ✿●

silence.

thats all you heard when you awoke.

pure, unfiltered silence that overwhelmed you as you were completely lost. what was happening?

you tried turning to the other side of your childhood bed, the moon casting light shadows into your 'room'. there was a rope around your wrists you noticed, so you brought them up to your lips and starting gnawing on them until it broke apart. (guys we feral its not a furry instinct ok?/ ??  ?)

the material had irritated your skin, but you put that aside for now. escape- thats what you really needed to do. it was fairly dark, but you didn't have a good estimate of time. the analog clock was broken and set to a different time that displayed 11AM. you sat up, your fingers running along the frame of the window next to you.

for a moment, you stopped, thoughts rushing into your head. what if you could start a whole other life here where things could finally be peaceful, what if you didn't have to feel so isolated anymore, what if you could- ...

no. (y/n), get yourself together. what has happened will anyways stay there, and there is no healing scars. ...still, you couldn't shake off the feeling of missing this home so much when you had an amazing childhood, though full of fake actors who had manipulated you.

opening all the cabinets silently, you grabbed things that you assumed would come to your aid. a tiny backpack, which you then stuffed with other things around it. a first aid kit, a spare knife just in case, along with a clean oversized sweater and a couple dollar bills. all that, along with a compass.

you turned towards your window, stepping on your bed.

pushing open the sides of your window, your stepped on, the brown coldness of the frame coming in contact with your feet. you shivered just a little bit before stopping to think. what would you do once you were out of here? you barely knew your way here. and not to mention, your devices were still left at your other house, so there was no way of contact.

...

did your stream ever end? even if it did, had you muted yourself before leaving? no, you didn't, and you could remember in precise detail. someone out there, anyone, would be willing to help, right? you couldn't possibly be here forever, not when you're basically blown up all over your socials?

your friends, yes, your friends! xingqiu and chongyun were watching the stream and had made obvious interaction in doing so, and they'd be willing to protect you. if they just had a lead...

but... what lead was there? all they heard was the woman's voice and, that was probably it, wasn't it? only a voice with no other clear features that could identify her. it looked like you were doing this on your own.

you came in contact with the blades of grass tickling your feet and conveniently found a pair of sneakers outside. it definitely wasn't yours, and it smelled like the scent of your old room. most likely, it belonged to someone from inside your house, lavender and mint, but who inside there was in the age range to wear modern day sneakers..?

brushing that question aside, you unhesitatingly laced them on and they were just a bit too big, but you could manage.

you breathed, inhaling the freedom intertwined air, a much needed factor of bringing you back to your lost sense of happiness. then, the fear struck you once again, because you needed to improvise now. you needed to run, but which direction? you barely knew this place at all.

you dug around your pocket for the compass you had and it was pointing east. you remember that stepping out of your house was facing west, so you were going the right way... but who knows how messy the path was? it couldn't have been an exact pathway, but going directly ahead was your simplest option.

you heard a pair of footsteps coming from inside the house, probably a few seconds away to opening the door. you sucked in your breath and ran, ran as far as your legs could take you. your intimidating speed and played into your advantage, and taking one last look, you saw the lights on, before continuing.

a few minutes into it, you felt some elemental energy. it was a sense you learned to develop since you were young, giving you the upper hand in a variety of situations. you followed the trail of glowing lines, the air starting to get colder and colder. you shuddered, the crisp coldness nipping at your skin.

you sat below a tree, taking your backpack off your shoulder and took out the oversized sweater. you put it on over your black tee and light blue skinny jeans, its nostalgic aroma filling your sense of smell.

it was... warm.

it shouldn't be warm.

the warmth proved as a sign that someone had worn it before, but this size was from what you knew, too small to fit the woman you came across again, and you absolutely did not recall any other beings within the house. it was a small household.

suddenly, you remembered what she said.

we're thinking of taking you back home. you can finally be of use to us.

plural. you should've noticed it before and you shook your head, slightly disappointed in yourself. you didn't remember any other birth siblings. could it be the fact that during the time, they had, in a way, replaced you?

you sat up, then suddenly went drowsy. your eyelids were getting heavy as your back hit the same tree. ah, that clever bitch. you chuckled to yourself, but still unsatisfied how this was gonna end. reaching inside your pocket, you grabbed a bomb that a little kid gave you, and threw it as far as you could. it wasn't as far as you hoped, but it was exceptionally far considered your sleepy state.

in a few couple seconds or so, it was going to explode. you did that to divert the attention of her and slowly ran as far as you could. a few seconds in, you gave in, hoping that your efforts were enough. 》●✿ perspective ● shift ✿●

chongyun heard an explosion.

he raised his head in the direction smoke was coming from, and made a run for it, then stopping to think. no, you're smarter than this. he gathered his shit together and remembered that one day klee gave you a bomb. he deducted that you had used it as a diversion, and began to search around the area.

and finally, he came across your sleeping body. to ensure your living state, he crouched down and let two fingers travel across your neck, searching for a pulse, and was relieved when he found one, pulsing at a normal rate.

he then carried you on his back, picking up the pace since he deducted someone was out for you, would you need a distraction. he remembered some details of the woman, she had ended your stream with your sleeping form in her hands, a dirty smirk coming across her lips. she had dark hair with some natural highlights, but that was all he saw because the rest was concealed by a cloak.

a few minutes, maybe half an hour later, you began to stir. chongyun decided that he ventured far enough to liyue and slowed down for your comfort. he wanted you to get some well deserved rest. but slowly, you woke up, but only the tiniest movement was made. your eyes were still droopy and you wanted to return to sleep.

but the sight of pastel blue hair kept you from doing so.

you felt the familiar silk coming in contact with your arms as he kept on trudging forward at a more consistent and smooth pace. "..chongyun?" you muttered out weakly, earning a small smile from the male. he hummed in response, continuing forward.

your mind was cloudy, unable to interpret the language of the world. but softly, words effortlessly escaped your lips, "... did i do the right... thing?" blinking multiple times, you awaited his answer.

"yes, yes you did," his soft voice reached your ears, making you smile a bit. you nuzzled deeper into his shoulder, clinging onto him tighter, unwilling to let go.

"thank you," you whispered.

he chuckled a bit before responding, "anything for you."

_____

bro ending is a little off because i'm wrote this at 2:53AM and so my brain has went ⬇️⬇️ also i'm just hungry

copy and pasted from my wattpad,, @ppeachtea_

[nahoyaglock]

📃 AS I AM CHAPTER 1 — Surprise!

SUMMARY — You knew Kageyama Tobio since you both were in diapers, being close family 'friends'. You always wanted to befriend the quiet kid but no matter your efforts, he would never crack. When you transfer schools and meet Kageyama again, what will happen to your relationship?

PAIRING — family friend!kageyama x fem!reader

GENRE — fluff/crack/angst

WARNINGS — uh, non rlly, just enjoy :D

WORD COUNT — 2.1k

FIND THE MASTERLIST HERE

(Sent September 15th at 6:32 am)

Y/N: [Good morning Tobio!]

You turned your phone off before sitting up to stretch your arms. The warm sunrays peeked through your thick curtains, your room taking the shade of an idigo hue. You let out a bronx cheer before hopping out of bed, looking around at your nearly empty room. bzzz!

You smiled to yourself, hands finding your small hand held device before opening your notification, seeing a text from Kageyama.

(Sent September 15th at 6:33 am)

Kageyama: [Morning.]

Y/N: [How did you sleep?]

[Also, I have a surprise for you Tobiooo!]

Kageyama: [I slept fine. What is it?]

Y/N: [It wouldn't be a surprise if you told ya!]

You set your phone down gently on your drawer and you heard a light knock on your door, then the nob turning. Your mom peeked her head through the crack in your door, smiling as she watched you open your blinds.

"Hey honey," she whispered, knocking again lightly. You faced your mother with a sleepy grin, "good morning mom." You grabbed two bags from the corner of your room, slinging them over your shoulder.

"I'll load up the car mom, don't worry okay?" You walk over to the door and she moves over, allowing you to get through the door. "We leave in 20 minutes okay?" She pats your back before walking off to her room, leaving you to your job.

You slipped on your fuzzy pink slippers sitting at the front door and your turned the lock to go out. You went back and forth, in and out of the house loading up all of your luggage and baggage needed for the move. Your mom had finished her loading and was turning on the car as you grabbed your phone and locked up the house.

You climbed into the backseat with a fluffy, warm blanket for the long ride, buckling yourself up and checking your notifications.

(Sent September 15th at 6:35 am)

kageyama: [you're quiet annoying you know?]

(Sent September 15th at 7:01 am)

Y/N: [I wouldn't be y/n if I wasnt, am I right?]

After hours of sleeping, snacking and playing video games, the ride had come to an end. "We're here baby, wake up." Your mom shook your arm softly and your slowly forced your eyes open. You groaned and sat up, rubbing your eyes and yawning.

You and your mom unloaded your luggage into the empty house, your new home. It was a house way smaller than your previous one, two rooms, a bathroom and a small livingroom that connects to the kitchen. You decided that you wanted it to feel as much like a home as did your old house, so you decided to start decorating.

(Sent September 15th at 2:13 pm)

Y/N: [Hey tobio, ill tell you about the surprise in a week! :3]

Kageyama: [okay.]

As you went through some boxes you found old photos of you and Kageyama, the male with a blank expression but you could barely stay still that you were slightly blurry. You smiled at the memories of being an energetic kid and decided to put up the photos of you and kageyama on your pin board.

After your room was decently put together, missing a desk and a bed of course, you texted your friends from your old school and went to your moms room to see her folding her clothes. "Hey mom, can we go to the school to pick up my stuff?" She turned to you and smiled, putting her shirt down and standing up.

"Ah, yeah lets go now." She grabbed her keys and lead you to the car, you bouncing with excitement behind her. You opted on riding in the front with her, smiling at her as she turned the keys to start the car. The ride was filled with your conversation with your mom, talking about what you two should do since you arrived in your new home, your school and how you live closer to the rest of your family.

You pulled up to your new school and you eyed the entrance, reading the signs and inspecting the buildings. Your mom parked and unlocked the car, allowing you to hop out under the cold breeze. "Lets go honey," your mom grabbed your arm lightly and pulled you along with her, entering your new highschool. Karasuno highschool.

The principal greeted you and your mother and started to show you around the school. You saw your classes, your locker, the gym, and other important stuff that you mentally noted. Lastly was the office, where he gave you your printed schedule, needed textbooks and school uniform. With a wave goodbye you and your mom left to go back to your house, the car ride was silent this time.

—

It was the day, the day you started your first day at your new school. It's been a week since you settled into your new home, finally having a bed and a desk, some drawers and other things. You felt like you were at home, finally ready for a new start. Your mom decided to drive you to school for your first day, despite living close to the school.

"Are you excited?" She asked, eyes on the road with a proud smile. "Yeah, I am, time for a new start," you smiled, looking at your phone. "Well, im just glad you're feeling well. About your dad, you know–" your mom started. Your parents divorced, and your dad bringing in the most income, you and your mom had to leave tokyo, no longer able to afford the house that you had lived in since the age of 3.

"Mom, its fine, really. It didn't work out and thats okay, because now we have a little home of our own," you smiled widely, grabbing your bag as your mom parked at the side of the road. "Oh! Can we get a puppy?" You asked, bouncing in your seat and she laughed.

"I'll think about it. Have a good day, and if you see Kageyama tell him I said hi," she waved as you climbed out the car and you nodded at her before crossing the street and entering the school. You were so excited, seeing other students who noticed your foreign presence.

(Sent September 23rd at 6:54 am)

Y/N: [Good morning tobio!]

[I'll tell you the surprise later, are you busy after school?]

Kageyama: [morning, and yes I have volleyball.]

Y/N: [ah, okay! Have a good day today]

You spent your day alone, just taking in the new setting and adjusting to the classes you had. You had a few students talk to you when they found out you were new, but you decided to eat lunch alone that day. The day went by pretty fast and while you were slightly tired, you were still pumping with excitement. After all, you were going to see Kageyama today.

School ended, and after class you went down to your locker to put away some of your books and take anything you needed out of there. You remembered that Kageyama said he would be doing volleyball club today, and you assumed it would be held in the gym. You turned to see a tall blonde headed male with glasses from one of your classes.

"Excuse me, sir?" You tapped the male, causing him to stop and face you, removing his head phones and putting his hands in his pockets. "You're the new kid, y/n? Right?" He asked, but before you could answer he scoffed, "what do you need?"

"Ah, do you know where the volleyball club is meeting today?" You stood on one foot, bouncing slightly, which wasnt unnoticed by the male. "Im in the club, we're meeting in the gym." He answered before he turned to head to the gym.

"Is it cool if i walk with you then?" You asked, leaning to your left side to peek at the boy who scoffed before nodding. You smiled and he started walking, so you waddled after him. "Ah, whats your name?" You asked taking big steps to match the tall males natural stride. "Tsukishima Kei. Call me Tsukishima."

You realized that maybe he wasn't the type to like conversations based on the annoyance in his tone, so you just followed behind silently until you arrived at the gym. The team were doing warmups of their own already while a few males had stood around and talked amongst themselves. "Woah, Tsukishima! Is that like, your girlfriend or something?"

You saw a small male, with a noticably bright streak of blonde hair smack dab in the middle of his forehead. "Im Nishinoya Yu!" He grinned and stuck out a friendly hand, which you took. "Ah, actually im new here, I just asked Tsukishima to show me the volleyball club." You giggled at the charismatic member.

"What– what did you come to the club for? Are you trying out to be the new manager or something?" A taller, nearly bald male said, appearing behind the shorter male. Tsukishima groaned and walked off to the other side of the gym. "Ah, im actually here to see a friend." They both looked at each other then turned to the third years.

"Daichi, do you know her?" Nishinoya asked, pointing at you and the gyms attention was on you. You put your hands up and waved in defense "ah wait, im actually here to see–"

"Oh, whos this?" A familiar voice said and you turned to the entrance of the gym to see Kageyama Tobio. His eyes widened in shock and he froze, dropping his water bottle as you smiled widely at him. "Kageyama!" You shouted and ran to the male, wrapping your arms around his neck, giggling lightly as he stood frozen in shock.

"Y-y/n..?" He asked and softly pushed you off of him, looking at you with a glare that also had a hint of confusion fused in. "What are you doing here?" He asked, even though he knew exactly what was going on. He saw your uniform and heard about a new student who had transferred to their school. But why you?

"Well, I moved here and thought, why not transfer to your school?" You smiled as all the boys headed over. A orange haired male walked around you, inspecting you, bouncing around with an energetic presence. "Are you and Kageyama dating?"

"You moron!" Kageyama yelled and slapped hinata on the back of the head, causing the orange haired males expression turn sour. You jumped lightly and rubbed the short males head "ah, tobio." He whines and looks up at you and pouts at Kageyama. "Your girlfriend is way cooler and nicer than you."

"Ah, im not Kageyamas girlfriend, we're family friends," you say to the small male, and he thinks for a minute. "Ah, this is y/n?" Hinata asks and Kageyama pinches his ear, dragging him away while yelling at him. You smile and turn to the other males, seeing the captain walking over towards you.

"Hello, im Daichi Sawamura, call me Daichi." He says and bows. "Im Y/n L/n," you greet back. You were allowed to stay and watch the practice, and he even introduced you to the other team members and the coaches. The whole practice you watched Kageyama, who would occasionally shoot glances at you. You also noted that he wasn't doing really well, he seemed really distracted.

After practice ended, you stood up, slinging your bag over your shoulder and attempted to approach him, but he exited the gym as quickly as he could. You were slightly shocked and just decided to text him, hinata sneaking up on you. "Hey y/n, how do you know Kageyama?"

