#If too many people asked about AK the event ends and sure enough it happened lol

[baconcolacan]

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AAAAAAAAAAND THATS IT!! EVENT OVER!!! THANK YOU SO SO MUCH TO EVERYBODY WHO INTERACTED AND HAD A LITTLE BIT OF FUN WITH ME!!!!!

Im really sorry to those who sent in asks a bit too late though, I can see that some of you wanted to have longer conversations with Tom buuuuut this event IS on a time constraint and ask limit so I had to cut it short. [Though who knows?? Maybe Tom can come over and answer your questions again one day :3c]

AGAIN THANKS SO SO MUCH FOR PARTICIPATING IN MY SILLY LITTLE EVENT!! I had a lot of fun puppeteering Tom and interacting with yall!! Love you guys <3 mwah mwah!! <3 <3 <3

[hopelesshawks]

History of Us Part 11- Qualifiers

Summary: Once upon a time Todoroki and (y/n) were best friends. Now they haven’t spoken in years. When (y/n) is forced to transfer to UA, will she and Shoto reconnect or will their troubled past keep them apart? A childhood friends to enemies to lovers hybrid fic.

If you don’t want to see History of Us content blacklist #hopelesshou

Masterlist Kofi

The moment right before the start of the sports festival is shockingly nerve-wracking. Each step through the tunnels, closer to the main field of the arena, fills you with more dread and excitement and anticipation. You keep your head raised high, wearing your UA gym uniform proudly as the roaring of the crowd starts to meet your ears. With Bakugo on your right and Kirishima on your left, you almost feel invincible. This is your chance, your opportunity, to show everyone what you’re capable of and show all of Japan that you refuse to be defined by your father’s tainted legacy. Present Mic’s voice booms over the speakers, his grinning face plastered across the monitors as you finally step out onto the field, astroturf crunching beneath your feet as he sings the praises of hero course class 3A. The crowd’s enthusiastic cheering is addictive. You make a point to soak it in while you can. Right now each and every one of them see you as a hero. While some of the students lamented not being able to wear their costumes for the event, you were secretly glad for it. The uniform made you a generic UA student; for now, unburdened by the past.

“This never gets old,” Kirishima grins next to you as you all step into the central area and the other classes begin to filter out into the coliseum as well. A few of them grumble, giving the hero classes jaded looks, but even their ire cannot dampen the overall atmosphere. You instinctively find yourself seeking out a familiar pair of heterochromatic eyes, eventually finding them next to Midoriya, Iida, and Uraraka. You can’t help the way your heart trips over itself when you lock eyes with Shoto. Memories of the night before and of waking up in his arms float to the forefront of your mind and you scowl before shaking your head to physically dispel the image from your mind. You turn away from him, missing the hurt that flashes across his eyes. He redirects his attention back to Principal Nezu, chief umpire as usual for the third years. “Now Shoto Todoroki will give the class pledge,” Nezu announces before ceding the floor.

The school had made the executive decision not to let Bakugo give the pledge after that first year. Midoriya had nearly passed out when it was his turn second year (as much as he has grown, public speaking still isn’t quite his forte). This made Todoroki the obvious choice for this year’s class pledge. As he approaches the mic he can’t help but think of Bakugo’s first speech. He remembers Midoriya telling him later the apparent narcissistic declaration that Bakugo had made to be number one had actually been to box himself into a corner to make sure he followed through. The more he thinks on it the more Shoto relates to that desire. His eyes scan the crowd until he spots his father amongst the rest. He makes sure to make direct eye contact, his eyes boring into his father’s as he leans down to speak into the mic. “I pledge... that we will create a new legacy of our own and destroy legacies of old,” he says confidently. He thinks he sees a flash of hurt and disappointment in Endeavor’s eyes even from the great distance between them. He turns to stride down the stairs of the stage and he can’t help but seek you out amongst the crowd of fellow students, hoping you got the message.

You tense a bit as your heart skips another beat. That boy is going to give you heart palpitations. Bakugo nudges you harshly in the side, causing you to jerk your head to scowl at him. “You good, nerd?” he asks, concern softening his usual bite a fraction. “I’m great. Ready to start kicking ass,” you reply, pushing down all your Shoto-related feelings for examination later. “Good,” is all Bakugo replies before his attention returns to Nezu. You can’t help but smile a little at Bakugo’s concern. He’s a surprisingly good friend and you’re grateful Kirishima introduced the two of you. When the direct elimination round comes around you’ll be merciless, but you have full confidence the two of you will make it through the qualifiers and you know the two of you and Kirishima will make for a great team for whatever the second round will be. “Don’t forget loser. I better see you on the fucking podium,” you remind him with a smirk. “You ain’t gotta worry about me idiot. Worry about yourself,” he replies although there’s no heat behind the words and he’s smirking just as much as you.

As the first game is announced you resolve yourself to staying middle of the pack for now. You don’t want to draw too much attention and let everyone discover your identity too quickly. You’re keenly aware that the second round is almost always a team event and without knowing how many people will be on a team, you can’t rely on Bakugo and Kirishima. Furthermore, any team you’re on would only become a target. Bakugo would kill you if he knew you have no intentions of trying your all in the qualifying round of course but you have to be strategic. No one pays much attention to the lower ranks from round 1, it’ll be easier to slip under the radar. Then, in round 2, you’ll kick it up a notch to prove your worth. At that point winning will become the only important matter. Creating a new legacy while destroying the old, as Shoto put it.

So that’s exactly what you do. The first game is a so called “Tower of Terror” that had been constructed in the preceding weeks. The task is simple enough in theory: scale the tower, cross from there to the ramp connected to the stadium, and return to the field. Only rule is that falling off the tower entirely is an immediate elimination. The amount of people being promoted out of the qualifying round is, as usual, a secret but you do the math to get a good idea of how many would optimally be removed and think you have a good estimate to ensure you’ll remain relatively anonymous. Your strategy pays off and you finish in the 30s out of the approximately 50 who qualify. As you finish your slide down the ramp, glowing faintly as you heal the minor injuries you’ve collected, a fuming Bakugo is storming up to you and you roll your eyes.

“The fuck you doing half and half?” he demands as you dust yourself off. “None of your goddamn business Pomeranian,” you fire back. “What happened to trying to be the best huh? Didn’t think you were one for dirty tricks,” he accuses. You feel your temper starting to genuinely flare at that comment. “I’m not pulling dirty tricks I’m trying to survive asshole. Not all of us can afford to be showy right out the gate,” you seethe. “I didn’t take you for a coward.” “I didn’t take you for an idiot.” “Say that shit again and I’ll blast you out the fucking stadium.” “I’d like to see you fucking try.” Both of you grip hold of the front of each other’s shirts, your right hand raised as your quirk makes shadows pool in it and one of his hands raised already popping off explosions. Before either of you can draw more attention to yourselves or actually act on your anger, you’re frozen in place. Literally. “All that work you did to keep your identity under wraps will be for nothing if Present Mic or Nezu comment about you and Bakugo fighting between games. Especially if they decide to disqualify you over it,” Shoto says as he approaches the both of you before melting the ice keeping you and Bakugo from pummeling each other. “I don’t recall fucking asking you,” you spit back, whirring to face your former friend. “I’m only trying to help,” Shoto responds placatingly but it’s too late to quell your anger. “Well fucking stop trying to,” you tell him before storming off. You need to focus on the next event anyway and not stupid Shoto with his stupid face and his stupid need to stick his nose in your fucking business.

The second event is...

Rough.

To say the least.

You and Bakugo were still too pissed at each other to make a proper team so you’d ended up with Yaoyorozu, Denki, and Sero. You admired their quirks and objectively they were strong, but it wasn’t exactly a perfectly complementary combination of skills. Each member of the team was given a target they were required to protect, almost exactly like the provisional licensing exam held during your first year, except with one major twist. Every member of your team was linked together by a short leash attached to their wrists. Last four teams standing would advance to the finals. Without his costume or support items to help direct his lightning Denki’s quirk was difficult to utilize without risking stunning the entire team. Sero’s quirk was more useful but the placement of the leash made it difficult for him to use it without tugging around the hands of the teammates on either side of him. You and Yaoyorozu, the only two whose quirks weren’t actively impeded, struggled to compensate for the other two and coordinate your actions. In the end, the four of you had barely qualified, leaving you frustrated.

So much for crafting a new legacy.

As Present Mic gleefully announces that the teams of Midoriya, Bakugo, Monoma, and Yaoyorozu will be moving on, a picture of all those advancing flashing on the monitors, you can’t help but sink deeper and deeper into regret and frustration. The others head to the cafeteria as the lunch break is announced but you storm off in the opposite direction in hopes of getting an opportunity to cool off and clear your head before the break ends and the next game begins. The universe, however, seems to have other plans because instead you crash into another, much larger body. As you look up your apology shrivels up and dies on your tongue as you find yourself staring into the eyes of the only man who inspires similar ire in you as your father does.

Enji Todoroki aka Endeavor aka the (second) largest tool in the entirety of Japan.

“Where are you sneaking off to?” he asks, making no attempt to mask his suspicion of you. “None of your fucking business,” you retort. You move to step around him but he quickly steps back in front of you. “The cafeteria is the opposite direction,” Endeavor informs you. “Gee thanks, I had no idea even though I literally go to this fucking school,” you reply, each word dripping with sarcasm. “Then what could possibly have you traveling this direction instead?” “Like I said. None of your fucking business.” “Your suspicious behavior is my business. I made a mistake with a (y/l/n) before, I won’t make one again,” Endeavor swears and you reel back almost as if struck. “I am not my father,” you spit out. Your quirk activates unbidden in response to your anger, black shadows curling out of your clenched right hand and forearm. “Sure looks like it to me,” Endeavor scoffs, looking pointedly at the shadowy tendrils rising out of the right side of your body. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” a familiar voice asks from behind you and you wish the earth would swallow you up. Shoto steps around and in front of you, taking up an almost protective stance between you and his father. “Shoto step aside and-“ “No,” Shoto insists, staring down his father in challenge. He and Endeavor’s gazes stay locked in a silent argument, neither willing to back down, so you take the opportunity while they’re both distracted to slip away. You make it to about halfway down the hallway when a hand catches your shoulder. You whirl around knocking it away to find Shoto there looking genuinely stunned at your hostility. “Jesus christ will you fuck off!” you snap at him and maybe it isn’t fair but you’re frustrated and angry and you fought with one of your best friends and you’ve barely squeaked through each round so far and the last thing you are mentally or emotionally prepared to do is confront your increasingly complex thoughts on Shoto fucking Todoroki whose father just all but accused you of attempting to sabotage the competition.

“Hey I just wanted to check on you,” he says and for some reason, the show of compassion only pisses you off even more. “Why can’t you just leave me the fuck alone?” you demand. “Please (y/n) I-“ he tries to say, clearly confused by your rage. You know most of your anger is actually directed inwards and not at him but you don’t care. “I get that you are trying to grow as a person or whatever and pity me because you were a complete and utter dickhead a decade ago but I don’t want your fucking pity friendship so leave me the fuck alone Icyhot,” you spit with all the venom you can muster before promptly spinning around and continuing your path down the hallway, leaving a stunned Shoto behind.

No one needs to know that you’ve already started crying before you’ve even turned the corner away from him.

A/N: Oh you thought the good feelings from last chapter would last? Nah, have some angst 🙃

Taglist: @sorrythatspussynal @miss-bakugo-writes @pixelwisp @larkspyrr @sokkaandzukosimp @akkaso @sunaispretty @mindofess @todoplusultra @oliviasslut

[nocturna-iv]

what are your opinons on audrey?

You're going to hate me because I'm going to go too far off.

On D1 I hated Audrey. But I think that was one of the purposes of the movie. The way they introduced her and made her act... I didn't like Audrey. But especially since my first ship in Descendants was Jaylos.

And I'm not going to lie to you. D1 I saw it with a friend the first time. And from the first second, we saw Carlos and Jay it was "They are a couple, right?" A few more scenes "They're a couple.".. and at the end... In the last scene... Audrey appears all beautiful and powerful... and flirts with Jay and dances with him. And, I understand. If Audrey does that to me, I'd make Jay's goofy face too.

Also,  I love "Set it Off". I don't know. I don't talk much about D1. But things were different back then. I liked Mal, I liked Bal. Ben in "Set It Off" looks very sexy. I like the lyrics. I like the movie. And I'm a sucker for reimagining fairy tales.

But... Audrey was "ruining" my Jaylos with that last dance. And the idea of a pretty girl that her revenge is dating her ex's best friend... Not my cup of tea.

Then I watched the movie again with a group of friends. All nerds to analyze stories. And there I realized many things. Like Mal never tells Ben that she actually put a spell on him to use him. And hundreds of other things.

But do you know what I noticed the most? How horrible everything that happened must have been for Audrey. Ben breaks up with her publicly and out of nowhere. Hours before they were the perfect (and incipient, I know) couple who was going to get married and then he sings a song to the daughter of the villain who ruined her mother's life? Poor Audrey!

So all my friends and I came to have a strong empathy with Audrey. Would we have done the same? We didn't know. But Audrey is a Queen Bee and a teenager. All that power, heartbroken, humiliated and in the blink of an eye with an uncertain future. I'm not going to judge her. If she were an adult I would. But she was only a teenager. And all of us, as teenagers, have done something stupid or extreme.

Still a no-no to Audrey flirting with Jay hahaha

D2 arrived. There was no sign of Audrey. And I got distracted by a powerful couple by Uma and Harry. Chad goes from being this idiot who flirts with girls and uses them to be this goofy puppy in love who is the mockery of everyone.

D3... Thousands of ideas. But about Audrey? My poor princess! My Queen of Mean! By this point, we got to know so much about her and... Oh, Gods! What terrible things. All by focusing on Mal, they left hundreds of things in the air, loose or bad.

Are we sure Ben isn't still under a spell? Audrey and he were friends, and I come to find out that there was never a talk between them? Not even when she came back? GODS!

Hundreds of bad things... Hundreds! As I said, let's rewrite D3.

Plus, they made Audrey blonde. And they lightened her skin tone.

Audrey deserves better than being this character that her only motivation is her ex-boyfriend.

Actually, Audrey and Evie have a lot in common. Their families raised them to be with a prince, to define themselves as a beautiful princess on the arm of a prince. Evie has her growth as a character. But Audrey? In D1 she became cruel because she loses her boyfriend. In D3 she became the villain because she has lost everything since she lost her boyfriend and no one has been kind enough to ask her if she's okay! The only character who cares about her, we came to find out, is Chad, who now everyone makes fun of and sees him as a joke.

I like Audrey for the potential she has. Can you imagine how things would have been if they had treated her with some respect? (Chad and her. From a certain point in D1, Ben lost his best friends. His only friends are his girlfriend's friends in all the movies. That's not healthy.)

Already in D1 Audrey had her moment to reevaluate her life, her power, her social status, her future, who she was. Actually, in Descendants: Wicked World she is friends with Ben and Mal, Audrey is still friends with Jane and Lonnie. And Audrey is completely dedicated to holding events, being a leader, organizing things. She is still a princess waiting for a prince to save her, but she isn't looking for a boyfriend and she has already got over Ben. I would have liked them to continue that idea on D2, with Audrey being a good friend and comforting Ben. In that conversation, she would realize that just like Ben is defining himself solely by his future with Mal and by being with Mal, she has only defined herself as a princess and with the idea of ​​marrying an idealized prince. Audrey would have been the first to remind him that he's the king and he's forgetting a lot of things for playing with Mal to pretend to be the perfect bride and groom in front of the press. Things like his initiative for the VKs that stopped since he's gawking at Mal. 

Not only that, but Audrey would also have been there to advise Mal about the press and the pressure of being Ben's girlfriend. Audrey would have talked to Ben about how Mal may enjoy the attention when she jokes around or has a plan, but that doesn't mean she's ready to deal with all the attention.

Audrey would have accompanied Ben to the island for two reasons. Evie says the more the better (Audrey wants to protect Ben, she doesn't know yet, but she's starting to stop acting like the damsel in distress and taking control of the situation). And because Audrey wants to talk to Mal because only Audrey really understands what Mal is going through, getting lost in the illusion of the perfect girlfriend until she doesn't recognize herself in the mirror.

Imagine Sea 3 meeting Audrey. While Evie and Audrey were talking to Mal, Ben was kidnapped. Okay? Well, imagine Audrey interrupting Harry in the middle of one of his threats, raising her finger and in a very regal attitude "I won't let you talk like that, pretty boy". And Uma quite impressed that this is an AK that isn't afraid of pirates. And Gil would have been "She's the second person who has left Harry speechless." And Audrey would have looked at Uma with a small smile "Tell your boyfriend to let me board and you and I can talk. I was Ben's girlfriend and I was preparing for years to be queen. I know how the Council works. I'm not a VK, not a pirate, but I know how Auradon works." "He's not my boyfriend..." "Oh please." Audrey boards Lost Revenge "You obviously have a problem with Mal, and I get it, she tends to ruin people's lives without realizing it. No offense Mal. But what you want is the same thing Ben has always wanted. So let's talk."

SO MANY GOOD THINGS!

D2 may have been about forgiving and leaving the past behind. Let Mal realize that just like she could change, others can. That you should stop resenting others. Because D2 could still have Mal betray Uma, but the message would have been more about "I judged you as everyone judged me. Like I judged myself. And I was wrong. We can change." And Ben would have had learned that love shouldn't distract you from your goals and who you are as a person.

My opinion on Audrey is that she has so much potential!

[medea10]

Medea Rambles...It’s Reality

I would really love to put up a review today. Really, I would. And I would love to talk about the latest Pokemon episode, really I would...But, I'm not in the mood. Because of certain events, I'm not in any mood for my usual Sunday shenanigans.

Whenever I pick up my phone and see that damned CNN Alert message, I think one of three things has happened.

1. Trump said or did something incredibly stupid, illegal, or dickheadishly stupid.

2. A celebrity from my childhood died.

3. A massacre has occurred and was caused by gun violence.

And in the past seven days, that third option has come up more often than not. Now, by no means am I fully against guns. It's not my thing, if you like hunting, by all means. If you feel you need it for protection, I don't give a flying fig. However, there are certain guns that really shouldn't be in the hands of anyone. Period! And each time I hear about what a gunman uses, it's usually an AK or an AR-15 or some other monstrosity that really shouldn't be in the hands of (what it seems like) very unstable men. And in a lot of these massacres including the last three prominent tragedies, these very unstable men are under the age of 25.

That is fucking frightening.

Why would anyone want to go to an open place like a school, a Walmart, a gay nightclub, a concert on the Vegas strip, a church, a mosque, a synagogue, a local pub, a college campus, or a garlic festival to shoot up innocent people?

Oh yeah, all of these places have been shot up in the last couple of years. And again I need to say, THREE OF THESE HAPPENED JUST THIS WEEK ALONE!

I remember being in middle school when the Columbine shooting happened and in shock over what I was witnessing. Now it’s by no means the first gun massacre in our country and sure as fuck wasn’t the last. But the mere fact that this was a high school and these were students being slaughtered raised a lot of eyebrows. Now not much action was taken at the time, but there were plenty of back-and-forths over who was to blame for this. Being in middle school, they pretty much blamed all the things I liked including video games, South Park, and Marilyn Manson. Seriously, just because Dylan and Eric listened to Manson, all Manson listeners were going to go on a killing rampage? Fuck you then and fuck you now!

Then I remember 12 years ago with Virginia Tech and freaking out because, hey, I’m a college student. Who’s to say UNM wouldn’t end up on the national news one day because of a tragedy involving gun violence? Then again, I’m just a paranoid, autistic person and I worry over everything.

But then it wouldn’t just be at a school...it would be in places you wouldn’t expect. A strip mall in Arizona. A theater in Aurora, Colorado. And even an elementary school in Connecticut.

Yes, I have to talk about Sandy Hook! Twenty 1st graders and their educators were gunned down. That should have been the final straw in taking some freakin’ action! These were six and seven year olds going to school. AND RIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS FOR CORN SAKE! Because of this, my cousin has a quiet room in his home where his daughter used to play and sleep.

Yeah, not-so fun fact about Medea. I have a relation to one of the victims in Sandy Hook.

So imagine my disgust with pukes like Alex Jones attacking these families, calling them out for faking their children deaths. Alex Jones can just drop from the face of the earth and I’ll sleep like a baby at night. But like with Columbine, not much action was done. Even though President Obama tried, he couldn’t get Congress and Senate to pass any kind of gun regulation laws.

I would like to blame it on the fact that both the house and senate were Republican-led at the time and whatever the black president wanted to happen, they told him to sit and spin because fuck your needs! Yeah, I want to say that they’re all a bunch of racist crackers, but most of them are still kinda lobbyed by the NRA. And when I say kinda, I mean, these guys are willing to lick boots for the NRA and screw the safety of the people.

So, no gun regulations happen and more tragedies continue happening. It wasn’t really until the San Bernadino tragedy that lawmakers wanted to do something. But not about gun regulation! No, because in that particular tragedy, the people causing the mayhem were part of ISIS (or so they claim). If the shooter is someone from a different place other than the U.S., they hate us for our freedom and this is terrorism. But if a white guy from Ohio does it, it’s just a sad day in America.

Now there are many of factors to these killers. Mental health is a big factor played in many of these tragedies. Yes, that is a biggie in general. Because people suffering from mental illness are statistically more likely to be a victim of gun violence than to commit one. People only bring up mental illness if the shooter is a white, American-born boy and soon enough, they’ll drop the subject of helping folks with this problem. How about we talk about gun regulation?! Have weapons of war off the streets and out of our homes! No one needs guns that can turn a body into swiss cheese in a matter of seconds given to a regular joe. Oh and once again, nothing happens. Even after we get some of the worst shootings after Sandy Hook! Because while 20 1st graders being gunned down in a classroom was pretty fucked up, we ended up with more obscene tragedies.

Just to name a few, the Pulse Night Club shooting in Orlando, FL where 49 people lost their lives (during Pride Month no less), an outdoor concert on the Las Vegas strip where 58 people died, and another high school shooting in Parkland, FL where 17 students lost their lives. At least with the last shooting I mentioned, the surviving students had ENOUGH and demanded action. In some ways, change did happen. We have a new generation ask the questions my generation didn’t and the generations before ignored it all.

With the swearing-in of a new Congress in January (the first time it was Democratic majority since 2010), the first issue they took up was on gun regulation. And it passed the house! The only problem is that the leader of the senate has refused to let ANY of these bills pass. He just let’s it die. And then you have that same sonuvabitch send out thoughts and prayers? The Congress is trying to do something so we wouldn’t have to go through these horrible tragedies time and time again! Fuck you Mitch! No seriously, fuck you and shove those thoughts and prayers up your ass because we know what you’re all about! We saw you during the days of Sandy Hook!

And so we continue with this wave of gun tragedies! Only now, a lot of these recent shootings seem to have a certain, controversial thing in common. All of them either liked Donald Trump or praised his rhetoric. I know I shouldn’t tie any tragedy to any serving president. I didn’t blame Clinton for Columbine. I didn’t blame Bush for Virginia Tech. And I never blamed Obama for Aurora, Phoenix, or Sandy Hook. But Donald Trump is a whole ‘nother level of blame.

It’s safe to say we’ve NEVER had a president quite like this. Someone who would rile up his supporters in some frightening ways. I don’t want to repeat ANYTHING of what this fool says. He carefully words his statements to his base and watch these fringey people go off the deep-end. When you have a president blaming Mexicans, banning Muslims, and criticizing African-Americans, there’s a lot of toxicity to absorb. And I am sick of it!

