#Probably helped that I tagged all the stuff

[420days]

CHAPTER 2

excuse any errors or mistakes

tags: @bebesobrielo @trentybenty @amandairene88 @kiki1704 @paigereeder @uceyliyahh @skyesthebomb @cyberdejos2 @chloeijuana @tian-monique

"What about this?" Simone asked Bianca as she pulled the dress out of her suitcase "I feel like this is an appropriate outfit for the interview.

Simone had landed in Tampa the night before and was currently in her hotel room trying to find something to wear to the venue where the meet and greet would take place.

"I like that. It's cute, you're not doing too much, and you still look good. Maybe you can find a boo out there too," Bianca raised her eyebrows at her.

"Girl ! I'm not here for none of that. I'm honestly more excited to see all the little kids with there merch and stuff.”

"Mmmh, I forgot you love the kids." Bianca nodded her head into the phone. "They’re gonna be so happy to see y’all.”

When they got off the phone, Simone began doing her hair, parting it down the middle and hotcombing the top so it was flat. She swooped her baby hairs and perfected her makeup.

After getting dressed, Simone arrived at the Stadium around nine-thirty, earlier than necessary but just how she liked it. She appreciated having time to settle in, get familiar with her surroundings, and find something to eat.

She instantly noticed how packed it was, with volunteers running around setting things up. Unsure of what to do or who to help, she spotted a woman walking past with a badge around her neck. The woman was dressed in a black pantsuit, matching heels, and her hair slicked into a low bun.

"Um, excuse me," Simone said, stopping her.

"Yes?" The woman gave Simone a blank look.

"I was invited here for an interview. I don't really know who I'm supposed to talk to or what I'm supposed to do."

Sighing, the woman took the clipboard from under her arm and looked up. "What's your name?"

"Simone." She slightly rolled her eyes at the woman who seemed to be uninterested.

"Oh yes! I can see your name right here on the list. Come over here so I can get you settled in." The woman waived Simone over to the backstage area.

The woman clipped a microphone pack to the back of her shirt and led her to the dressing room that was set up for her and Roman. There was all kinds of snack and drinks set up on the table so she helped herself to the fruit along with a bottle of water. As she was snacking there was a knock at the door. It was the same woman from earlier with Roman not too far behind her.

“It will probably we another 30 minutes until they’re ready for you guys but I’ll come check on you guys in a few.” She told them.

“Hey.” Simone smiled when he walked into the room.

“Hey Simone, how are you?” He spoke to her.

“Well and yourself?”

“Ah, I can’t complain. Have you been here long?” He kept the conversation going.

"Not really, I just got here and I had to walk around for a little bit to find somone that works here. They didn’t give any instructions on what to do when we got here.”

“That’s the same thing that happend to me. I was looking for you when I came in.” He told her as he sat down in the seat next to her.

“They need to give the champs better treatment.” She pursed her lips causing him to let out a laugh.

-

“She was definitely flirting with you.”

“You think so?” Roman raised an eyebrow as he opened the car door for Simone to climb inside. He hosnlty wants laying the woman any attention and thought she was unprofessional.

“Yes! She wasn’t even asking me any questions for real but that’s fine. I get it.” She held her hands up defensively.

“Oh, you get it?” He chuckled as he ran his hand over his beard and got comfortable in his seat.

“I mean yeah I’m not gonna sit here and lie like you’re not attractive but she should’ve been doing her job.” Simone giggled before pulling her hair over her shoulder.

“You’ve been blunt your whole life?” He asked her after a moment of silence passed between them. Roman knew he had to break the ice with Simone if he wanted to get to know her.

“I wouldn’t say blunt but definitely outspoken. I feel like people make normal things awkward for no reason. I’m not going to lie about someone being fine, respectfully of course. Not to be disrespectful towards your wife or anything.” She shrugged her shoulders.

“I’m divorced.” He spoke.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Simone spoke not knowing if it was a sensitive topic for him. She went through a breakup herself last year so she knew it could be touchy.

“Don’t be, it’s all good. Are you seeing anyone?” He asked catching her off guard but she felt like she had to quickly clear it up.

“Nope. ” She shook her head and looked down at her freshly manicured nails.

“I’d love you take you out sometime and get to know you more if you’re up for it. I know we’re busy and everything.” He motioned towards their belts. “But I could make time.”

“That would be nice. I’d definitely be down for that. Would you want to take my number?” Simone smiled at him, slightly surprised that he was interested in him.

“Most definitely.” He nodded his head and took his phone out the pants pocket of his dress pants and handed it to her.