"Hmm, oh! Our moms are best friends, so kageyamas family was always welcome at out family get togethers," you stated, not taking your eyes off of your screen.

(Sent September 23rd at 8:05 pm)

Y/N: [hey kageyama, do you want a ride from my mom?]

Daichi called for everyone to exit the gym, so you put your phone into your pocket and exited with Hinata and Nishinoya. "So, Kageyamas girlfriend?" Noya asked and you laughed, "im not his girlfriend, again." You correct as you two walk to the bike racks for Noya and Hinata to grab their bikes.

"Hmm, well a friend of kageyamas is a friend of mine!" Hinata smiles and mounts his bike, wide and bright smile, when you hear a honk. "Ah thats my mom, I'll see you guys again!"

"Wait, do you want to eat lunch with us tomorrow?" Nishinoya asked, mounting his bike. "Ah, I'll think about it, it was nice to meet you guys!" You wave goodbye to the males and jog over to your moms car, climbing into the passenger seat.

(Sent September 23rd at 8:09 pm)

Kageyama: [no.]

© tomura-heart — all rights reserved. reposting, modifying, or copying is not allowed. you may translate with my permission and correct crediting. do not read my writing as asmr. do not plagiarize.

[plush-rabbit]

Can I Ask You Something?

Part 1 | Part 2 | 

Word Count: 2.8K

A/N: I wanted to write something soft because I’ve been having lots of feels lately and well here’s the result. Hope you enjoy＼\٩( 'ω' )و //／ Also I know nothing about how video games work other than Animal Crossing and Kirby so, yeah.

This will be a series. I’m not sure how many parts since it’s a slow burn and right now it sits at 20K words and they still haven’t met so... Yeah. This is mainly self-indulgent and I am open to feedback. 

You ended up meeting Tomura, or as his online name was called, Tomaraki, on an online game where you were introduced into the raid group by another member. During your time there, you held your own well enough and had even had an above average skill chart.

After taking out a particular challenging mission, a good number of the kills being on your part, your teammates congratulated you, telling you words of praise and thanking you for having their backs, all while in the headset you giggled, saying that you had just gotten lucky with some of your shots and that they’re probably better than you would ever be.

Shigaraki had found that annoying. He found you annoying. If you were good at something, just take credit for it. Don’t try to act modest just because you want attention. And he told you that, his voice cutting into you like glass, all while you remained speechless, teeth digging into your bottom lip as everyone else in the team just listened how he tore into you. Two of the other members had come to your defense, trying to back you up but falling flat because while he was harsh, his words did hold merit. You were good, and it wasn’t luck because you had been playing for at least two months now so you had time to hone your skills. And you did want attention. You craved attention, you wanted to be told that you were good at something and you found that if you downplayed your skills, people would come to you and praise your work. And sure, you knew that that’s pretty shitty but you didn’t hear praise often and who cares, it felt good to be given praise. But you didn’t say any of that, you held your tongue, with the tips of your ears burning and hot tears pricking your eyes, you turned your avatar to face his and for a second you considered killing his avatar but scoffed. If you killed him, he’d only respawn and he was the best player of the group, having a high stats and being the highest level of the group, and no doubt, he could probably kick you out from the group and there wouldn’t be much resistance coming from the others, so in a calm voice you said told the group, “Let’s just return to the game. We have another mission to complete.” And with that, everything went back to normal, albeit a bit more tense, but you continued to start the mission a scowl on your lips, and when someone told you good job, you gave a brisk thanks in response, leaving no room for continued conversation.

Shigaraki, on the other hand, sneered at you through the screen, his hands coming up to pick at his scarred neck. You had taken the coward’s way out in his eyes. You didn’t talk back to him, the most you did was turn your avatar towards him and he knew that you finger was itching to shoot at his but when you told the team to continue, you had backed down, and now every praise that was given to you, you took it silently which was somehow worse than what you would do before. You couldn’t win in his eyes. He hated playing with others, but this was a rather addicting game and it worked best if played with others, the missions were cut to more than half of the time, sure sharing the loot was a pain but he always got a slightly bigger share than the others since he was at a higher rank than them. Plus- and he would never say this out loud- the team he found wasn’t half as bad as the other groups he had been in previously. They didn’t talk about their outside life, they didn’t try to be friends- they stuck with the goals set in the game, kept every conversation in theme to what they were playing, and they all were all skilled enough that he didn’t feel as if they were dragging him down. The only negative part was you.

You came in a month after he did, invited by the second highest player in the group. And you were annoying but he couldn’t deny that you were good and had hoarded so many healing items that the team rarely had to waste currency to buy the potions and elixirs from in-game vendors, so you stayed and like the others, you didn’t ask about the outside lives of the players, you kept the conversation related to the game.

But you weren’t that good. Your skill chart wasn’t special- you could be easily replaced by anyone else- if trained properly. The healing items weren’t expensive enough to deter from payment, it was just better to save up for the next big thing. But when you didn’t even offer a rebuttal, an attempt at trash talk to defend yourself, he knew that you were a coward. You didn’t have a bite or a bark, you were harmless- you were probably holding back tears as they played, only to bitch and moan about him to your friends or the other members when he was gone.

Finishing the mission, everyone said their goodbyes. However, right as everyone was logging off; you asked if the current schedule was still valid. The schedule was made each and every month, and it stated the best possible times for gaming with each other to complete missions or when the next major event was, it stayed updated and everyone made sure to be available during their promised times, very rarely did someone break it but when they did they had a valid excuse. Everyone had a copy, one being made and shared as a PDF file and posted to the private forum that the second in command had made. Shigaraki, clicked his tongue, “Of course it’s still valid. If it wasn’t there would have been an updated version of it by now dumbass.”

And with that, almost instantly, everyone began to log off, not wanting to be part of whatever was going on or having to face his virtual blow-up while you probably just sat there accepting all the insults without so much as a counterattack.

All you did was narrow your eyes at the screen and give out a curt ‘fine’ and log off. Shigaraki stared at the screen for a few second before proceeding to log off the sneer only getting deeper, his eyes narrowed into slits. His eyes burned from looking at a screen for a few hours with no break and his head was starting to hurt from having to deal with you and your idiocy. He laid down on his mattress where the metal springs dug a bit too deep into his back and he drifted off to sleep, while you on the other hand, burrowed yourself deep into your blankets, your face flush with embarrassment, recounting every wrong thing you said, your insecurities of needing to be liked rearing its ugly head and keeping you awake.

-

Shigaraki logs back in a week later. He’s ten minutes early, as always, and he’s in the beginning of a relatively quick quest in order to gain more experience points and in-game currency. As he proceeds to skip past the dialogue option of the villager thanking him, a ‘ding’ sound is made and on the right hand corner of his screen, your username and icon pops up. He only gives it a spare glance, before retuning his attention to the game collecting the rewards, becoming more irritated as another ‘ding’ fills the room. He shakes his head, he knows how this will go, you’ll only proceed to annoy him until he answers you. So he takes in a deep breath and opens the messaging system, typing out a ‘what’ in response without looking at what you’ve said before.

<User_Name>

>Look. I just wanted to apologize for my actions last week. You were right, I did want attention but like whatever. Anyways, I just wanted to make sure that we’re cool since we’ll be gaming together for the unforeseeable future.

<Tomaraki>

>Is that all?

<User_Name>

>Yeah, I guess so?

>So like are we cool?

He rolled his eyes at your question. Your words were fake and forced, you just wanted to be liked but he didn’t want to deal with you. He didn’t want to waste his time going back and forth with you until you were satisfied.

<Tomaraki>

>Whatever. We’re “cool”. Happy?

On the other side of the screen you rolled your eyes already feeling emotionally exhausted with this very short chat. You simply leaned back in your chair and let out a long breath. Not wanting to irritate him more than he already was, you sighed and replied with a “yeah, thanks:)” and exited the messaging system. You waited for the rest of the group to join, already feeling dejected from the brief interaction with the leader of the group.

-

The mission starts and everything goes flawless. Everything, except for you. You were off your game, not paying enough attention to your surroundings and losing a high number of health points and barely killing any of the opponents. The second in command, orders for the members to get in line so when the weapons appear, those with the highest kill count get to go first and choose what they want. Coincidently, this mission provided enough weapons so that that the whole team could get one each with one left over, but you all had agreed that the one with the highest count not only got to go first but also got to choose the extra weapon. So of course, Shigaraki goes first and he chooses two weapons and as his avatar begins to move away, he turns it around and grabs another. You take in a sharp breath, getting ready to argue but your words never come out, instead they die down in your throat and you get the sinking feeling that whatever game he’s playing, his endgame, is to make you feel like you can’t speak against him because you know that he’s more valuable than you’ll ever be. And he’s right. You feel comfortable with this group; you don’t want to be forced to leave simply because your leader is acting like a brat and you want tattle on him.

Once everyone has collected their weapons, everyone but you that is, they just stand their awkwardly knowing that he’s intentionally trying to get under your skin. Not wanting to drown in the awkwardness that has been created, you exclaim, “That was a good mission guys! Should we do another one or go our separate ways for now?”

A collective sound of discomfort fills the headsets, everyone muttering that maybe they should probably focus on solo missions for now to raise their levels and get some cool loot if possible. Everyone glowed and they were respawned elsewhere, no doubt opening up a separate chat and gossiping about the scene that just took place and if they should start looking for a new member sometime soon. And with them gone, your avatar and Shigaraki’s stood there, the silence only being broken by the crackling fire on the torches in-game.

“Can we please talk?” You asked, your voice cracking towards the end causing you grimace at the sound.

“About?” His voice was drenched in boredom; he doesn’t see why he should talk to you.

“Look, I get that we aren’t exactly friends- and-and that’s fine, but can we at least be civil towards each other?” You chose your words carefully, not wanting to insinuate that it was entirely his fault. “Like if I didn’t do good during the mission you could have just said it rather than leaving me without weapons and making me look dumb just standing there.” You voice trailed off towards the end, not knowing how to end it and a part of you realizing that you were probably making everything worse.

“You really don’t care that we aren’t friends?” He said the words in a mock attempt at your voice- condescendingly and ditzy; his upper lip curling in disgust. “Is that why you’re trying so hard to befriend me? How the hell am I supposed to be civil in a fucking game? What? You want me to start giving you some of my fucking winnings? Is that it?”

You bit your bottom lip, rolling it between your teeth, trying to figure out how to reply to him.

“Well?” You took too long to answer, whatever patience he had when starting the game was already running thin.

“No. I don’t want you to give me your winnings. I-I just-” you groaned and put your head in your hands- “I just want to be civil with each other. Look we don’t have to be friends but-but,” you voice was faltering, lowering into a whisper, “I just don’t want to leave this group. Come on. You have to admit that this is one of the better ones out there. The others are capable of holding their own and they aren’t like trying to pry into your personal life.” Not waiting for a reply you continued, your voice light, trying to get him to agree with you on that to find some common footing. “You have to at least admit that.”

He stares at the screen with unblinking eyes, his avatar doing some light stretches that synchronized with yours.

“Fine.”

Eyes widening, you lift your head back up, and you wanted to rush into the conversation but you held yourself back. “Do you want me to leave the group?” You scratch nervously at the corner of the ALT key, trying to focus on the sensation of your thumb rather than the lump in your throat.

“Are you really going to cry if I make you leave?” Guess even he could hear how choked up you were getting.

Your eyes widen slightly, unshed tear glistening your eyes, you glance down briefly. “I know it’s silly but I like the group,” you chuckle nervously. “So what’s the answer?”

“Do what you want.”

You pulled your lips into a thin line, you don’t know what you expected, but this was probably the best answer you were going to get from the gamer.

“Well, I’m going to stay.”

“Tch. Whatever.”

There’s silence after that. You stared at the screen and took a deep breath.

“You wanna go on a mission together? There’s one that requires two people and I hear the payoff is pretty good.” You wait anxiously for his answer, your arms are crossed in front of you and you’re dragging your nails across your forearms, finding comfort in the way the dull pain distracts you from your nerves. You have no idea where that offer came from. He just sort of accepted you and now you might ruin that because you wanted to become buddies with some stranger online.

“Being lonely really does make you do dumb things, doesn’t it?” You think to yourself.

Shigaraki stares at his screen, eyes narrowed, his chapped lips pulled into a thin line and a hand comes up to scratch as his neck. He hisses as his nails hit at a particularly fresh cut.

“Um, Tomaraki? You there?” Your voice is hesitant and wavers slightly.

He’ll regret this later, he’s sure of it. “What’s the mission about?”

He can hear you exhale the breath you were holding in and he can imagine a stupid grin plastered to your face.

“Okay, so get this-” Your voice grows distant as he rolls his eyes at your messy explanation of the mission, only offering grunts to show that he is listening and giving out a satisfactory hum when you mention that it’ll be against different team ups in real time, kind of like a waiting line for a new batch to go in, so you probably will have to kill people when the mission starts; a fight to the death type of deal, you summed up.

You both spawn to where the mission is held. Held in a queue for a few minutes, he goes over a quick plan, to just shoot at whatever moves and that he of course, gets more than half of the loot. You rolled your eyes and agreed, knowing that this was probably the most compromise that you’ll get from him.

The brawl to the death goes surprisingly well, you two actually win and he takes a little over half of the winnings, leaving you with two weapons and the healing items. You thank him and he only scoffs, saying that you two had a deal and he delivered, he doesn’t need thanks from you. You cringe at the reply, feeling his words bite into you but you brush it off. You tell him that you’ll see him later and that you had fun. You log off and feeling a bit lighter, glad that this ended on a fairly positive note.

///

Asked to tagged:

@bat-eclecticwolfbouquet-love

[bardsingingasong]

5+1 Chances to scare you

TITLE: 5+1 chances to scare you | Read on AO3

AUTHOR: Bardsingingasong | MarysseLalonde

RELATIONSHIPS: Kyle Rayner/Jason Todd

SUMMARY: Jason never scares, or that's what he says. Kyle is determined to prove the opposite.

           There're 5 times tat Kyle tries to scare his boyfriend and 1 when he gets               it, more or less.

WORD COUNT: 3,677

BOOKS/NETFLIX/2002 SHOW/VIDEO GAME: Batman-All Media Types, Green Lantern- All Media Types

TRIGGERS/WARNINGS: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warning.

RATING: G

ADDITIONAL NOTES: 

Happy Halloween!

Yeah, I know Halloween is already past, but never is too late to celebrate it!

I'm very glad to contribute to this fandom and this precious ship. I hope you enjoy these idiots in love.

As usual, I want to thank my beta, TanisVs, for her work. You're the best girl, and I love you so much!!

Friendly reminder: English isn't my first language. I'm trying to improve my English, but I have a lot of work to do. Please if you wish to comment, first of all, thank you, and least be polite, I'm doing my best.

Enjoy!

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

"As if you could scare me.”

Kyle frowned, and raised his head from Jason's shoulder to look at him. It was late at night. The patrol was over, and Kyle was back on Earth for the next month. They had decided to watch a movie, specifically a horror movie.

Growing up in Gotham and being trained by Batman had made Jason think that he was immune to fear. He liked to pretend he couldn't feel that emotion in particular, but Kyle knew it best. After all, the White Lantern was linked to the emotional spectrum.

"As if you were never afraid,” Kyle bit back. "Everyone feels fear sooner or later.” 

"Yes, but it didn't mean you can scare me."

Kyle moved away from Jason, leaning on the sofa to look at him. Jason had that smile of his, which means he was fooling around with Kyle.

"I will," His voice tone was firm. "I know you, I could scare you in one way or another."

Jason stared at him, his smile growing bigger while his fingers held Kyle's chin.