A lot tragedies in the past two years have had the essence of Trump lingering around it. The man who sent bombs to Trump’s enemies last fall was a staunch Trump supporter. The man who shot up a Jewish synagogue last year, also believed in Trump’s words. As did the Parkland shooter! Oh, let’s not forget the man who shot up the mosque in New Zealand earlier this year, he believed in Trump too. And same with the two of the three shootings that has happened in the last 7 days. People trying to enjoy themselves as they eat garlic-flavored foodstuffs in Gilroy and families buying things they need for the upcoming school year in a Walmart in El Paso...all of them taken out by white supremacists guided by words of a lunatic leader who believes black and brown people are the enemy.

His words are not helping. His words are damaging.

I know gun violence has been a major issue way before Donald Trump became president. But this recent onslaught of violence is too much to bear. If he was a decent person, he would put an end to his disturbing rhetoric. No more of these “Go back to where you came from” tweets. That means calling out white supremacy when you see it! And cut the shit about good guys on both sides! When you have one side marching and shouting, “Jews Will Not Replace Us” and the other side finding offense to those words, this shouldn’t be a fucking debate!

This country needs to fucking change and change now. Whether it’s through legislation, replacing political representatives with people willing to give a damn, or overthrowing a dictator. Do it and do it now!

Sorry for this rant, but...I’m just tired of this happening over and over again. I’m almost to the point of being numb by these tragedies. And that shouldn’t happen.

[kpopisking]

NGT48's Maho Yamaguchi assaulted by two men:

 Translation of all Tweets from Maho and transcripts of live broadcast. PLEASE SPREAD for international coverage.

Maho Yamaguchi apologizing at the third anniversary event of NGT48, Jan. 10. 2019

Scroll down for updates! (Last updated Jan 11th, 2:40am JST)

NGT48 just finished their third anniversary event a few hours ago. Maho was forced to perform on stage as if nothing ever happened, then apologized for "causing trouble and confusing for everyone"... Please look at how worn out she is and the bags under her eyes. She has lost 4 kilograms in two weeks due to stress.

Please help this story get international coverage. Don't let AKS and the NGT management get away with this... They are a powerful company with major influence and they are trying to cover everything up in Japan with lightening speed while releasing no statements whatsoever. I tried to send this to CNN, but I'm not sure if I was able to submit it correctly.

Below is a detailed outline of how the entire story unfolded, and a direct translation of everything that Maho has put out on her social media accounts (although some have already been deleted on her account). I translated everything myself over the last few hours, I'm sorry if there are mistakes but I am pretty sure everything has been translated accurately.

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Outline

Maho Yamaguchi is a 23-year-old woman in Japan who is working as an idol. She was assaulted at the doorstep of her own dorm room by two men who claimed to be fans, but this news did not come to light until Maho took it upon herself to share her story in protest on Twitter and on a live broadcast application called SHOWROOM, in which she confessed that her assault was planned by some of her own teammates, and that her agency who once promised to take action on this matter has now betrayed her, as after a month of waiting they have decided to conclude the matter by telling her that she is being paranoid.

Maho is part of the group NGT48 which is a sister group of AKB48, the biggest idol group in the world and one of the top-selling groups in Japan. I know CNN has picked up AKB48 in the past for their music videos in which they were accused of exploiting young women by making them dance and pose in their underwear.

First, she started a live broadcast on her SHOWROOM account on the night of January 8th. The broadcast was forcefully interrupted before it reached 4 minutes. Here is a translation of the transcript of the broadcast.:

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Written Transcript in Japanese (Twitter)

Video clips from the actual broadcast in 2 parts:

Part 1 (Twitter)

Part 2 (Twitter)

"I've been trying to send Mobame (mobile mail service to the fans) ... but it's not going through since my account has been stopped.

I wish I could confess the truth and everything that happened, because nothing will get solved if I don't tell the truth, and people may go through the same thing that I went through, but I've waited for an entire month, and they haven't done anything to solve the problem...

Even though Mr. Imamura (the manager of the group) told me that he would "Make NGT a clean group"... that "NGT will become a completely new group"... that he would "fire those who are behind all the bad things happening"... he hasn't done any of these things...

Since all of the members' personal information has been leaked, I can't stand the possibility of myself or my team members who have been so honest and hardworking go through the same horrifying experience that I went through..

Fortunately I was lucky enough to get out of it alive, but if I had been killed, what would they have done? Then there would be no going back... everything would be too late...

I don't understand why things that are not allowed in other groups are allowed in NGT... I don't feel alive anymore...

Even in the recent Aikabu elections (elections in which idols receive votes from fans and compete for a higher stock value...), I was having so much fun trying our best with everyone in Team G, ever since I got assigned to Team G it's been so fun everyday, I've been so full of energy, laughing with everyone, I was so happy just to be with everyone... But now... I don't understand why things are turning out to be this way...

Is it bad to be hardworking and serious? Is it righteous to be dating? (Referring to the group's no-dating policy)

I don't understand such nonsense. I don't get it anymore.

I don't understand why the one who has been taking the job seriously all along has to go through such a thing. Is it because I have been too serious? Why do I have to go through such a fearful experience?

I really wanted to say it out loud, but because they said they would take care of the matter, I waited this whole month even through I was scared. But in the end they didn't do anything. The wrongdoers are still at large.

...I just don't understand.

What would they do if something happened to someone and there was no turning back? I really want to tell the truth but it would cause trouble to the people who are taking care of me... but I can't anymore..."

Then she posted the following account of the incident on Twitter. Some of Maho's posts have since been deleted, but here is a direct translation of what she posted on Twitter on January 9th in order.

"I wish everything was a lie but it isn't. I called a member I could trust for help when I was assaulted. She stayed with me and listened to the assaulter's testimony until the police came, and the staff were there as well. She couldn't help but cry hearing the names of the members coming out of the assaulter's mouth. I can't stand this current situation where those who are taking their jobs so seriously are not able to work without worrying in a safe environment."

"The police has already been informed. It is true that some of the members from my group were involved in this case. The assaulters were arrested for assault and battery, but they have already been released."

“You can choose not to believe me if you want. The reason why this is not out in the press is because I asked for the fact that I am an idol, a member of NGT to be hidden. The fans are full of kind people, and I didn’t want the public to think badly of them just because of a few bad people, and despite the fact that I am a victim, I didn’t think that this would not end up giving the group a negative image. So I asked my for identity to be announced as a 23 year old freelancer.“

“I’m so sorry. Everyone. It was not in my intention to destroy everyone’s dreams. But if I don’t speak up, nothing is going to change. I don’t want the other members to go through what I’ve gone through. Because these things must be prevented before they happen. I’m so sorry. I had no choice but to say it. I’m sorry. I wish I could go back to a month ago where I was just a normal idol.”

“I wish I didn’t have to say such a thing. I don’t want to cause trouble To the people who are looking after me. I don’t want you all to hate NGT so I stayed silent for the past month even though it was so hard for me. I even told the press not to release the information that I was a member of NGT. All because this group was so important to me. And because I believed that everything will be taken care of, and that those responsible would be punished accordingly.”

"But now a month has passed after entrusting this case with the agency, trying to protect the group. It was decided that nothing would be done. Mr. Imamura (manager) heard everything there is to hear about the members from the police and promised to punish them, and yet, here he is now, trying to pretend nothing ever happened by telling me that I am being paranoid. An incident like this happened and I stayed silent for the group just to be betrayed."

“I don’t want you to hate NGT. There a lot of girls who take their jobs very seriously and are working hard. But I can’t stand to see them go through the same thing that I went through. I don't want those who are important to me to feel the same agony that I am feeling. Even though I would be just fine to be the only one crying, I can't stand seeing everyone else cry out of fear and anger. So I am going to tell the truth."

"I was assaulted at the end of last month by two men. One member from my group informed the assaulter the time that I would be coming home after the showcase, another had given the assaulter the location of my house and my room, and another member was guilty of instigating the assaulter to go to my house. Must those who choose not to connect with their fans privately have their personal information exposed to the public and be assaulted?"

“Is it my fault for not dating and falling in love, and for taking my job as an idol seriously? Is it my fault for not agreeing to connect privately with the fans? Why is it that abiding by the rules in this group results in someone going through such a horrifying experience, why is it that those who take the job seriously and work hard are not protected in this group, is it the person who is betraying so many fans by connecting with a selected few privately that is righteous? I don’t understand how this can be forgiven.”

“I never missed a hand shaking event, even when I was not feeling well. Because there are fans who look forward to the event. Because there are people I won’t be able to see the next time. Because I don’t take the fans coming to see me for granted. This was a policy that I chose to stick to, one that I promised to keep forever. But they made me break it… I’m scared that the bond that we’ve managed to build together is going to break as well…”

“Even though such an incident has taken place, they’ll make me ‘take a break’, then conceal everything as if nothing ever happened… Maybe Mr. Imamura (manager) doesn’t understand the fear of being assaulted because he’s a man, I can’t even go outside by myself anymore because I’m too scared. Even if I move house, my parents’ home address and phone number has already been leaked, where can I find a place to escape to…”

Then Maho tweeted the following account of the incident as a screenshot.:

"I always take great care to be very cautious, so every time I enter my house and my room, I always pay close attention to my surrounding to make sure I am safe. As usual on that day, I made sure that there was no sign of anyone in the hallway, entered my room and quickly tried to close my door. Then a hand appeared out of nowhere and tried to force the door open. The hand grabbed my face and tried to push me down. I fought frantically to force him out. Because I thought he would kill me if I lost, so I fought with all my might so that I wouldn't die, and I was almost about to suceed in forcing him out. Then another man appeared from the room right across mine. It was the room that one of my members were living in. The second man took over the first man and proceeded to grab my face, and tried to push me down the same way. I tried to scream for help, but my voice wouldn't come out because of fear. After a minute of trying I was finally able to scream ‘Help me help me!’ The man out his hands over my mouth. I thought they were going to lock me inside the house and kill me. Then the elevator rang, and as the man got distracted for a moment, I jumped out the door into the hallway because I thought if they proceeded to enter my house they would lock me inside and do something to me. But my feet wouldn't move and I couldn't escape. I tried to call the police but they took my cellphone."

After this news got out to the public, the management kept their silence for an entire day. Today was the third anniversary of NGT48, and the members held an anniversary showcase to celebrate. Surprisingly, the show started like it usually does with no formal announcements touching on the subject whatsoever, almost as if nothing had ever happened.

Maho Yamaguchi, bowing her head in apology in front of an audience at the NGT48 3rd anniversary event, Jan 10, 2019.

One member even shouted during the show, “Thanks to your support, we were finally able to celebrate our third anniversary show with no problems! Please continue supporting us!"

At the beginning, two of the members were missing from the show; Maho and her closest friend in the group. Then suddenly at the 6th song, Maho appeared and sang a duet with the team leader. After performing the song, Maho and the team leader remained on stage. Maho slowly started talking, although visibly shaken and having lost a considerable amount of weight from stress. Here is a translated transcript of what she said.:

"I am very sorry for confusing everyone with what happened. (Bows) As I told you previously, I chose to present the matter in this way because there was something that I wanted to protect, but I feel terribly sorry that it ended up causing trouble for a lot of people that have been looking after me. I was able to talk to the people at AKS (the company managing the Japanese idol groups AKB48 and its sister groups), and as I hope that this becomes an opportunity for NGT48 to head towards a new direction, I will try my best to assists as the vice-captain of Team G. Please continue to support NGT48 (voice shaking)."

A lot of people are shocked at how the incident has turned out, as the management has not stated a word on this topic, but has instead chosen to make Maho who is the victim throughout this entire incident apologize for what she clearly has no reason to apologize for.

There are clear assumptions to the identity of the perpetuators, as Maho has unfollowed four members from her group and deleted previous celebratory posts about them after implying about the incident in early December.

Many fear for Maho's mental health and are afraid that the management company will hide this incident and pretend that they are at no fault. Please help us make this story get international coverage so that we can get justice for Maho.

Thank you very much.

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UPDATES ( Jan 11th, 2:40am, JST)

The management has released a statement saying that a member was indeed involved in this case, as she "accidentally" told a fan what time Maho will be returning to her dorm... What kind of girl tells a stranger who approaches her on the way back home what time her teammate would be returning to her room, knowing the risks? Such a blatant lie.

Now what is strange, is that Maho said that she saw the second man come out of the room right across from hers. That means they were able to get into the building by somehow getting through the auto-lock system at the entrance. Sources are unclear at this point, but according to some fans who claim to be acquainted with the assaulters, the assaulters were actually the boyfriends of the alleged members who have had access to the building for a while. Maho and other members had been complaining to the management to stop letting them invite their boyfriends over, but for some reason, the management have been very easy on them and have not punished them. Maybe because a parent of one of the alleged members is the president of one of the sponsors of NGT. The assaulters got away without getting charged for battery in the end because they did NOT break any rules as they were let into the building by their girlfriends, and were just trying to "scare" Maho because they weren't fond of her telling on them. The management did not want to let the public know that this was being allowed to happen, obviously. They asked Maho to stay quiet and in exchange, promised her that the alleged members would be punished. This did not happen, and Maho got angry, naturally.

__)

A Japanese fan started a Change.org petition to fire the current Theatre Manager, and for the staff to apologise to Maho. Please sign and share. We really can’t let a precedence to be set for this. For people to believe that they can just get away with assaulting a girl and blame her for it. 

[jensenscomedyelbows]

SUPERNATUAL 21 QUESTIONS

(THE INCREDIBLE HEATHER, AKA @sammichgirl, did this and tagged me as one of her favorite blogs, so I’m giving it a go. Thanks, doll.)

1. When did you start watching Supernatural? 

On September 19, 2012. I was recovering from surgery and had binged all there was to binge on Netflix at that point, and I asked my BFF James what I should watch. He immediately said “Supernatural!” I was skeptical, and I asked him exactly what it was about. He told me brothers, Sam and Dean, who were “slayers,” probably because he knew I loved BtVS and that would interest me. I thought hmmm, maybe. That same day my other BFF, Angel, called to check on me, so I asked her if she had any recommendations—and she said the same thing! She, like James, had watched every episode live since day one. So I watched the pilot, and was immediately struck by the twin images of Mary and Jessica burning on the ceiling. I HAD TO KNOW WHY. Three weeks later, I finished season 6, just in time for Netflix to add season 7, and not long after I finished that, season 8 began airing live, with me right in front of my TV every Tuesday night, dying to see what would happen next. AND I’M STILL HERE (and have been to THREE conventions, lord have mercy!)

2. Who is your favorite in TFW?

Like Heather, I never really thought that was a thing. It was a line put in for a laugh in one episode that got blown up into a big deal, but I never felt invested in the concept. But if you’re asking me which character is my favorite among Sam, Dean, and Castiel, my favorite will always be Dean. You can’t love him without loving Sam too, however, and there are episodes in which my sympathies are more with Sam, and episodes in which I identify/sympathize more with Dean. I rarely sympathize with Castiel because he’s not human.

3. Who is your least favorite in TFW?

Castiel. I haven’t much liked his character since season 5, but I do recognize that’s entirely the writers’ fault.

4. Tag your top 5 Supernatural blogs.

The ones I turn to again and again for gifs (and which have been particularly useful in illustrating my 2019 rewatch) have been: @sensitivehandsomeactionman @secretsandgreeneyes @saucynewf @demondetoxmanual and @spn-idjits-guide-to-hunting. I also love @lipglosskaz @sammichgirl @lemondropsonice @whiskeycherrypie and @misswhizzy. I am a thousand percent sure I’m leaving out at least fifty I love and adore 🥰, and it will drive me nuts thinking about it!

5. Who is your favorite character (not including TFW)?

Bobby Singer, no contest, hands down.

6. Who is your favorite woman in Supernatural?

Ellen Harvelle. A calm, steadying presence with the knowledge and skill to back up her formidable courage. Tough when she needed to be, loving when the people she cared about were in trouble. Heroic.

7. John or Mary?

Neither or both. If you erase the Dabb era resurrection of Mary, then both. Both John and Mary had profound impacts on Sam and Dean’s personalities and views of the world—John’s by his presence and Mary’s by her absence. They made our boys who they are. But if you count Mary’s resurrection and terrible new character arc, then John of course.

8. What were your first opinions of Sam, Dean, Cas, and Jack?

I thought it was commendable for Sam to want to go to law school, and tragic what happened to Jessica and his plans for the future. I loved how open he was with Dean (early days!), how much trust he had in him, and how easily victims responded to him. Also: book smarts are a turn-on of mine.

I fell in love with Dean’s beauty by Wendigo, and his everything else by Home. The brave face, the stiff upper lip hiding the vulnerability and insecurity from his little brother because he feels he has to be strong for him—all that just made me love him more. Also: a wicked sense of humor is a huge turn-on of mine.

Castiel has a great character entrance. Emotionless. He burned out Pamela’s eyes. I thought that was unnecessary. He and Uriel were alien beings whose motives were the opposite of pure, so I feared his power and questioned his interaction with Sam and Dean.

Jack: Oh, I get it—the CW needs to compete with Riverdale and its other shows featuring teenagers, so they invented Lucifer’s son to boost ratings. *shrug*

9. What’s your favorite season?

2, 4, and 5–there are just too many good ones to have just one favorite. I also love 1 and 3. LOL.

10. What’s your least favorite season?

Season 12 just about broke me. Let me count the ways: Lucifer possessing the President of the United States (oh please, I watch this show to ESCAPE real life, tyvm), Sam and Dean MURDERING him in yet another failed attempt to kill Lucifer, being sent to “Supermax” which, again, PLEASE, do you even know what would happen to the assassins responsible for killing the POTUS? Not even Sam and Dean would be able to bust out of that lockup—no effing way—yet they did. And how did they do it? By murdering a shitload of HUMAN BEINGS just doing their jobs, running around with AK-47s while yelling how they’re the guys who saved the world 🙄 I can’t see either Sam or Dean EVER bragging about that, and since then, they have, many times, and it always sets my teeth on edge. SEASON TWELVE DOESN’T EXIST TO ME.

11. What’s your opinion on Destiel?

It’s a fan ship that is popular among the younger, less experienced viewers of our show (many of whom haven’t even seen any seasons/episodes without Castiel in them), so my opinion isn’t very high. It’s like Dean and Cas are two dolls, and the Destiel fandom’s chief delight is mashing them together any way they can. And forcing the rest of us to hear them lecture us on how it’s “real,” how it’s “going to be canon,” and generally alienating everyone who doesn’t ship those two characters. I ignore anything to do with it.

12. Do you believe Supernatural queerbaits?

I’m not queer, so bearing in mind that I wouldn’t necessarily see it if it did, I’ve tried to look at it as impartially and dispassionately as possible, and I believe that Misha has been guilty of it, on occasion. (Sure, it’s all in good fun, he’s only kidding, he’s having a laugh, etc.) Ben Edlund has as well. Robbie Thompson was perhaps guilty of it a time or two. But this is all supposing that it is impossible for A TRUE PLATONIC LOVING RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TWO MEN to be portrayed on television. I mean, Dean/Castiel is the only “baiting” I’ve ever heard people yell about, so I’m sticking to this one possible pairing as the one responsible for this question. I personally have no trouble accepting a platonic same-sex relationship...but queer fandom seems to have a lot of trouble with this concept?

13. Seasons 1-7 or 8-14?

Hahahaha, obviously 1-7. KEEP 12 AWAY FROM ME.

14. Who’s your favorite villain?

CROWLEY. He was so awful before his redemptive stuff at the end. Never forget that as of the end of season 8, he was murdering all the innocent people Sam and Dean had saved (including Sarah Blake!), then in season 9, he was the one responsible for getting Gadreel out of Sam. After that, he wasn’t really a villain anymore. But he was so irredeemably evil for four seasons!

15. Do you think they should end the Lucifer plot line?

THEY HAVE!  Now they just need to end the NICK plot line.

16. Who do you think has been through more trauma—Sam, Dean or Cas?

Sam and Dean have been through the SAME traumas, almost exactly, so I call theirs dead even. I wouldn’t want to measure or quantify “trauma” in any case. Castiel isn’t human, so I never thought of him as undergoing any trauma.

17. What’s your favorite Supernatural episode?

Mystery Spot, 3x11. It’s the one I would show someone new to the show. It’s the one I watch when I’m down. I LOVE stories with the time-loop trope ❤️ The acting is phenomenal. It’s funny, it’s tragic, it’s everything.

18. Do you like the case episodes?

All of season 1 is comprised of “case” episodes. Looking for John and Sam’s connection to “the demon” are secondary in that season, and I loved it enough to fall in love with the entire series, so YES. I’m a horror/mystery buff at heart.

19. Who do you relate most to in TFW?

It will come as no surprise to anyone reading this that my answer is Dean.

20. Why do you like Supernatural?

Honestly, it’s the only place I can see the Winchesters do their thing—make their choices, fight their battles, and live their lives. They DO lead eventful lives!

21. If you could bring back one character and kill another off, who would they be?

I’m gonna interpret “bring back” as “never killed off” and go with Bobby—the Bobby we knew and loved, the Bobby who had the boys’ backs and was always there, dispensing wisdom and advice. “Bring back” means an entirely different thing now that there’s an AU—they can (and have) brought back EVERYBODY in an effort to appease fans and boost ratings. I think it’s a failure of imagination, personally, and I’ll give that version of bringing back a hard pass.

I would definitely kill Castiel off, or send him to Heaven for good. And then I don’t want to hear another word about Heaven or Hell again, the end. He hasn’t done anything but give pep talks and occasionally perform a miraculous task when the writers need him to. His character has already been killed, and it was a slow death by a thousand cuts. Very sad.

OKAY. I’m not tagging anybody either, but here’s your chance to get your opinions out there and on the record, so do it! (if you do it, please tag me!)

[shazzeaslightnovels]

Reading Long - March 2019

Volume’s read: 12

As per usual, no spoilers unless otherwise tagged and I obtained all of these volumes in Japanese from Bookwalker.

Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata 8 by Fumiaki Maruto

A welcome breather after the last few volumes of non-stop drama. It felt a lot more like the early volumes but I enjoyed it anyway. I swear Katou’s relationship with Eriri is the true love story of this series. Even though it’s only been a couple of months since I read the first two volumes, I couldn’t help but be nostalgic about the events in them along with the characters, as if a year had really passed for me too.

Sword Art Online: Mother’s Rosario by Reki Kawahara

Since I read the interview with Kawahara Reki where he talks about wanting to write a proper yuri series someday, my interest in this series was renewed. I rewatched the anime and genuinely enjoyed the first two seasons, though I still dislike Phantom Bullet arc (mostly because GGO just doesn’t look like much fun to me) so I wanted to read some of the light novel and figured I’d start with my favorite arc.

Even though this volume doesn’t hit me as hard as it did when I read it in English as a teenager, I still really like this volume. I’m one of those people who was annoyed by how little presence Asuna has in Fairy Dance and Phantom Bullet so I always liked that this volume gives her a lot of focus. And I LOVE Yuuki. One of Kawahara’s strengths has always been his ability to make the reader care about a character with only a couple of pages. Despite how little time she has, Yuuki still means a lot to me and I love her relationship with Asuna so much. One issue I did have with this book though was how many pages at the beginning were dedicated to recount the events of previous volumes. I already know all this and I doubt there are many readers who didn’t know all this. The other issue I had with this volume is how the last chapter tries to tie the arc into the main story. It didn’t need to and I think it shifts the focus of the arc away from Asuna and Yuuki’s relationship too much. And, as much as I enjoyed reading it, I think the anime surpassed it. Aoi Yuuki’s performance as Yuuki is breathtaking and the action scenes are so brilliantly animated. I did like having more insight into Asuna’s thoughts though so if you liked this arc in the anime, definitely check out the light novel!

This volume was published in English by Yen-Press as Sword Art Online: Mother’s Rosary so check it out if you’re interested!

Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata 9 by Fumiaki Maruto

I’m not sure what to say other than that this keeps up the quality of the series? It was a good volume.

Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata: Girls Side 2 by Fumiaki Maruto

Well this was a surprisingly satisfying read. Like the first volume, this volume is split into two parts with the first part taking place after volume 8 and the second after volume 9. The first part has three stories in it all focusing on characters and relationships that don’t get much focus in the main series. For example, the first story focuses on a conversation between Michiru and Utaha who I don’t think have had a real interaction since vol. 4. Even though these stories aren’t very plot relevant, I enjoyed them anyway. The second part is much more plot relevant and has some really good character moments for Izumi, Eriri, Megumi and Michiru and also includes a guest appearance by Mayu (from Koisuru Metronome manga)! The stories here were really good and the epilogue really tied them together nicely. I’m not sure whether this volume will be necessary to understand the story of future volumes but I get the feeling that the events that happen in the volume will be necessary to understand the characters and their relationships with each other.

Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata 10 by Fumiaki Maruto

Once again, Maruto takes a typical light novel volume premise and quickly turns it into a dramatic affair. The cover and the colour illustrations are a lie! This isn’t a beach/swimsuit volume but it is an Utaha volume and a good one. It made me remember why I loved Utaha in Koisuru Metronome and why I still do. I’m a bit anxious about vol. 11 given that the cover and the colour illustrations show Megumi being embarrassed which is very out of character for her.

Saenai Heroine no Sodatakata 11 by Fumiaki Maruto

Welp, Maruto finally did it. He finally made Megumi into a boring heroine for me. I can’t get into too much details about what I disliked about this volume without spoilers but I think one thing that was really missing was scenes without Tomoya in them. I get that he’s the protagonist and the narrator but in the first few volumes, there sections that were just dialogue that showed Megumi interacting with people who weren’t Tomoya. I think we haven’t had a scene like that since vol. 7 and GS doesn’t fully replace it. Those scenes made Megumi feel like a full character and they were needed here. The reader needs to be shown that she has a life outside of Tomoya.Without that, she’s boring.

This is the last volume in the series that I own so I won’t be reading the last four volumes (including FD and GS) until Bookwalker has them on sale again.

Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu 1 by Mizuhito Akiyama

A few years ago I read The Picture of Dorian Gray. It was the first time I had read any novel that was written before I was born and I remember being so amazed at how paragraphs could last an entire page. Reading Iriya gave me a similar feeling to that, even if it’s not nearly as old as Dorian Gray. It’s amazing to see how much the light novel medium has changed since the first volume was released in 2001. There were so many descriptions of settings and movements and some of these lasted for more than a page. Due to this, I had a tough time reading this volume. There were a few times where I lost the plot and had to go back and read the scene from the start again. The writing style is smooth and the relationship between the two leads is cute but I can’t say I found the plot very interesting. I don’t quite understand what most people find charming about this series yet but I’m looking forward to possibly finding out in volume 2.

As for the anime, I saw it a long time ago and barely remember it and don’t have easy access to rewatch it. Looking at the episode summaries from Wikipedia, the first episode adapts around 170 pages so I’d imagine it’s pretty rushed.

Torikago Miko to Seiken no Kishi by Izuki Kougyoku

A short ~90~ page story from the author of Mimizuku to Yoru no Ou. It’s a pretty standard fantasy story about a legendary knight and I can’t say I cared for it. I didn’t really buy the relationship between the two leads but I did really like the ending. Even if I didn’t care much for it, I’d still recommend it to people who liked Mimizuku.

Kidou Shitsuji by Takeshi Matsuyama

Well, this was a pleasant surprise! This is by the author of Ame no Hi no Iris and Koori no Kuni no Amaryllis and the English title is Robot Butler but the titular character is not the funniest thing about it. Instead, most of the scenes I found humorous involved the female lead, Liese and her attempts to get Bel to notice her through the use of shoujo manga tropes. Of course, they all backfire on her. She tries to wink flirtatiously at him and he just asks if she has dry eye. She tries to run into him with a piece of toast in her mouth… only, they’re in the middle of a hallway and he catches her effortlessly when she tries to run at him. Liese’s cluelessness when it comes to romance is genuinely charming and of course I loved her relationship with her best friend, Flora, who introduced her to the concept of shoujo manga in the first place and encourages her every step of the way. The other notable character is Flora’s robot butler, Victoria who seems to be the only one who knows how much of an idiot Bel actually is. In addition to how funny it is, the volume has some surprisingly tight world-building and chapter six is truly awesome. There are so many things that get revealed and there’re big epic fights! I liked it a lot. Unfortunately, I didn’t care for the ending. I thought it was a bit of a cop-out though I suppose it did end it cleanly in the way that I am not desperately wanting a second volume. Anyhow, I’d highly recommend it and I’m looking forward to reading more of Maruyama’s works in the future.

Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu 2 by Mizuhito Akiyama

Despite my lukewarm opinion of the first volume, I actually quite enjoyed this volume. Surprisingly, Iriya isn’t in this volume much and the volume instead gives the reader some insight into some of the side characters thoughts, particularly Akiho. My favorite part of the volume was when we got to experience the school’s cultural festival through the eyes of the Asaba parents. It was an interesting choice and one that I quickly got behind. Rather than being just background dressing, Asaba’s parents are actually pretty interesting and fun without being too eccentric and silly. One thing I think this series does really well is that I never feel like the author is treating the characters like adults. A huge issue with a lot of fiction is that they tend to think of teenagers as adults instead of just a pile of people who are still growing and learning how to make decisions. (Saekano has this issue too, btw.) But these characters are still in their first year of middle school and they act like it. I think I’m starting to get the charm of this series now. This volume was very fun to read and I enjoyed it enough that I started volume 3 right away.

Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu 3 by Mizuhito Akiyama

I’m starting to realize that I like this series the most when it’s not being told from Asaba’s POV. I still like his character and a lot of the impactful scenes come from his POV but the most memorable part of this volume was chapter 1 where Akiho and Iriya have an eating competition and become friends. I liked it a lot, especially since Akiho kind of becomes Iriya’s “Mum friend” afterwards and Kiyomi starts affectionately calling Iriya “Kana-bu” which I thought was pretty darn cute. One thing that I really like about the dynamic between Akiho and Iriya is that Akiho is never portrayed as a straight-up bitch trying to get between Asaba and Iriya. Instead, she’s just a girl learning how to deal with her feelings. And Iriya is never portrayed as just a victim of Akiho’s attitude. Iriya is strong in her own way and can be very determined when it comes down to it. But enough about them, this volume had a lot of character development for Asaba. I really liked that he asked Iriya what she wants. Does she want to keep things the way they are? Or does she him to help her? He asks and I really liked that. I also think the way he runs to the bathroom in uncomfortable social situations is hilarious and adorable. In general, despite this volume having pretty heavy plot developments, I just found all the characters to be really cute. Anyway, I’ll be taking a short break before reading the final volume but I am really enjoying this series so far.

Ankoku Kishi wo Nugasanaide 1 by Shinichi Kimura

From the author of Kore wa Zombie desu ka? this story starts when a high school student called Najima’s class gets a new transfer student who just looks like a suit of armour wearing a female uniform. Honestly, I found it boring which is why I’m not putting much effort into the premise summary. It was fine, I guess, but I didn’t laugh at all and I found the characters to be bland. But I bought the first three volumes when they were first released so I kinda have to read them.

[boozedancing]

Juicy bits of barrel char that are FREE with your purchase of a Blackadder Raw Cask expression!

On Thursday, June 7, 2018, the good people of the Jewish Whisky Company once again hosted the “Mother of all Whisky Events”, the NYC Whisky Jewbilee. This would be the seventh time that this event would descend upon Midtown Manhattan, and while the main event began at 7PM and ended at 10PM, as we’ve done in years past, we opted to make this an all day thing, hence the #WhiskyJewbileeDay hashtag.

For this year’s #WhiskyJewbileeDay recap, rather than just talk about all that went down at the main event, we’ve decided to expand our coverage and tell you about all that happened in the hours and minutes leading up to the grand tasting at Studio 450.

Grab your Glencairns and your favorite elixir, Kids! It’s gonna be a boozy ride…

8:30 AM

G-LO: The #WhiskyJewbileeDay pre-train checklist:

Camera? Check

Light jacket? Check

Change of clothes? Check

Toiletries? Check

Daily meds, ibuprofen, and Alka-Seltzer? Check, check, and check.

iPad? Check

Chargers? Check

Extra batteries? Check

Cash? Check

Kids dropped off at school? Check

Looks like I’m ready to go. NYC, here we come!

Limpd: Two bags? Really? Did Mrs. G-LO finally kick him out? I can’t say I didn’t see this coming. I wonder who had today in the “When’s G-LO’s Wife Gonna Kick His Sorry Fat Ass to the Curb?” pool?

AK: Can’t blame G-LO for the two bags thing. I’m an overpacker too. Cuz you just never know.

9:14 AM

G-LO: On the road to Hamilton Station. Why did Limpd pick the 295 entrance off of 561 when there was a perfecty good entrance 3/4 of a mile back near the PATCO station? His way is probably a shorter distance, but my way has less traffic.

Limpd: I find it curious that G-LO requested the Sirius XM Broadway Channel for the drive up to Hamilton. Maybe his musical theater loving wife and eldest Urchin are finally rubbing off on him and he’s finally acquired some taste in music? Somehow I doubt it.

AK: I had him pegged for Yacht Rock. Who knew? Though I think I saw him once sporting a Gerry Rafferty t-shirt while sipping on a Pina Colada.

10:34 AM

G-LO: Amazing how few parking spots there are at this hour. Circling the parking lot made us miss the 9:58. But that’s ok because the nice thing about this being a heavily trafficed route is that there’s always another train. Catching the next one allowed time to pick up a Boston Cream donut. You know, for strength!

12:31 PM

G-LO: That was a fascinating ride to NYC. We actually went backwards at one point due to a disabled train. Oddly enough, it was the 9:58(!), so I guess things have a way of working out after all, though sadly, we had to skip the stop in Metuchen. Now we’re all checked in at the hotel and headed to The Ginger Man for lunch and a drink or two.

Our room has a lovely view of some office workers.

AK:  Is that guy on the 4th floor making Xerox’s of his butt?  That’s so ’90’s.

1:31 PM

G-LO: Lunch at The Ginger Man with Whisky Raj, The Coopered Tot, Malt Imposter Stephen, and Limpd. Had a Founders Green Zebra, a Watermelon Sour. Super delicious with just the right amount of pucker.

This place is great at lunch time. Solid food. Fantastic beer selection. And you can actually have a conversation, hence why it’s THE pre-Jewbilee gathering place.

Limpd: They had Old Engine Oil on draught! I knew there was a reason why I love this bar. Such a good beer.

Old Engine Oil on the left. Founders Green Zebra on the right.

1:32 PM

AK: Bet those pinheads are drinking at Gingerman without me.  Argh.

3:51 PM

G-LO: The One Nation Under Whisky Podcast Recording and Master Class Session has begun. So many familiar faces…

Joshua Hatton and Jason Johnstone-Yellin from Single Cask Nation (naturally!).

Explorers Club members, Justin Fornal and Chad Anderson, aka the guys fom The Great Islay Swim.

Simon Brooking of Laphroaig.

Lew Bryson.

Matt Lurin of Water Of Life.

David Fenkell, good friend of WhiskyCast and all around super guy.

Limpd: “To lose a swimmer would be bad. To lose the whisky would be unacceptable.” I didn’t say that! The guy that wrote the Men’s Journal article about The Great Islay Swim did. I’m not THAT heartless. Though it really would have sucked to lose the whisky.

The OFFICIAL One Nation Under Whisky mic.

Joshua says, “Double pours? Really? If you say so, but when someone gets trashed and falls down the steps…”

“I put my hands upon my hips… And when I dip you dip we dip…”

4:01 PM

G-LO: Started things off with the SCN Pillage Cask (bottles are $500/each with all proceeds going to the Royal National Lifeboat Institute) which has a little bit of whisky from each Islay Distillery. Thick. Oily. Briny. Peaty. Everything you’d expect from a vatted Islay whisky. Good fun! I added a little too much water so I pillaged some whisky (see what I did there?) from an open seat next to me to bring back the fire. That was a damn good move!

Limpd: Tasting the Islay Pillage Cask which was matured in a quarter cask (30 gallons yielding 145 bottles). Apparently, this blend is heavy on the Kilchoman. It’s very leggy and looks like rich honey. The nose is very medicinal with iodine, mercurochrome, and a good bit of peat & pepper. The taste is hot and spicy. Quite the tongue numbing experience. Adding water made it a bit muted, and while less flavorful, it was more approachable.

Someone asked, “How were the contributions from the various distillers selected and how were the whiskies blended?”. Joshua of SCN’s response, “Part by design and part by necessity. We put thought into the whisky whenever we could, to the extent that we were allowed.”

4:09 PM

G-LO: Our second whisky for this tasting was a Single Cask Nation bottling of a  4 Year Old Kilchoman. Licorice. Powdered sugar. Charcoal. Vanilla. Young. Fiery. Richly flavored. Really nice to visit this again (click here for my first impressions of this dram).

Limpd: Round two was a chance to try one of the distilleries that went into the Pillage Cask on its own. The color on this SCN Kilchoman bottling was a bit golden, with a nose that was all peat and burnt rubber (think a smoky rubber glove). The taste was brief sweetness followed by a cinnamon heat and a very pleasant finish. Once you get past that smoky rubber glove encased kick to the head that came courtesy of the nose, this is a very nice dram.

4:17 PM

G-LO: More Kilchoman for round three of this tasting! This time around we tried the Kilchoman 100% Islay from Binny’s of Chicago. From field to bottle, this is 100% Kilchoman, i.e. they grow the barley, they malt the barley, and they ferment and distill the barley on-site. No outsourcing on this one! Lots of vanilla. Burnt sugar sweetness. Not a lot of bite (more of a nibble). Like quickly running your finger through a flickering flame. Long lasting, spicy/sweet finish. 100% Islay was 100% delicious!

Limpd: Do you know how I know that G-LO is a bad, bad man? Because I was actually looking forward to trying dram number three, a farm to glass bottling of Kilchoman. I used to hate the peat until G-LO kept pushing the stuff on me like a corner boy from The Wire pushing WMD on the mean streets of West Baltimore. “It’ll make ya feel good” he’d say. Anyway…

Dram number three looked a lot like dram number two. The nose was sweet with a plethora of heather. The taste was a bit muted for a Kilchoman. Almost soft, but oh so nice. The heat comes in at the backend on this one with a spicy, long & very pleasant finish.

Random things overheard while sampling this whisky…

Justin: Losing the juice would be unacceptable. I said JUICE!

Chad: Captain Angus is the saltiest man alive!

David: How do they know that Captain Angus is the saltiest man alive? Under what scenario did they need to lick the captain?

4:36 PM

G-LO: Port Askaig 9 YO? Is that what they said? Anyway, this is whisky number four. Much darker than the other three. Very winey on the nose with loads of dark fruit and dark sugars. Super hot and spicy at the start. All that dark fruit and sugar plus cinnamon, chilis, and a bit of bitterness. Long fiery finish. Tartness in the aftertaste. Damn good, but perhaps a bit too dry in the aftertaste, i.e. this isn’t something that I would drink often.

Limpd: A Port Askaig for whisky number four. The color is good bit darker than anything we’ve tasted so far. The nose is leathery, oily, and honeyey. Tastes like it noses. A little oily with nice sweetness, then a bit more leather, wood and tobacco. Very interesting as a component to a blend, but maybe not fully finished.

4:42 PM

G-LO: Simon Brooking, Global Brand Ambassador for Laphroaig and All-Around Super Guy, brought a Bowmore Dorus Mor Batch III and the Laphroaig Cairdeas 2018 for us to taste.

The Bowmore was very very sweet with spiced honey, oodles of fruit, licorice, and vanilla. As Speers would say, “This tastes round…”. Nicely balanced and unusually sweet for an Islay. Honey barbecue and mesquite perhaps? Yummy yummy in my tummy for sure!

Cairdeas 2018 was very light on the nose or maybe I wore out my olfactory with this peaty tasting. The flavor is lightly sweet with vanilla, powdered sugar, peach jam, anise, cracked pepper, and some orange zest. Cairdeas is always yummy. This is no exception. A fine way to end this delightful class!

Limpd: Whisky number five and number six are surprises from Mr. Brooking of Laphroaig.

Number five is the Bowmore 10 Dorus Mor Batch III (aka Tempest Batch 5). The color is light yellow with a nose that brings iodine, vanilla, and honeysuckle. The taste is a bit woody with a nice sweetness (bananas?). Really, really good. David, who was seated next to me, remarked that some of the earlier Tempests were better. If that’s the case, I’d would have liked the opportunity to try them.

Whisky number six is the Laphroaig Cairdeas 2018 which is first fill bourbon casks and then Fino Sherry casks. The color is clover honey with a very muted nose that brings some menthol & vapors. The taste is sweet, oily, and peppery, almost in that order, along with some nuts and sea salt. After that, there’s a good bit of heat which leads to a rather long finish.

Jason says, “I was going for creepy. Did I nail it?”

4:59 PM

G-LO: Uh-oh! Jason and Joshua are throwing “Ok ok! You lads can leave now as we have to set up for the main event!” dagger eyes at us. I guess the Masterclass/One Nation Under Whisky Podcast session is over! Definitely good fun with oodles of booze, yucks, and tales of Islay Swimming by the guys that swam those frigid waters last summer. Not a bad mid afternoon pre-game before the Big Game!

Limpd: G-LO spoke very highly of last year’s Masterclass session, so I’m super pleased that I was able to make it to this year’s session. For the record, the guys that did The Great Islay Swim are clearly out of their minds. There isn’t enough whisky in the world to convince me to do something like that. Then again… And, then, then again… all of the titanium in me might begin to dissolve in the sea water, so, I might be best that I remain content with staying on dry land with the whisky that I already have.

5:40 PM

G-LO: Time for more pre-gaming. This time at American Whiskey on 30th Street. Limpd, David and I ordered fried sweetbreads with spiced honey, fries, and deviled eggs to share. I had a Bells Oberon to wash it all down. The Lads didn’t care for the sweetbreads. More for me I guess! Did we need this stop? Probably not. But we had time to kill and I really like this place. So we’re here and enjoying every minute of it.

Limpd: Sweetbreads? Who the hell orders sweetbreads as a pre-game snack prior to a whisky event? Some things just aren’t supposed to be eaten. Sure, YOU can call if offal. I’ll just call it awful. Just so you know, offal is defined as “the waste or by-product of a process: such as trimmings (such as the belly, head, and shoulders) of a hide, the by-products of milling (as of wheat or barley) used especially for stock feeds, the viscera and trimmings of a butchered animal removed in preparing it for market or for consumption, and/or rubbish” by the good people at Merriam-Webster. Need I say more?

6:11 PM

AK: I’ve been semi-off the grid for 24 hours but the ghost has returned, and now venturing south along the calm Hudson River down the winding West Side Highway from… Riverdale, NY.  This is not a long lost chapter from The Lord of the Rings.  Just life. The middle offspring has Orientation at Manhattan College up yonder near Yonkers. But she let me get away to join the Home Office Fellowship of the Drams (and Damned too!) at Jewbilee where there will be no Dwarves, Orcs, or Hobbits, if you believe the ancient scrolls. The Uber driver is giving me a nice tour and telling me about how NYC loves President Trump and don’t say otherwise to his wife or, “she kill you”.

6:18 PM

G-LO: Waiting for The West Coast Office (aka The WCO aka AK) outside the event. There’s quite a line forming. He better show up soon. We’re thirsty for more!

6:22 PM

AK: Stepped out of my carriage at the event to meet up with G-LO and Limpd, but alas, no G-LO or Limpd. Where the hell are they?! Is this the right place? The right night? The right chapter in the sequel? Luckily I meet The Malt Imposters in the lobby, then moments later, Susannah Skiver-Barton (aka SSB) arrives and she is giddy as ever. Familiar faces! Good times have started. Minus G-LO and Limpd.

6:25 PM

G-LO: Just got a text from AK. Turns out he’s waiting in the lobby with Malt Impostors Stephen, Bill, and John.

6:38 PM to 6:59 PM

G-LO: Looks like Joshua is gonna let us in to get a quick sneak preview before the crowds show up. We’re going in! Wait. What happened to David? He was right here. Oh well. We’ll catch up with him inside at some point. I have photos to take!

6:42 PM

AK: The slowest elevator in New York City arrives at our destination: 12th floor.  Ladies undergarments, housewares, umbrellas… whoops, wrong cartoon. Whisky Jewbilee! And who do we see first? Guess. C’mon, guess. Bigger than a breadbox. No, not a thing but you’re warmer? Oh, heck. I’ll just tell you. G-LO, Limpd, and some guy I don’t know! You could’ve guessed if you tried a little harder. Slacker!

7:00 to 10:00 PM

G-LO: As is usually the case when the NYC Whisky Jewbilee rolls around, the stars aligned and all of the pieces that make this event so special fit together perfectly.

We’ve discussed past Jewbilee events ad nauseum, so rather than bore you with a bunch of words (many of which we make up), we’ll just show you what we saw throughout what would prove to be yet another great whisky event…

A fantastic variety of whisky and other spirits:

Brand representatives that know a thing or two about the product that they’re pouring to the well informed Whisky Jewbilee attendees (talking bobbleheaded pourers are a very big no-no at this event!):

Glorious views of Manhattan:

Fantastic Kosher barbecue prepared by the one and only, Ari White of The Wandering Que:

Those seriously well-informed Jewbilee attendees that have zero tolerance for talking bobbleheaded pourers that have no clue what they’re serving:

And last, but certainly not least, many of our dear #WhiskyFabric friends:

Whisky Raj of Glass Revolution Imports.http://www.glassrev.com

On the left, @WhiskyAnorach, on the right, Susannah SB, and in the background, The West Coast Office.

Malt Impostor Stephen. That member number is NOT a coincidence, it’s an OMEN.

Mark Gillespie of WhiskyCast, the hardest working man in Whisky Journalism and THE Voice of Whisky.

@WhiskyAnorach and The WCO. For those that don’t know @WhiskyAnorach, she is one hell of an artist! If Whisky is your thing and are on the lookout for incredibly beautiful artwork that celebrates your passion, pay a visit to her Etsy store at https://www.etsy.com/shop/WhiskyAnorach?ref=search_shop_redirect.

Once again, Whisky Jewbilee proved why this is THE can’t miss whisky event of the year. Joshua and Jason of Single Cask Nation sweat over every detail to make sure that the event goes off without a hitch, and guys like us appreciate their efforts to the Nth degree. Here’s hoping that we can branch out a bit and make it to the Chicago and/or Seattle Jewbilees. Aaron says they’re worth the trip. I don’t doubt him for a second!

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Many thanks to Joshua Hatton and Jason Johnstone-Yellin of the Jewish Whisky Company for the hospitality. We’re already counting down to next year’s event!

Reliving NYC @WhiskyJewbilee Day VII through words + #photography. #Whisky @OneNationWhisky On Thursday, June 7, 2018, the good people of the Jewish Whisky Company once again hosted the "Mother of all Whisky Events", the NYC…

[all-the-cliches-lwa]

Light Learning

So, about two months ago, @kodraws drew something (link here) for Dianakko Week, and I absolutely adored it. 

 Fast forward to a few weeks ago, and I was looking at my lockscreen (it’s my lockscreen now) and I was like “… what might have happened to make this happen?”

And then I hit 1000 followers a while ago (and thanks a lot for that btw! I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve it, barring screaming into tags, but I hope you all enjoy my screaming), and like I considered if I wanted to write a 1000 follower appreciation fic. Then I opened my phone.

 So now I have a fanfic chapter inspired by fanart inspired by fanfic. I’ve gone full circle! 

 … So how many of you have read Learning to Fly? Cause this is kinda like a pre-epilogue epilogue, if that makes any sense, and I most definitely treat it as such (this is riddled with call-backs... in hindsight perhaps not the best thing to do for a “1000 follower fic”... seeing as I’m not sure everyone’s read the fic). It takes place about 2.5 months after the main events of the fic and 1.5 months before the epilogue.