[kingofthering]

Hi guys, I am back ✨

First of all, I wanted to thank you all for the support and all the kind messages I received when my account was terminated (and all the offers to help me find my content on this website), I really appreciated that. I wish I cared less about something as silly as tumblr, but alas, here we are.

Blogs wise, I'm going to keep @kingofthering-two on the side, in case something happens here (again). It's a blog I'll aways keep free of strikable posts so it should always be a safe place to fall back on.

Additionally, to be precautious, I'm going to create an archive blog on a separate account. I'll share it once everything has been stored over.

Another thing I'm going to do is amend the post I made in December on how to deal with strikes and add things I've learned in the last couple of weeks. I'll reblog it when it's ready.

What about giffing here? So. I know what's safe and what isn't so obviously the safe content isn't even a question. Regarding the rest (essentially, things coming from videopass), I'm partially torn because fighting strikes is both stressful and exhausting but there is also the fact that in December they striked posts I created in April (8 months prior) so considering the fact that I'll never be fully safe unless I deleted everything after the content has been archived on another blog, well. (I did consider that option at one point but I'm not really fond of it, I'll admit).

I don't know yet if I want to discuss the Dorna strikes matter with Tumblr now or if I want to see if I'm good or I receive another strike (and then you can be sure I'll ask tumblr how come they're still accepting claims from an entity that couldn't back up their claims on 7 different occasions with my blog, and many more times with others). A small part of me is still worried that Tumblr would say something to Dorna (probably very unlikely but, you know) (and as painful as fighting the strikes is, at least we know it's always a working process for now). Thoughts to be had, at some point.

Anyway, I'm happy to be back here. There are a couple of things that I want to see to take care of in the upcoming days / weeks including publishing the recs of Nov / Dec 2024, treating the results of the 2024 MotoGP RPF Survey (still open), posting my MotoGP & F1 2025 seasons journals on Etsy, etc

It seems that I might have lost some of my followers (including mutuals) in the process of my blog going away and coming back. The notifications I'm receiving are not exactly coinciding with other stuff so I'm a little unsure about that. Going to post this in the MotoGP tag just to be cautious.

[dreamsy990]

you know i used to think it was weird how sora and roxas have such different personalities for supposedly being 'the same person' but after playing a few games i sort of realized that they do have similar personalities, because roxas acts how sora does when he's under extreme stress.

compare roxas to sora in, say, kh1. that's where a lot of peoples idea of sora's personality comes from. sora is generally very upbeat and optimistic in that game. not very similar to roxas, right?

but let's switch the game and talk about a game where sora is ABSOLUTELY GOING THROUGH IT. chain of memories.

sora's resting state is melancholy in com. he only ever cheers up in short bursts, usually when he's joking around with friends. just like roxas.

he's quick to anger, and tends to lash out at the organization members. best example of this is when larxene makes him 'remember' namine, and he swings at her repeatedly, even after she's gone. he only stops when jiminy is able to snap him out of it.

you know what scene that resembles?

sora, while a bit more on the angry side and less sad, continues to act like this in kh2 when he's in stressful situations. (he also has a tendancy to insult people which, while it's not very related to the point, is very funny and sora saying 'gonna cry?' to xigbar is great.) i cant comment any further than that about kh2 off the top of my head.

so, roxas acts like sora does when he's stressed, right? but why is roxas always acting like that? to which i say, he isnt!

he only ever acts like that when he's also in fucked up and stressful situations, which happens to be a CONSTANT in his life. but when he's hanging out with axel and xion, a decidedly NOT stressful situation, he's a lot more like sora. he's teasing his friends and insulting his coworkers and joking around and acting like a normal kid. not really important, but unless i misremembered some sora lines which is VERY possible, both roxas and sora respond to friendly insults with "oh thanks!" a lot. just a funny little detail that felt relevant.

the biggest differences between roxas and sora boil down to environment and... i dont know how to put it besides volume? roxas is very quiet and tends to keep most of his thoughts to himself, while sora is very loud and expressive in comparison.

there is one other huge difference i noticed, which is less character based and more story. sora wanted to get off destiny islands and explore with his friends, but roxas just wanted routine. sora wants adventure, and roxas wants things to stay the same, for days where he gets off work and eats ice cream with his friends to last forever, to keep having conversations about nothing and watching the sunset. roxas wants normalcy, sora wants excitement. it's just interesting seeing their contrast.

not sure if this is very well said or anything i just wanted to talk about my boys

[another-whump-sideblog]

I'm getting whumperflies from my textbook's chapter on behaviorism. The cold, calculated way it talks about behaviors completely separate from the person doing them and the emphasis on reinforcement and punishment are just so very whumpy. Generally it uses attention as an example of reinforcement, which leads to stuff like "it's effective to avoid eye contact and conversation while restraining a patient so that misbehaving isn't unintentionally reinforced through attention." Like that's one of the whumpiest things I've ever read and it's in a psychology textbook. Imagine a whumper just completely ceasing any eye contact or conversation while Whumpee is being punished because attention is a reinforcer

Behaviorism is so fucked up

[meamiki]

some random reverse entry au [office + reverse isekai loop] drawings :thumbsup:

[mildly interested in this silly au? here is a link to scroll through for all the stuff i've made for it! i'll make a proper master post... someday.....]