"Sounds like a dare." He sounded playful and sensual. He was using the tone that he knew it drove Kyle mad. He was trying to distract him. Jason probably was bored with the movie, and he was in the mood to play.

And Kyle hated taking the bait so quickly.

"Maybe it is." Kyle was digging his own grave, but he never refused a challenge no matter how absurd it was.

"I would like to see you try."

In a second, Kyle was astride Jason's lap, devouring his mouth.

"It's a dare?" Jason asked between kisses.

"Will you take it?" Jason pulled him and pressed him against his body. His hips were raised, telling Kyle what he was thinking all the time during the movie. That was a little disturbing, but Kyle could understand that it was a time since he was on Earth.

"Maybe later, when I'm not busy".  

There were no more words after that. The movie continued playing in the background, but sooner rather than later, their screams of pleasure ended up covering the scare screams from the film.

Later, when they were resting at Jason's bed, Kyle began to think of his plan attack.

1

“You know, I think we have a ghost in the apartment.”

Jason gave him an incredulous look. He was throw away over the sofa, watching a movie with a large popcorn bowl. Kyle should have joined him, but he had claimed how much he wanted to paint.

"And you think that because... ?"

Kyle stared at him. He usually didn't care how Jason looked like an idiot from time to time, but sometimes he wished his boyfriend would take him seriously. If Jason wanted a reason, he would have one.

"Because I was working on my canvas when some of your books fell from the bookshelf."

“Are you sure it wasn't you who has made them fall?”

Kyle rolled his eyes, crossing his arms. "I'm sure, because your stupid Jane Austen's books are floating everywhere, and I can't do that without my ring."

Red Hood grumbled. He left the bowl on the sofa and paused the movie before he got up. He didn’t seem not much convinced but went to the bedroom anyway. Kyle followed him. The two of them stopped in their tracks at the doorway. The room was uncoordinated, with all Kyle's paints over the bed and the floor. An easel was in front of the windows and on it the unfinished canvas. The scene could be normal, but there were some open books, floating mid-air. The books moved like someone was making them levitate. Maybe for the inexperienced eye they could look more real, but Jason wasn't a beginner. A single look was enough to know what happened there.

"If you make a single scratch on my books, it'll not matter how much I love you, you'll sleep in the streets for the rest of your Earth's days off." Jason said. He turned around and started to walk to the living room. "Put them back on the bookshelf, Rayner.”

The Lantern looked at him and back to the room.

"Aw c'mon, man! Are you serious?!" He ran after him. Jason was again on the sofa with the movie playing and the popcorn bowl on his lap. "You didn't doubt for a second."

"Who do you think I am, Ky?" He threw up a popcorn and ate it in flight. "I work with the big bat, your childish tricks could never fool me."

Kyle sighed loudly. He dropped on the couch, next to Jason, resting his head on the backrest. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Jason's mocking smile. Acting like a child, the White Lantern set the bowl aside and lay down on Jason's lap, crossing his arms with a pout on his face. Immediately, Jason caressed his hair.

Almost all the time, those gestures made Kyle doubt how people could think Jason was anything but a loving person. He knew how brutal and lethal Jason could be, but it was always for a reason... most of the time. The ex-Robin was very protective of the people he loved, and his love was not easy to earn but if you got it, it would last forever.

In Kyle's opinion, the man had suffered enough to let him be imperfect. Maybe Red Hood didn't comply with Batman's code, but he was efficient, and the same hands that could skew a life they also could be affectionate.  

"Just for curiosity.” Kyle said. "What gave me away?"

"Many things. Your canvas was dry, and I could see the fishing line a mile away". Jason's voice was flat, even bored, but Kyle knew him for years and he could hear a tiny, tiny, note of fun on his tone. "You'll need to be more convincing if you want to scare me, Lantern."

Kyle snorted, giving Jason a bite in his thigh. Scare Jason Todd would be more difficult than he had thought in the first place.

2

"OH MY GOD! JASON!"

Kyle's scream surprised him in the shower. Normally he would have ignored the Lantern while showering, but this time something sounded wrong in Kyle's voice. Jason turned off the tap and wrapped himself with a towel. If it was a joke, he would ensure that his boyfriend would have a punishment.  

Jason walked towards the kitchen, leaving a trail of water behind him. He would clean it up later, when he was sure Kyle hadn't been hurt by any nonsense. If anyone could do something so stupid and end up hurting himself, it was Kyle (and Dick too, but that was another matter). Sometimes Jason would try to explain to himself how Kyle could survive in space and be part of a group like the Lantern Corps as clumsy as he was.

"It may already be import… ant."

Jason fell silent as he entered the kitchen. Kyle was standing by the counter, with a rolled-up cloth tightly covering his hand. The cloth was completely stained red, and was dripping profusely. The cutting board and the knife with which he must have been working until then were equally stained with red. At first glance, it would appear that Kyle had cut himself. Very much so. To be honest, Jason would say that was the best performance the White Lantern could do. He was even crying! He could have fooled anyone, but not Jason. Definitely not Jason, who could distinguish fake blood from the real one with his eyes closed.

Red Hood saved the prank in his mind, he would ensure that Kyle will do it again with the Outlaws. Roy's face would be epic. But for now, he stayed near the door, looking at Kyle with his arms crossed.

"That's the best you can do?" Jason's tone had no emotion, but he arched one eyebrow, revealing his amusement. Jason had left his warm shower to suffer another pitiful try from his boyfriend to scare him. He'll make Kyle paid for it later. For the moment, Jason would be satisfied with dismantling his joke. "I don't know what have you used as fake blood, but it is more liquid than real blood. Nice whack, Lantern."

"In your defense I would say that it could have been quite convincing for someone with no experience. Play the joke on Jordan or Gardner, they'll fall for it."

"What about John?"

"Steward is the smart one in your little gang. He probably won't believe it."

"Does that mean I'm an idiot too?"

Jason didn't answer. He smiled and said:

"You're going to clean up this mess and make dinner while I finish showering, got it?"

Kyle pouted but smiled after. Scare Jason was his challenge, and it would be more fun than the second Robin had thought.

3

"Okay, this time it has to be the final one." Kyle took the final look at his latest work: a tall ghostly figure hanging in the middle of his studio. The smell of fresh paint still hung in the air, as the last layer had not yet dried.

The first two attempts had been a total fiasco, but this time Kyle thought he could make it. He had been working tirelessly for days to finish the puppet of the ghost, covered with layers and layers of fluorescent paint that gave it a rather spooky realism.

That night, none of them would be home. Jason had patrol with the rest of the bats, and Kyle would spend the day working as a team with other Earth Lanterns. That meant the Lanterns had an excuse to drink together, and for Kyle it meant he had an alibi when his prank exploded in Jason's face.

"Okay, Kyle, you can do this."

Kyle had left home early, having left a light construction as an alarm to know when Jason was leaving. So he had come back and set the trap, placing it where Jason didn't expect to find it.

When he returned with the rest of the torches, they bombarded him with questions. Hal and Guy laughed outrageously, while John and Simon looked at him with some disapproval. On the other hand, Jessica smiled at him and gave him new ideas in case the prank didn't work.

Time passed quickly between laughs and drinks, and by the time Kyle returned home, he had forgotten his own trap.

"I'm home," he said, opening the front door.

Jason's muffled voice received him. He wasn't in sight, so Kyle thought he was probably in the bathroom. Exhausted and a little drunk, Kyle went to the bedroom to change his clothes, thinking of making a light dinner for him and his boyfriend later. Suddenly, a tall, shiny figure pounced on him. Kyle, lost in thought, had no time to turn away completely and let out a cry of surprise. The figure collapsed after hitting him, and broke into pieces on the floor.

Kyle stood extremely still, totally taken by surprise, and watched what was left of his joke that he had been working on for a whole week. His drunkenness disappeared suddenly, with the loud sound of his heart beating in his ears. Obviously, Jason hadn't fallen into her trap, but he had.

How ironic, a victim of his own plans.

 "What's broken?" Jason asked, poking his head out the door.

"My dignity..."

Jason was curious, but didn't push for Kyle to tell him what had happened. Kyle looked, and was, very embarrassed, with a strong blush on his cheeks. He just cleaned up the broken pieces of the ghost without saying a word.

Later, when Kyle checked the security cameras, Jason's laughter echoed throughout. And the next day, when he woke up, the icon of an unread message was blinking on his phone. When he opened it, he found a laconic:

<Jason: 3, Kyle: 0>

Sometimes he really hated his boyfriend.  

4

Kyle started to get discouraged. He already had three failures in his mission to scare Jason. Perhaps it was impossible, after all, Jason had been through too many traumatic experiences since he was a child to be afraid of mundane things like ghosts, blood and floating books. Kyle thought about googling. He knew that Gotham had a website where people explained and taught how to make those kinds of scary jokes and traps, not just for Halloween but in case someone wanted to make them at any time of the year. Kyle thought it was a bit disturbing. Some of the jokes were funny, but others also made him think that most people in Gotham needed to go to therapy.

"How do you make a fake cut head? And then they say this city has the highest crime rate in the country. I wonder why."

Kyle decided to try one and ended up watching all the available tutorials. They were really creepy and unpleasant, although Jason probably wasn't afraid of them either.

"But I don't lose anything by trying..."

What Kyle hadn't counted on was having to watch people hide their fake heads in the fridge. That made him feel a lot worse than knowing that he probably couldn't scare his boyfriend, because... Well, the thought of Alex had never stopped hurting him. He had learned to deal with it over time, it was true, but... No, if he was going to play that prank on Jason, he couldn't, shouldn't, even think about going near the fridge with something that simulated a human body part.

The choice of model was quite easy. He couldn't risk anyone going off the rails, so he couldn't choose anyone from Jason's immediate environment. No Waynes, no Alfred, no Outlaws, no Titans in general. So he had to use someone just as willing as he was to play those kinds of jokes. Guy Gardner was always the best choice if you were looking for a partner in crime. Kyle only needed to tell him his plan so Guy would sign up without hesitation.

Now, a large jar was on the kitchen table, and inside was a picture of Guy's head.

"I'm home!" Jason announced from the front door.

Kyle looked up from the picture he was working on and took a look at the jar. He smelled the Chinese food, Jason had brought dinner. "Kyle?"

"Here." Kyle forced himself to stay focused on his work.

Jason walked over to the couch, left a kiss on Kyle's head and went into the kitchen. Kyle needed all his willpower not to look at his reaction. But to his disappointment, Jason pretended that nothing was out of place.

"Okay, I admit I almost believed it this time," he said, calmly. Kyle put the notebook aside and looked at his boyfriend. Jason was taking out the Chinese food boxes, placing them on the counter near Guy's fake head. "Gardner is a pain in the ass, I wouldn't be surprised if one day you decided to give him his due.”

"Don't say that." Kyle leaned against the sofa, watching Jason put the food on the plates. "You should get along better with him, he's my best friend and you're my boyfriend. You get along so badly because you look so much alike."

"Even more so.” When Jason left the dishes on the table, he approached Kyle and leaned in to kiss him properly. "Anyway, it's pretty well done. Can I put it on the shelf?”

Kyle rolled his eyes. Another failed plan.

"Whatever you want. Just don't put it in the bedroom, I don't want to see my friend's head while we're having sex."

5

Everything had failed. Kyle had no ideas anymore, no real strength, to try and scare Jason. His boyfriend was like an iceberg, nothing seemed to scare him, and the most he could do was make him laugh at his pathetic jokes.

"Just jump after him and say 'BOH!'" Dick had said last night, when they were having dinner with Jason's brothers.

Dick's suggestion was absurd. If Jason wasn't scared of anything, he definitely wouldn't do it because of a jump scare. But in for a penny, in for a pound, he thought.

Kyle came closer to the couch, where Jason was having a nap, using his ring to float and make less noise possible. But he was distracted by the thought that he might give Jason a heart attack, until he suddenly realized that his boyfriend had opened his eyes and was staring at him. Kyle flinched.

"Tell me you're not doing what Dick told you to do." Jason said. His voice sounded sleepy and resigned.

"No?" Kyle replied. Jason raised an eyebrow, skeptical, and Kyle felt his cheeks burning. "Okay, okay! I'm out of ideas."

"Do you want one? Admit your defeat, and come here with me."

That was the last attempt and the last defeat, so Kyle decided to be content, rather than reward himself, by curling up in Jason's arms and abandoning himself to pampering.

6

It had to be a nightmare.

Jason searched Kyle's body, frantic and agitated, desperate to find signs of life. He held the lantern in his arms, his head tilted unnaturally, and his eyes closed.

"Please wake up, Kyle, please, please." Jason whispered.

"Jay..." He heard Roy, who put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it tightly in a gesture intended to be comforting.

The other Lanterns of the Earth landed in front of him. Jason didn't need to look at them to know how they felt. He could hear Jessica's grasp, and he was pretty sure that sound was Gardner hitting something.

That couldn't be happening.

"Jason."

Jason ignored that voice, more focused on stroking Kyle's cheek. His skin was cold, and it shouldn't be. Kyle hated the cold, he always wrapped himself in a lot of blankets when he was in Jason's flat.

"Jason." The same voice called him again.

This time, a firm hand grabbed his arm. Red Hood looked up and met Hal Jordan, the man who had once argued with Batman about how Jason was fucking his beautiful little brother.

"Let it be." Jordan said.

Jason frowned.

"I'm not going to leave him! He's hurt, he needs help!" Red Hood replied, angry.

Jason saw compassion in Jordan's eyes, and he hated him. Why did he feel sorry for him instead of helping Kyle? No one around him was moving a finger, what was wrong with them?

"Jason, he's gone." Roy said.

"He's right here."

"Kyle's dead, Jason." Batman's voice echoed in his head.

"Poor little broken Robin. Did you lose something?" He knew that voice. It was the Joker, chasing him wherever he went. "Maybe if he hadn't been near you, he'd still be alive."

His singing voice made Jason feel sick. Batman was right, Kyle was dead. And the clown was also right, if he had been more attentive, maybe, maybe Kyle wouldn't have had to intervene and...

Kyle was dead because of him.

"Jason."

Someone was calling him, but Jason ignored him. I had to help Kyle, I had to do something. He felt a pang of horrible guilt crushing him to the ground.

"Jason."

The voice was loud. He knew it. It was sweet and quiet, like Kyle's voice when he convinced him to stay home on a rainy day, and drink hot chocolate until they couldn't take it anymore. He felt a wave of affection. That had been a good time.

"Jason, please wake up."

Jason opened his eyes. He could feel his heart beating strongly against his ears.

"Come on, honey, breathe. It was a nightmare."

Jason closed his eyes, focusing on his breathing. He inhaled deeply and then exhaled, trying to do it as slowly as possible. When he became aware of his surroundings, he felt someone beside him. A hand was tracing soft circles on his chest, making him feel much more comfortable and calm. A calm voice spoke intelligible words of comfort.

When Jason finally opened his eyes and got used to the twilight, he saw Kyle next to him. He looked very worried, but was smiling softly, surely relieved that Jason had finally calmed down.

"Hey." Jason mumbled.

"Hey." Kyle replied. "Are you okay?"

"I'm feeling better." It was going to take Jason a while to recover, but he would work on it.

"It was just a nightmare." Kyle repeated, still anguished.

Yes, it had been a nightmare, but it wasn't just that, Jason wanted to say.

All of Jason's nightmares were hard.

Sometimes the dream was about his own death, other times it was about the death of his loved ones. None of them were better than the other, all of them made Jason feel like a wreck for a while.

"You were dead in my arms," he whispered.