Not 100% sure if I recaptured the tone but I had a lot of fun playing with this. 

I hope you enjoy reading this! And seriously, thanks for the follows.

ff.net link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12486574/16/Learning-to-Fly

Word Count: 6746 words

Summary: Ever since Akko and Diana started dating, life has gotten in the way of any more private tutoring sessions. But now, two and half months later, Akko finally has the chance to learn from her favorite tutor, and Diana has the chance to teach her favorite student.

A lone spark lit up in the darkness. Though it started as a soft, almost dim ball of light, it continued to grow bigger and brighter until its light rivaled that of the sun.

And that’s when Diana woke up, the enchantment she had cast upon herself before going to sleep having done exactly what it was intended to do: wake her up in the middle of the night.

It only took her a moment for her consciousness to fully return to her from sleep’s embrace… and while she was reluctant at first to escape it, she quickly broke free from its alluring grasp, knowing full well that another, more blissful embrace would be soon taking its place.

Diana removed her covers from atop her, grabbed her wand from the desk, and jumped off of her bed. She imbued magic into her wand, creating a gentle green glow. With the light illuminating the dark room, Diana turned towards the mirror on her wall and ensured that her uniform wasn’t excessively wrinkled and that there was not a single hair out of place.

While perfection was unnecessary, Diana wanted to appear at least somewhat presentable.

She ran a hand down her skirt, straightening out any wrinkles. Thoroughly satisfied, Diana maneuvered around her bed and walked up to her table. She smiled at the calendar, filled with scribbled hearts and even more crosses and x’s. However, the most prominent doodle on the calendar was the big red heart encircling today’s date.

She reached out and tapped the date with her finger, causing the heart to shine a bright red.

The signal sent, Diana quietly moved towards the exit of her room. It was late after all, and Hannah and Barbara had retired for the night quite a while ago. Diana did not wish to wake them by making any excess sound.

Diana carefully opened door, meticulously controlling her force so that not a single noise was made. When she made the tiniest opening, Diana peeked through it, ensuring no one from the night patrol was outside.

After all, it was past curfew. And sure, this wasn’t the first time she’d broken curfew, but that did not mean she wouldn’t be taking the necessary precautions.

She squinted, looking for any sign of the familiar green light that signaled a patrol member was passing by.

She’d had enough obstacles over the past months. Getting caught was not something that she would allo-

“Diana?”

Diana jumped at the call of her name and quickly whipped her head towards the voice. She visibly relaxed when she saw that it was Hannah, who was sitting up on her bed.

“My apologies,” Diana said, “I had not intended to wake you.”

“What’s going on?” Barbara mumbled as she shifted towards the door, “Are you going somewhere Diana?”

“There isn’t, like, something terrible happening, right Diana?” Hanna asked, her eyes widening and her voice filled with dread.

“No, nothing of the sort,” Diana quickly said, her hand waving their worries away. “I simply wished to go for a night stroll.”

Hannah and Barbara blinked at Diana slowly, confused at first, their sleep-muddled minds not comprehending what exactly was happening. After all, why would Diana go on a stroll this late?

Then the gears quickly began turning, and they both began to sport a smug grin. Smug grins that quickly revealed to Diana that she had been read quite easily, much to her own embarrassment.

“A night stroll, huh Diana?”

“Y-yes Barbara,” Diana stammered, still trying to keep up this excuse.

“So… you’re breaking curfew, to go on a stroll?” Hannah innocently asked.

“… Yes.”

“I see… then you wouldn’t mind if we joined you right?”

“Excuse me?” Diana gasped, her face beginning to pale.

As much as she loved her team, that was the absolute last thing she wanted or needed from them tonight.

“I mean, you wouldn’t mind it right?” Barbara asked.

“Yeah, it’s just a night stroll right Diana?” Hannah continued.

“… I simply wish to be alone for the night.” Diana finished.

“Alone?” Hannah and Barbara echoed.

“Yes. Alone,” Diana said, her cheeks aflame.

“… Right, if you say so Diana,” Hannah said, tucking herself back into bed. "Have fun on your little 'stroll'"

Diana sighed in relief and smiled, happy that her friends appeared to satisfied with her reasoni-

“Oh, and tell Ak~ko we said hi~,” Hannah and Barbara sang together, their voices light and teasing.

Diana quickly squeaked an “okay” before dashing outside of the room, the sound of giggles the last thing she heard escape her room.

Akko had been up all night with only a dim candlelight illuminating the room.

That was okay though. It was late, and her friends were sleeping.

Akko, however, was way too excited to sleep. Her heart had been racing for hours, and she could barely contain her anticipation, having been bouncing on her bed ever since classes had ended for the day.

It had gotten so bad that Akko needed to grab the thing in her room that could soothe her the most. Something filled with meaning and importance.

The premium Shiny Chariot card.

The card never failed to relax Akko or make her happy whenever she was stressed or sad.

… Unfortunately, the card seemed to have actually had the opposite effect, making Akko even more giddy, the card a perfect reminder of just who exactly she had been waiting to see.

And that was when she saw it out of the corner of her eye: a red spark of light shining off of the calendar Diana had given her a few days ago. A grin broke on her face as she watched a bright red heart form on today’s date.

In an instant, Akko leapt off of her bed, grabbed her wand, and bolted out of the room, only making sure to lightly close the door, so as to not wake up her roommates.

Although a nice thought, the gesture was wholly pointless, seeing as  her two friends slowly rose up out of their slumber, looking towards the door Akko had just sprinted out of.

“Where does that idiot think she’s going?” Sucy muttered.

“Well, you know Akko.” Lotte said with a chuckle.

Sucy sighed.

“Should we follow her and make sure she doesn’t get herself, and us, in trouble?”

Lotte hummed and shook her head. “I don’t think we’ll need to,” Lotte said, turning towards Sucy. “If she ran out that quickly, she’ll probably already be with someone who’ll do that for us.”

Sucy looked up to Lotte and smiled.

“Figures Akko could get even Diana to break the rules.”

Lotte giggled at the thought before wishing Sucy another good night as they both leaned back down onto their beds.  

It had been far too long.

It was as if, the very moment after they had realized and accepted the feelings they had for one another and finally became a couple, fate itself had decided to thrust their lives into chaos.

Never mind tutoring. Between Professor Croix’s abrupt tenure into the school, the Faerie strike, the journey to unlock the Seven Words of Arcturus, the Wild Hunt, Diana leaving Luna Nova and Akko bringing her back, and, of course, the unlocking of the Grand Triskelion, Akko and Diana barely had enough time to be alone together.

And, given how stressful and tiring all of this was, the time they spent alone was usually spent cuddling with one another, neither witch having much left in terms of energy.

One would think that, after releasing the Grand Triskelion, essentially completing the quest that had, for so long, been a large part in both of their school lives, the both of them would have more time with one another.

Unfortunately, people who thought that had never met the press, and they certainly had never met Wangari or anyone else on the Luna Nova News staff.

It had already been a week since the missile crisis, but Akko and Diana were still the headline of the daily school newspaper. While their privacy in their rooms had been respected - Wangari may have been dedicated to getting the latest and greatest scoop, but she wasn’t some sort of criminal -, any moment in the public space of Luna Nova was fair game.

Which made having those promised private tutoring sessions… very complicated.

There wasn’t a waking moment outside of their rooms where the both of them weren’t swarmed by reporters.

And that was why Akko had hatched this plan:

“If meeting up during the day wouldn’t be possible… what about at night? When everyone was asleep!”

Diana admitted the plan could work. It was certainly something that she had never thought of. There was only one problem with it.

“Curfew will have long passed.”

Akko groaned, collapsing atop Diana’s lap, the back of her hand landing dramatically atop her forehead.

“C'mon Dianaaaa, you’ve broken curfew before! And we both know you enjoyed it!”

Diana coughed, a faint blush finding a home on her face.

It was certainly true, after all. The first, and only, time she had actually broken curfew, as opposed to work around it via her duties or permission slips, was in fact a very special moment in her life. In both of their lives. It was one she never regretted doing, and one that, if given another chance, she would do all over again.

That being said, there was one, rather important difference.

“Akko…I broke curfew that night so that I could ensure your safe return to your dorm. What you are suggesting we do tomorrow and what I did then are two completely different matters.”

“They’re not that different… You’ll still be ‘ensuring my safe return’ to my dorm!” Akko protested. “It’ll just… you know, be after we spend like a couple of hours together.”

Diana sighed, bringing her hand up to interlock with Akko’s hand, which was still resting dramatically on her forehead.

She did admit, it was rather tempting. She did miss getting to have an exclusive look at Akko’s magic after all. Not to mention, Diana wanted to do everything in her power to help Akko grow into the kind of witch she wanted to become, one who could continue spreading the joys of magic around the world.

And… really, past curfew would be the only time she would get for this until the news from the Grand Triskelion had died down… and considering Wangari was only now asking either Akko or Diana about the sudden kiss they shared in the stratosphere atop the Shooting Star… that could take quite a while.

Such was the burden of being the school’s “power couple”, as Wangari so kindly put it.

Still, she was a Cavendish.

While the whole idea of strictly following tradition and rules had less meaning to her now than it had months ago- dating Akko did have that effect on her- she still acknowledged tradition’s and rules’ place in her life.

Seeing as she didn’t have to break any of them at this point in time, Diana had no intentions of doing so. Sure she wished to continue watching Akko improve, but that would come in time.  All she needed was a bit of patience.

“Akko, you know tha-”

“Pleeeeeeeease?” Akko interrupted with a long drawn out plea as she shook both of their hands around frantically.

Diana rolled her eyes and giggled at her girlfriend’s silliness.

She then turned downwards to look at her girlfriend’s face so that she could continue explaining why they could not just break rules whenever they wished.

It only took her a moment to realize that doing so was a huge error in judgment.

Diana’s mind short-circuited when she saw Akko looking up at her with wide, almost teary puppy-dog eyes.

Diana felt her resolve quickly crumbling under the weight of the adorable look her girlfriend was sending her. She knew that if she subjected herself to this any longer, she’d succumb to the pressure.

And so she quickly closed her eyes, blocking off her sight.

Unfortunately, cutting off one sense tended to heighten the others, and when a whimper hit her ears with crystal clarity, Diana resolve very nearly broke.

For some unjustifiable reason, the sound made Diana peek open her eyes just a little bit. Perhaps she fooled herself into thinking she wanted to make sure Akko wasn’t actually crying, but they both knew Akko wouldn’t actually be crying over something like this.

She opened just a slight crevice through her eyelids, but unfortunately even that was too much.

Akko was looking up at her with those same wide red eyes… only now Akko's lower lip was jutted out, sending Diana the saddest pout she'd ever witnessed.

The sight made her heart clench, and it was all Diana could do to hold onto the slightest bit of her resolve, trying desperately to keep it together.

And then Akko’s lip quivered.

“… Fine.” Diana groaned in utter defeat, the last bits of her resolve having been crumbled, smashed into dust, and blown away by the fierce cuteness that was Akko Kagari.

Immediately, Akko’s eyes brightened up, her pout disappearing, replaced by a face splitting grin.

“Thank you thank you!” Akko cheered, bouncing off of Diana’s lap to wrap her in a tight hug. “Thank youuuuuuuuu”

Diana chuckled, resigning herself to her decision and immediately thinking of ways to coordinate the late night rendezvous.

She had already agreed to it. She may as well make the most of it.

As reluctant as she may have been when she had started planning this out with Akko the day prior, Diana could not deny she was excited for the first time she’d get to tutor Akko with another spell in months.

She was already on the field where they had met so many times before. She had just finished casting an enchantment that would pacify the frigid winter wind into a more cool evening breeze until her and Akko were finished for the night.

With nothing else left to do, Diana stood by and tried her best to contain her own elation. Her heart raced with every passing second, just waiting for the moment when Akko would jump up from the bushes and-

“Diana!”

Diana quickly turned towards the voice and was immediately tackled by her girlfriend, who had jumped at her with all of her weight.

“Akko?!” Diana yelped as she fell backwards onto the ground.

“Ehehe, sorry~” Akko giggled against Diana’s collar. “I just missed you soooo much!”

Diana melted as the pleasant tune of Akko’s happiness surrounded her. It only took a moment to wrap her arms around Akko’s waist, finally returning a hug of her own.

They may have only just seen each other earlier in the day… but that didn’t make Akko’s words any less true.

“And I missed you too,” Diana whispered softly.

Nor hers.

“Ahhhhhhh, I’m sooo excited!” Akko cheered, all but vibrating in Diana’s arms. “It’s been forever since I got to learn a spell from my favorite tutor.”

“Oh? What about Chariot?” Diana teased without missing a beat. She delighted in seeing the sudden widening of Akko’s eyes and the quick flush of Akko’s cheeks.

“… That’s different,” Akko said, quickly hiding her face in the crook of Diana’s neck. “She’s my favorite teacher.”

Diana hummed in amusement, a sound that grew into melodious laughter when she felt Akko pout against her neck.

She really did miss this.

However…

“Akko, we must begin soon,” Diana said, interrupting their moment together. “It is rather late after all.”

“Okay,” Akko said, lifting herself up until her face was inches above Diana’s. “I hope we have time for kisses though~”

“Perhaps,” Diana smiled, “but first: lessons. We must stay focused.”

Diana’s heart was soaring, and she was struggling to hide the grin that was constantly threatening to overtake her face.

After all, here she was, presented with a perfect view of one of the most adorable sights she had ever known: Akko bouncing in her seat, the silver shine of the moonlight lighting up every bounce of her hair and intensifying the bright light of Akko’s eyes. Akko’s smile was so wide, it was a wonder her cheeks were not in pain, and Diana found it hard not to watch Akko’s little nose as she moved up and down.

But as adorable as all of this was, Diana had a task to do, and she was going to perform it with the utmost perfection.

She cleared her throat and prepared to begin.

“Akko, are you ready?”

“Ready as ever!”

“Very well,” Diana said as she released her wand from the knot in her sash, “then I shall demonstrate tonight’s spell. I am sure you don’t need another lesson about how this spell works?”

“I dunnoooo” Akko drawled, “will it end the same way the last one did? Cause if it will, I don’t think a refresher could hurt~” Akko teased.

Diana’s face quickly turned scarlet, and she could just tell Akko was enjoying the way words were beginning to fail her, with only sputters escaping her lips.

Diana had to pause the lesson for a moment to gather her bearings from Akko's teasing. Considering they had literally started a minute ago, Diana realized this might be happening quite often should she not put a stop to it immediately.

Diana took a deep breath, using the time to contemplate a countermeasure.

After a moment, she managed to think of one. It was dire, and Diana was unsure she’d be able to hold herself to it.

However, she knew if they were to get anywhere tonight, it would have to be done.

“Akko,” Diana said as she exhaled her breath, “just for that transgression, you shall receive no kisses until you have adequately performed the spell.”

“W-What?!” Akko quickly jumped off from her seat on the grass, “You… You can’t just do that!”

“I can, and I just did,” Diana said, satisfied to see shock written all over Akko’s face. “Now shall I continue? Or do you wish to stall?”

“… Fine,” Akko mumbled after a long, resigned sigh.  She crossed her arms and sat back down with a grumble and a pout.

… The pout made Diana realize how difficult this condition might actually be on her, but she shook it off. After all, she was Akko’s tutor.

Not only that, she had spent at least one month tutoring Akko without experiencing the sweet taste of Akko’s lips, or the soft warmth of Akko’s skin against her own lips. She was sure she could do it again.

“Very well, then I shall demonstrate the spell once more.”

Diana took a deep breath, focusing magic into the tip of her wand. It glowed a bright green, and as Diana waved it around, a trail of light followed her every movement.

“Stellaetus”

At the call of the spell, the light separated from her wand and grew into a large orb above her. The orb then exploded in a bright flash, and leaving behind a sea of stars that surrounded both witches, floating and flittering around.

As Diana’s magic danced, Akko’s arms dropped to her sides, all feelings of frustration and stubbornness melting away. Diana’s magic was beautiful, and Akko couldn’t help but marvel at its brilliance, even moreso since it had been a while since she had experienced it personally.

Each individual green spark of light moved and swayed around in a slow, rhythmic waltz, one Akko's eyes couldn’t help but follow. No matter how Akko had felt before, seeing Diana’s magic cast in such a display would always mesmerize her.

“Woooow” Akko breathed out, her eyes sparkling in the glow of Diana’s spell as her focus danced between a countless number of shimmering lights.

Diana smiled inwardly, satisfied that she had successfully brought out Akko’s child-like love for magic.

“While I don’t expect something of this level quite yet, by the end of today, I would like to see you produce something to this effect,” Diana said, hoping to similarly bear witness to the brilliance only Akko’s magic could encapsulate. However, seeing as this was Akko, Diana needed to clarify one thing, “ It is also important to note that, while my spell did conjure a large orb of light, that is wholly unnecessary. The light can directly stream from your wand.”

Though still entranced by the brilliantly shining lights surrounding her, one thing in Diana’s lecture had caught her attention.

“The large orb thing is 'unnecessary’?”

“Well… yes,” Diana answered, “Purely for show.”

Akko pondered on this for a moment, before sending Diana a cheeky grin.

For what seemed like the fifth time tonight, Diana’s face felt enflamed.

“Then why did you do it?” Akko asked innocently, as if she didn’t already know the answer. “You don’t seem like the kind of person who would do something unnecessarily.”

“Akko…” Diana chided, though it was far too weak to have any sort of lasting impact.

“Was my girlfriend showing off for me?” Akko teased, sauntering towards a flustered Diana… a flustered Diana who refused to answer… seeing as the answer was an obvious yes.

She had simply wanted to see that child-like look of awe on Akko’s adorable face. The way Akko’s face lit up was always something truly magical in and of itself.

Diana’s eyes quickly widened when she noticed the repercussions of her own train of thought.

“Oh! What’s thiiiiis?” Akko gasped in delight, crossing her eyes for a moment. “I think I see some glitter on my nose~ Does somebodyyy wanna kiss it and make them go away?”

Diana continued to feel heat rushing into her face, rising up into the tips of her ears, upon hearing Akko’s insinuation. After all… the answer was a resounding yes. And as much as it embarrassed her in these circumstances, Diana knew her first instinct would have been to walk up to Akko, cup her face, and kiss the glitter and that smirk off of her adorable, magic-covered, giggling face.

But Diana had to hold herself back. She had just restricted kisses as a reprimand of sorts against Akko’s teasing. She would not fall apart at the nearest opportunity… no matter how much she truly wanted to.

Apparently allowing her emotions to run visibly free wasn’t the wisest decision while trying to seriously teach Akko. It gave Akko far too much to tease her about so long as she was trying to be focused. And judging by the playful smile on her face, Akko was not going to stop teasing anytime soon either, which would really be an obstacle for progress, seeing how easily flustered Diana was… at least when it came to Akko.

So she did the only other logical thing.

Diana instantly ceased her spell. All the lights faded away, leaving Akko sorely disappointed.

Watching Akko visibly deflate caused Diana much grief, but it was a necessary sacrifice. A grave one, yes, but necessary.

“Dianaaaa, why did you-”

“Akko, we need to focus. And you clearly would not be able to focus whilst that spell was active.”

“That’s cause it was showing just how unfocused you were!”

“… Akko just hurry up and begin practice,” Diana deflected, “Or do you wish to delay your kisses further?”

Akko pouted but listened to her girlfriend, taking a stance with her wand.

Akko was frustrated.

Three hours later, and Akko was nowhere near where she wanted to be, both in regards to the spell and in regards to where she literally was.

In regards to the spell, it was a far cry from what Diana had managed to do. Akko could barely manage to keep the sparkles lit up for any longer than a few seconds… not to mention they always drifted downwards to the ground instead of floating around them.

That being said, there was some progress being made there. At the very least, her magic had stopped exploding in a blinding flash the second she tried to cast the spell, seeing as she had abandoned trying to mimic Diana’s earlier showing, at Diana’s request of course.

… Speaking of Diana.

Yes. Akko knew she would have to be practicing magic.

Yes, Akko knew she couldn’t hug and kiss Diana as much as she could have if she had decided to spend this time alone together cuddling.

She expected that and was okay with that. She wanted to practice magic, and she wanted Diana to be there to help her…

What she wasn’t okay with was Diana being out of arm’s reach the entire time.

It was their first time working together like this as a couple… Akko thought that maybe there could be some hugs, cuddles, and kisses in between attempts.

But then Diana made that darn condition of no kisses… and she even seemed to take it a step further.

And being so close to her girlfriend without being able to so much as hold her hand was making Akko very very frustrated. 

“Stellaetus!” Akko yelled, pouring as much magic into the tip of her wand as she could. 

Light flittered from its point, shimmering in the air, and for a moment Akko thought that maybe, just maybe this was it. And then she’d finally get that darn kiss she’d been waiting way too long fo-

And then the lights slowly drifted down towards the ground, dissipating into nothingness.

Akko let out a loud cry, falling backwards onto the grass. Akko pouted as she looked up to the sky, so full of stars.

Ordinarily, she’d have appreciated the view. The stars were extraordinarily bright tonight… but given her circumstances, that fact in and of itself almost made it feel like the stars themselves were taunting her.  

“Akko… being frustrated only makes the spell more difficult to cast,” Diana said as she crouched beside Akko.

“But Dianaaa, that’s so complicated!” Akko groaned, lying her head down on the grass. “Trying to focus all of my happy emotions into my magic is so haaard!”

“Really?” Diana questioned, looking genuinely confused. “I personally believed it would be rather simple for you.” Diana admitted. “After all, your magic is always brimming with your excitement and energy. Like during the Samhain festival. Or your first flight. Or when we unleashed the Grand Triskelion.”

Akko sighed.

It was true. Especially considering that was the only way the Shiny Rod would really… work. That being said…

“But Diana! I wasn’t even really trying back then…” Akko bemoaned. “It just… sorta…”

“Happened?”

Akko opened her eyes to see Diana looking straight into her eyes. There were a lot of feelings she could pick out. Curiosity. Concern. Love. But beyond all that, Akko could see the glimmer of belief. A belief in her and her magic, one that had not left those eyes ever since she managed to lift her broom off the ground on their second day as tutor and tutee.

“… Yeah,” Akko said, turning away from Diana's intense gaze. “Trying to do it on purpose is really…”

“Then try not to think about it.”

“What?” Akko sat up from her spot and turned to Diana.

“Well, that may not be the easiest thing to do… I suppose telling you how to power the spell all those months ago may have been an error on my part,” Diana sighed, looking down towards the ground. “After all, it was something you always did instinctively… telling you may have caused you to overthink it.”

“… It’s fine. It was worth it anyway.” Akko muttered as she slowly leaned against Diana.

Despite the utter failure of this session, Akko couldn’t help the growing smile on her face, finally able to lean onto Diana like this.

She was nice and soft and so very warm.

“… Perhaps… we should pick this up another time?” Diana offered, her cheeks sporting the faintest blush. “It’s getting rather… late after all… and I am sure you wished to do more than just... uhm, practice magic all night.”

“Yeah, okay. That would be nice.” Akko said sleepily. Despite how wonderful it felt being able to rest on Diana again, Akko couldn’t ignore the pang in her chest. “… I’m sorry I wasn’t able to do it tonight.”

“… It is quite alright. It was my fault anyway.” Diana said, leaning her head atop Akko’s. “I will just need to think of another, more creative way to teach you this spell.” Diana chuckled when she heard Akko whine the tiniest bit. “If this helps in anyway Akko… I never once thought about focusing my emotions while performing this spell.”

“Hm? You didn’t?”

“Not at all,” Diana smiled. “Just as you said… it just sort of happened as I thought about other things and what I wanted to do with this spell.”

That piqued Akko’s curiosity.