[kimbapisnotsushi]

hinata needed kageyama as a player and kageyama needed hinata as a person

[frobby]

I think it would be really funny if rin was the more helpful one around his house. Like u would think rin would be the disrespectful one who always bails on housework or mass but its actually yukio who would always have an excuse not to go or forget about chores to the point that rin just does them instinctively now

[codgod-moved]

^3^

(there’s a bonus drawing under the cut that i don’t like enough to put in its own post but i still think it’s cute lol)

fambily :]

[fuckwhoeverpickedallthefunnyurls]

It's looking strong for Nimona rn but rwrb is also pretty high

Alright lads

Ok I think I got everything

[micamicster]

Super Rich Kids

Close my eyes and feel the crash...

I wrote this one on post-its on a trans-continental flight after my phone (where i was re-reading the raven cycle) died. 0/10 plane experience would not recommend but I did manage to entertain myself! And now hopefully you as well!

When Ronan pulled into Monmouth Manufacturing he knew Gansey wouldn’t be there. Adam Parrish was, though, sitting on the steps in the golden afternoon light, bike dumped to the side in dying grass. He didn’t so much as flicker an eyelid when Ronan bootlegged the BMW into an approximation of parking on the far side of the lot, which was fine because that’s how he would have parked the car anyway, whether or not Adam was here.

Ronan was pretty sure that Gansey had arranged a shift system with the other boys, to prevent Ronan from being unaccompanied on the rare occasions of his own absence. The idea of a babysitter should have rankled Ronan, but Adam did not seem particularly invested in his role. Small favors.

As he got out of the car he gave Adam his customary once-over, as brief as it was habitual. You could notice a lot in a single glance, if you were Ronan, glancing at Adam.

Adam was wearing long sleeves (his father? Or just because it was October?) and his faded camo pants, the ones Ronan said made him look like a jingoistic meathead. They had recently acquired a tear in one knee. Not in the stylish, deliberate manner in which Ronan’s own jeans were shredded, but awkwardly, in an L-shape, where they had caught on some jagged edge and given way before even careful Adam had noticed and unhooked himself. The tear gaped open at times, like it was doing now, revealing Adam’s knobby left knee and, worse, a triangle of his brown thigh.

Ronan looked away.

Ronan never allowed himself, even in dreams, to trespass beyond the carefully demarcated boundaries of Adam’s clothes. And Adam was usually helpful in the maintenance of this boundary. Unlike Gansey, who could be found working on his model Henrietta in boxers at all hours of the night, or wandering to and from the shower in a towel, absent-mindedly forgetting his clothes in bathroom or bedroom. Unlike the boys Ronan played tennis with, who stripped down casually in the locker room after practice. Unlike even Ronan himself, who’d never met a shirt he couldn’t rip the sleeves off; Adam was always fully covered.

This summer, foolishly, Ronan had imagined that this might change. Now that the hideous secrets Adam protected with his long sleeves were no longer his alone. But by now he knew what kept those sleeves in place, something that Adam had already understood: that knowing and seeing are two very different things.

For example: this. Ronan knew that Adam, like most people who walked around on earth under their own power, possessed thighs. Two of them, attached in the normal way to other body parts, such as knees and hips. To know this was one thing.

Now that he’d seen it, he couldn’t stop seeing it. The way his knee bent, and the muscle above shifted as Adam made room on the steps for him. Ronan was looking away, out at the familiar, grounding, skid marks on the concrete of Monmouth’s lot, but he could picture in their place with deadly accuracy the hinge of Adam’s knee, the tanned skin of his thigh, scattered with golden-brown hair. He could dream about pressing his face against it.

He picked up a rock and hurled it. It glanced off the side of the soulless suburban and fell anticlimactically into the grass dying by the rear tire. It didn’t help.

Adam shifted next to him, subtly.

“What?” said Ronan. “Impressed?”

“Surprised, more like. I thought you were supposed to be the tennis star.”