Kyle bit his lip. He felt many emotions bubbling up inside Jason, but (sadly) fear was the predominant one. Kyle curled up on his side, resting his head on Jason's chest. Jason moved to put his arm around Kyle, keeping him close to him.

"I know he was trying to scare you, but that's not how he wanted to do it. Kyle felt Jason's laughter under his cheek as he pressed him a little closer to his body.

"I'll give you that." He said. "But I prefer all the other times, they were much more fun than... this."

They were silent for a while. Kyle began to feel sleepy, although he knew Jason wouldn't fall asleep, at least for the rest of the night. Then... he heard him.

"I love you."

Kyle smiled, barely surprised, but delighted. He felt it, he felt his love overcoming his fear at full speed.

"I know."

Jason mumbled, with a snort.

"Don't quote Star Wars, nerd."

They burst out laughing almost at once. In the end, Jason had gotten scared, though in the way Kyle would have wanted. It didn't matter though, they were together, they loved each other.

And that was the most important thing.

[devil-in-those-eyes]

Duchess of the Kooks Part 4-KK Maybank

Hiya! So, I didn't really know how to end it because I so could’ve taken this further but I didn't know what you guys wanted me to do. So if you want me to continue, lmk. :)

Taglist: @lovelymaybankk @hyuckiesoftie @outerbanks123 @heimdoodle @downbytheouterbanks

WC:1.6K, she’s little. 

Warnings: cursing is well expected with me. 

~~

           By the time 1:30 rolled around, your parents were happily asleep and your brother was drunk playing video games with his headset on. You had gotten rid of your dress and gotten into comfier clothes, wiped your makeup off and put your hair up. You were sitting on the front steps on your porch, watching in the dim light as a figure began walking towards you.

           Your stomach burned and your heart pounded inside your chest as JJ appeared in the light on your front porch. He lost his work clothes and opted for his usual board shorts and ripped muscle tee, showing you his arms. He smiled as you stood up and met you on the steps, “Damn and here I was hoping you’d still be in your dress.”

           You laughed softly and nodded your head towards the door. He followed you through the front door and into the dead quiet home. You had never snuck boys in, because the boys you had been with you always hooked up with, you did at their house. But you were exceptional at sneaking out of the house and back in.

           You made it to your room without a problem, JJ and you waiting to speak until you turned on your TV. He glanced around your room and hummed, “I almost expected more… frill.”

           “Frill?” You whispered, “what am I, five?”

           JJ smirked, “I don’t know, Y/N, sometimes you act like it.”

           “Says king of immaturity,” you teased and watched as he flopped onto your bed.

           He let out a groan of content as you flopped down beside him, turning onto your side just in time to see him lift his arm to rest the back of his head on it, smiling at the rings on her his fingers. He turned his head to look at you and began to smile, like he just thought about something and it entertained him or as if the sight of you laying beside him just made him smile. Either way, your cheeks began to flush.

           “What?” you asked softly.

           He shrugged silently, keeping whatever he had on his mind to himself.

           “No, tell me,” you begged, smiling gently.

           You didn’t fully understand your emotions. You felt nervous to have him laying beside you in the dark of your room, his tan skin and hair illuminated in the TV light, but you also felt calm? He was setting off flutters in your chest that filled all the way down into your stomach, but you also felt like it was the first time you could really breathe inside this house.

           His smile slowly faltered, it turned into a whisper across his lips. “Just wish I hadn’t spent the last four months pushing you away…”

           Something flared in your heart. Before you realized what you were doing, you turned onto your side, fingertips touching his smooth jaw and leaning up to catch his bottom lip between your lips. He stilled against you, his lips warm but you could taste the hesitation so you pulled back and felt regret trickle through every vein.

           JJ’s blue eyes stared down at you and you opened your mouth to try and take back the kiss, but then he turned and touched his hand to her cheek, keeping you still as his lips pressed against yours in a more deep kiss, one you felt all the way in your toes.

           He tasted like the sun and the ocean, like he spent the whole day surfing but you knew it was because it was embedded in his DNA. The ocean and the sun was all JJ and it made you pull him closer by grabbing onto his tank top.

           He grunted lowly against your mouth, “Oh, fuck.”

           His tongue licked at your bottom lip before slipping in and sliding against yours, tasting the wine you snuck earlier. Your body felt like it was on fire and it only burned hotter and brighter when his fingers moved down your arm until he grabbed your hip and squeezed.

           You didn’t realize you were moving until you were straddling him, his hands on the back of your thighs and yours touching his chest, up to the back of his neck where you felt him shudder deeply beneath you. You smiled into the kiss and pulled away, but JJ wasn’t finished with you and wrapped an arm around your waist, following you.

           He rested against his hand, smiling as his eyes glazed over as he looked at you. You smiled and wrapped your arms around his neck, “you’re ticklish.”

           To prove your point you dragged your fingers over the back of his neck and he grinned, flinching and squeezing your fingers between his neck and head. “Ah, don’t, I hate being tickled.” He laughed softly, making you feel giddy.

           “Where else are you ticklish?” you wondered aloud, smirking playfully.

           “Don’t even think about it,” he warned, tilting his head and squinting at you but you still danced your fingers down his chest and to his sides.

           He covered up a laugh by squeezing you to him and quickly rolling over you, laying on top of you. You laughed as he settled his hips between your thighs and held himself up by his hands on either side of your head. He grinned down at you before dropping a kiss and rolling onto his back, both of you breathing deeply.

           “I think you should sneak me in tomorrow night too,” JJ whispered playfully and for a split second, you thought wouldn’t his dad miss him? But then remembered the bruises on his face, the ones that slipped your mind because when he smiled and gave you those lazy and gorgeous eyes, it lit up his entire face.

           “JJ,” you whispered, turning your head to look at him. He had his eyes closed, small breaths falling between his lips. He looked relaxed, he looked gorgeous.

           “Hmm?” he hummed.

           “You can always come to me.”

           JJ, surprised by the switch of mood, tilted his head to look at you. His eyes were soft, a small frown touching his face. “No matter what,” you murmured.

           “Come here,” he grumbled, lifting an arm and waiting for you to curl into him before he wrapped his arm around you and held you close. You dug your head into his neck and touched your hand over his heart, which pounded softly against your skin. He kissed your forehead softly, his lips lingering for a moment.

           You went to sleep feeling him breathe against you, and you wished you could’ve stayed up longer just to enjoy the moment but sleep consumed you so deeply. You woke up the next morning sprawled out and alone, no sign of JJ in sight. You almost wondered if you had dreamt last night, because that’s what it felt like. It felt like a vivid dream, where you could still feel the brush of his lips and the flutters inside your belly but it wasn’t a dream. As you rolled over and dug your face into the pillow, the sunlight pissing you off, you smelled cologne. It was faint, but it was all JJ and you smiled to yourself.

           By the time you got out of bed for your shift with Kiara, Topper was long gone and so were your parents, your uncle probably out catching waves or seeing old friends. The second you walked into The Wreck, it was like Kiara knew.

           She spent half the day following you around, asking intrusive questions.

           I saw the way he looked at you.

           Where did you guys go after he tried to rip Rafe’s face off?

           Why didn’t you come with Pope and I to JB’s after?

           Why wasn’t JJ there?

           “Kie, oh my god,” you groaned as the door popped open with a little ring.

           “Just tell me,” she said, holding her hands up in defense. “we do have the no pogue on pogue macking rule.”

           “Technically, she isn’t a pogue, Kie.” JJ said, coming out of no where and stood on the other side of the counter and grinning at you.  “Hey, gorgeous.” He said lowly before pressing his hands into the counter and leaning over.

           “Oh, my god,” Kiara said as you met him halfway for a short kiss. “It finally happened.”

           JJ leaned back and rested his elbows on the counter while you looked at her, “what do you mean?”

           “Oh, please. All the times he was a dick, it was his way of flirting.” Kiara rolled her eyes.

           You looked at JJ and he shrugged, “I mean, she isn’t technically wrong.”

           “It’s like the equivalent of pulling my pig tails.”

           JJ tilted his head and smirked, “You into that?”

           “Oh, my god,” Kiara exclaimed and touched her hands to her ears. “Stop!”

           JJ barked with laughter, making you laugh as well. When he calmed down he spoke, “actually, I was coming by to see if you two wanted to head out on the HMS Pogue tonight.”

           “Hell, yes.” Kiara said, JJ looked at you and you nodded along. It wasn’t like you planned on actually doing anything between this and sneaking JJ in later.

           He grinned and leaned in again, catching your lips in a sweet kiss. He pulled away and gave Kiara his goofy smile, “I will see the both of you in two hours.”

           JJ was gone and you were left with Kiara, who was grinning.

           “Who knew JJ would land the Duchess of the Kooks.”

           You rolled your eyes and tossed the dirty wash cloth at her, “go away.” But the whole time you were smiling.

[galacticbugman]

Colorado Fun! Summer 2019 Part 1: Prehistoric Adventures

Greetings from Colorado! It was sure a wild trek I took a few weeks ago. It was so cool to visit some of the old hot spots and the new places. This was a photo of me taken at one of my favorite Dinosaur Museums. This place is called the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center. It has a lot of cool things in it. It may be a small little place but it has quite the collection. Here I am behind a model of a Megalodon’s Jaws. These suckers got huge. They wouldn’t have to bite just to swallow you whole. I am so tiny compared to this set of Shark Chompers. It was kind of freaky yet cool. I got a lot of neat photos so lets get started. Just a warning you will be hearing and reading a lot of Jurassic Park related stuff in this posting. 

Okay so you know I can’t pass up a Jurassic Park post it is one of my favorite movies of all time. This one is at the same place as the Meg jaws. This poster I am next to is an authentic original Jurassic Park (1993) Poster. I have all the movies and now the original books. Jurassic Park has had a big impact on my life and I enjoy the whole series. The movies are great and the books are even better. I have been a big fan and no trip to a Dinosaur museum is never complete without some references to classic Dinosaur films from the Sliver Screen. Did you notice my clothes? I thought you did. Yep I wore my Jurassic Park button down and my Jurassic World Raptor shirt for this trek. I went all out and even wore my fossilized Shark Tooth Necklace. I always have a theme when I got to certain places or at least I try to. 

On the other side of the theater area they have another authentic poster from my favorite JP movie in the series. This is an original poster from The Lost World: Jurassic Park which came out in 1997. This was so cool to see posters from the two best Jurassic Park films ever created. I really enjoy finding Jurassic Park based things. I just crazy about stuff like this. I really enjoy the novels that Michael Crichton wrote back in the 90s as well as the movies. I like both types of media and I know that when this movie came out many fans of the book were pretty outraged by the movie not being like the book like we saw with the first movie which did follow pretty close to the book with a few plot differences and things. Jurassic Park for me is one thing I really enjoyed growing up with I have some of the Toys, a Jurassic Park bed sheet set, all of the movies that does include the Jurassic World stuff. I have the Lego Jurassic World Video Game for the Nintendo 3DS, I have played countless Jurassic Park games including the Rampage Edition, the NES Jurassic Park game, the SNES game, I have played the demo for Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis, I have played Jurassic Park Builder for Android, Jurassic World the Game, and Jurassic World: Alive. i even have the Jurassic Park: Danger board game. I am just a huge fan of this and have several shirts and things that I wear pretty often. I wasn’t able to watch the films until I was older. I was I was about ten or eleven when I was finally able to watch the films. Ever since I was able to watch them my mind was blown and I became an instant fan. Of course I did collect  the toys way before I saw the movies I have several that I might post in post of their own in a collection of my collectibles that I have collected over the years of being a huge fan of many things. Still a pretty cool find in one of the coolest museums on the planet. 

One of the coolest things about this museum is that they have the third Largest Tyrannosaurus-Rex. It used to be the second almost topping Sue; but in recent years there is another one that has been discovered to be even taller than Sue. Still this monster is one of my favorite dinosaurs and has always been my favorite since I was kid and it is one of my favorites in the Jurassic Park franchise. Tyrannosaurus-Rex was not really an active hunter but more of a scavenger. It’s teeth are kind of dulled out and only used for ripping and swallowing whole instead of chewing. What is the deal with the tiny little stubby arms you ask? It has been up for debate for years but some thing that they played a part in the mating ritual of this species but we are not too sure about that. It is just speculation which paleontology is all about. Still a fantastic and giant creature from the last Cretaceous period. 

 One of my favorite shark fossils is this one. This is an almost complete spinal region and skull of a shark. It maybe the only one in existence so far as we know. This is kind of a really interesting rarity. As we know Shark skeletons are made of cartilage and it often breaks down and deteriorates after a while but in this is one of those rare fossils of cartilage. It is kind of neat and this shark may looks small but it is pretty large. The photos don’t really do it justice than experiencing these fossils in person. Lets look at another cool fossil shall we. 

What is this weird creature? Is it an alien? Well it is from a time very different from our own. This is the Giant Ground Sloth and my brother and I saw this guy being put together on a display stand. This is one of the weirdest creatures. You may have heard of the Horse Apple or Bois De’ Arc tree. Well the horse apple was a favorite food of this species as well as the mammoths that lived here thousands of years ago. This one was pretty young and just a little taller than me. I am about 5′ 9″ and these guys could get up to ten foot tall so this guy was not even close to being done growing. This guy is kind of a weird dumpy animal but it is quite interesting to look at. It was kind of cool to see all kinds of extinct animals other than Dinosaurs. There was a bunch of neat stuff at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. 

As a huge Jurassic Park fan I couldn’t help but notice this skull hanging in the prehistoric wing of the museum. You may recognize it from Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. This guy is the Stygimoloch AKA Stiggy in Jurassic Park. Sorry to bust your bubble on these guys but they can’t actually ram each other or solid brick wall. These guys would shatter their skulls if they were to do that. These guys may have used their heads to amplify noise or to show off for the ladies. These guys are still pretty cool to look at. I saw this and was instantly familiar with it. Stiggy is one of my favorite Jurassic World Dinosaurs for the chaos at the auction scene when we was running about causing panic and confusion to buy Owen Grady some time. This was one of the coolest fossils in their collection. This is the first one of these I have seen in any museum collection. 

A cool battle scene between an Allosaurus and a Stegosaurus. You might think of a Stegosaurus to have a pretty good defense due to those big thick bony plates; however this is simply not the case. The plates are actually very thin and were possibly only used for mating purposes. This made the plates more like a blood filled cookie. Still they did have their famous weapon the Thagomizer which was used as a weapon and could really do some damage. I will never forget the scene in The Lost World: Jurassic Park when Sarah Harding gets attacked by the family heard after her camera messes up when she is photographing the baby causing it to sent of an alarm call. Stegosaurus is a huge dinosaur and will always be one of my favorites. Fun Fact: In the first Jurassic Park novel by Michael Crichton instead of using a sick triceratops like they did in the film it was actually a sick Stegosaurus that Dr. Harding was caring for when the Toyota Land Cruisers came up to that point on the tour. That was one of the biggest differences in media but the same thing was going on with both animals in both forms of media.   

A close up of a Stegosaurus Thagomizer. 

A cool Hadrosaur fossil that was also at the Denver Museum. They had a lot of cool fossils but I didn’t get a chance to photograph them all. There was just too much and so little time to see the whole museum but heck it was really cool to see some of the Jurassic Park superstars in this museum. Hardrosaurus was not in Jurassic Park but this was one of the first dinosaurs I ever learned about. These guys are also known as Duck-bills for their goofy looking mouths. Dinosaurs had some of the coolest features from weird headgear, to weird mouth shapes, to their wild arsenal of weapons. Even in the time of the dinosaurs biological warfare was very weird. 