With a grumble, Akko lazily lifted her head off of Diana’s shoulder and looked right into Diana’s shining blue eyes.

“What did you think about?”

Diana’s eyes widened.

“What do you me-”

“What were you thinking about when you cast the spell,” Akko said, suddenly moving her face closer to Diana’s, “and what did you want it to do?”

Diana bit her lip and turned away, thinking back to times she had performed the spell in earnest. The first time many years ago… and all the times she had recently cast it.

“W-Well…” Diana muttered, a subtle heat rising into her cheeks, “when I first cast the spell… I thought of my mother.”

“Your mom?” Akko asked, urging Diana to continue.

“Yes… When I first regained my ability to use magic, I knew I wanted to show my mother something spectacular, to show her that my magic had truly returned.” Diana said. “But at the time, most of those spells were far too complex and required much more magic than I was capable of utilizing… except for one.”

“The Stellaetus.”

Diana smiled.

“That is correct… so while I practiced it, I was single mindedly focused on how much I wanted to make my mother smile… and how happy my mother had always made me. From there, it just clicked.”

After listening to Diana’s short little story, Akko looked at her girlfriend in awe.

At first, Akko imagined a seven year old Diana practicing magic in secret for the sole purpose of making her mother smile and found the thought absurdly cute. But the more Akko thought about what she had just been told, the more she found herself struck speechless by how pure Diana’s motivations were… and here she was focused on casting it to get a kiss.

“And all the other times?” Akko muttered.

Diana’s face heated up further, and she quickly turned towards the ground in an attempt to hide herself.

Even after all these months, Diana was still shy about speaking about her feelings, about how much she adored being with Akko and especially about how she felt before they started dating: how absurdly obvious the things she did made her crush on Akko seem… and how oblivious the both of them were to the implications of it all.

Right down to her motivations for all the little acts of magic she had staged for Akko.

Diana took a deep breath and mumbled her answer.

“… I simply thought about how wondrous you saw magic… and how much I wished to bring that out in you myself.”

Akko’s heart skipped a beat.

Sure she always teased Diana about it, but hearing her actually admit that she did everything for the sake of essentially making her smile… Akko couldn’t even begin to put to words how happy that made her feel.

And then it hit her.

“Diana?”

“Yes Akko?

"Can I try one more time?”

Diana turned her head curiously.

“… Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Akko said, grunting as she stood up onto her feet. “But uh, this time, you mind standing… riiight in front of me?”

Diana quirked a brow, but listened to Akko. She stood up and moved right in front of Akko.

“Good, thank you.” Akko smiled up at her girlfriend.. “Now…”

With one quick motion, Akko brought her arms up and wrapped them around Diana’s waist. She then tightened her grip, pressing the both of them against each other.

“A-Akko?” Diana gasped in surprise.

Diana’s heart hammered against her chest. She could feel warmth spreading from the point on her collarbone where Akko was nuzzling her head outwards, a significant portion of it finding its way into her face.

“Shhh,” Akko whispered, still nuzzling against Diana’s chest. “Hold me toooo.”

“Ak-Akko, I… I” Diana stammered and stuttered, still thrown off by Akko’s sudden affection. “I fail to see how thi-”

“Shhh, just trust me and hold me.” Akko muttered.

Diana sighed but relented, wrapping her arms around Akko’s waist.

Akko’s smile widened.

Being right here like this with Diana, in each other’s arms, felt so soft… so warm. Akko took in a deep breath, taking in the relaxing scent of lavender, and sighed blissfully.

Hearing Diana’s story made her realize what she was doing wrong… this is what she should have been focused on. This feeling.

Being with Diana made Akko so happy, and she knew she’d likely never be able to show just how much it did.

But, maybe if Akko could show even a fraction of how happy she felt…

Akko loosened her hold around Diana’s waist, extending her wand out behind Diana.

“A-Akko?”

Akko looked up into Diana’s eyes, her lips still turned up in a soft smile.

“Stellaetus,” Akko whispered.

For a moment, nothing happened. It was just the both of them growing lost in each other’s gaze.

And then a tiny flicker of blue light came into view, floating between the both of them.

And then another.

And another, until the both of them were practically swarmed by the floating stars.

Diana looked around at the circles of light floating around them. They were all so bright, yet so gentle, and they each radiated warmth not unlike what she felt emanating from the girl wrapped in her arms.

Diana then looked down at her girlfriend, and the sight she saw filled her chest with a fuzzy warmth.

Akko was looking around with awe at the lights she had created. Her eyes were wide, and they shined brightly under the light of her own magic. The smile that was on her face widened as more shimmers and glimmers of light surrounded the both of them.

When Akko turned her attention back to Diana, she couldn’t stop the giggle that bubbled in her chest.

It only took a moment for Diana to realize what that meant. Diana crossed her eyes to confirm what she already knew.

It seemed all of the stars had been congregating around her the entire time, if the sparkles on her nose were any indication. A few more looks around herself revealed the stars had attached themselves onto more than just her nose.

Diana turned her attention back on Akko and smiled softly.

“It appears there is glitter all around me Akko.” Diana whispered.

Akko giggled.

“There’s a lot on your lips too!”

Diana chuckled and shook her head, because of course there would be.

“Is that so?” Diana said playfully.

Akko nodded excitedly.

She then looked up at Diana and gave a smile so bright, it could even put the sun to shame.

“Sooooo, do I get my reward now?”

Diana gazed softly at Akko and raised her left hand to lift Akko’s chin towards her.

“Very well,” Diana warmly said, “I suppose you have earned it.”

The way Akko giggled and bounced on the balls of her feet made Diana’s heart do flips, and she was suddenly very glad she’d finally be able to kiss her girlfriend.

Diana closed her eyes and tilted her head to the side. Then she leaned forward to press their lips together.

Even through her shut eyelids, Diana could see the light of Akko’s spell growing more and more intense as the both of them pressed closer, deepening the kiss.

And Diana most definitely deepened the kiss, and she would continue doing so until Akko wished to separate. After all, Akko had worked very hard. What kind of girlfriend would she be if she didn’t adequately reward her for a job well done?

Besides, Diana would be lying if she said she was not looking forward to this either. Just like Akko, Diana had been growing rather frustrated with the, annoyingly necessary and self-imposed, distance between the both of them. She had simply been better at hiding it.

Now, feeling Akko’s lips against her own, Diana couldn’t even fathom how she had managed to hold out the entire time. All she knew was that, had she faltered even once in that time, she would not have been able to pull away, leaving their tutoring session entirely forgotten. The warmth and love she felt blooming in her chest as they continued to press against each other were far too comforting,  the jolt of electricity that coursed through her veins with each touch of Akko’s lips too addicting. Diana found it difficult to think of anything else.

Akko was having similar thoughts, or lack thereof, to be more accurate. From the moment she felt Diana’s impossibly soft lips touch hers, Akko had been single-mindedly determined to drink in as much of it as she could. Though she had forgotten it for a bit as she cast the Stellaetus spell, she had waited hours for a chance to kiss her girlfriend, and now that she had that chance, she was going to get as much as Diana was willing to give, resolving to only separate once Diana chose to.

Spurred on by the pleasant feelings of warmth and love both girls felt, coupled with their determination to keep going until the other was ready to stop, Diana and Akko continued to deepen the kiss, not even taking a moment’s breath if it meant separating.

They slowly began to feel lightheaded, but they both ignored it, still pressing forward to lose themselves in this kiss. Even when their lungs began to burn, they both just shut their eyes tight to try and bear it to keep themselves connected.

It was only when their lungs absolutely demanded air that they finally did separate, their chests heaving as they gasped for air.

Their faces were flushed, and their hearts were beating wildly against their ribs. Looking at each other, their eyes found themselves still drawn to the other’s lips, their own lips still tingling with the sensations of the previous kiss, and they both knew that even that earlier kiss had not been enough.

Yet despite that, a mischievous glint still found itself in  Akko’s darkened irises.

“Hey… Hey Diana?” Akko panted out through staggered breaths.

“Yes, Yes Akko?” Diana shakily said as she tried to catch her breath.

“That, That was a really stupid plan,” Akko said through a strained giggle.

Diana turned her head in confusion, her mind still rather addled by their kiss.

“I’m just saying,” Akko continued, her lips curling up into an impish smirk, “if you just let me have my hugs and kisses earlier, I probably would have gotten the hang of the spell quicker.”

It took a moment for Diana to register that Akko was teasing her, and when she did, she had to fight to not roll her eyes. Ordinarily, she’d make some retort in her defense, perhaps citing how ridiculously quickly they found themselves lost in their kiss earlier, but said kiss dulled her thoughts enough that a proper retort was difficult to conjure up.  

Unable to be bothered to think up a coherent response, Diana decided she would simply allow Akko’s claim to go unchallenged. Besides, despite how sure she was that, had she allowed herself Akko’s kisses earlier, the entire tutoring session would have been long forgotten, there was some credence in the claim, considering how quickly Akko had managed to successfully cast the spell once they were together.

Still, she couldn’t just ignore the fact that Akko was already teasing her. After all, if Akko had somehow already gathered the energy and breath to tease her…

“Akko?”

“Yeah Diana?”

Diana simply cupped Akko’s cheeks and smiled.

“Be quiet.”

All Akko could do was giggle, her lips switching from a smirk to a happy grin as Diana re-captured them with her own.

[ruffoverthinksthings]

Audrey and Harry are my otp and there nothing about them really if you have the tim can you do the ship meme with them please

AND NOW, I FALL DOWN AND REST.

1.Whois the most affectionate?:

Harry,surprisingly enough.

Nomatter how clingy Audrey gets, she still has limits to how much PDAshe is willing to do, what she will or won’t do given certaincircumstances and contexts, and also things she just flat-out willnot do, no matter how nicely you ask, how much you beg, and how muchyou butter her up.

Harryhas no such reservations. Getting touchy-feely with his girlfriend onthe bus, to the point of groping a breast? Whispering in her earbefore licking it? Carefully catching her clothes with his hook, justenough pressure to pull her back but never actually damage it?

Allfair game to him.

2.Bigspoon/Little spoon?:

Harryis big spoon, Audrey is little spoon. All she’s ever wanted issomeone to protect her and be by her side, and Harry will oblige her,even if he does end up inciting a lot of the incidents and adventuresthat necessitate her needing to be protected.

3.Mostcommon argument?:

Harry’snot getting to hook people. Even the ones that also annoy Audrey tothe point where she wants to sic him on them, too.

“Wehave rules here in Auradon!”, which is why Harry always carries adueling glove on him to slap people across the face, then get tofight them if they happen to accept.

Sometimesit doesn’t even fit his hand or his style, he just has one in hispocket specifically for formally, legally challenging people to afight.

4.Favoritenon-sexual activity?:

Personalgrooming, manicures especially.

Harryhas something of a fixation on hands ever since the incident thatcrippled his “hook” hand and necessitates its use from day today, and Audrey introduces him to the wonders and pleasures ofgetting a good mani-pedi—well, aside from his precious treasurebeing more radiant and beautiful than usual.

5.Whois most likely to carry the other?:

Harry,in spite of his hook hand.

Heknows how to use it well, so don’t worry about any sort ofaccidental hooking or impaling. When it really comes down to it,he’ll even willingly put it into his coat pocket, suffer the painof stretching and using stiff, damaged, never-healed-right tendons tocarry her with both hands.

6.Whatis their favorite feature of their partner’s?:

Audrey’shands. Harry loves being like a gentleman and kissing them, holdingthem and professing his ownership of her, nevermind the things shedoes that “makes you wonder if she was a fine mistress in a pastlife.”

Harry’seyes. There’s something wild, dangerous, and not quite right withthis boy, and it’s here that she sees them most—well, aside fromhis threatening to hook people, that is.

7.What’sthe first thing that changes when they realize they have feelings forthe other?:

Harryhas something of a minor crisis. He’s always treated Audrey aseither “that crazy lass who thinks she’s the queen ofeverything,” or as an amusing diversion that is fun to rile up orplay with the emotions if.

“Iactually care about her now. That’s new. And troubling.”

He gets over it soon enough, though, as his father has shown that doubt can lead to some form of honest love, that goes to passionate and violent break-ups, before it goes right back to doubt…

Audreyhas something that is most definitely not a minor crisis. She’s hadsome VERY strict, very narrow, very specific ideas about who she is,what she wants out of life, and what her future is going to be, andto fall in love with a VK who’s been an endless source of bothfascination and distress throws all of that for a loop, to say theleast.

Insteadof a quote, just imagine a never-ending stream of screaming, crying,and shoveling chocolate into her mouth as her world collapses aroundher yet again.

8.Nicknames?& if so, how did they originate?:

Audrey’sfor Harry are “Captain,” “My Psychotic Seadog,” and “YouJerk” with a capital J. All came about as a consequence of Harryjust being himself, and Audrey refusing to address him by name.“Captain” in particular is almost always said sarcastically.

Harry’sfor Audrey’s are “Princess,” “Milady,” “Queen of theUniverse,” “Loony Lass,” and “Crazy Bitch,” all withcapital letters also. The Royal titles are all from her “thinkin���everyone needs to bow down and kiss ‘er feet 24/7,” while thelatter two are from Audrey’s freak-outs.

9.Whoworries the most?:

Audrey.

Harryhas a very laissez-faire, come what may, take it as it comes attitudeas a pirate, and being taught that the sea does not give two shitsabout you, and you should always act according to that belief.

Audrey,however, has been raised to believe that EVERYTHING can be solved andmade perfect, because she has parents and peers that have theconnections to move mountains.

10.Whoremembers what the other one always orders at a restaurant?:

Harry,though the thing is Audrey never really gets a chance. His orders arebased on his mood, availability, and how much effort he wants to putin that day, so it’s nearly impossible to predict.

Audrey,however, has a definite, constant list of things she will ingest aspart of her latest diet, current trends, or mood; she’s a girl ofrituals, tradition, and predictability, after all.

11.Whotops?:

Audrey.

“Anyself-respecting pirate either guns for the position o’ captain, orserving under a right ferocious one. Dear ol’ dad wants the first,but I have to admit: being a first mate has some seriousbenefits.”

12.Whoinitiates kisses?:

Harry,in line with number 1.

Kisseson the cheek out of nowhere, love bites on the neck as they’regetting steamy, suddenly pulling her aside and kissing her on thelips before he casually spins her right back on her way—he’sshameless about it.

13.Whoreaches for the other’s hand first?:

Audrey,except for when Harry is explicitly doing one of those kissingantics.

Forall his life, Harry has been told that love is a weakness, and tonever show that you care for any of your wenches more than a pirateshould, so it’s up to Audrey to slowly get him to unlearn that.

14.Whokisses the hardest?:

Harry—“Medad always said that whatever you do, always make sure that yourheart’s in it, and that you better damn well show it, too,and I love my precious treasure with most of my heart.

“What?Why not all of my heart? There’s treasure to be had and adventuresto be chased, and other pretty faces to admire—in a strictlyhands-and-hook-off manner—is why.”

15.Whowakes up first?:

Harry.

It’sa natural instinct for him to be up as early as possible, to get inon the spoils before they’re all stolen, get started on thenecessary chores of the day, and get the last of the night’scatches before daybreak drives them down too deep to be caught.

16.Whowants to stay in bed just a little longer?:

Audrey.

Shereally is really, really, really insistent thatshe gets her beauty sleep, the full whatever hours is recommended forher, and so help you if you interrupt that. It’s gotten to thepoint where Harry has an all new set of escape skills specificallyfor freeing himself from Audrey’s “tentacle-like grasp forbedtime snuggles.”

17.Whosays I love you first?:

Harry.It ends badly, as you’ll find out later.

18.Wholeaves little notes in the other’s one lunch? (Bonus: what does itusually say?):

Audrey.

They’refrequently reminders about things he needs to do, has not done thatshe has done for him to take his mind off, or notices that she’sfound out about whatever sweet/terrible/terribly sweet things he’sdone for her, such as casually sabotaged the car of a rival so shecould get to an appointment/event they were both gunning for.

“Captain,I love you, I appreciate the gesture and I am very happy to havegotten the job, but next time, let me compete for it on my ownmerits, okay?”

Onthe reverse side:

“Youcan kiss these hands goodbye for the next sixweeks if you don’t.”

19.Whotells their family/friends about their relationship first?:

Harry.

It’seasy since CJ regularly comes by and bugs him, and there’s noescaping their curiosity until he admits, and when Harriet sneaks herway onto Auradon she follows suit after CJ insists she has to “fishit out of his yellow belly.”

Pleasenote that CJ, Harriet and Harry were were not originally part of theprogram, and all snuck onto Auradon illegally, but you knowBen–”picks up every marooned soul and even the boarding partiesfor his own crew.”

20.Whatdo their family/friends think of their relationship?:

Hook’sunderstanding, but disappointed, as he feels that pining too much fora pretty face will lead to you forgetting the important things inlife, like raiding, looking after your crew and earning theirloyalty, and knowing when it’s time to cut the line and cast yourline again.

Hehonestly can’t really say much given his incredibly violenton-and-off again relationship with the three’s mother, whom heclaims “just keeps swimming back on my hook like a moth to aflame.”

Don’tmention that he has the option of throwing her back into the sea.

CJand Harriet are delighted, because it gives them all manner ofleverage and new forms of insults towards Harry. They really couldn’tcare less about his happiness, and never really move past the siblingrivalry, constant violence, and one-upmanship that dominates theirrelationship.

Auroraand Philip are barely fazed. Mal and Ben have already broken thetaboo of VK/AK relationships on a large scale, and though theyunderstand that the heart wants want it wants, and Philip respectsHarry’s determination and drive to win his lady’s hand like hedid so many years ago, they’re still ultimately conservativeparents, and demand that Harry wear a proper, non-leather coat andpolish his hook to mirror sheen in their home.

KingHubert is much more strict about it, constantly trying to be a“proper role model” for Harry in between haranguing him,terrorizing him, and making threats in case he ever “refuses tofollow through” on any of his “future commitments, written orunwritten” with Audrey, particularly that of getting her pregnantand refusing to marry her, or worse, abandoning her.

“Nogreat-grandchildren of mine will be born bastards, if I can help it!”

Flora,Fauna, and Merryweather constantly fuss over her and worry about hernew relationship, seeing as it’s their job as her fairy godmothers(though in a very mundane sense nowadays). While the former two findno pleasure in it and hope it’s all just a phase for Audrey,Merryweather sincerely wishes she was allowed to magic popcorn out ofnowhere.

“I’mreally starting to get the appeal of ‘Bad Boys’ now!”

21.Whois more likely to start dancing with the other?:

Both.

Harryhas a lot of excess energy and a desire to show off, Audrey lovesbeing at the center of attention, and what better way to do that thanbe the best dancer on the floor?

22.Whocooks more/who is better at cooking?:

Audrey.

Harryis far too used to getting free lunches by stealing them from others,and Auradon provides him plenty of opportunities to feed himselfwithout putting much effort.

23.Whocomes up with cheesy pick up lines?:

Harry.

WhileAudrey is outside of the room, and to someone else: “I think I needto see a doctor. I keep getting these spells where I get all woozy,dizzy, and my thoughts get all jumbled up, like I’m sea sick onlyworse.” Audrey enters, Harry overdramatically puts his hand on hisforehead. “Ah! Here it is again!”

24.Whowhispers inappropriate things in the other’s ear duringinappropriate times?:

Harry.

Theman is shameless, and he doesn’t hesitate to show it.

“Whata lovely dress you’re wearing, your highness; how I’mlooking forward to ripping it open later tonight…~”

25.Whoneeds more assurance?:

Audrey.

ThoughHarry has his own share of insecurities and problems, for Audrey, anyproblem is a problem, while he has a fairly decent set of coping mechanisms. They aren’t HEALTHY, but they work.

26.Whatwould be their theme song?:

“Hurricane”by Panic! At The Disco

Hey!Hey! We are a hurricaneDrop our anchors in a stormHey!They will never be the sameAfire in a flask to keep us warm‘Causethey know, I knowThat they don’t look like meOh, theyknow, I knowThat they don’t sound like me

Thisis not the peaceful, lovey-dovey, sweet and picturesque RomanceAudrey thought she would be having.

Andreally, she finds she’s caring less and less as the days roll by.

27.Whowould sing to their child back to sleep?:

Audrey.

It’sa tradition from her mother, though she laments she hasn’t beenmagically blessed with a fantastic singing voice.

“MyQueen, I could listen to you reading off the lines of a dictionary,and I’d still find myself getting swept away to sleep.”

28.Whatdo they do when they’re away from each other?:

Harrytries not to, and consistently does, get in trouble. He may or maynot be legitimately trying to improve, it’s really unclear, even tohim. That aside, his way of reconnecting with his friends andreminding himself of what kind of person he is is hanging out withthe much more volatile of the VKs like CJ and Zevon, sometimes evenroping Mal and Jay into it for “old time’s sake.”

29.oneheadcanon about this OTP that breaks your heart:

Audrey’sattraction to Harry first begins at his first formal event that Bendidn’t explicitly ban him from, after he and his sisters crashedthe last one by organizing three separate “boarding parties,” ofwhich ended up figuratively and literally crashing into each other todevastating results for everyone in attendance, and a few of thelocations immediately adjacent to the venue.

Surprisinglyenough, Harry and his sisters actually behaved—though somemay attribute that to Ben putting in no uncertain terms that theywould definitely be arrested if they raised hell once more, with avery visible presence of Royal Guards and two escorts per sibling toemphasize that point.

Harrymanaged to put on the more charming side of his scoundrel nature,awakening something in Audrey when she saw a proper silk suittailored to his muscular form with a shirt open to show off hischest, his ability to make smooth and amusing conversation withpeople, and of course, pepper it with some scandalous remarks thatget her more flustered than she really hopes to be.

Harrylikewise admits that, when Audrey is in her element of being “Queenof Everything,” she can be rather damn radiant, attractive, andoutright charming.

Atthe end of the night, when they’re all going their separateways—Audrey takes a motorized carriage, the Hook siblings share theback of a guard van, with the most capable of their escort withthem—Harry shares his newest impulse:

“Ithink I’m going to try and steal a princess’ heart.”

Harriethums. “Care to share her name, so I know which one to set my sightson, little brother?” she asks, CJ listening in intently.

“Audrey,the one who fancies herself a queen before she’s even got hercrown,” Harry replies.

Harrietand CJ’s eyes widen in surprise, before they both shake theirheads. “On second thought, little Hawthorne, you needn’t worryabout me stealing your wench!”

“You’vegot rather bigger problems to worry about than us,” CJ adds,chuckling.

Harryraises his eyebrows. “And what’s got you two backing off likecowards on the plank?”

“I’dask if you were being serious, but then I realized it’s you, so youreally are so stupid as to need it spelled out: Audrey is cursedtreasure, little Hawthorne, glitters and sparkles, but with a costgreater than her worth, however you cut it.”

Harryhuffs. “But there’s always a way to lift a curse…” he smiles“… you just have to know how to.”

CJgiggles. “I call dibs on your stuff when you die to do just that!”

“AndI’m going to be stealing your dibs shortly afterward!” Harrietchirps.

Harryrolls his eyes and ignores them, before he feels a tap on his otherside.

“I’dlisten to your sisters if I were you,” one of the guards says.

“Thanks,”Harry says flatly, before he starts thinking of how exactly he’sgoing to win Audrey over.

Ifhe’d ever listened to his sisters, he’d probably be long dead atthe bottom of the Strait of Ursula or some other terrible fate.

Meanwhile,in the carriage, Audrey and most of the girls are busy chatting awayabout the night’s events.

“… It’ssuch a shame that getting proper clothes and access to personal careproducts have only bloated the Twins’ egos, but I suppose there’sjust no changing that, no matter what you do,” Evie says.