“You think you can do better?” Ronan pried another hunk of gravel or concrete out of the dirt and tossed it in his left hand, tauntingly.

“I know I can.”

“But?”

“But,” said Adam, with some hint of exasperation coloring his voice, “I’m not going to sit here chunking rocks at Gansey’s car to prove it. My ego’s not that fragile.” His accent slipped out on chunkin’, not as if Ronan had pissed him off enough to forget to hide it, but as if it was a word he’d never used any other way.

Ronan threw his rock again. This was, if anything, a worse throw than before, and it skittered harmlessly across the suburban’s roof.

Adam made a small but contemptuous noise.

“Don’t give me that shit, man. You know he hates this fucking car.”

“That was for your shitty aim.”

“Come on then.” Ronan hefted another piece of gravel. “Ten points if you knock out his taillight.”

“It costs a hundred and five dollars to replace a taillight on that make and model. Plus tax.”

Ronan’s brief cheer was collapsing again. “I’ll pay you a hundred bucks to bust Dick’s lights.”

Adam blinked slowly, his dusty eyelashes obscuring the contempt in his eyes for a brief moment. “I’ll leave.” (He wouldn’t).

Ronan dropped the rock. Next to him Adam sighed. Abruptly, he put out his hand. “Telephone pole. Six feet from the top.”

Ronan swept back up the rock and dropped it into his hand. Their fingers did not touch. His heart thudded.

Adam tossed the rock once, testing its weight while his gaze, cool and assessing, remained on the telephone pole. It was a splintered, tilting thing, shamed by his attentions. In one smooth, economical movement, he rose to his feet and let the rock fly. His leg went forward, knee jutting out of his clothes, his back curved, and his arm swept around in an arc, fingers scraping at the blue October sky. Ronan didn’t need to turn his head to know if the rock hit—he could see it in the brief hard satisfaction on Adam’s face.

Adam turned back to him, one eyebrow cocked.

“You’re going to have to do better than that if you want to earn that hundred,”

Adam shrugged. The gesture was disinterested, but there was a quirk to his mouth that contradicted it. “I know nothing blew up, but…”

Ronan already had another rock in his hand. “West corner lightbulb. It breaks or it doesn’t count.” Adam rolled his eyes, but turned agreeably to watch Ronan miss.

“Would you like to get your tennis racket?”

“Eat me,” said Ronan. (Maybe).

They traded shots back and forth for a while, calling increasingly specific and complex plays.

“Bullshit. Bullshit.”

“Get the government to pay for some glasses, Parrish, and then come back and try to tell me that wasn’t a fucking bullseye—”

“It wasn’t even close! You—”

“You calling me a liar?” Ronan loomed, and Adam, as usual, was unimpressed.

“Just because you don’t lie doesn’t make you right all the time! Like when you said that quote on Tuesday was Seneca. It doesn’t stop being Martial just because you’ve got a child’s sense of morality—”

“See, right there.” Ronan pointed triumphantly at an invisible scuff mark on the doorsill, marking where his handful of gravel had made impact.

Adam gave it a skeptical glance. His face was faintly flushed from exertion in the cold air, but his eyes were as cool and considering as ever. “What we need,” he said, “is a knife.”

Ronan was not allowed knives.

~

“Are you trying to stab each other in the feet? Why are your shoes off! It’s October!”

“Equal playing field.” Ronan wiggled his toes against the cold asphalt. “Parrish’s shitty knife is no match for my boots.” Over Gansey’s head, Ronan tried to catch Adam’s eye, to share a ‘can you believe him’ sort of look. Adam’s embarrassment over being caught acting irresponsibly meant Ronan could expect the look to be rebuffed, but he couldn’t help himself from trying it anyway.

Adam was bent over, eyes hidden. He carefully dusted off his socked feet one at a time before sliding them back into his shoes, as though the socks or sneakers could look any worse. A little parking lot crud might improve their appearance, actually.

Next to him, Gansey was still fussing. Without the pressure release valve of eye contact with someone who knew Gansey was overreacting, Ronan snapped, “Come off it, man, I’m not going to slit my throat while Parrish watches. He can’t afford that caliber of snuff film.”

Gansey’s concern transformed into revulsion, but underneath it he looked hurt, which was far far worse.

Adam straightened up. “We were just using it to mark where we hit. Honestly, we could have done it tossing a sharpie, but neither of us had one.” He sounded conciliatory, which pissed Ronan off. But Gansey was letting it go, returning the knife to Adam with an apologetic smile. Sorry for the fuss. Sorry for Ronan. Ronan’s bare feet were cold against the asphalt.