A rather cool replica I got on the trip was this cast of a Raptor claw. I am a huge Raptor fan and adding one of these to my collection was really cool. My collection is now in a nice display cabinet with some of my Jurassic Park toys in the mix just to make it more interesting. Fossils are just one of my favorite things to collect and even though this is a fake it is still a nice edition to my educational collections and too I got it reminded me of Alan Grant’s Raptor Claw from Jurassic Park (1993) and I am a huge JP Raptor fan. I will be doing a top ten Jurassic Park Dinosaurs post soon to show you what my top 10 pics are after the trip photos. So stay tuned more animals and stuff to show you from Colorado as my Colorado trip review continues. 

[obeymematches]

Hi! I hope you don’t mind if I ask for a matchup. Just don’t push yourself, okay? You seem to have a lot to handle. I’ll try not to overload you with too much, but I apologize ahead of time if I write a whole book or get too personal. I just wanted to make sure I added a good chunk for a good comparison! I’ll try not to get too into it, though. Sorry again if I put too much!

Basics : I’m a 5’6, 19 y/o, chubby/curvy female who is a bit of an anti-social shut-in. I come across as very shy, quiet to the point of how I usually never say a word otherwise unless I’m asked a question, though can also be seen as ‘lazy’ and someone who is too addicted to technology. I’m also rarely affectionate, though not against being given affection as long as I’m asked. I’m not a touchy feely person.

Layer 1 (Flaws, problems, etc) : My behavior stems from social anxiety and from bullying experiences that have traumatized me growing up, as I had to deal with it up until maybe a year ago. Some of it was from my own family, and some from the school. I ended up with a fear of expressing myself to strangers, especially around boys. I found my way of coping was to dive into video games and anime, alongside art. Outside of this, I’m a mess. I usually suffer from many health problems (that I don’t feel comfortable sharing, but can mention it makes my efforts to find a way to get comfortable in my body with a new Workout routine very difficult) due to my body being extremely weak. It has been ever since conditions related to my birth, and my medications Needed to keep me around cause me to be big boned. I’m physically strong enough to fight for myself if I needed to, but when it comes to illness and the like, I’m the loser here. I also have a hard time keeping eye contact. I also tend to apologize a lot for everything. I can’t handle crowds, or I’ll likely pass out after a while. My body is hard to take care of despite my best efforts. However, I do have sensitive ears and tend to be jumpy when someone raises their voice. It’s not too difficult to scare me, which in the past is what usually managed to convince me to go along with things like the bullying. To this day I still can’t handle being yelled at, since I also tend to yell at myself later for messing up for whatever caused someone to yell at me. I’m extremely hard on myself. I also tend to take things to heart. My ‘laziness’ also is because I have my own fight with depression to deal with that adds a factor into this too. Consider it a double edged sword, but despite that I tend to destroy myself trying to put others first before me.

Layer 2 (Opening up) : if I do open up to someone, I’m more prone to have my ‘quirks’ show, such as bouncing in place when I’m excited. I occasionally ramble about my interests (and apologize after). I may not be the best at showing how I care, but I try to do the best I can with what little skills I have. But I do become a bit more social with a person the more I know them. However, it doesn’t change that one might have to message/approach me first, since at times it takes me ages to send a message for fear I’m bothering someone. I’ll be more willing to head out with someone if I’m closer to them, though I’m still insecure about my appearance.

Layer 3 (Pro’s?) : I’m not against trying new things, within reason. I’m not difficult to please. I would be fine sitting in a room watching critical role for the next 10 hours with someone just being quiet and consider that a bonding moment. I don’t mind over the top, but I don’t usually favor it due to my insecurities telling me that this wasn’t deserved. (Not that it isn’t appreciated, but it’s hard to fight ones inner demons, ya know what I mean?) From what my few friends say, however, they would trust me to be a leader to my friend group should the need arise, and I’m usually serious, mature, calm and collected. That doesn’t mean I don’t have my own sense of humor (usually dark humor, with the occasional laugh from a joke I didn’t expect to hear). Due to a bit of my background, I know a lot on self defense due to being in a former military family (All retired) who thought I should know how to fight due to how the world can be. This is also why I’m usually trusted to make decisions for my friend group, even if it’s in games where survival is key. I’m usually the last one standing, while being cautious enough. I also can be a hard worker when I can put my mind to it- reading a whole manga series in one day or finishing an anime? Finishing art? You name it. Though a double edged sword trait I know I have (Since it can be both a blessing and a curse) is my perfectionism. Everything has to be perfect. The decorations? Yes. Everything has to match? Yes. I have to make the most detailed building in Minecraft? On it. My fashion sense also plays a part in this too, as I try to make it work with my task too. (I can tend to overdo it and sometimes don’t give myself breaks when I’m in this mood though.) I’m usually good on saving money, and I try to see the best in people despite my experiences. I’m not easily persuaded by looks, as I usually don’t care for them much. I am a creative person as someone who strives to be good at art, but also as someone related to a medic, I also have been learning what to do when the need arises for someone to need a medic. I can be motherly at points, considering some of my other friends to be like my kids. I fret over them constantly. There are times where the tables end up turned. I love acquiring new knowledge that’s something I’m not used to. Oh, you’re a witch? Cool I’m a (religion I’m not sharing due to it being a touchy subject to most). Can you tell me all about it? I’m really curious.

Layer 4 (Hobbies and everything else?) : I do like swimming, drawing, creating characters for my own stories (as a dungeon master in dnd), reading (mostly manga), collecting gemstones and anime merch, playing video games, and cooking on occasion. I also love my pets (currently a rabbit and a puppy) and enjoy cuddling with them. Despite finding cats to be cute, I happen to be allergic to them (as in my skin will break out mostly- it’s not severe but annoying nonetheless). I also have a fear of bugs. Despite only losing myself maybe 3 times in my whole life, I do have a nasty temper if someone gets on my nerves too much. I usually end up punished for it, hence my bottling up of emotions. So otherwise, it’s hard to get me truly angry to the point of where I’m raising my voice unless someone crosses a line. I’m slowly learning to speak up for myself more.

Alright, that’s the end! Again, I’m so sorry if this is too much information! I have never done one of these before. ^w^’

------

Hi!!!!

I put a keep reading button because it’s a long text and sometimes it gets very personal, so yeah

Sorry for the wait, and I hope you like the result!

Tbh I was thinking and I had several ideas while reading it, for example I can see you with Levi and maybe Belphie. I decided to go with Levi. Your sense of humour is a good match with Belphie but he can be so sassy and can have such an attitude that I think Levi works better, as you said you tend to take things to heart. I know you said it’s hard to actually upset you but I think Levi occassionally calling you a normie is so much less stressing than Belphie and I think you really deserve someone who doesn’t give you a hard time. (No offense to Belphie hes cool and as a friends thats alright but yeah)

So I think Levi is good with someone who’s not too affectionate, like he can get so flustered, it’s easier for him with someone like you!

He also has a quite severe social anxiety so he really gets you when you say you’d rather stay at home than go to a convention or party.

My hyphothesis is that he has online classes because of that. Like I don’t think he was bullied, he really just can’t stand being around people that much

He is also accepted in his family, like everybody is chill with him being an otaku. (I guess sometimes he gets teased but it’s mostly just him talking down on himself) So the point is that at home he can be himself! I think he would reassure you that liking what you like is totally fine.

At first he will 100% call you a normie until you prove yourself otherwise but that shouldn’t really be an issue - especially if you open up to him about it. I think he is the best candidate to understand your feelings. Not just “oh that sucks babe, iloveyou” but like really get you, you know what I mean. Even if he is not always great at expressing himself, you’d just know he means well.

I think he would also accept you the way you are. Of course your well-being is going to concern him sometimes but he knows you can take care of yourelf. Although if you need help he will do whatever you need. He can be pretty determined when it comes to something/someone he loves

I think he would be very surprised by the fact that you are physically strong in a good way! Like wow babe you can really do that...🥺

He would definitely see a part of himself in you and he would make sure to remind you that you don’t have to apologize for everything you do. Even if he does so himself, that doesn’t mean that you have to be insecure like him! 😠

He’s not really the one to shout at you since you can probably accept him, and he can accept you even if at first he thinks you a boring normie

I think after you two actually spend time together and open up and really get to know the other he will see that you are soo hard on yourself because of your past and he will definitely try his best to cheer you up and have you loosen a bit.

Or if you’re not into that then he can just listen. If you don’t want to talk he can play multiplayer games with you or watch anime, etc, anything to make you feel better!!!!

I think he is also more likely to get into DnD than Belphie, thats also a reason why I decided that Levi is better. I’m personally not into it so I don’t know for sure but if you have an anime/Japan related game/story then you don’t have to say no more, he’s in a 100%!!!

After that he will probably try like...less otaku-friendly DnD games/stories! Just be patient with him. He will learn all the rules and read all the books to a T but actually speaking in front of a group of people he doesn’t know won’t be so easy!!!! 🥺  

After that he will probably convince his brothers to play too and now you have DnD night with the bros, yay! (i let you imagine how the details go!!)

I think he would approach you first with his anime-related topics and I think you could probably answer him! And that would be the beginning of a beautiful friendship!

He can also ramble about the things he likes and he would make sure that after a while you don’t apologize for talking about things you like! He probably likes something similar too, so he could suggest some things!

He said he prefers someone who he can be in the same room with and not really interact that much actually? so like you watching critical role while he watches anime is a good way to spend time!! stay at home dates are dates too!

Hmmmm i think he would definitely like to play a survival multiplayer with you, so be prepared!!!!!!

Hm I think he would take your fashion related suggestions for him, even if he himself isn’t a perfectionist. But I mean if you look at his room he is pretty organized and not too messy, so that’s a bonus I think.

I think he is a good match because you can balance out his reckless money spending tendencies! Not sure if it’s possible to change that completely about him, but at least one of you is responsible with money, so thats a good enough!

Hm I think he could talk a lot about being a demon with you, so thats really nice that you’re interested in his culture! I don’t think he has ever considered that as anything special, but now is the time!

It’s good that you can’t have a kitty because he has a fish and that wouldn’t really be a good combination now, would it?

I think he relly appreciated a responsible and caring partner like you, because he really needs all the extra care he can get to boost his confidence! He is usually rather child-like, so that is also probably a bonus!

Conclusion; definitely he is the one to initiate first interaction, but it’s probably just looking at the other for a while until he gains enough confidence to actually talk to you. This is a very accepting relationship with lots of caring and confidence boosting involved on both sides! Theres also this deeper understanding due to insecurities and social anxiety. I think after a couple years in the relationship both of you change in a good way as you are very mindful of the other’s insecurities. Definitely not a lot of arguing going on, he is a very loyal and caring partner once you earn his trust, so zero lines crossed! Dates are mostly at home, but thats cool! You are the more responsible one while he can be kind of reckless with his impulses, but that just leads to a good balance and he knows he should respect your advice regarding impule buyig stuff for example.

[bonepranks]

2020, and a year of Undertale

there’s a picture saved to my phone. timestamp: january 1. 2019, 4:10pm.

it’s a phone photo of my computer screen.

— Instruction — [Z or ENTER] - Confirm [X or SHIFT] - Cancel [C or CTRL] = Menu (In-game) [F4] - Fullscreen [Hold ESC] - Quit When HP is 0, you lose. Begin Game Settings

in the background, i’m watching moana on the tv. reflected against the black background is the window behind me, the holiday lights illuminating the otherwise dark winter sky. 4pm is too early for it to be so gloomy, and considering the fact that i’ve just had company at my house for a week straight, i shouldn’t be in such a slump. but i am, and i decided to buy undertale.

i wasn’t exactly a stranger to the game. @fluersamour had introduced me to it a few months prior, though i was only really aware of one character, and the plot and game mechanics were a complete mystery to me. not being interested in video games whatsoever, undertale had really stayed off my radar, and i had expressed little interest in playing it myself. i’m not exactly sure what came over me that day, what clicked in my brain for me to think that a computer game would be the serotonin boost i so desperately needed, but my subconscious knew what was up.

i was sucked in almost immediately, though my inexperience with games made it a somewhat frustrating experience, and at times more annoying than it was worth. but i stayed determined -- even when i killed toriel by accident twice. even when i died to dogamy and dogaressa more times than i care to count. even when i didn’t understand how save points worked and ended up back in the ruins after hours of game play. 

i fell in love with sans and papyrus, and as the game got more and more difficult, i found myself longing for the comforts of snowdin. i had tried my best to be a pacifist after killing toriel, but when undyne proved to be too difficult, i took the easy way out and started killing monsters for exp. i took my anger at the world and certain people in it out on undyne and her fight, which gave me so much anxiety that i made myself sick and was throwing up all night. but the next morning i beat her, and for some reason i don’t even fully understand, i let her live.

and the game continued on as normal, except now i was killing any and everything in sight. things started getting a lot harder for me irl. i was bored, listless, coming home from class and getting right into bed, where i stayed for the rest of the day with nothing but undertale to keep me company. i finally made it to new home, and when the monsters told the story of asriel and chara i wept like a baby. when sans looked me in the eye (metaphorically) and told me that LOVE stands for level of violence, i felt like i couldn’t breathe. but i stayed determined, because what else was there to do? i faced asgore in battle and when i tried to talk to him and the game told me “but there was nothing to say”, i was shook to my core. and when i backtracked to find more healing items, i accidentally ended up at undyne’s house, where papyrus implied that i was a murderer.

i didn’t know what to do. every time i tried to fight asgore, without enough money for food or armor, no extra defenses, and my sins crawling up my back, i died within the first few rounds. my subpar gaming skills were no match for him, and a little part of me didn’t even want to finish. i was overwhelmed with guilt and it all just felt wrong.

i put the game down, and didn’t touch it for nearly two weeks. in that time, i made sans’ blog. i had been trying to hold off until i finished, but i didn’t see an end in sight, and so i caved. i figured i would watch a playthrough to get the story and then just give up on doing it myself. but the more i dived into sans, the harder i found it to make that choice in good conscience.

* if you have some sort of special power... * isn’t it your responsibility to do the right thing?

it was. i’d started this, and now i had to finish it. but there was no way i could beat asgore, not like this. but that’s the beauty of video games. i opened undertale, and hit RESET. this time, i played fully pacifist. i looked up everything i needed including some spoilers in order to do it right, and when i got to asgore again, i beat him on my first try. the choice of MERCY was easy. the same with flowey, although he also killed me more times than i’d like to admit. it’s funny -- i don’t know if i would have made that choice on my own had i gotten through the game the first time. i guess it doesn’t really matter. 

finishing undertale, the full thing, was the most rewarding and cathartic thing i had ever done. and in the few months following, when i was in a pretty bad depressive slump, i had the fandom and the rpc to keep me going. my life became all about undertale for a while, and while it wasn’t my proudest moment, it was what i needed at that point. and i got past it, things got better, but undertale stayed with me.

i know most people have been in this fandom for a lot longer than me. a year feels like forever sometimes, until i remember some of you have been around for 4+. and i know we’ve all seen and experienced some shit. but the joy undertale brings me is something i’ll never let go of. i had a lot to be grateful for this past year, but undertale is at the top of that list. 

so thank you to everyone who has ever written with me, talked about undertale with me, or even followed me through my adventures on this blog. you made this last year truly amazing for me, and i am so excited for what 2020 brings.

[silasmadams]

YOU SHOULD BE WATCHING...READY OR NOT 👰🏼

(Theatrical Poster, image courtesy of Ready or Not (2019 film) )

The world has gone to shit so I’m here to recommend some movies to pass the time or offer up a momentary distraction. Remember to stay safe and continue to self-isolate/social distance. If you’re able, consider the following ways to help out frontline workers. (How to Help Your Community During the Coronavirus Crisis | The Strategist ) 

Now, onto the review… 

Ready or Not is a 2019 film written by Guy Busick and Ryan Murphy and directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett. It follows the story of a young woman, played by Samara Weaving, NOT Margot Robbie as everyone seems to think, it’s ok I made that mistake too. Her character, Grace, is about to marry into the family of her boyfriend of roughly over a year and a half, Alex Le Domas (more like dumbass am I right?! I apologize for this joke…in my defense the movie makes this joke too). 