“Noone has genes like Gaston, breeds numbskulls like Gaston, kids thatfail every class like Gaston’s! If you want handsome douchebags ofyour own, look no further than Gaston!” Mal sings, before she andeveryone else laugh.

“Goodthing we’ve got so many guys to pick and choose from, now,” Eviehums, smiling happily. “And speaking of guys, don’t think Ididn’t notice that you’ve got your sights set on Harry, Audrey.”

Audreyblinks, all the mirth draining from her face. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Youwere with him practically all night, getting all witty and flirtywith him,” Mal adds flatly. “Honestly, I was waiting for you tojump in his arms before he sweeps you away for some hot,bodice-ripping fucking.”

Audreystares at them, speechless.

Malreaches forward and puts a hand on Audrey’s knee. “Take it froman ex: the crazy is more often scary than it is fun, and in myopinion, the things he can do with his good hand are not worthit.”

Audreyscoffs and shirks away from her. “Ugh, Mal, thank you for theadvice, but to set the record straight with all of you, I am notinterested in Harry Hook, especially in a romantic sense.”

Everyoneelse, including Jane, just stares at her.

Shecrosses her arms as she sits up, dignified like a queen. “I haveplans for my life, girls—solid, meticulously made plans, years ifnot decades in the making. Sure, there have been aspects of it I’vehad to change or abandon thanks to unexpected circumstances andevents—no offense, Mal–”

“Nonetaken.”

“–ButI can assure you that none of it has ever involved, or will everinvolve dating a Villain Kid, especially someone like Harry Hook,”Audrey finishes, before she spends the rest of the trip in “dignifiedsilence.”

Maland Evie share looks, but decide not to comment on it. They knowbetter now.

Andso begins a weeks long campaign of Harry’s with flirting withAudrey, doing things like giving much more pointed and frequentcompliments to her, popping up out of nowhere with gifts or littlecourtesies and gestures like getting her usual order at a Jolly Juicedone and paid for just as she’s about to order, and of course, justmaking “treasure” eyes at her, and noticeably just on her.

Audreyis initially flattered and thankful for them, but as Harry’sefforts only strengthen than wane when he doesn’t get bored andmove on to someone else like she thought he would, she finds herselfthinking more and more of Harry, and especially when those thoughtsstart to stray to things she definitely shouldn’t be thinkingabout–

(“Iwonder if he’s ever used that hook of his to please a girl? Whatwould that even be like? What would it feel like if he did it onme…?”

–Shestarts to get panicky, jumpy, and outright ignoring Harry as her LifePlans begin to crumble right before her very eyes yet again.

Notone to be discouraged, Harry doesn’t really mind the fact thatshe’s politely (then not so politely) sending signals and wordsthat say she’d like him to stop, and considers her reactions to bea great sign that what he’s doing is working. Even herealizes that you can “only wrangle with a fish so long, until youpull it out of the water, or you go flying overboard,” so decidesto move in for the kill.

Soit is that one sunny Saturday afternoon, Harry invites Audrey to oneof the more isolated gardens in Auradon Prep, the one with thefountain that always looks on the verge of being overtaken by vinesand plants for how little attention the groundskeepers pay to it. Totheir mutual surprise, she agrees to go.

Audrey,out of sheer force of habit, dolls herself up for the occasion, usingone of her better (not best) dresses, spending only one and a halfhours on her make-up and hair this time. Harry does the same, fixinghis normally unruly hair, wearing one of the whole coats that Ben hadgiven him to look less “Villainous,” and even going through thetrouble of polishing his hook to a mirror sheen.

He’scalm as can be, Audrey is nervous as all hell, every single secondgrowing antsier and anstier on the inside like a spring slowly beingcoiled, the tension growing tighter as she notices that Harry’sgood hand is reaching inside his coat. Still, a princess keeps herpromises unless she has damn good reason not to, and unfortunately,she can’t find anything with Harry that isn’t too biased orprejudiced towards him.

Shesteps as close as she can get to Harry, about an arm and a quarter’slength. “Well…” she says as she tries not to clutch fistfuls ofher skirt (she’ll wrinkle the fabric), “I’m here! What it isyou wanted to say to me…?”

Fwoosh.

Withsleight of hand and dramatic flair he usually reserves for hisswords, Harry reveals a bouquet of silky, fragile, andbeautiful flowers that Audrey loves so much. He thrusts them out toher, bows like a proper gentleman except with a hook to his chest,and says:

“Audreyof Auroria, I’m really quite sure I’m in love with you, and wouldbe quite happy and honoured if you’ll give me more of your time totake you out on a date.”

Andjust like that, the tension finally gets too much, the spring breaksand releases all that energy, and out of impulse, the unease, and thefear that had been building up in her, Audrey automatically does thefirst thing that comes to mind.

Smack.

Theair is suddenly filled with flower petals as Harry finds himselfstaring off to the side without quite remembering wanting to move hishead in that direction. He turns back to Audrey, finds her in abizarre mix of angry fuming and ugly crying, and himself confused andhurting worse than two good gut punches from the Gaston Twins.

Blinking,and still struggling to figure out what the hell just happened, Harryasks, “W… was that a ‘No’…?”

Audreyhad a whole speech lined up, about how she didn’t want his love,how a relationship with them couldn’t work, about how she hadsuspicions that maybe this whole thing was just a sick game to Harry,after having heard about Harriet and CJ doing much the same thing toother girls…

… Butas she looks at the look of heartbreak and hurt on his face, shefinds herself at a loss for words, as the reality that he reallymight have not been joking hits.

Likethe damaged and ripped petals slowly falling to the floor andfloating on the water of the fountain, Audrey’s life plans shatterright before her eyes once again, and she does the one thing sheknows how to do, when life goes wrong, and you just don’t know whatto do:

Runand find someone who can make it all better.

Andas Harry stands there, holding the broken remains of the bouquet,watching her run and feeling that sick gut feeling grow worse andworse, he starts to realize that maybe he should have listened to hissisters, if only for just this one time.

30.oneheadcanon about this OTP that mends it:

Thenext day, Sunday morning.

Thenewfangled dishwasher hums in the kitchen, this year’s model wedgedin with wooden and stone counters decades older than it. A robotvacuum diligently patrols the stone floors in search of excess dustand debris to suck up, occasionally sparking and glowing when it runsinto Fairy Dust. With Flora and Fauna out shopping at a farmer’smarket or foraging (they don’t really trust the quality nor theprices you can get with modern grocers), Merryweather and Audrey arethe only ones in the cottage.

Merryweatherpours Audrey a cup of tea, brewed to perfection with the use ofscience, complex algorithms, and a fancy microchip that reduced allof her work to putting in water, a can of specially packed tealeaves, and pushing a button.

It’snever really quite good like the tea the Three Good Faeries couldmagic up for themselves back then—they should know, they’reimmortal faeries with infallible memories—but it comforts Audreyall the same, and that’s all that really matters at the moment.

“Moretea, dear?” she asks as she puts a hand on the pot—an antique,unlike most of the modern appliances that now fill the woodencottage.

Audreysighs. “No thank you, Auntie Merryweather,” she says as shepushes her cup away—the one with the cracked and glued back-handle,just a little bit off from perfect.

“Feelingbetter now?”

Audreyshrugs. “Kind of. Sort of.” She pauses. “Not really…”

“Wantto talk about it, dear?” Merryweather asks, reaching forward andputting a hand over Audrey’s. “Problems are sort of likeballoons—the more air you let out of them, the smaller they get.”

“Trustme, I would if I even knew what kind of problem it is, AuntieMerryweather,” Audrey replies.

Merryweathersmiles warmly. “Is it about a boy, Audrey? One with a swagger, ahook in his hand, and a penchant for trouble? It’s all the rage onyour school’s Storybook page for gossip, you know.”-

Audreyscowls. “It’s not about Harry!” Another pause. “Or at least,I think it’s not about him.” Yet another pause. “Is it abouthim…?”

Merryweatherpulls her hand back and places them on the table. “Well, why don’tyou tell me more about it, Audrey, and we’ll figure it outtogether? I’ve got a feeling most of those kids talking about itaren’t giving me the whole story.”

“Theynever do…” Audrey says, before she goes on to tell her the wholestory—sans a few details like what exactly she had been thinkingabout whenever Harry is involved, because she certainly doesn’tneed to know that!

“Ijust don’t get it,” Audrey says as she’s finally winding down.“He’s not the first boy I’ve ever rejected, it’s not even oneof the bad ones let alone the worst, and there wasn’t anyone aroundto talk about it as it went down or even put it up on YouTube.”

Shelooks back into her cup, now cold. “… So why do I feel so bad…?”

“Perhapsit’s because you didn’t really want to reject him in the firstplace?” Merryweather offers.

Audreygroans. “I’ve thought of that, but it can’t be it!”

“Andwhy’s that?”

“Because,marrying a VK, and getting used to bailing him out of jail, orgetting a lot of visits from the Royal Guard isn’t part of my LifePlan!” Audrey cries, throwing her hands up in exasparation.

“Isthis the same Life Plan you made when you were five?”

“Yes,”Audrey says, lowering her hands.

“Andyou’re still planning to follow it ALL to the letter…?”

“Well,no!” Audrey says. “I now know it’s not ecologically beneficial,economically wise, or socially acceptable to have a private zoo at mycastle filled with all the rare and exotic animals I love… theydeserve to run around, free, in the wild, where they belong.”

Merryweathernods. “So if you changed such a big part of your Life Plan, why notthis, too…?”

Audreylooks like she’s got a response all ready to fire, but instead, shefinds herself looking at Merryweather, her lips open but no wordscoming out, hesitation and embarrassment slowly replacing herconfident and fiery look.

“Audrey,I’ll be honest with you: I really don’t think you should try arelationship with this ‘Hawthorne Hook.’ He’s a VK, and asidefrom the fact that trouble and crime is literally all he’s everknown all his life, and he doesn’t seem to be intending to changeany time soon, I doubt he is, will be able to be, or ever be the kindof man you need in your life…”

Audreycloses her mouth and nods solemnly.

“… However,I also understand that you’re a teenager with a heart that’sstill a little too big for your head, these are very differenttimes we’re living in, and I’ve been wrong about these VKsbefore, there’s a good chance I’ll be wrong about them again.”

“Butwhat if everything goes wrong, and everything collapses like it didwith Ben…?” Audrey asks, tearing up again.

Merryweathersteps out of her seat, walks over, and pulls out a hanky. “Then youremind yourself you’re young, you’ve got time, and if you couldbounce back from Ben, you can bounce back from Harry,” she says asshe gently wipes Audrey’s eyes.

Audreysniffs. “Thank you, Auntie Merryweather… do you have any adviceabout how I can plan for the fallout, in case it doesn’t work out?”she asks, knocking on the wooden table.

Merryweathershrugs. “Harry’s a wildcard much like Beast, Audrey: the bestthing you really can do is to expect anything to come from them, andjust deal with them as they go. Did I ever tell you about what I andyour other Aunts intended to do after the Great Uniting, when theborders were finally cooling and stably fused together?”

“No,you didn’t. Why didn’t you?”

“Becauseit’s a really depressing story, is what,” Merryweather said. “Weoriginally intended to apply and consult for all the new magicalschools that were planning to go up, to teach the new generation ofFae children and all these people just learning about magic and thegift that was inside them.

“ThenBeast came along and instituted the Ban, and suddenly all ourplanning and hard work was for nothing.”

Faunaand Flora arrive just after that. Conversation stops, except forquestions about how to preserve and store a particular herb or plant,how to log Fauna’s purchases into their digital management system,and complaints about how much easier all of this could be if therewere just allowed to use magic, even if it is easier now that theyhave all this modern technology.

Floraand Fauna offer to help Audrey with her problem, but she excusesherself, saying Merryweather has helped enough, and it’s gettingrather late. They’re a little concerned, but Audrey reassures them,and is off, back in a private car back to Auradon City.

Midwaythrough the ride, when she’s traveling through forest roads andmassive agricultural fields being tended to largely by machines, shepulls out her phone, and starts drafting a message…

Backin Auradon City at around the same time, Harry is in one of theforgotten turrets of Auradon Prep, slumped against one side of awindow where the light doesn’t hit, a stolen six pack of beerbeside him, his hook being used to pop the tops off.

Hedoesn’t look up when he hears the familiar two-step sound of abooted foot and a mechanical leg climbing in through the window,glares at Harriet as she snatches a bottle right from his hands justas he’s about to drink it.

“Allbroken up because of a wench, are we, little Hawthorne?” Harrietasks, grinning as she takes a swig. Her smile disappears as she putsthe beer down, examines the label. “Ugh, couldn’t even bebothered to steal the GOOD brands, could you?”

“Fuckoff, Harriet,” Harry slurs. “And gimme back m’ beer.”

“No,”Harriet snaps, glaring at him, before she sighs. “You know,Hawthorne, I love seeing you fucked over and broken up, butthis is just sad—especially because I wasn’t the one that fuckedyou over and broke you.

“Throwthis wench back into the sea, Harry, and go hook yourself someonenew—Wickedness knows you’re spoiled for choice for spoiled royalbrats…” she says as she steals the rest of his six pack, climbsback out the window with it.

Harryfinds he doesn’t even have the drive to swipe at her, try to hookher prosthetic leg at its one weak hinge. He sighs as he slumpsagainst the wall again, resigning himself for a sorta buzzed,not-nearly-drunk-enough time floating about in his sorrows…

… Upuntil his phone rings.

He’ssurprised for two reasons: one, he still has it after Harriet’svisit, and two, it’s Audrey calling. He debates letting it ring,and ring until she gives up, or answers it, before Harriet’s advicerings in his mind, and he presses the green phone symbol.

Hewould never have gotten anywhere if he followed his sisters’advice, after all.

“Hello,Harry?” Audrey asks. “I didn’t catch you at a bad time, did I?”

“Notunless you count me being buzzed as bad, no,” Harry slurs.

There’sa noticeable pause in Audrey’s reply. Harry imagines her recoilingin disgust, hesitating and debating talking with him further. “…I want to apologize for what I did. Slapping you, and running awaylike that. Is there any place where we can meet up?”

Harrythinks it over for a few seconds. “Give me a moment,” he says,forcing himself up, leaning on the side, with his hook on the windowframe to keep from falling right out of it. He squints against theafternoon light, put’s his good hand over his eyes and scans thehorizon.

Hefeels a moment of regret and annoyance that he can’t hook Fate.

“How’sa’bout the same fountain as yesterday? It’s close, and I don’twant to drag me arse that far from here…”

“… Yousure about that?”

“Look,yer highness, you want to apologize in person or not? Because rightnow, I’m just drunk enough to listen to you and agree to this, andnot tell you to fuck off, or just hung up on you outright when yecalled.”

“… Okay,the fountain it is. What time’s good for you?”

“Six—I’llprobably be sober enough then,” he says, before he hangs up.

Audreylooks at her phone, not knowing whether to be annoyed or grateful,before she sighs, and starts rehearsing in her head.

SixPM. The sun’s already set, and darkness is creeping over AuradonPrep, only barely staved off by the dim, “atmospheric” lamps thatthese gardens use.

Audreyarrives, still wearing one of her simple “traveling” dresses andsensible shoes, the skirt and the sides of it still stained with mudand grass from the walk to the Three Good Faeries’ cottage. Shestops feeling self-conscious as she notices Harry slumped over thefountain, his hands on the edge and pushing him up.

He’sback to wearing his usual coat and outfit, except several of thebuttons are in the wrong hole, his hair is a wild mess again, and hemore so, he’s dripping wet.

“DidI catch you at a bad time…?” Audrey asks hesitantly.

“Wasn’tas sober as I thought I would be,” Harry replied, “tried dunkingmy head in the water. Didn’t work nearly as well as I thought itwould.” He grunts as he pushes himself up, spins to Audrey andholds his arms out to Audrey, then stumbles and nearly twists hisankle.

Audreyinstinctively catches him, but he’s heavy and she’s no weightlifter, so they both start falling until Harry catches on thefountain, rips a plant growing off the side from the statue and easesthem both on the edge, now sitting side by side.

“Thanks…”Audrey mutters, reflexively checking her dress for any stains orparticularly bad mussing up.

“Sowhat is it you wanted to tell me?” Harry said. “Aside fromapologizing to my face, because you Auradonians seem to like doingthings the hard way.”

Audreysits up, looks Harry in his red and mildly disdainful eyes, and findsher big speech fleeing her mind like rats on a sinking ship. Shehesitates for a moment, trying to think of a brand new ship, beforeshe just decides to grab a bucket and start bailing water right byher knees.

“Again,I’m sorry for slapping you and running away like that… you’rethe first VK that’s ever tried to flirt with me, and I didn’tknow how to handle that.”

“Yaseemed pretty damn sure when you hit me—haven’t ever felt a slaplike that where the one who gave it didn’t give it their all.”

Audreywinces. “Let me rephrase that: I didn’t know how to handle itproperly. And now, well, I’ve got some time to think it over, I’verealized some new things, and, well…” she trails off.

Harryraises an eyebrow. “’Well…’ what?”

Audreysucks in a breath, and says, “Well, I want to see if maybe we couldhappen!”

Harryblinks. “What.”

Audreysighs and looks away. “You can say ‘No,’ you know…”

Harrycoaxes Audrey back to look at him with his good hand. “Yourhighness—Audrey, are you seriously saying that after this wholemess which YOU caused, you’re the one asking ME if I want to tryand see if I can be your lover?”

“… Yes,yes I am…”

“Fuckin’hell, everyone was right: you really ARE a CrazyBitch!”  

Audreyrecoils, simultaneously offended and hurt.

Harrysighs as he runs his hand through his hair. “… And I suppose I’man even crazier bastard for saying yeah, yeah I want to tryand see if this’ll work out, too.”

Audreyblinks. “Are you… are you kidding me right now? Seriously asking,here, to clarify!”

Harrylets out a harsh laugh. “Princess, I’m a pirate: ‘healthy,loving, mature’ relationships isn’t my thing.”

Audreyfalls silent, and all is quiet for the burbling of the fountain.

“So…”Harry starts.

“So…”Audrey continues.

“Iguess this mean’s we’re a ‘Thing,’ for the time beinganyway?”

“… Yeah,I… I guess it is…”

“So,does this mean I can get an apology kiss on the cheek? You can’tlift for shit, but you sure can slap a man, I’ll tell you thatmuch.”

Audreyhesitates for a moment, before she does.

It’ssuch a minor gesture, and Harry’s skin isn’t exactly in the bestcondition after all he’s been through on the Isle and dunking it infountain water whose filters haven’t been changed in a while, butthey both can’t deny they felt a spark in that moment…

… Thestart of something bigger.

[cascadiareigns-blog]

Barter Faire/Okanogan Family Fair

I feel like I am just now able to steal enough time to sit and write. So, Barter Faire!! For those who aren’t quite sure what it is: The Okanogan Family Fair is a gathering that was started by some rural hippie farmers in the 70′s as a way to trade homemade and harvested goods at the end of the growing season. It eventually got so big they bought their own land to have it on and it has turned into a family festival (http://www.okanoganfamilyfaire.net/). It has been something that I have heard whispered in my circle of beautiful feral people for about 6 years now. It is on many people in my community’s must attend list along side Subdued Stringband Jamboree, Meltdown, Folklife, Hempfest, Deming Logshow, Rainbow Family Gathering etc. I have always wanted to attend and I have tried on a few occasions but it never ended up happening. But as some of you may have experience the universe has a way of growing the seeds you plant as intentions, only when you stop forcing and let it be. I felt really stuck in life like I wasn’t moving in the direction I wanted too anymore, and that my ideal life/self was not any closer. This last year I had a lot of frustration, anxiety, and depression about this and it was sort of debilitating. One of my best friends came this summer from her homestead in remote AK, and she told me in one of our talks about how I was feeling, “Why don’t you just start living like you want to? Doing the things you can right now to live like you want?”. It seems obvious, I know. But I think I just needed to hear it from someone I loved. I felt something shift in me, and I began creating and haven’t stopped since. I learned to can and bake this summer, have been crocheting, preserving foods left and right. It has felt so good! I never had any intention of attending barter fair this year. I was crafting with the intention of attending the quarterly handmade/homegrown barter event in Bellingham (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1332234776791417/). Which is another barter event I have been wanting to go to for a very long time. People kept asking me if I was planning on going to THE barter fair and I kept saying no. Then it hit me... Why the hell not!? So with a couple weeks notice I got the time off work ( I work weekends) and I crafted and canned and baked my little heart out. We should have left Friday after K got off work, but we left Sat morning. I woke up at 5am to make breakfast sandwiches and pack up Bitchin’ Minni ( our beast of a minivan). K always likes to tell me I over pack, but I AM ON POINT. We used everything I packed and it was comfortable. He went to pick up one of our besties M, while I packed.We went over highway 20 and got to Tonasket, WA in a mere 6.5 hrs ( The gps quoted us 4...!?!?). We didn’t get the address of the actual gathering so we got to Tonasket and asked people at a gas station. They said, “7/8 miles west on 20″. So there we went. K HATES to go anywhere without a set address or directions, and I am of the “let the universe guide us” foo foo. So he immediately started worrying and getting antsy. SInce he was our generous driver I told him to drive as long as he felt comfortable, then turn around to go back to town to find more concrete information. At the point where I was about to strangle him and he said ok Im turning around he turned left to do so and THERE IT WAS. We turned right up the road to the fair. Divine guidance ya’ll ;) We got there and realized it was COLD. I had packed in anticipation of this, and all the snow we saw on the way told us it was coming. But jeez it was cold. We got there and layered the F up. It was already 11am so after exploring a bit we realized we needed to find a family friendly place to camp and K realized he needed to do his run. So he did that and M and I and the kids went to find a good spot and we did. Another divine gift. We found a very large spot right next to “town” and our neighbors told us that a lady had been chasing people away from it all day, but we figured we would set up anyway and talk to her if she came to shoo us. We got enough room to have the van, two tents, our trading table, our fire pit, and chairs. Perfect :) The lady did end up showing just to tell us she had been saving that spot for her friends RV but their friend just canceled when we showed up. She had saved it for us with out even knowing it! This lady and I did multiple trades and it turns out she knew many mutual friends of ours. Our other camp neighbors ended up being folks who live on the same community property as our good friend in Bellingham, and we actually spent Halloween with them. All in all in was a really amazing experience.It was something that I had wanted in my life for a long time. I really believe that incorporating handmade goods and barter into my life can help make a difference. I going to get a little real here so feel free to bow out if you don’t like anti-establishment sentiments or curse words. Why barter? Because fuck the man. Fuck taxes. Fuck consumerism. I want to have less stuff of more quality. I want to trade and say fuck money and fuck capitalism. And when I do give away my money I want to give it to real people, not throw it into the economic abyss and hope some pennies trickle down to my neighbors. I want to drink illegal milk and eat illegal eggs and sell illegal food because fuck the FDA. I want to build community and love people because fuck isolating technology. I want to build a world that I dream up for my kids and their friends, because fuck the oppressive system and culture that keeps us from it. Whew okay I’m done. But really, The Man eats money. Stop giving The Man your money. If you want to make a little bit of a difference you don’t have to light up a J and slap an ANTIFA patch on. I know so many regular joes joining the barter movement because IT FEELS GOOD. Put energy into your craft and put it out there, take the baby steps every day to build your dream life, think about how your actions and your consumption effect others and our environment.

Thanks for letting me share with you,

Cascadia

PS  I keep trying to insert pictures with my words but I can’t figure out how the heck to do it. You can see what pictures I took if you follow me on Facebook. 

[greengargouille]

AK RarePair week Spring 2017, Day 1 - Rain

((Hello everyone, and welcome back for the second edition of Rarepair Week ! Are you all ready for it ? Well I am ! Not. Please somebody stop time for me.))