“Well? Are you going to throw or not, Parrish?” he said belligerently.

Adam rolled his eyes, but obligingly stooped for gravel and let one fly at Ronan’s open bedroom window, a shot he made easily.

Gansey whistled. “You’ve got quite the arm on you. How come you’re not on the Algionby baseball team?”

Adam shifted his feet, awkwardly.

“Please,” scoffed Ronan, “he’s not a team player.”

Gansey did not let it go. “Bet you’d have a better fastball than both our pitchers.”

There was a pause, during which Adam’s face clearly showed all of the thoughts he was trying to corral into a polite response to Gansey’s unconsidered enthusiasm. Ronan got there first. “Yeah, Parrish, why not hitch your wagon to the star of organized sports, like every other rags to riches wannabe?”

“Ronan!” said Gansey, Ronan’s offensiveness registering where his own had not.

“Hitch my wagon to a star?” Adam was unruffled. “I thought quoting Transcendentalists could get you excommunicated.”

“Who said I know it’s Emerson. It’s a sourceless idiom to those of us who aren’t sad little nerds.”

Adam smirked. The smirk said, I never said Emerson. His words said, “Gansey’s damning me with faint praise. No one’s going pro out of an Algionby sport team. Even tennis.”

“Ouch,” said Ronan, cheerfully. “Hit me where it really hurts. My school pride.”

~

Now that Gansey had arrived, his plans for the day took precedence over noble pastimes such as flipping pocketknives at each other’s feet. His plans involved comparing readings from various instruments and then placing said various instruments in various new locations, all of which were equally arbitrary (to Ronan’s eyes) and inaccessible. Gansey’s plans involved him waiting by the car to monitor the readings while people hiked with antennae to the outermost reaches of the signal. People, in this instance, being Ronan and Adam, Noah having mysteriously and silently fucked off, as he so often did when a job required carrying anything.

Ronan put his head down and trudged. It was brambly here, and slightly damp, and he was beginning to work up the kind of counter-intuitive sweat that appears from working in the cold, the kind that makes you colder later.

As the person leading the hike, custom would dictate that he should catch and hold the long clinging arms of the brambles for the following hiker. This presented a dilemma. Ronan compromised, and set about stomping the multiflora into the ground as he walked. Scarlet hips burst under his feet, invasive and beautiful, spreading their millions of seeds across the damp earth. Noxious weeds.

“It’s too unreliable,” said Adam, into the silence. “Sports. It all depends on… your physical condition.”

“And your condition is shit.”

There was Adam’s ironic smile. “Yes. So.” He shrugged. There was the part they weren’t saying, which was that his physical condition could always get worse. Unexpectedly.

“My dad hates baseball.” Ronan heard himself make the slip—hates and not hated—and a spark of fury burned through him, brief and inconsequential.

“My dad loves it.”

They marched on in silence.

Adam swore as a bramble Ronan had beaten down sprang up again, catching him right across the tear, where his skin was exposed. He bent to unhook it from the camo with deft, deliberate hands. “What?” he said, like he could feel Ronan’s eyes.

Ronan looked away. “Why not the military?” He kicked purposelessly at the bramble and heard Adam sigh. “And don’t tell me you never thought about it. Test scores like yours out in hicksville high school, you must have had recruiters hopping all over you like fleas.”

“Would you believe I had a moral objection?” Adam’s smile was self-deprecating. Ronan studied it.

“No.”

Adam shrugged. It, too, was self-deprecating.

“I think you had a superiority objection. You think you’re too smart for that shit.”

Adam blinked at him. “Do you think I’m wrong?”

Ronan snorted. “Hell no. You can do better than getting blown up in a desert for the United States government.”

The smile, when it came, was small and stunning. “Damned by faint praise again.”

[certifiedcoffeeaddict]

is this anything

[flowerakatsuka]

Osomatsu-san ~Le bourgeon~ & ~Fleurir~ Hikokuji (2019)

[caffeiiine]

kiyo redesign i finished last night be upon ye!!!!!!

[closeups + extras under the cut like usual <3]

[also small note: the left hand scarring hc comes from @/kijimha + his kiyo blog @/korkshinguji !!!]

i had two drafts for this fun fact :3

[draft 1 -> final design]

also total time bc i think it’s cool

[elliebell77]

sorry i havent been posting i think im burnt out rn

[meamiki]

what to do when you forget your umbrella!

i will not elaborate.

((these drawings are a GSNK rain scene reference ADSAFFASD))

bonus isolated (isalated?) running isa as a treat for his birthday:

[catkin-morgs-kookaburralover]

questioning sexuality is so exhausting