Alex comes from an affluent family that runs a board game empire and has recently stretched out into sports. Whenever someone marries into the family they are required to play a game with the family after the wedding ceremony is done and night falls. This game can be chess, checkers, OR it can be hide and seek aka the one deadly game. In hide and seek, the family must hunt the person marrying into the family until sunrise. If the family succeeds then they get to live but if they don’t they die. This is due to a deal their ancestor made with the devil to stay wealthy and powerful. I’ll keep the review relatively spoiler-free. Be warned though if you want to go watch the movie now, there is a lot of gore and violence. 

What I liked about it and why you should definitely watch it:

The special effects aren’t the CGI fake blood type effects, rather they’re practical effects that are well done. Some of them are reminiscent of another wonderful dark comedy/horror movie, The Cabin in the Woods (2011). The effects in the final scene are both hilarious and horrifying (I mean that in the best way possible), and they sent me into a fit of laughter. I’ll be honest I felt guilty for laughing but hey, it’s dark comedy for a reason.

The characters are an absolute delight. The family is full of just the worst, most selfish people, save for one character and I love them all. The dynamic of the family is clear from the moment they’re on screen. You don’t need long-winded explanations or backstories on the spouses of the other family members, rather you get tidbits and you’re able to get a general idea of what’s going in their lives. Basically, the characters of the family are a great time without having to be exposition machines or overstaying their welcome.

Grace is an interesting character in not only her relationship with Alex but her own survival tactics and her backstory. Like many of the other characters, we don’t get too much detail on her but we know she comes from a poor background and has a history with foster families. From looking at the poster one would think that Grace would go Rambo on these people and she does to an extent, but the majority of the movie involves Grace having to be stealthy because she is not some jacked-up fighter or soldier ready to take down an entire extended family. She’s one woman that thought her wedding night was going to be the best moment of her life. I like that the filmmakers went this route instead of what the poster implies which is that she has a complete handle on the situation and she is able to take them all down, because where’s the fun in that?

The setting and the set design. I’m not one to usually notice set design but some of the details here were something even a casual viewer would take notice off. The games that they showed at the start of the movie and throughout in various other scenes are all fake but they’re designed so well in their logos and their names that you could actually believe they were odd old-timey games that can be hunted down now on eBay or the like. As for the actual setting, the manor is isolated on a large plot of land with the only other neighbors being similarly rich folks. These neighbors are hinted at having made similar deals with the devil and are thus no help allowing for a tense atmosphere. The manor itself is decorated in an extravagant way allowing for it to be eccentric and creepy though not too skin crawl worthy. It captures the feel of an old-money home. 

It’s fun. It’s just a genuinely funny movie that manages to also keep you on the edge of your seat fearing for Grace’s life. Treat yourself and give it a watch, have a thrill and a laugh.

SOURCE

Ready or Not (2019 film)

BUY OR RENT IT HERE

https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/amzn1.dv.gti.6eb65015-0ac3-1f7e-1a79-659a6bbe965b?autoplay=1

https://youtu.be/FRo-T87hTKU

https://www.vudu.com/content/movies/details/Ready-or-Not/1216785

ABLE TO HELP FRONTLINE WORKERS? CHECK OUT HOW

How to Help Your Community During the Coronavirus Crisis | The Strategist

CHECK OUT MY BLOG IF YA WANT

https://silasmadams.home.blog/2020/04/18/you-should-be-watching-ready-or-not/

[help-its-a-dot]

Alright so when I took this job they said all I had to do was narrate. You know, just follow this guy around and relay what he’s doing, make it sound interesting, yada yada yada.

Ok now that I say it out loud I realize that I’ve probably looked like a stalker for the past few days.

Fun.

ANYWAYS I was going somewhere with this; I had a point. Right. My point was that I didn’t think I’d end up in the middle of a burned down park, cowering in absolute terror behind some rocks that I really wish were bigger, and longing with all that's left of my heart that I could be one of those people that are, given the situation, naturally sprinting away whilst screaming at the top of their lungs.

Should I run away? I mean, it seems like the more logical option here; If I could get over that bridge, then I’d-

*bridge disintegrates*

Well there goes that.

Looks like I’ll be narrating then! Yippee. So, I should probably warn you, I haven’t exactly been paying attention to my assigned main character, ergo I don't have that much background knowledge. Oh who am I kidding, I have none.

Anyhow, sorry, I know I should be narrating. I’m getting to that. Background knowledge. What do I know?

Uh, actually nothing much happened to this dude. A few weeks ago he found a dead body in his bathtub. Now that I think about it, that’s probably where I should’ve started paying attention….

Ah, fucked this up, didn’t I.

Also, as a side note, I’m gonna be calling this dumbass Jake because my dumbass kind of sort of didn’t ever really at all catch his name.

Alrighty folks! I’m gonna…. Be brave…. And peek out from behind these rocks…. Did I mention how much I wished they were bigger? 

Ahem. *clears throat*. Narrator voice. *nods decisively*. Lets go.

There’s fire everywhere. On the tops of trees like snow at the peaks of mountains (how are there even still trees here) bushes have morphed into bonfires, while patches of grass are practically leaking little flames like a dope game of ‘the floor is lava’.

Jake stands, looking at the devastation with wide eyes. Smoke billows out into the sky, painting the already grey clouds black.

A deafening crash sounds behind him- you know, the kind you get when a boulder squishes a four story building like it’s a three year old’s structure of off brand legos. He’s thrown to the ground, and waits, breathing heavily.

Aw god why did I forgot my flask of vodka today? I freaking need it.

And as if that weren’t enough, a spaceship just blipped into the sky.

Should I run?

I should probably run.

Sorry, sorry, I’m not very good at this narrator thing. In my defense, I didn’t think they were serious! Alright, I’m gonna try that again.

Suddenly, and quite literally out of nowhere, there’s a fatally blinding blue-red light, making everyone in the immediate vicinity-- which isn’t that many people anymore, most have used their last few remaining drops of common sense and fled for their lives --squeeze their eyes shut and hastily bury their heads in whatever was nearest and most convenient to shield themselves from impending blindness, wailing in a mix of surprise and agony. All flames previously terrorizing the verdure are extinguished and the smoke is blown out as a single gust of forceful wind, which also effectively topples the few remaining, yet charred nonetheless, trees, buildings, and people.

Augh, ew, eurgh, I got a mouthful of Martin’s grocery bag. How do I know it’s Martin’s? They have a distinctive taste of mild sadness and resignation. Right, right, the spaceship. 

See, when I say spaceship, I mean cool looking flying saucer thingy appearing like it was plucked right out of a conspiracy theory and given some upgrades. It’s a giant, azure/ultramarine blue, except for the bottom which shines in a weirdly mesmerizing yellowish glow, squished sphere. Oval. Pancake. Sorry, I don't know my shapes. It seems to be practically thrumming with energy, like it drank five red bulls followed by ten extremely caffeinated coffees and finished it all off with a few five hour energy drinks. 

I cannot tell you how much I hope it doesn't do what it looks like it’s gonna do and explode.

Meanwhile, Jake has picked up… a sword. Well shit. Medieval, much? Not a gun? No? Personally, I think a gun would be extraordinarily effective against the horde of what looks like blobs but are probably extravagantly dangerous aliens filing in a weirdly orderly single file line out of the saucer and immediately beginning to lomp closer and closer and closer crap did I mention they were getting closer?

Should I run?

I should probably run.

Hold up, no, that reminds me, I’m supposed to be narrating. God, I’m atrocious at this, aren’t I.

He feels sweat break out on his brow. The sword is heavy in his hands, and he can barely lift it, let alone decapitate a blob, but he’s in too deep to let his weariness show. He’s gotta be strong and save what’s left of these people, this city, or die trying. Which is probably what’ll happen in a few minutes. But ah, well, he’ll die fighting for Americanos , which can’t be all that bad.

Technically, if you think about it, he’s suicidal, because his colossal ego will not, quite literally, for the life of him, allow him to take a smart route, like getting into that convenient truck and bowling over all the blobs, or snatching up a gun from that store across the street, or even just alerting someone who is actually capable at dealing with an event like this like the authorities.

But what can he do, he is American, after all. It's simply unavoidable; part of the culture description. *white people i swear

He watches morbidly as Martin’s grocery bags blow past from the ruins before him, and glances up as the spaceship above him gives one final thrum and blips away, probably back to wherever it came from, leaving him alone with an army of blobs bouncing threateningly towards him.

In truth, he didn’t know what they were. All he knew was that if they kept destroying everything at this rate, there won't be a single McDonalds left in America, and he couldn’t have that. Of course, by then there wouldn’t even be an America, and everyone would have to go to the McDonalds’ in Russia. Russia has McDonalds, right? Oh, he simply could not do that to his fellow citizens! 

He pondered this, along with whether or not Australia exists, all the while counting down the seconds (...7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… dammit 3, 2, 1… 3, 2, 1… 3, 2-- he’d get it eventually) until his doom and willing his arms not to shake with the incredible weight of the sword in his hands. Whose idea was it to make swords out of metal, anyways? It’s incredibly stupid-- nowadays 90% of America wouldn’t even be able to muster the courage to touch one, let alone the strength to lift one. 

Ugh, he knew he should’ve gone with that plastic light saber he’d seen at the mall. At least then he could’ve gone down with style.

As if on cue, there’s another, at this point expected, crash resounding behind him, and he turns to watch in despair as said mall tumbles almost comically to the ground. 

There goes the light saber.

And another McDonalds.

Ohh, things were getting bad.

The park, if you could still call it a park, is deserted now save for the occasional Martin’s grocery bag skittering about, and he can’t help but give in to the desire to reflect upon his life. He wasted it, playing video games and other shit like that all day, every day. This is the first time he’s been outside in a long time. He now knows with absolute certainty that if he were ever granted such an opportunity he’d go back and redo it all. He’d try harder to beat that level, he’d get the better controller, he’d stay up later working on his technique. But all that was a distant dream now, something he could not hope to accomplish now.

He wished that maybe, just maybe, heaven would have a nice game console for him.

When he’d gotten selflessly sucked into this adventure, he never thought he’d actually die, never expected anything to really happen- If he had, he of course would never have turned the power of his last 8 braincells away from a computer screen and into the real world to start investigating.

Ah fuck, sorry for interrupting, I think I twisted my wrist or some shit while trying to get a better vantage point on these still too small rocks. 

Should I run?

I should probably run.

On a different note: I’m really sorry guys. When you take a narrator job they never tell you anything about your person. Had I known he was American, I would have immediately sabotaged this entire thing; I could never in good conscience have subjected you guys to.. well.. this.

But alas, now I’m stuck narrating an American who is going to get me killed.

Unless… Unless there’s a loophole. My parents were lawyers, so I excel at finding those.

The rules are, you have to stay with your hero and narrate their adventure. How an American turned out to be one of the heroes, I know not, it must be a glitch in the system. But I’ll be fucking damned if this glitch gets me killed. Literally. So! Once the hero, inevitably, dies, you’re free to go. There’s nothing much left to narrate afterwards. And since Jake is closer to the horde of blobs coming our way than I am, as soon as he’s bowled over I’ll sprint. To the side, like a smart immigrant would do. Not straight back, because then the blobs’d just follow me and kill me, so the only logical conclusion is to circle around them and see if my apartment is still intact. I didn’t finish my cream puffs and I really don't want them to melt.

They’re getting closer. He can hear their squelching, and the chicken nuggets in his stomach churn unpleasantly. There’s bits of goo flying off them in all directions, and when said goo makes contact with something it immediately disintegrates that unfortunate something, leaving nothing behind. Is this really the fate that’ll befall him? Is this how the world ends?

Well, death by disintegration it is then. Oh, he can’t wait to brag to his boys about this.

Oh, wait, no, that’s not right. He’ll be dead.

And, in the last few moments before the blobs reach him, he reconsiders. There’s still so much this cruel world has to offer, and he never took advantage of any of it. Nor was he ever grateful for much of it. 

He suddenly feels a new feeling. Determination. He will destroy every single one of these vile creatures, and he WILL come out of it intact. He has to. 

With new resolve he scrapes together the last of his strength and raises his trusty sword over his head, every nonexistent muscle tense, ready. They’re getting closer. Closer. 50 yards. 30 yards. 20. 10. Just a few feet.

He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes dramatically. Swings his sword.

And is immediately squashed with the most sickening squelch there could ever be.

Ew.

Should I run?

I should probably run.

Yeah, I’m gonna run.

[tosinworld]

MOM, DON’T WORRY

Why did I love single moms when I am not one? 

Okay, I will tell you a small story. I was not yet six year old when my parent separated due to the domestic violence issue... Wait before I go far, both of them are now together after 26years of separation. Good news, right? Hmn! But some deeds could not be undone. The pain of struggling and doing it all alone by my mom, the abuse and suffering, anxiety, depression that comes with it can not be overemphasized...Is not time to recount the past.

I just want to say mom (a single mother reading this) don’t worry. Is a function of time, your pain will soon be forgotten; your struggle will soon be over because your children will grow up to pay you back. However; you have a role to play in making that happen:

 1. You must be willing to sacrifice for your children

Your children are your tomorrow, don’t keep hustling and neglect them. You can’t afford to let your child stay with people that will abuse them, and they may not tell you. You don’t want to keep partying while their academics are suffering. I am not saying you should not have fun, but don’t do it at the detriment of your children’s future. Sacrifice the time to check their school work, listen to them, attend their performance or game at school and so on, and you need to sacrifice, I know it is not easy. 

 2. Talk to your children like a friend

You have to discipline your children with love and discipline your child without embarrassing or cursing them in the house or publicly. Pardon my stereotype, but it seems to be an “African Mama’s syndrome,” to never correct their children without yelling- I was once guilty, don’t think I exclude myself (wink**). Just stop screaming and shouting on your kids outside. Stop threatening them about sending them away or send them to live with their father. A child from a domestic violence home is low on self-esteem already don’t keep them lower with fear, terror, intimidation...

Let your presence brings them joy. Fear of you is not a substitute for love and respect. Build them up in love, and you will earn respect and cordial relationship in your old age.

Being a friend to your child is also a defense against the enemy, they are not afraid to come back and tell you what happens while they or you are away. They will trust you, and you will be building a child of honor, power, and confidence, only when you show up as a friend.

 3. Give your children what you can afford, especially the basic needs. 

 When it comes to basic needs, I give kudos to my mom. 

Don’t overdress when your kids are wearing rags. Manage what you have. Things will change for you. One of the reasons for my low self-esteem a child was because I had to wear oversized clothes and shoes, sometimes is “my sister dash me” (a gift from someone older than I do or mom bought it from a thrift store. It was not for a mean intention; she buys oversize so that I won’t outgrow it in time, unfortunately by the time the cloths fits, is already becoming a rag (smiles**). 

Okay now! What about the oversize shoes, the shoe will be padded with lots of cushion pieces of stuff or toilet paper. Still, the shoe will have to run after me (laughs**) because as I take a step, my leg will keep slipping out of the shoes. You see that was over. Are you at that point of buying embarrassing oversize stuff for your children now? Don’t worry; it will soon be over. But please, if you can, try not to let your kids put on oversize, especially your teens. If the clothes are just five (5) pieces, let it be neat and well combined, NO to oversize(my opinion)

 4. Feed your children well. 

 Yes, sometimes we might not have food to eat as my struggling single mum often hit rock bottom. But as soon as someone comes to our rescue or she gets back on her feet, we eat the best, and balanced diet that is not even so expensive. I mean homemade nutritious meal.