Rating: General Audience Characters: Hazama Kirara, Kurahashi Hinano Relationship: Hazama/Kurahashi

Ao3 link here

Hazama never was one to like the sun. Not only her skin burned easily, the dry weather made her hair curl up into a knotty mess her mother had many times, during childhood, tried to tame with rough brush strokes that left a painful impression on her. Rain was better. Rain made her hair wet, straightened them and stuck them to her face like a ghost just released from her well. She liked that appearance much better.

But her main problem with the sun have always been how she was forced to indulge her mother’s fantasies. Picnic, walk in the wood... With the rays of sun came maternal ideas straight from a fairy tale, and the girl would only be able to follow those plans. Pointing out the gap between those romanticised delusions and reality would only make her mother scream ; no one was allowed to shatter the dreamy illusion in which she lived, or there would be dire consequences. It was all very stressful, and for naught too, because ultimately she would get irritated by ants or dirt or who know what, and her husband and daughter would would get the short end of her low mood.

There wasn’t much she could do about the sun, hanging the teru teru bōzu upside down or recite spells meant to bring out the rain. She could, however, try her best to avoid her mother, mostly by locking herself in the library or following the idiots from her gang in whatever stupid idea they’ve got.

However, neither of those things prepared her for an invitation from Kurahashi. Which explained how, despite hating physical effort and staying outside whenever unecessary, the gloomy girl ended up walking in the woods near her school, sweaty from the hot yet humid summer weather accompanying a sky cloudy since days, yet refused to rain and relieve everyone. Mother Nature truly was someone terrible.

To be fair, Hazama was indebted to Kurahashi. No longer than a week ago, her newly acquired pet tarantula happened to lay eggs, something its precedent owner had somehow forgotten to warn her about. How was she supposed to guess that when its usual mating season didn’t even start, and in which conditions was it kept for such an event to happen ? Her usual composure had vanished on the moment, and it was thanks to Ritsu’s idea of contacting their animal-loving comrade that she was able to get out of this mess.

Outside of this incident, Hazama hadn’t talked much to Kurahashi. They were sitting at opposite ends of the class and frequented different groups, which left not much occasions to befriend each other, and Hazama liked it like that. If she were to be honest, the other girl made her uneasy.

She had a pretty good instinct for the darkness humans kept in their hearts. Negative emotions. Greed. Happiness at making someone suffer. Those things, Hazama always have been good at guessing them. She was pretty proud of it, in fact, how she could point out the exact things that would depress a specific person or make them show their true face. She liked awful people because she could be venomous without restraint around them, and she prefered to surround herself with the ones with a bad reputations, that would accept her as she was, far from the pretty princess her mother had tried to turn her into.

Kurahashi was a strange case, for Hazama couldn’t see this kind of darkness in her. Rather, whenever she was around, it was as if the bad feelings evaporated into the air, as if her sole presence alleviated people from their worries. She could repeat the sleazy words she heard the guys secretly say with the same innocent smile as usual. It left Hazama speechless. Unable to think of how she should speak to her or to stand next to such a bright person. Kurahashi have been described by their classmates as being a ray of sunshine, and in that they were surely right, because Hazama had a hard time handling her.

That didn’t mean she disliked the girl. Their times together were rather awkward, but she liked listening to her peppy talk, and she was grateful for her help in dealing with her pet’s many children. Plus, she took a vicious pleasure in imagining what would be her mother’s reaction if she heard that the girl she complimented when Hazama brought her home - “So charming and sweet, why can’t you be more like her ?”- was dragging her to go seek her beetle baits.

“I’m glad you came along.” Kurahashi commented while walking. If it weren’t for Karasuma’s training, Hazama would have a hard time following her while conversing casually, but she doubted her comrade would have needed it in the first place to move around with so much ease. She seemed like an outdoor person. “With the summer vacations, I didn’t know who to call, but then I remember you mentioning you were there till the end of the month, and I thought, ‘If it’s Hazama-chan she will surely come !’.”

This could seems like the girl had no idea of her comrade’s personality. Hazama choose to rather see it as her admitting she knew the gloomy student would be unwilling to refuse her something after her help. Kurahashi was, after all, one of the best students of Irina-sensei ; under her carefree air, there would be no way she wasn’t observant enough to not notice the other girl’s daily attitude, and she knew how to manipulate people in subtle ways. Hazama had no chance to win against her, as usual.

“Why do you need someone, though ? I don’t think I can help you in any way. -Because it’s a fun activity to do together ! Ah, don’t tell me, you don’t dislike beetles, do you ?” she sounded so surprised, as if the thought only just occurred to her. “I don’t dislike them, but I don’t have particular feelings about them either. I like how they look, though. -Yes, aren’t they adorable ?” This wasn’t exactly the word Hazama would have used, no. “I was more thinking in the lines of ‘elegant’. -Ah, I see what you mean ! They would make a good subject for jewelry, wouldn’t they ? -Like the scarab of ancient Egypt ? -Exactly !” Kurahashi pondered something for an instant, then asked “Do you like ancient Egypt, Hazama-chan ? -I’m more interested in their curses, but I’ve read about some of their gods. Isn’t there supposed to be a scarab beetle rolling the Sun around ? Sounds like it could suit you. -Why, thank you !”

The girl’s approval made Hazama conscious of what she had just said, leaving her feeling slightly awkward, through her face only showed composure. She hadn’t even meant it as a compliment. Casual compliments aren’t her style, except as thinly veiled insults. Was it that Kurahashi was so used to be called ‘sunny’ that she thought it was probably something similar ? Maybe not. She did seems the kind who would actually appreciate being compared to a bug.

“It’s too bad there isn’t a lot of stories about beetles. I like every insect, but I have a soft spot for them. -I think there’s one in North America. They helped the natives in making the rain falls.” She didn’t know the details, but that one story had peeked her interest enough to remember it. “Oh, that’s interesting ! It would be nice if the rain would fall here, too, the clouds accumulate but won’t release anything. If we find beetles, maybe we should ask them if they know a song or two for that !” While she said that lightly, Kurahashi then hummed a song to herself, as if really considering this eventuality.

Hazama envied her, if only for a bit. The way she acted as if those silly stories would have no impact on her - no, it was more than likely the case. If the rain was to fall, they would be soaked, but that would be far from the end of the world. If the clouds would dissipate and let the sun shine even brighter, they might get sunburns, but all kinds of bugs would probably come out, maybe even unusual ones. The weather didn’t matter much for Kurahashi’s enjoyment of the situation.

It was sort of cute. And also something Hazama was unable to do. For a fourteen year old, it wasn’t unusual to have strong opinions on insignifiant subjects, but she thought she was mature enough to be above this. Yet. She couldn’t forget that feeling she got as a younger child, buried in incantation books and whispering words she forced herself to pretend she didn’t believe in. That tiny sparkle of hope that, maybe, with enough efforts, she could make the rain fall on the garden and her mother would be forced to cancel the afternoon tea she spent days organizing. Maybe, if she repeated the words enough times, she wouldn’t have to sit among all those adults and look at sweets she wouldn’t be allowed to eat, because her food and health advisor of a mother wanted her to stay thin and pretty.

Hazama was unable of letting go of her bitterness from those memories, nor did she wished to. Kurahashi could be as happy as she wanted to be, the pleasure of seeing rain fall down on people’s expectations suited her much more.

Still. As water droplets descending from the sky minutes after their conversation, she felt a tad jealous to see the girl’s lighthearted humming being rewarded.

“You must be kidding me... -Ah, I know where to shelter ourselves ! Quick !”

A hand took Hazama’s, warm from the summer heat. She had no time to react, as she was suddenly pulled forward.

She hated running, especially in the woods where the ground was uneven and her feet could potentially be caught in anything, but she wasn’t given the leisure to choose her pace. The air was supposed to get chillier, but as they arrived at their goal, she felt even warmer from the race.

The place Kurahashi was thinking about was small. A cavity in the rockier part of a slope, not even a cave. Was there a cave on this mountain ? There must be one. It would be more comfortable than being forced to sit down, the hole not tall enough to permit standing up, nor big enough to let them have much personal space between them.

After catching her breath a few minutes, tempting the ignore how close the other girl was to her - she could almost feel her against her skin, soft and lukewarm-, Hazama finally told her.

“I think that’s confirm it. You’re really a beetle. -No way !” Kurahashi laughed at the suggestion. “You seems happy, given our current situation. -Well, it was really time for rain to fall. And it makes me kinda glad you came, since else I would have to wait alone. -...It’s true that the rain is refreshing.”

She wasn’t sure how to interpret the second sentence. Kurahashi just wanted to say she would be bored without someone there. It could have been anyone else. But she still felt a tiny bit happy at those words.

That... bothered her. She wasn’t even sure why. She wanted to ignore this, to respond casually with a snicker. She used a low, supposedly menacing voice. It came out more nervous than she wanted.

“You know, though, I could do terrible things to you just to distract myself, are you sure you’re glad that I’m here ? -Hm ? What could you do, I wonder ?”

Kurahashi turned her head to face her comrade, a smile on her lips.

“If it was Rio-chan or one of the boys, it would probably be something sleazy, but that would be too boring from your part... You always get interesting ideas, don’t you ? I want to hear all about them~"

That’s right, Hazama had always been clever when it came to this kind of things. Always finding the most unexpected words to bully someone verbally, or methods to scare them without brute force. Her reputation as a witch was earned honestly.

Yet, when Kurahashi approached her face, her mind was empty.

It really made her feel uneasy to be so close. Her face was so bright, after all. Her arm so warm against her own.

“If you’re not going to do anything, maybe you won’t mind if I act first, then ?”

Aah, that wasn’t good, that wasn’t good at all. This was precisely a reason why Kurahashi made her feel apprehensive. The way she would get so familiar that Hazama couldn’t keep her coolness, nor find any way to push her back -no spiderweb can resist to the beetle’s will after all. The way that made her not even sure she actually wanted to keep her distance with this ridiculously cute and happy girl.

...If only for letting this moment exist. Hazama was glad it rained this time.

[heatherrdavis1]

BITCOIN PRICE GOES EXPONENTIAL | Buy The Bitcoin Price Pullback Into Halving!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

I’ll tell you what, with the amount of pumping that Bacolod has seen over the last two days, it would be rude not to make a video on it and that that is what we’re going to do today. A little trading video for you guys all on their own. But before we get into the content, please ask you if you haven’t seen yesterday’s video. Definitely. Go check that one out. It’s called the crash. A lot of work into it. And I think it’s really important from an economic standpoint to look to see where we are in the economy and at the end, see how Bitcoin can do. All of this is really important, that macro trend following. But anyway, enough of that boys up. Oh, yeah. I’ll link up here. So worth you can catch up at the end of the video combat GOKEN That one if you haven’t watched it. But let’s get into the content. If you are new around here, please at least consider hitting that subscription button, looking that little notification bill right next to it. We look at financial stuff. Everything trading kind of prioritize it around Bitcoin as well. We look at stock market analysis, investing all that jazz. And if you haven’t hit that like button, you know what to do. Looking at Bitcoin, we have had an absolutely massive run-up over the last day or so. We just take it from yesterday’s open. You know, yesterday’s panel was up 30 percent on ways to its place, 21 percent. And this is mostly happening because one next week we are moving into the halving. Actually, let me get that up to 12 days, two hours, 39 minutes and 39 seconds. So, yes, it is closing ever closer to the whole mandate. I have made a video completely dedicated to the whole thing, having watched it once or to keep referring you to my videos. Check that one out. I’ll break it much more down in-depth in that video than I could ever do justice in this one because we’re just gonna be looking at the trading side of things. But that is mostly what is causing just unsanitized, mostly the hype around the halving because it’s such a bullish event for Bitcoin. We pump into the halving and especially as our traditional equities, you know, the S&P 500, we’ve had a very good day yesterday and that as well. This is the futures on it. And yes, we were up around that free percent was started to help our low drawdown today. And looking at Bitcoin’s price right now, that could also be the reason why we’re starting to pull back right now. You know, from its face down six percent. So, yeah, we’re getting big, big swings in Bitcoin. But if you know anything about Bitcoin, there’s nothing new there anyway. Right. A couple of stuff that I want to look at an analysis wise when it comes to Bitcoin trading because many of you know who have been around the channel for a while. You know that I was looking to load up roughly around that six thousand nine hundred dollar level, which I did from that investing standpoint. I for the path of least resistance for Bitcoin was very much up. And that that has been proven very Marzo. We did have a little bit of a shaky down here when we were the last six-five, but we held on. And look, now we started to be rewarded for it. So how have I played Bitcoin at the moment as we’ve moved into halving? I’ve actually been taking a little bit of profit and we’ll get into what I actually want to add back on that slope of profitable relief that more towards the end. Just give my thoughts on what we would do if we go into the weekly timeframe, taking it across from this red close here. So this is all support when we move down into the areas of acting as that support, again, resistance. We’ve got that weekly closed just above the level. And now you can see we’ve moved back down into this area and started using it as a support. So I was taking profit, the first tiny little bit of profit from that 6900 looks very much at this client of six thousand seven hundred dollar level. It was more sort of stemming from this kind of green body across from here. And I was taking profit actually all the way up to the AK and a bit further because right here there was a lot of overhead resistance to very clear moving averages on the one hundred days moving average in the 200 days moving average. Two pretty significant ones, in my opinion, all teaming up roughly around this level. So I have taken a bit of profit, you know, and it has risen much further on from that. On the next level that I took even more profit out was this eight thousand four hundred dollar level because these are stemming from these swing low points down here up towards the eight thousand four hundred eight thousand five hundred dollar level. And I want to outline to you the significance of how important it is for you guys to take profit because many people just hold onto it and look to try and ride the trend forever. But, you know, you can’t do that. You need to lock up wins where winds are to be taken. And yes, Bitcoin pomposity is level. And again, we even took profit off of here or I did. Anyway, I dunno about you guys. And is Pomfrey this level any. You know what? That’s absolutely fine. You can’t cash the top with absolutely everything. But now Bitcoin has been able to close back above this level on the daily timeframe and considering we still have a little while left until the whole thing. And also the S&P is performing so well at the moment. I would definitely still expect Bitcoin could trend higher up into halving and around the halving day or just after the halving. I wouldn’t be surprised, considering it probably won’t be too much of and I don’t it’s a non-event. But I could see more people selling directly after the halving have a big pump in which we are having to make some more profit off maybe by the end of next week. Net two weeks or so short of around that 10-day mark just before that sort of halving actually happens. Now, as I have taken profit and I actually want to get some of that exposure back on long, and what I’m going to do is at about 50 per cent of that weight in which I did take off as profit and tried to add it back on, I actually would have had a couple of my bets filled. And I basically scattered it all the way down from eight thousand nine hundred down towards the eight thousand five hundred dollar level and kind of viewing this area more as a zone. And if you know what, it doesn’t get all the way down to. Eight thousand five hundred. That’s absolutely fine. But will make this Breem. So now you can see it as a support. And I know it’s a pretty big area, which we are looking at, but you need to realize that we’re just getting so, so much volume with Bitcoin at the moment. So what I am looking to do as we move into halving. Yes, I have to take off a little bit of profit from that 6900 dollars long form. That’s all massive investment standpoint. And now I’ve just added on I’ve been able to probably get a little bit of that exposure back on. Why? Most definitely have, because I had the eight thousand one hundred dollar level set. Eight thousand eight hundred dollars. If we drop down a little bit further than it’s going to be able to add a bit more of that position back on long. And the whole strategy with this is I’m not looking to hold it probably after the halving. I just want to get some more long exposure back on pumping into the whole thing, because I didn’t expect Bitcoin to pump quite this hard. I am a bit surprised that the Bitcoin doesn’t disappoint, does it? If you’ve been trading the space for a long time, you know, Bitcoin does some pretty astonishing thing, you know, Black Thursday or whatever you call it here, Black Monday. That was absolutely catastrophic. Even more surprising than what we’re seeing right now. But now I’m looking to, again, try and outline this, you know, I haven’t so much got too much ara’s a wound going to exactly take profit on it. I think it’s more important to understand that the path of least resistance over the next week or two is most likely off as we push into the Harvey, get more people to the hype around Bitcoin and look to drive the price up higher. If I get my bids all the way down to the eight thousand five hundred dollar level, all of those bids failed. You know, the first area that I’m most definitely going to look to take a little bit of profit off is rough that nine thousand one hundred and fifty dollar level, nine thousand one hundred dollar level just stemming from these daily swing high closes. I’m only going to do that if I get the bids filled all the way down here. Then the second area, I think is pretty obvious. Where you want to be targeting on this one is just the swing high points from the cross-hair, roughly up at ten thousand three hundred and fifty dollar level. And again, with this, you don’t want to just have one sell order on your actual limit, you know, very much stemming from these getting back in onto this long trade. You know, if I just had my one bid set down, 8600 right in the middle, you know, I wouldn’t have been able to get filled right in here. So you want to split up your bids. So that way, if the price does move into the area like you received this week, right now, you, Gabb, Paul, your order filled and then it can turn around. And if it gets all the way down and fills up your entire position, then brilliant. And I think if we take away anything from this, you know, I don’t expect so much big point to drop too much with so much hype around it coming into having a look. I’ll bet makes funding. Right. We are starting to get some long exposure. Some more people are starting to loan this market at the moment. But, you know, the bias is been very, very much. Sure. We can draw that kind of trend line across from here. And as long as the funding raise. Sure. Generally speaking, the price is going to rise. And, yes, we are starting to get more spikes up here. But I want to see even more spikes get even more bullish pushing into the halving over the next week or two. And then that’s when you take off the most weighting. You know, I know I keep saying that I have taken off a profit, and that actually finds that we’ve run up a little bit further now that we still have so much longer pushing into the halving. Everything looks so goddamn good on this chart. I mean, it looks amazing, you know. I want to add back on as we drop back down. You know, it’s no good buying Bitcoin up. You want to buy on the pullbacks. We’re getting that pullback at the moment. So try and get this video as quickly as possible for you guys. You know, lining up around the eight thousand nine hundred eight thousand eight hundred eight thousand seven hundred all the way down. Don’t want to go into it to find. You know, the main reason why I’m doing this is trying to hold it for those few more days, pushing into the halving next week. It’s been a pretty quick one today. I’m so I’ll try to get this one out as quickly as possible for you guys. Haven’t really prepared too much to X. I just want to give my thoughts on what I’m seeing on the charts at the moment. I know so many of you guys will be interested in seeing this because it’s obviously pumping so much. The main thing that we need to consider with this is obviously taking your profit before halving because I think it’s very, very likely for us to look to dump around. Tanso, if you have an added on Yayo, if you’ve missed this massive run-up and you weren’t able to get in down there, 6900 door level where we were looking at it previously, you know, definitely having it on this pullback. But if we ride the trend up higher, you know, I don’t want to be buying up at nine thousand three hundred. It is moving higher. You know you want to buy on the pullbacks when Bitcoin is dropping into these areas on the hourly timeframe right here. You know, this area was resistance from these red candles. I expect it can now flip and turn to support, especially when we look at it from a daily perspective and understand that this area across from here started acting as that supports. If we get those films all the way down, you know, definitely take them off the top. Thank you for last in this long. If you are still around anyway, I will catch you in the next video. I mean, cheers for watching.

Via https://www.cryptosharks.net/bitcoin-price-goes-exponential-pullback-into-halving/

source https://cryptosharks.weebly.com/blog/bitcoin-price-goes-exponential-buy-the-bitcoin-price-pullback-into-halving

[jeffrmayhugh]

BITCOIN PRICE GOES EXPONENTIAL | Buy The Bitcoin Price Pullback Into Halving!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

I’ll tell you what, with the amount of pumping that Bacolod has seen over the last two days, it would be rude not to make a video on it and that that is what we’re going to do today. A little trading video for you guys all on their own. But before we get into the content, please ask you if you haven’t seen yesterday’s video. Definitely. Go check that one out. It’s called the crash. A lot of work into it. And I think it’s really important from an economic standpoint to look to see where we are in the economy and at the end, see how Bitcoin can do. All of this is really important, that macro trend following. But anyway, enough of that boys up. Oh, yeah. I’ll link up here. So worth you can catch up at the end of the video combat GOKEN That one if you haven’t watched it. But let’s get into the content. If you are new around here, please at least consider hitting that subscription button, looking that little notification bill right next to it. We look at financial stuff. Everything trading kind of prioritize it around Bitcoin as well. We look at stock market analysis, investing all that jazz. And if you haven’t hit that like button, you know what to do. Looking at Bitcoin, we have had an absolutely massive run-up over the last day or so. We just take it from yesterday’s open. You know, yesterday’s panel was up 30 percent on ways to its place, 21 percent. And this is mostly happening because one next week we are moving into the halving. Actually, let me get that up to 12 days, two hours, 39 minutes and 39 seconds. So, yes, it is closing ever closer to the whole mandate. I have made a video completely dedicated to the whole thing, having watched it once or to keep referring you to my videos. Check that one out. I’ll break it much more down in-depth in that video than I could ever do justice in this one because we’re just gonna be looking at the trading side of things. But that is mostly what is causing just unsanitized, mostly the hype around the halving because it’s such a bullish event for Bitcoin. We pump into the halving and especially as our traditional equities, you know, the S&P 500, we’ve had a very good day yesterday and that as well. This is the futures on it. And yes, we were up around that free percent was started to help our low drawdown today. And looking at Bitcoin’s price right now, that could also be the reason why we’re starting to pull back right now. You know, from its face down six percent. So, yeah, we’re getting big, big swings in Bitcoin. But if you know anything about Bitcoin, there’s nothing new there anyway. Right. A couple of stuff that I want to look at an analysis wise when it comes to Bitcoin trading because many of you know who have been around the channel for a while. You know that I was looking to load up roughly around that six thousand nine hundred dollar level, which I did from that investing standpoint. I for the path of least resistance for Bitcoin was very much up. And that that has been proven very Marzo. We did have a little bit of a shaky down here when we were the last six-five, but we held on. And look, now we started to be rewarded for it. So how have I played Bitcoin at the moment as we’ve moved into halving? I’ve actually been taking a little bit of profit and we’ll get into what I actually want to add back on that slope of profitable relief that more towards the end. Just give my thoughts on what we would do if we go into the weekly timeframe, taking it across from this red close here. So this is all support when we move down into the areas of acting as that support, again, resistance. We’ve got that weekly closed just above the level. And now you can see we’ve moved back down into this area and started using it as a support. So I was taking profit, the first tiny little bit of profit from that 6900 looks very much at this client of six thousand seven hundred dollar level. It was more sort of stemming from this kind of green body across from here. And I was taking profit actually all the way up to the AK and a bit further because right here there was a lot of overhead resistance to very clear moving averages on the one hundred days moving average in the 200 days moving average. Two pretty significant ones, in my opinion, all teaming up roughly around this level. So I have taken a bit of profit, you know, and it has risen much further on from that. On the next level that I took even more profit out was this eight thousand four hundred dollar level because these are stemming from these swing low points down here up towards the eight thousand four hundred eight thousand five hundred dollar level. And I want to outline to you the significance of how important it is for you guys to take profit because many people just hold onto it and look to try and ride the trend forever. But, you know, you can’t do that. You need to lock up wins where winds are to be taken. And yes, Bitcoin pomposity is level. And again, we even took profit off of here or I did. Anyway, I dunno about you guys. And is Pomfrey this level any. You know what? That’s absolutely fine. You can’t cash the top with absolutely everything. But now Bitcoin has been able to close back above this level on the daily timeframe and considering we still have a little while left until the whole thing. And also the S&P is performing so well at the moment. I would definitely still expect Bitcoin could trend higher up into halving and around the halving day or just after the halving. I wouldn’t be surprised, considering it probably won’t be too much of and I don’t it’s a non-event. But I could see more people selling directly after the halving have a big pump in which we are having to make some more profit off maybe by the end of next week. Net two weeks or so short of around that 10-day mark just before that sort of halving actually happens. Now, as I have taken profit and I actually want to get some of that exposure back on long, and what I’m going to do is at about 50 per cent of that weight in which I did take off as profit and tried to add it back on, I actually would have had a couple of my bets filled. And I basically scattered it all the way down from eight thousand nine hundred down towards the eight thousand five hundred dollar level and kind of viewing this area more as a zone. And if you know what, it doesn’t get all the way down to. Eight thousand five hundred. That’s absolutely fine. But will make this Breem. So now you can see it as a support. And I know it’s a pretty big area, which we are looking at, but you need to realize that we’re just getting so, so much volume with Bitcoin at the moment. So what I am looking to do as we move into halving. Yes, I have to take off a little bit of profit from that 6900 dollars long form. That’s all massive investment standpoint. And now I’ve just added on I’ve been able to probably get a little bit of that exposure back on. Why? Most definitely have, because I had the eight thousand one hundred dollar level set. Eight thousand eight hundred dollars. If we drop down a little bit further than it’s going to be able to add a bit more of that position back on long. And the whole strategy with this is I’m not looking to hold it probably after the halving. I just want to get some more long exposure back on pumping into the whole thing, because I didn’t expect Bitcoin to pump quite this hard. I am a bit surprised that the Bitcoin doesn’t disappoint, does it? If you’ve been trading the space for a long time, you know, Bitcoin does some pretty astonishing thing, you know, Black Thursday or whatever you call it here, Black Monday. That was absolutely catastrophic. Even more surprising than what we’re seeing right now. But now I’m looking to, again, try and outline this, you know, I haven’t so much got too much ara’s a wound going to exactly take profit on it. I think it’s more important to understand that the path of least resistance over the next week or two is most likely off as we push into the Harvey, get more people to the hype around Bitcoin and look to drive the price up higher. If I get my bids all the way down to the eight thousand five hundred dollar level, all of those bids failed. You know, the first area that I’m most definitely going to look to take a little bit of profit off is rough that nine thousand one hundred and fifty dollar level, nine thousand one hundred dollar level just stemming from these daily swing high closes. I’m only going to do that if I get the bids filled all the way down here. Then the second area, I think is pretty obvious. Where you want to be targeting on this one is just the swing high points from the cross-hair, roughly up at ten thousand three hundred and fifty dollar level. And again, with this, you don’t want to just have one sell order on your actual limit, you know, very much stemming from these getting back in onto this long trade. You know, if I just had my one bid set down, 8600 right in the middle, you know, I wouldn’t have been able to get filled right in here. So you want to split up your bids. So that way, if the price does move into the area like you received this week, right now, you, Gabb, Paul, your order filled and then it can turn around. And if it gets all the way down and fills up your entire position, then brilliant. And I think if we take away anything from this, you know, I don’t expect so much big point to drop too much with so much hype around it coming into having a look. I’ll bet makes funding. Right. We are starting to get some long exposure. Some more people are starting to loan this market at the moment. But, you know, the bias is been very, very much. Sure. We can draw that kind of trend line across from here. And as long as the funding raise. Sure. Generally speaking, the price is going to rise. And, yes, we are starting to get more spikes up here. But I want to see even more spikes get even more bullish pushing into the halving over the next week or two. And then that’s when you take off the most weighting. You know, I know I keep saying that I have taken off a profit, and that actually finds that we’ve run up a little bit further now that we still have so much longer pushing into the halving. Everything looks so goddamn good on this chart. I mean, it looks amazing, you know. I want to add back on as we drop back down. You know, it’s no good buying Bitcoin up. You want to buy on the pullbacks. We’re getting that pullback at the moment. So try and get this video as quickly as possible for you guys. You know, lining up around the eight thousand nine hundred eight thousand eight hundred eight thousand seven hundred all the way down. Don’t want to go into it to find. You know, the main reason why I’m doing this is trying to hold it for those few more days, pushing into the halving next week. It’s been a pretty quick one today. I’m so I’ll try to get this one out as quickly as possible for you guys. Haven’t really prepared too much to X. I just want to give my thoughts on what I’m seeing on the charts at the moment. I know so many of you guys will be interested in seeing this because it’s obviously pumping so much. The main thing that we need to consider with this is obviously taking your profit before halving because I think it’s very, very likely for us to look to dump around. Tanso, if you have an added on Yayo, if you’ve missed this massive run-up and you weren’t able to get in down there, 6900 door level where we were looking at it previously, you know, definitely having it on this pullback. But if we ride the trend up higher, you know, I don’t want to be buying up at nine thousand three hundred. It is moving higher. You know you want to buy on the pullbacks when Bitcoin is dropping into these areas on the hourly timeframe right here. You know, this area was resistance from these red candles. I expect it can now flip and turn to support, especially when we look at it from a daily perspective and understand that this area across from here started acting as that supports. If we get those films all the way down, you know, definitely take them off the top. Thank you for last in this long. If you are still around anyway, I will catch you in the next video. I mean, cheers for watching.

source https://www.cryptosharks.net/bitcoin-price-goes-exponential-pullback-into-halving/ source https://cryptosharks1.tumblr.com/post/616994900665417728

[scottmapess]

BITCOIN PRICE GOES EXPONENTIAL | Buy The Bitcoin Price Pullback Into Halving!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

I’ll tell you what, with the amount of pumping that Bacolod has seen over the last two days, it would be rude not to make a video on it and that that is what we’re going to do today. A little trading video for you guys all on their own. But before we get into the content, please ask you if you haven’t seen yesterday’s video. Definitely. Go check that one out. It’s called the crash. A lot of work into it. And I think it’s really important from an economic standpoint to look to see where we are in the economy and at the end, see how Bitcoin can do. All of this is really important, that macro trend following. But anyway, enough of that boys up. Oh, yeah. I’ll link up here. So worth you can catch up at the end of the video combat GOKEN That one if you haven’t watched it. But let’s get into the content. If you are new around here, please at least consider hitting that subscription button, looking that little notification bill right next to it. We look at financial stuff. Everything trading kind of prioritize it around Bitcoin as well. We look at stock market analysis, investing all that jazz. And if you haven’t hit that like button, you know what to do. Looking at Bitcoin, we have had an absolutely massive run-up over the last day or so. We just take it from yesterday’s open. You know, yesterday’s panel was up 30 percent on ways to its place, 21 percent. And this is mostly happening because one next week we are moving into the halving. Actually, let me get that up to 12 days, two hours, 39 minutes and 39 seconds. So, yes, it is closing ever closer to the whole mandate. I have made a video completely dedicated to the whole thing, having watched it once or to keep referring you to my videos. Check that one out. I’ll break it much more down in-depth in that video than I could ever do justice in this one because we’re just gonna be looking at the trading side of things. But that is mostly what is causing just unsanitized, mostly the hype around the halving because it’s such a bullish event for Bitcoin. We pump into the halving and especially as our traditional equities, you know, the S&P 500, we’ve had a very good day yesterday and that as well. This is the futures on it. And yes, we were up around that free percent was started to help our low drawdown today. And looking at Bitcoin’s price right now, that could also be the reason why we’re starting to pull back right now. You know, from its face down six percent. So, yeah, we’re getting big, big swings in Bitcoin. But if you know anything about Bitcoin, there’s nothing new there anyway. Right. A couple of stuff that I want to look at an analysis wise when it comes to Bitcoin trading because many of you know who have been around the channel for a while. You know that I was looking to load up roughly around that six thousand nine hundred dollar level, which I did from that investing standpoint. I for the path of least resistance for Bitcoin was very much up. And that that has been proven very Marzo. We did have a little bit of a shaky down here when we were the last six-five, but we held on. And look, now we started to be rewarded for it. So how have I played Bitcoin at the moment as we’ve moved into halving? I’ve actually been taking a little bit of profit and we’ll get into what I actually want to add back on that slope of profitable relief that more towards the end. Just give my thoughts on what we would do if we go into the weekly timeframe, taking it across from this red close here. So this is all support when we move down into the areas of acting as that support, again, resistance. We’ve got that weekly closed just above the level. And now you can see we’ve moved back down into this area and started using it as a support. So I was taking profit, the first tiny little bit of profit from that 6900 looks very much at this client of six thousand seven hundred dollar level. It was more sort of stemming from this kind of green body across from here. And I was taking profit actually all the way up to the AK and a bit further because right here there was a lot of overhead resistance to very clear moving averages on the one hundred days moving average in the 200 days moving average. Two pretty significant ones, in my opinion, all teaming up roughly around this level. So I have taken a bit of profit, you know, and it has risen much further on from that. On the next level that I took even more profit out was this eight thousand four hundred dollar level because these are stemming from these swing low points down here up towards the eight thousand four hundred eight thousand five hundred dollar level. And I want to outline to you the significance of how important it is for you guys to take profit because many people just hold onto it and look to try and ride the trend forever. But, you know, you can’t do that. You need to lock up wins where winds are to be taken. And yes, Bitcoin pomposity is level. And again, we even took profit off of here or I did. Anyway, I dunno about you guys. And is Pomfrey this level any. You know what? That’s absolutely fine. You can’t cash the top with absolutely everything. But now Bitcoin has been able to close back above this level on the daily timeframe and considering we still have a little while left until the whole thing. And also the S&P is performing so well at the moment. I would definitely still expect Bitcoin could trend higher up into halving and around the halving day or just after the halving. I wouldn’t be surprised, considering it probably won’t be too much of and I don’t it’s a non-event. But I could see more people selling directly after the halving have a big pump in which we are having to make some more profit off maybe by the end of next week. Net two weeks or so short of around that 10-day mark just before that sort of halving actually happens. Now, as I have taken profit and I actually want to get some of that exposure back on long, and what I’m going to do is at about 50 per cent of that weight in which I did take off as profit and tried to add it back on, I actually would have had a couple of my bets filled. And I basically scattered it all the way down from eight thousand nine hundred down towards the eight thousand five hundred dollar level and kind of viewing this area more as a zone. And if you know what, it doesn’t get all the way down to. Eight thousand five hundred. That’s absolutely fine. But will make this Breem. So now you can see it as a support. And I know it’s a pretty big area, which we are looking at, but you need to realize that we’re just getting so, so much volume with Bitcoin at the moment. So what I am looking to do as we move into halving. Yes, I have to take off a little bit of profit from that 6900 dollars long form. That’s all massive investment standpoint. And now I’ve just added on I’ve been able to probably get a little bit of that exposure back on. Why? Most definitely have, because I had the eight thousand one hundred dollar level set. Eight thousand eight hundred dollars. If we drop down a little bit further than it’s going to be able to add a bit more of that position back on long. And the whole strategy with this is I’m not looking to hold it probably after the halving. I just want to get some more long exposure back on pumping into the whole thing, because I didn’t expect Bitcoin to pump quite this hard. I am a bit surprised that the Bitcoin doesn’t disappoint, does it? If you’ve been trading the space for a long time, you know, Bitcoin does some pretty astonishing thing, you know, Black Thursday or whatever you call it here, Black Monday. That was absolutely catastrophic. Even more surprising than what we’re seeing right now. But now I’m looking to, again, try and outline this, you know, I haven’t so much got too much ara’s a wound going to exactly take profit on it. I think it’s more important to understand that the path of least resistance over the next week or two is most likely off as we push into the Harvey, get more people to the hype around Bitcoin and look to drive the price up higher. If I get my bids all the way down to the eight thousand five hundred dollar level, all of those bids failed. You know, the first area that I’m most definitely going to look to take a little bit of profit off is rough that nine thousand one hundred and fifty dollar level, nine thousand one hundred dollar level just stemming from these daily swing high closes. I’m only going to do that if I get the bids filled all the way down here. Then the second area, I think is pretty obvious. Where you want to be targeting on this one is just the swing high points from the cross-hair, roughly up at ten thousand three hundred and fifty dollar level. And again, with this, you don’t want to just have one sell order on your actual limit, you know, very much stemming from these getting back in onto this long trade. You know, if I just had my one bid set down, 8600 right in the middle, you know, I wouldn’t have been able to get filled right in here. So you want to split up your bids. So that way, if the price does move into the area like you received this week, right now, you, Gabb, Paul, your order filled and then it can turn around. And if it gets all the way down and fills up your entire position, then brilliant. And I think if we take away anything from this, you know, I don’t expect so much big point to drop too much with so much hype around it coming into having a look. I’ll bet makes funding. Right. We are starting to get some long exposure. Some more people are starting to loan this market at the moment. But, you know, the bias is been very, very much. Sure. We can draw that kind of trend line across from here. And as long as the funding raise. Sure. Generally speaking, the price is going to rise. And, yes, we are starting to get more spikes up here. But I want to see even more spikes get even more bullish pushing into the halving over the next week or two. And then that’s when you take off the most weighting. You know, I know I keep saying that I have taken off a profit, and that actually finds that we’ve run up a little bit further now that we still have so much longer pushing into the halving. Everything looks so goddamn good on this chart. I mean, it looks amazing, you know. I want to add back on as we drop back down. You know, it’s no good buying Bitcoin up. You want to buy on the pullbacks. We’re getting that pullback at the moment. So try and get this video as quickly as possible for you guys. You know, lining up around the eight thousand nine hundred eight thousand eight hundred eight thousand seven hundred all the way down. Don’t want to go into it to find. You know, the main reason why I’m doing this is trying to hold it for those few more days, pushing into the halving next week. It’s been a pretty quick one today. I’m so I’ll try to get this one out as quickly as possible for you guys. Haven’t really prepared too much to X. I just want to give my thoughts on what I’m seeing on the charts at the moment. I know so many of you guys will be interested in seeing this because it’s obviously pumping so much. The main thing that we need to consider with this is obviously taking your profit before halving because I think it’s very, very likely for us to look to dump around. Tanso, if you have an added on Yayo, if you’ve missed this massive run-up and you weren’t able to get in down there, 6900 door level where we were looking at it previously, you know, definitely having it on this pullback. But if we ride the trend up higher, you know, I don’t want to be buying up at nine thousand three hundred. It is moving higher. You know you want to buy on the pullbacks when Bitcoin is dropping into these areas on the hourly timeframe right here. You know, this area was resistance from these red candles. I expect it can now flip and turn to support, especially when we look at it from a daily perspective and understand that this area across from here started acting as that supports. If we get those films all the way down, you know, definitely take them off the top. Thank you for last in this long. If you are still around anyway, I will catch you in the next video. I mean, cheers for watching.

source https://www.cryptosharks.net/bitcoin-price-goes-exponential-pullback-into-halving/ source https://cryptosharks1.blogspot.com/2020/05/bitcoin-price-goes-exponential-buy.html

[cryptosharks1]

BITCOIN PRICE GOES EXPONENTIAL | Buy The Bitcoin Price Pullback Into Halving!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

I’ll tell you what, with the amount of pumping that Bacolod has seen over the last two days, it would be rude not to make a video on it and that that is what we’re going to do today. A little trading video for you guys all on their own. But before we get into the content, please ask you if you haven’t seen yesterday’s video. Definitely. Go check that one out. It’s called the crash. A lot of work into it. And I think it’s really important from an economic standpoint to look to see where we are in the economy and at the end, see how Bitcoin can do. All of this is really important, that macro trend following. But anyway, enough of that boys up. Oh, yeah. I’ll link up here. So worth you can catch up at the end of the video combat GOKEN That one if you haven’t watched it. But let’s get into the content. If you are new around here, please at least consider hitting that subscription button, looking that little notification bill right next to it. We look at financial stuff. Everything trading kind of prioritize it around Bitcoin as well. We look at stock market analysis, investing all that jazz. And if you haven’t hit that like button, you know what to do. Looking at Bitcoin, we have had an absolutely massive run-up over the last day or so. We just take it from yesterday’s open. You know, yesterday’s panel was up 30 percent on ways to its place, 21 percent. And this is mostly happening because one next week we are moving into the halving. Actually, let me get that up to 12 days, two hours, 39 minutes and 39 seconds. So, yes, it is closing ever closer to the whole mandate. I have made a video completely dedicated to the whole thing, having watched it once or to keep referring you to my videos. Check that one out. I’ll break it much more down in-depth in that video than I could ever do justice in this one because we’re just gonna be looking at the trading side of things. But that is mostly what is causing just unsanitized, mostly the hype around the halving because it’s such a bullish event for Bitcoin. We pump into the halving and especially as our traditional equities, you know, the S&P 500, we’ve had a very good day yesterday and that as well. This is the futures on it. And yes, we were up around that free percent was started to help our low drawdown today. And looking at Bitcoin’s price right now, that could also be the reason why we’re starting to pull back right now. You know, from its face down six percent. So, yeah, we’re getting big, big swings in Bitcoin. But if you know anything about Bitcoin, there’s nothing new there anyway. Right. A couple of stuff that I want to look at an analysis wise when it comes to Bitcoin trading because many of you know who have been around the channel for a while. You know that I was looking to load up roughly around that six thousand nine hundred dollar level, which I did from that investing standpoint. I for the path of least resistance for Bitcoin was very much up. And that that has been proven very Marzo. We did have a little bit of a shaky down here when we were the last six-five, but we held on. And look, now we started to be rewarded for it. So how have I played Bitcoin at the moment as we’ve moved into halving? I’ve actually been taking a little bit of profit and we’ll get into what I actually want to add back on that slope of profitable relief that more towards the end. Just give my thoughts on what we would do if we go into the weekly timeframe, taking it across from this red close here. So this is all support when we move down into the areas of acting as that support, again, resistance. We’ve got that weekly closed just above the level. And now you can see we’ve moved back down into this area and started using it as a support. So I was taking profit, the first tiny little bit of profit from that 6900 looks very much at this client of six thousand seven hundred dollar level. It was more sort of stemming from this kind of green body across from here. And I was taking profit actually all the way up to the AK and a bit further because right here there was a lot of overhead resistance to very clear moving averages on the one hundred days moving average in the 200 days moving average. Two pretty significant ones, in my opinion, all teaming up roughly around this level. So I have taken a bit of profit, you know, and it has risen much further on from that. On the next level that I took even more profit out was this eight thousand four hundred dollar level because these are stemming from these swing low points down here up towards the eight thousand four hundred eight thousand five hundred dollar level. And I want to outline to you the significance of how important it is for you guys to take profit because many people just hold onto it and look to try and ride the trend forever. But, you know, you can’t do that. You need to lock up wins where winds are to be taken. And yes, Bitcoin pomposity is level. And again, we even took profit off of here or I did. Anyway, I dunno about you guys. And is Pomfrey this level any. You know what? That’s absolutely fine. You can’t cash the top with absolutely everything. But now Bitcoin has been able to close back above this level on the daily timeframe and considering we still have a little while left until the whole thing. And also the S&P is performing so well at the moment. I would definitely still expect Bitcoin could trend higher up into halving and around the halving day or just after the halving. I wouldn’t be surprised, considering it probably won’t be too much of and I don’t it’s a non-event. But I could see more people selling directly after the halving have a big pump in which we are having to make some more profit off maybe by the end of next week. Net two weeks or so short of around that 10-day mark just before that sort of halving actually happens. Now, as I have taken profit and I actually want to get some of that exposure back on long, and what I’m going to do is at about 50 per cent of that weight in which I did take off as profit and tried to add it back on, I actually would have had a couple of my bets filled. And I basically scattered it all the way down from eight thousand nine hundred down towards the eight thousand five hundred dollar level and kind of viewing this area more as a zone. And if you know what, it doesn’t get all the way down to. Eight thousand five hundred. That’s absolutely fine. But will make this Breem. So now you can see it as a support. And I know it’s a pretty big area, which we are looking at, but you need to realize that we’re just getting so, so much volume with Bitcoin at the moment. So what I am looking to do as we move into halving. Yes, I have to take off a little bit of profit from that 6900 dollars long form. That’s all massive investment standpoint. And now I’ve just added on I’ve been able to probably get a little bit of that exposure back on. Why? Most definitely have, because I had the eight thousand one hundred dollar level set. Eight thousand eight hundred dollars. If we drop down a little bit further than it’s going to be able to add a bit more of that position back on long. And the whole strategy with this is I’m not looking to hold it probably after the halving. I just want to get some more long exposure back on pumping into the whole thing, because I didn’t expect Bitcoin to pump quite this hard. I am a bit surprised that the Bitcoin doesn’t disappoint, does it? If you’ve been trading the space for a long time, you know, Bitcoin does some pretty astonishing thing, you know, Black Thursday or whatever you call it here, Black Monday. That was absolutely catastrophic. Even more surprising than what we’re seeing right now. But now I’m looking to, again, try and outline this, you know, I haven’t so much got too much ara’s a wound going to exactly take profit on it. I think it’s more important to understand that the path of least resistance over the next week or two is most likely off as we push into the Harvey, get more people to the hype around Bitcoin and look to drive the price up higher. If I get my bids all the way down to the eight thousand five hundred dollar level, all of those bids failed. You know, the first area that I’m most definitely going to look to take a little bit of profit off is rough that nine thousand one hundred and fifty dollar level, nine thousand one hundred dollar level just stemming from these daily swing high closes. I’m only going to do that if I get the bids filled all the way down here. Then the second area, I think is pretty obvious. Where you want to be targeting on this one is just the swing high points from the cross-hair, roughly up at ten thousand three hundred and fifty dollar level. And again, with this, you don’t want to just have one sell order on your actual limit, you know, very much stemming from these getting back in onto this long trade. You know, if I just had my one bid set down, 8600 right in the middle, you know, I wouldn’t have been able to get filled right in here. So you want to split up your bids. So that way, if the price does move into the area like you received this week, right now, you, Gabb, Paul, your order filled and then it can turn around. And if it gets all the way down and fills up your entire position, then brilliant. And I think if we take away anything from this, you know, I don’t expect so much big point to drop too much with so much hype around it coming into having a look. I’ll bet makes funding. Right. We are starting to get some long exposure. Some more people are starting to loan this market at the moment. But, you know, the bias is been very, very much. Sure. We can draw that kind of trend line across from here. And as long as the funding raise. Sure. Generally speaking, the price is going to rise. And, yes, we are starting to get more spikes up here. But I want to see even more spikes get even more bullish pushing into the halving over the next week or two. And then that’s when you take off the most weighting. You know, I know I keep saying that I have taken off a profit, and that actually finds that we’ve run up a little bit further now that we still have so much longer pushing into the halving. Everything looks so goddamn good on this chart. I mean, it looks amazing, you know. I want to add back on as we drop back down. You know, it’s no good buying Bitcoin up. You want to buy on the pullbacks. We’re getting that pullback at the moment. So try and get this video as quickly as possible for you guys. You know, lining up around the eight thousand nine hundred eight thousand eight hundred eight thousand seven hundred all the way down. Don’t want to go into it to find. You know, the main reason why I’m doing this is trying to hold it for those few more days, pushing into the halving next week. It’s been a pretty quick one today. I’m so I’ll try to get this one out as quickly as possible for you guys. Haven’t really prepared too much to X. I just want to give my thoughts on what I’m seeing on the charts at the moment. I know so many of you guys will be interested in seeing this because it’s obviously pumping so much. The main thing that we need to consider with this is obviously taking your profit before halving because I think it’s very, very likely for us to look to dump around. Tanso, if you have an added on Yayo, if you’ve missed this massive run-up and you weren’t able to get in down there, 6900 door level where we were looking at it previously, you know, definitely having it on this pullback. But if we ride the trend up higher, you know, I don’t want to be buying up at nine thousand three hundred. It is moving higher. You know you want to buy on the pullbacks when Bitcoin is dropping into these areas on the hourly timeframe right here. You know, this area was resistance from these red candles. I expect it can now flip and turn to support, especially when we look at it from a daily perspective and understand that this area across from here started acting as that supports. If we get those films all the way down, you know, definitely take them off the top. Thank you for last in this long. If you are still around anyway, I will catch you in the next video. I mean, cheers for watching.

source https://www.cryptosharks.net/bitcoin-price-goes-exponential-pullback-into-halving/