 Also from her, I learned how to manage what I have with contentment in time of need.

 I remember neighbors asking if I have eaten and I will say “I am okay” even when I have not. I remember when neighbors give us food, we cover it till mom comes back and authorize us to either eat or trash it (as the spirit leads, smiles*). 

Those were virtues that makeup contentment. 

That too will pass away if you are at that point at the moment. Don’t give up; keep nurturing your children.

 5. Put your finances together

 Single parenting can be very tough; I mean tight. Oh! Am I even telling you? If you are a single mom, you know what I am talking about, right? But when financial stress is out of the list in your life, the rest is probably health or emotions to deal. 

No matter what, cultivate savings habit. Is not about saving a lot, is about consistently saving the little, Patrice Washington is someone to follow on financial issues.

 Many single moms are hustlers. You know how to make money and spend all on your children, but you don’t know how to grow and invest it. Financial education is a must if you want to build generational wealth. Go and read books, watch youtube videos on financial literacy, and build a world of your own. It might take time, but it is possible. Download free books on an issue you are dealing with from this link

 6. Manage your emotions

 Single mothers always think they are stressed and sincerely you are for real stressed. But the truth is your children will be more stressed as a result of your emotional roller coaster. I grew up with so much fear and anxiety from my mum’s transferred aggression our of the stress of single parenting.

 Low self-esteem was another issue I battled with until I was able to know who I am and the low self-esteem comes from teasing and the thought of not having a father in my life as a child. 

 I always thought everyone who has their parents together is better than me, as I began to understand life, it was clear that many homes were on fire but only pretended to be okay from afar.

 Long story short, anxiety, anger, depression is very common to most single mothers for so many reasons. They carry responsibilities alone often, care solely, make decisions alone, and many more, haba (why?)!!! That is overwhelming enough. 

 So, here is the secret, learn, to breath, meditate, and speak to your children without emotions. Mothers, watch out for my videos on managing emotions as a single mother on Sunday via my YouTube channel (Tosin Opeoluwa).

 Please click this link and subscribe to my youtube channel, remember to hit the notification bell to get the latest videos that inspire single moms from me if you are inspired. Give me a thumb up and share with friends and family.

 I love and celebrate you, single moms. 

 It’s your girl, ‘Tosin Opeoluwa-Inspiring Single Moms

 Follow me on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, also check in to my new Facebook community Inspiring Single Moms.

Thank you.

[the-pandering-fool]

Disconnection is it a good thing?

In a world where video games are as prevalent as they are plentiful, how do they disconnect us from reality in a way we can kill and steal from just about anyone and feel no remorse? More importantly, is that a good thing?

At their core video games are an escape from reality that allow us (the player) to do things we never thought possible, or that we’ve always wanted to do without any real consequence. It’s because of this that many people love them, they can slay dragons and save the princess, be what they aren’t, and do so from the comfort of their own homes.

Being able to do impossible things has always driven mankind to great heights, it drove the Wright Brothers to build the first (functional) planes, Thomas Edison to make the incandescent light bulb and the phonograph. Needless to say it can accomplish amazing things. It’s what led people to make the first narrative driven games, they were a marvel of entertainment, for the first time rather than just being an observer you were the hero. These games gave you control and made an experience uniquely its own, like salted caramel. It’s a wonderful thing they do letting anyone be anything for any reason.

Let’s take an example of  a relatively recently released game Monster Hunter World (let’s call it MHW from here on out). In MHW you take on the role of a Hunter, someone who hunts Monsters - giant dangerous beasts with strange abilities - for science. I know that sounds a bit weird but we’ll talk about that later. What we’re going to talk about now, is how MHW uses common strategies in media to make players follow it’s narrative, not feel bad about hunting the dozens of monsters, harvesting their skin to craft various weapons and armor, and to keep hunting.

Most video games use some common strategies to make the player  feel like they’re not responsible for any bad decisions they make. One of these strategies  is called dissociation — in other words, disconnecting the player from the character they’re playing. In MHW one thing the do to achieve this is they never call you by name, instead they give you the title of Hunter or occasionally call you Fiver (a title given because you are from the 5th research fleet). They also call every other Hunter this too so don’t feel special just yet. By doing this they make you feel less important and like you’re one of many, and it’s not a bad thing to start with. MHW draws a clear line between you and your expectations, but also leave room for interpretation and character development, saying you have to earn your place here, and until you do you’re just a gear in the machine. And eventually you do, in the end you are granted the title of Sapphire Star, this title has significance in the lore of MHW so it’s quite an honor for you to have.

It’s not an easy road to earn your place in the world though, you need to be a skilled Hunter and craft some pretty strong gear to beat the final boss in MHW. You might be asking what I mean by “crafting strong gear”,  in MHW progression is both locked by story, player skill, and gear. This means that you’ll have to keep hunting specific monsters to harvest materials, or mats, to make better weapons and armour so it doesn’t take an hour to kill a monster or you don’t die by a sneeze from a stronger one. Monster slaying is exactly what the game wants  the player to do as well! By locking things behind progression walls the game makes you play more and more to fight stronger and cooler monsters.

In MHW the payer is given many ways to hunt as well. There are 14 different weapon classes each with their own unique set of skills and fighting styles. And let me tell you choosing just one is extremely hard. I myself use about 4 of them on a regular basis, the Insect Glaive (IG), Charge Blade (CB), Longsword (LS), and Switch Axe (SA). These names alone probably don’t mean much to you do they? I’m gonna get a bit technical here so if you’re not as big a nerd as I am skip ahead to the next part which I’ll mark with an * for you.

Now allow me to get into the nitty gritty of the IG for you as it is my personal favorite weapon. The IG is a powerful weapon used to give a player a much needed aerial advantage in combat. It has two main features which are its ability to propel a hunter into the air and stay there, and the Kinsect.

The Kinsect is your own little buggy buddy that helps you hunt more effectively by gathering different extracts from monsters. These extracts are categorized by color, red is attack, by collecting it your moveset changes and you’re able to dish out more damage, orange is defense/resistance, it gives you a small buff to your defense and elemental resistances, white is an amplifier, it boosts the effectiveness of the other extracts, and finally there’s green, it heals you just a little bit. And this is just 1 of 14 different weapon archetypes you can use. They also get even more complicated as well so there’s definitely a learning curve involved, but if you can master a weapon practically nothing can stop you.

*Some of you might be arguing that we as the player are destroying the ecosystem by going out and slaughtering these creatures and that’s wrong. It’s true that if you were to go out on a mission to kill every squirrel in existence you would damage the ecosystem. However in MHW every monster you hunt is an apex predator, meaning they’re at the top of the food chain and the only thing that they have to worry about are the other monsters you’ll eventually hunt.

Plus you need to have a suspension of belief to properly enjoy most games anyway, meaning you need to recognize that what you’re doing has no real world consequences. You can hunt a Legania a thousand times and you’re still gonna have to go to work on Monday.

I talked about the fact that you are hunting for science earlier and it’s true. In MHW you are exploring a brand new continent, dubbed the new world, and have very limited information on the creatures that live there. So it’s your job not only to hunt these monsters but to study them. You can even capture them and bring them back to your base so the rest of the research team can examine them further, this might not be the smartest way to do it, but hey it works. MHW encourages this by giving you bounties to hunt specific monsters and rewarding you with currency and mats. Plus the more you hunt a monster the better you get at it. You’re able to track them better, learn their individual quirks, such as what the best element to use while hunting them is. And you can do it with each of the many monsters making mayhem and mischief. Over time you learn their habits, you learn their weaknesses, and you learn their faults.

One of my personal favorite monsters from MHW is the aforementioned (and shown above yay for gifs!) Legania. It is, on the most basic level, an ice dragon. The Legania is also a ‘boss’ monster, it’s the true apex predator of one of the environments. At first the Legania is a pain in the ass to hunt, it’s nimble, has a variety of AOE attacks, and can fly. If you jump right in and try fighting it Leroy Jenkins style you’re probably gonna get carted (die) a few times.

On the other hand if you stay back and watch how it moves and interacts with the environment, you’ll learn that when it lands it becomes extremely vulnerable, and that you can force it to land in some places by placing bait. The game rewards you for playing the way it wants you to. Just like any other game there are proper ways to play where you get the best results.

Another strategy MHW uses is Immersion. It creates a world that makes sense and draws the player in. It accomplishes this by showing how the different creatures interact in the areas you explore. The player is constantly reminded how dangerous their job is by seeing the more docile herbivores eaten and hunted by the dominant predators. Even the predators fight in aptly named “turf wars”. The player can be hunting one creature and out of nowhere a bigger, stronger one can finish the job by flinging it around like a chew toy. In some instances you can also find two monsters fighting over food, or their hunting grounds overlap and they proceed to fight for dominance, the loser leaving the area wounded but still alive.

By giving players attainable goals, an immersive world, unique and challenging opponents, and many ways to play MHW does a great job disconnecting players from the real world. Yes, getting too lost in a game is a bad thing, but sometimes that’s exactly what someone needs. By giving players an outlet to forget the chaos of the world around them video games are an amazing thing. Moderation is the key to not only enjoying, but enjoying video games healthily. That’s right, it’s as simple as mere moderation. So next time you have a bad day, or maybe just need to shut out the day to day chaos of the world, grab a controller, hit up your friends, and just lose yourself in a good game.

[pixiesstolemyapples]

Stormy Nights Chapter 4

A/N: Here is the newest chapter! This has been fairly easy for me to write lately, maybe because of how much I’m really loving Voltron! But I sure hope you all enjoy this chapter, I had a really fun time writing it! If you’d also like to read this chapter on my FanFiction or my AO3, please click on those links!

Chapter 1/Chapter 2/Chapter 3/Chapter 4

               Pidge stirred, feeling slightly stiff but contentedly calm as she opened her eyes. Why... am I sitting up..? she wondered to herself. Did I fall asleep like this? She yawned, rubbing her eye, suddenly realizing someone was leaning against her. The more she woke up, the more she became aware of her surroundings and remembering where she was in the first place. She remembered not being able to get to sleep, wanting to play a game until she got tired and watched Lance play some Killbot Phantasm until she eventually fell asleep.

               Lance and her were leaning up against the side of his bed, Lance's head resting against the mattress and Pidge's head at the same time. At least in that sense they were fairly comfortable. Pidge's arm lightly wrapped around Lance's limp forearm, taking a deep breath and exhaling shakily as she realized how incredibly close they currently were. It wasn't like she was uncomfortable, in fact she was the exact opposite. She felt incredibly at ease being this close to Lance. After all, she was able to fall asleep barely fifteen minutes after she cuddled up to him when she couldn't fall asleep before. And he was sound asleep too. Wasn't he playing the game late last night because he couldn't fall asleep as well?

               Pidge went to push her glasses up on her face when she realized they weren't there. Her freckled cheeks dusted pink. He must have taken them off when I fell asleep. She giggled, a warm feeling embracing her chest and a fluttering in her stomach. Not that she needed them to see, but it was a nice gesture all the same.

               She glanced over at Lance, not being able to see his face unless she moved, not wanting to wake him from his sleep. She could hear his steady breath, the feeling of his shoulder rising up and then down making her feel even more at ease, a small smile appearing on her face.

               She then realized that she could still hear the soft soundtrack of Killbot Phantasm and noticed the controller laying in Lance's limp hand. Chuckling, Pidge grabbed the controller from his hand, careful not to wake him up. It looked like he had finally gotten past Freya's mansion, happy that her advice had obviously helped him. He was back in the town nearest to the mansion with the Ruby Brooch of Freya Von Trennis in his party's possession, ready to return it to her great, great granddaughter in order to get the next piece to the Millennium Map. He'd done pretty well, then, hopefully using some of her advice when he was fighting the boss. She looked down at Lance's hand, her hand almost touching his. Pidge didn't want this reverie of hers to end so quickly, of her being so close to Lance. Every time he'd slept next to her she'd woken up alone. This was the first time he was still there when she woke up. She just wanted him to stay there a bit longer.

               She saved Lance's game, carefully using her toes to restart the system to get onto her own file of Killbot Phantasm. She was at least three areas ahead of where Lance was in the game, but she was sure he wouldn't mind if she played in front of him. Plus, he wasn't even awake, so there were no spoilers to be had there. She just.. didn't want to end their closeness yet. She couldn't exactly place why she felt so anxious to not wake him up, why she still wanted to feel the warmth from him, the feeling of him weighing slightly on her. Everything was just so incredibly pleasant feeling. She didn't want the tightness in her chest, the twinges and butterflies in her stomach to stop.

               She exhaled, beginning to focus a little more on where she was in the game. She relaxed a bit more against Lance's body, squeezing his bicep in her elbow a little as she pushed the buttons on her controller. She was already halfway through the Rotale Woodland, the once gentle and quiet wood now cursed to be a rotten, putrid swamp full of poisonous enemies that was now known as the Fetid Forest. Poison levels weren't exactly her forte, she liked more haunted areas and water levels in video games, but she knew enough to get by. Didn't mean she liked poison levels. The main thing she needed in poison levels or when fighting against poison enemies was high resistance, which was hard to come by in this game. She could always grind for exp, but the most she gets at level up is +1, maybe +2 res at a time, and at this late in the game it took a long time to get to the next level. Plus seeds of resistance only worked on one character per seed given and weren't easy to find in the first place.

               Pidge's only options to get through this forest without dying were using armor and weapons that up resistance at the cost of attack and maybe defense, but lowered defense was better than a high chance of getting poisoned. Antidotes were expensive, rare to find in chests and took a lot of items to synthesize that she could be using for more useful alchemy. And poison meant negative HP for each character afflicted each turn, which means she's having to use more potions or healing magic instead of attacking. Making it to the middle of the level oughta help her, which is when her magician is finally able to learn to Recover, a spell that heals poison, paralysis and confusion, right before she fights the mini-boss. But getting to that point can be a bit tricky nonetheless. Nothing Pidge couldn't handle, though.

               She already made sure to give most of her seeds of resistance to her magician, who even though has high magic defense, unfortunately has pretty low resistance, and equipping her hero the metal boomerang, which had a bit lower attack power but was able to hit a full line of enemies at once, helped take out Bittersnakes and Water Hags.

               "You're pretty good at this game," a voice suddenly said. Pidge yelped, moving away and dropping the controller. Lance smirked, a glint in his dark blue eyes.

               Pidge, desperately trying to calm her racing heart, asked him, "How-How long have you been awake?"

               Lance shrugged. "Maybe about ten minutes?" God, that long? Just sitting there, saying nothing with me pressed up against him? Pidge blushed, not exactly sure what to say. Lance side smiled, glancing at her up and down for a moment. "Why didn't you just wake me up?"

               "Um.." Pidge stammered for a moment. She couldn't just tell him it was because she liked cuddling with him, that would be nuts. "Y-You said you couldn't get to sleep before, so I just didn't want to wake you up."

               Lance shrugged and smiled, choosing not to think much into it, much to Pidge's relief. She picked the controller back up and relaxed against his mattress again. "I guess I'll trek back and find a save point then."

               "Awww, why?" Lance fake pouted.

               "Well, I'm sure you don't want to see any spoilers, so.."

               "Come on, I don't mind, I like watching people play video games," Lance said, snaking his arm around her shoulder, draping his other arm over his knee and leaning himself on her, causing a hot blush to creep over Pidge's cheeks. "Maybe I can learn a thing or two from you. You did help me beat that dungeon last night."

               Pidge was happy she was able to help, smiling at the thought of Lance actually listening to her. She started playing the game again, pushing up on the directional pad to go further into the festering woods. It was fun to have him watching her play, him asking the occasional question, squeezing her closer to him whenever he laughed at a joke she made or when she easily defeated a low level enemy.

               She realized it was so nice just to hang out with him, just to talk with him. She'd been so preoccupied with trying to find her family that she hadn't had much time to really sit down and just hang out with him. There had been quite a few times they've talked one on one, but this was a rare time they could just sit and relax, to just talk and laugh, sit close... Pidge's heart skipped a beat when Lance lightly pushed his forehead against the side of her head for a moment as a laughed at a silly moment between the hero and the magician. Pidge exhaled as slowly and quietly as she could so Lance couldn't hear her anxiously try to still her wildly beating heart.

               It had been an incredibly long day; intense training, returning a distress signal from a nearby planet being attacked  by Galra forces, and for the fifth time in a row Keith showed up at the last minute to form Voltron and finally push back the rest of the remaining attackers. With Keith nowhere to be seen, the best Allura and Lance could do was hold off the Galra while Pidge and Hunk touched down on the planet to get the nearby inhabitants to a safer location. Everything ended up fine in the end, and Keith has been doing amazing work with the Blade of Marmora the last few months, but it was an incredibly close call there for a while. Needless to say, Shiro was less than impressed with Keith.

               With all of that and then a massive and grueling training session from Shiro, not to mention Pidge still finding time that night to try and fail to find more intel on her missing brother and father.

               All of that and Pidge still couldn't get to sleep. She could barely feel her arms and legs, her eyes felt heavy. She even took a warm shower to help tire her out more, but still nothing. She was just floating somewhere in between being awake and actually sleeping, which was worse than not being able to sleep. She sat up, an exasperated sigh escaping her throat. She stared around her dimly lit room, looking around at all the things strewn about the floor, clothes, electronics, trash paladins. Her eyes fell on her two blue and green space caterpillars sleeping soundly on one of her trash paladins. At least they can sleep, she thought to herself.

               She just didn't understand. It had been almost two weeks since Quaid and she had only gotten a handful of even slightly restful nights. She'd tried everything to make herself sleepy, training, warm milk, stretches before bed, even resorting to counting sheep. Still, nothing helped her.

               Pidge groaned and got up from her bed, slipping her glasses on. She paced around, and paced, and paced, and paced some more. Finally coming to the conclusion that she wasn't going to tire herself out by simply pacing about, Pidge opened her door and stepped out into the dimly lit hallway. Tiredly padding past her room, she scratched her head, lightly slapping her hand to her cheek as she wracked her brain at what to do. This was really starting to get irritating, two weeks of little sleep really was enough. Plus with all the missions, training, and analyzing countless sets of data to try to find her family should have been wearing her out to the point that she should fall asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow. How could she not find the outlying issue here?

               Pidge then heard a noise, turning her head and seeing Lance walk out of his room, rubbing the back of his neck and covering his mouth as he yawned. Suddenly realizing she was there, he said, "Oh, Pidge. I didn't see you there."

               She side smiled, sympathy in her eyes. "Hey, Lance. Are you alright? What are you still doing up?"

               He smiled in tandem. "I'm fine, Pidge, thanks. I appreciate the sympathy. It's nothing though, I just-"

               "Can't get to sleep," they both said in unison. Lance raised his eyebrows in surprise. Pidge cupped her hands together, leaning her back on the wall and looking down at her feet. Lance leaned his side against his doorframe, crossing his arms as he stared at her.

               "So...." Lance murmured, biting his bottom lip, craning his neck to try to look at her face. "Are you alright, Pidge?"

               She looked up at him, puffing her bangs away from her face, a small side smile appearing on her face. "I'm fine, just... haven't been able to sleep and I-"

               "Don't know why," they said in unison once again. Pidge furrowed her brows, looking back down again, putting her thumb to her lips, thinking. She looked back up at him, a tired albeit inquisitive look in her eyes.

               "When was the last time you were able to get to sleep, Lance?" Pidge asked quietly. Lance looked upwards, his mouth squishing to the side in thought.

               "Uh, I'm not really sure I guess," he quietly chuckled. "I fell asleep not long after I beat that mansion you helped me get through." Pidge raised her eyebrows in realization. "And, you know, I actually slept pretty peacefully when you were so scared of the thun-DER!" Lance oofed as Pidge suddenly pushed him off the doorframe, turning him around and maneuvering him into his room with both hands on his back.

               "Uh Pidge?" Lance said confused as he heard his door close. She pushed him onto his bed, landing on his back with a wild look on his quickly reddening face. "Pidge?!"

               "Shh," Pidge said, bumping his legs onto the bed with her knees.

               "Wha, but-"

               "Shut up," she shushed, crawling into the open spot next to him. "I want to try something."

               "T-Try what," Lance breathed. Pidge grabbed his shoulder, pulling him closer and pressing her face into his chest so he couldn't see the bright red blush powdering her freckled face. Her heart was beating so hard in her chest, her idea could prove meaningless if she couldn't get her heart to calm down. Although Lance's was also beating swiftly in tandem. Nonetheless, there was no going back, no relenting now. Let's see if this works.

               Lance set his hand heavy on her waist, fiddling with her soft sleep shirt, finding difficulty in searching for the right words to say in a situation where a girl pushes you onto a bed. He gently set his hand to her shoulder, pushing her away to look at her face. She looked down sheepishly, then tentatively looked up to him. The room was dimly lit by the floor lights, Pidge barely able to see his face, but his blue eyes were huge. She could smell his minty breath, she could feel his warm hand squeezing her shoulder. Suddenly he leaned forward, causing Pidge's heart to skip a beat. She squeezed her eyes shut, only to feel his hands on her face, slipping her glasses off her face. She ripped open her eyes as he leaned over her to set her glasses next to his bed.

               Her heart almost couldn't take it, not that she was entirely sure what she was expecting. She desperately tried to calm her labored breathing, hoping to god he wasn't hearing it. She squeezed herself to the bed, hiding her face in his chest once more. She felt his hand weighing back on her waist, curving around to her back, gently squeezing her sleep shirt between his fingers. For a moment Pidge thought that maybe this was a mistake, feeling her heart beating so fast may be making her feel too anxious to sleep.

               But he was so warm. And so close, with his arms tight around her. She felt so at ease and so content and so.... safe. She felt her eyes drifting shut, a floaty, wispy feeling falling over her as she finally fell into the warm and welcoming embrace of sleep.

[hgfstreamchats]

Pokemon Yellow Nuzlocke: Part 1

Hello! Greetings. This website seems determined to change how it works every week or so. It's revolting. I still haven't gotten around figuring out how to archive. Assuming there is a way to do so. Soundwave's apparently worked something out, but nothing for the long term. Until they stop fiddling with the site itself, then there's no figuring out a permanent system. Eugh. Any hints as to what this is? A short film that should have won at the Oscars and didn't. And I've been incredibly surly over this. I see... Unattended children die in a clay mire? And how! hello! Hello there! Hello. what is happening here Bad decisions. good times, then In an asbestos mine -- nobody's favorite mineral to eat. Too late then. He died as he lived -- choking on lungs full of cold, wet, sucking asbestos and groundwater. how very existential A cautionary tale in not allowing children to wander. It's very Cybertronian!

Alright. Now let's see if we can get this emulator working. Flawless paragon of its kind, truly Oh, there we are! Is the sound alright for everyone? No problems? It seems to be working fine. coming through perfetly clear and 16-bit Fantastic! What to name your rival? Oh, so many possibilities. and only seven letters to do it in Let's see, who do I hate? and, if the name is too long, do you have a demeaning nickname Fair enough. True, and cutting his name short probably WOULD annoy him more Oh, immensely. The hardest part of this game is apparently thinking of names. I'm having fun so far! it's almost like it didn't stand a chance against a rodent that literally stores lightning in itself Your rat is displeased. Look at that face! We'll get along perfectly! Alright, here are the rules of the game. First pokemon encountered in any given area is the one we catch, fainting means death, and we get one Mulligan on Lambo because he's my special, darling little boy. Seems straight forward enough. Do you have to name all the monsters you catch? Every single one. So you get attached Absolutely. If we're not all crying before this project is at an end, I've failed as your master of ceremonies and you can point and laugh at me. I promise to point and laugh if you get all your monsters killed before reaching the next city. That's reasonable. Oh yes, back to the naming screen! Scrap. That was an accident. I thought you could only catch the first pidgey you encountered in this area? We're cheating a little because it's the first area. Tsk tsk. yeah, aren't we basically still in the forced tutorials bit? Game hasn't properly started yet Exactly. Hence The Rat With No Name, whom I'm sure we'll all grow to accept regardless. Unless it dies. then we'll accept it as The Rat That Lasted Less Than An Hour UI'm here! What did I miss? Hello! We watched a child drown in a mire, and now it is time for imaginary monster catching. Nuzlocke edition Ahhh I'm just seeing the rabbit loading screen If I'd known we were starting at the old time, I would have been here! Also, hang on while I reload Night human! Welcome! So, I hear the game music, but there's no video. Can anyone else see... anything? It is working for me. Same Gosh! This is exactly what I wanted to deal with. If I'd known we were starting at the old time, I would have been here! Also, hang on while I reload Night human! Welcome! So, I hear the game music, but there's no video. Can anyone else see... anything? It is working for me. Same Gosh! This is exactly what I wanted to deal with. Yeah, Rabbit's been... just stellar tonight Let me save and then try something. .............................. Son of a glitch. Well, that's why we save often. I'll try a different browser. I'd be lying if I said I din't fear for the Rat With No Name's Future. Eh. To be fair, you probably should. He's very delicate. He probably cries a lot. I think I need to reboot. brb Look at them clearing out those harmless, low level wild mice and rats. That's my team! Devastating the local ecosystem. The perfect hobby for ten year old children. pff, wait 'til we start catching the ones said to be responsible for the weather Assuming we get that far. I do not think the Rat is going to make it that far along. Don't you talk about my Rat that way. It's not his fault he's good at nothing. Time to move out of the baby field. And start playing with the rules properly? Yes nd I'm still not getting any video. Very odd... I'm using Rabbit Share. Does that make a difference? I don't know Hold on. Let me try rebooting it. After I name the new bird. If it's working for other people, then the problem is on my end yeah, best guess? Video drivers are acting up. wait! there it is! woo! Okay, so, Chrome works, Opera no longer does, I guess. So are we permanently back to starting at 6-6:30, or is this a one-time thing? A one time thing, at least until spring. I was feeling under the weather, so no newspark wrangling tonight." Ahhhh If I'd known I wouldn't have stayed late at work, and then run errands, and then gone out for takeout... Hmm, name suggestions for the bug? Or at the least, not those last two things "Twinkie" Ha. Now, who shall die Two mons enter, one mon leaves! And then you take the loser's money. ...it lets you JUMP OVER short hedges! well, yeah, I mean that's just general death match rules regarding money, right? So are they GIVING you the money or are you looting it from their dead/unconscious body? Mostly throwing it at you so you'll let them rush their monsters to medical aid Ah, so you're mugging them. Though, I guess they start out trying to mug YOU, so... You've killed their monsters. It is a bribe to avoid being slain as well. and this is a Nuzlocke, so they WILL kill you given half a chance It's a dangerous pokeworld out there I never knew bullying children could be so much fun! I find that statement highly suspect. Indeed, I am fairly certain you've enjoyed bullying children before this. Those were human children, they didn't count. These are Pokemon universe children. Very different. Aah, I see. *raises eyebrows* So... Pokemon universe children aren't human? .... According to the lore, they are also Pokemon. What, really? Ew. It is a strange universe That would explain why they all look the same, I guess. Or, uh... you know what I mean. The Nurse Joy lore is actually FASCINATINGLY weird Oh help me, that's adorable. I'd like to make it through the gym without casulties. *casualties It is going to be a challenge. Ooooo! A new one! Okay, rules be scrapped, I want her! We won't tell. In the name of gender diversity. Who needs rules, anyway? Besides, poison is pretty much the most fun type to play with Woohoo! Oh, it has horns? "Horny" No. "Spiky" Also vaguely inappropriate. Shoot, I was going for VERY inappropriate. Moonbeam. Very inappropriate would be something like Valveula'. Ooo, nice. I should have named my rival Valveula. You should have. You could do that next time. She's blue and thorny. I should have called her Arcee. /me hurriedly disguises a laugh as a cough A PURPLE one! Nice. In the interest of not cheating quite so much, I won't use him. I'll tuck him away and use him if worst comes to worst. Maybe the name should reflect that? Hmmmm. No room for "There's Been An Accident." exigency? "Whoopsie"? Ooh, I like that. 😃 Another! She's having none of it. If little Alpina/Arcee's going to survive the gym, she's got to learn to kill everything she loved. yeah, I've seen this first gym break the teeth of the unprepared LOTS of Nidorans all of a sudden Where were they when catching one wouldn't have been cheating? Hiding from you. And how did that work out for you, Nidorans? Have you caught all the pokemon you're allowed to before the gym? I have. There's mankey in the forest, but that's more cheating than I'm willing to do. Ahhhh. Well, would you look at that! Look at what? Little Twinkie's growing up. Oh! : ) Soon he'll be a full grown twink. Honestly, if I'd realized he was green and not yellow, I would have suggested, like... Bean It worked out this way. I guess it did! Maybe he's, like, an Easter twinkie That he is! My god https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/513t76TJEVL._SX355_.jpg https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/513t76TJEVL._SX355_.jpg images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com Oh, I thought it would actually show the image. Whoops Silly question, but does that... cost anything? To heal them up? not a cent Nice! Yeah! Take on Brock! Kick his ass! I'm at least going to get some experience off his little lackey trainers. Well now. That was too close a call for the Rat With No Name. You could just call him Boy. Time to face the first gym leader I just realized this is Zelda music Or nearly. Time to die. Rock hard defense. Pfffhehehehe Nice. *cheering* The cheating to get her was not in vain. See, children? Cheaters always prosper. We'll go to the moon cave, then pack up for the night. Nice. Oh no! You let that monster die. RIP Lambo. Ah, ah, remember! Lambo gets one mulligan! I remember. Just as he shall remember this death. Oh, well, that's alright then. He's seen what's beyond. He'll never be the same. You monster. On the plus side, the upcoming Gym has plenty of targets for his traumatized wrath That should stop him from murdering us all in our beds. Yes, that's right; have him murder other pokechilds instead. There's nothing behind those little eyes of his. Now that's not true. His death has placed the void of oblivion within his gaze When you gaze into the void, Lambo gazes back. He knows there's nothing watching out for us. Hmm. What to name the pig monkey? Witwicky. Ha. That's mean. I like it. I've been told I'm a mean individual. Probably by jealous people. Anakin. It's small and fat and full of life, like Lambo was until about 15 minutes ago. I love it. And it LOVES sand. : ) : D my children. I'm so proud. They're in the news! And I think that's where we'll wrap it up for now! This seems like a good point. Aww. Well, it was fun! Thank you for hosting tonight's nonsense. you survived, you got a badge, and there was only minimal cheating! It's the best scenario we could have hoped for! And for our traditional parting high note... A for effort. I'm sure it tastes fine. PFFF Why is he dying I like the cookie lodged in his head. His life is pain. I like the expression oh my god I called it. That's his dick. ... A very high note to end on. I'm glad you think so! That was great. Good night, everyone! Thank you for coming and enduring all of that level grinding! Goodnight! thank you, good night! Thanks for the stream, and goodnight!