#Sorry I know I don’t normally post bummer stuff on here but things have been kinda fucked recently hence the break

[goddess-of-frot]

Alright I’m back

[eflen-n-reegee]

Field Trip to the Field Museum II - Members Night (Chicago, IL)

Hi! I went to the museum members night way back in April, and I’ve been meaning to write this ever since; and I finally got around to it! As with the first part, this is a self-insert imagine fic where the reader is an age regresser and the author is their caregiver. All pictures were taken by me (with permission from museum staff to post online). Also, heads up, this includes pictures of dinosaur bones, taxidermied animals, deceased animals in preservatives, LOTS of mounted insects and bugs (ya gal Eflen loves bugs), and a brief instance of anxiety. (Long story short, I have OCD and bumping into some people upset me IRL, and I decided to incorporate it.) Also under the cut ‘cause it’s long. 😆

You excited, kiddo? We’re gonna get to see some pretty cool stuff, things we wouldn’t normally get to see! This is gonna be so fun! Oh, look at this, sweetheart. There are table all over the museum with cool little pins. Wanna see how many we can find? Alrighty! Let’s go in!

Ooh, look! Such a cool little dinosaur- you’re right, it’s a stegosaurs! You’re pretty smart, aren’t you, pumpkin?

Watch your fingers, sweetie, the crab might pinch them! You’re right, this one’s dead… But maybe I’m a crab! Pinch! Oh, you’re too big for that kind of stuff? Sorry kiddo, I’ll try to remember.

Oh, check out this thing! Know what it is? A giant isopod? So freaking cool. Do you know if they bite? I’d like to hold one!

Pretty great view, huh? Look, they’ve got a t-Rex puppet down there! We’ll try to see it up close later.

Holy cow! So people found out a while ago that platypuses glow under UV light, but they only found out recently that other animals do too! And even crazier? Scientists still don’t know why! Nature is nuts.

So there’s some kinda creepy stuff in here- Okay, okay, I got it. Just let me know if it’s too much, okay?

Whoa… So these animals were mutants for some reason… No, I don’t think anybody knows for sure why things like this happen.

Some animals can live really good lives, even with these kind of issues.  But yeah, it’s a bummer when they don’t make it.

Jeez, it’s busy in here. Careful not to bump the bones, kiddo. Oh wow, look at this one! Came from a ground sloth… Can you believe how big they used to be?

Wow, look at these teeth! I wish I could take this one home, teeth are so cool.

Jeepers, what a skull…

Hey, what’s going on? Okay, deep breaths, sweetheart, deep breaths… Let’s go out in the hallway, okay?

Here, it’s quiet over here, you can sit down if you want- okay, you don’t have to. Can you tell me what’s wrong? Yeah, that room was pretty crowded, huh? I know you don’t like when people bump into you… What do you think will help you feel better? Yeah, when we get home you can take a bath- a shower, no problem. Is there anything else- No, sweetheart, I don’t think you’re being a baby. Everybody gets upset sometimes, and everybody cries sometimes. You’re still a big kid as long as you say you are. Okay? There you go. How about we take a break from the new stuff to look at the dinosaurs? Alright.

Looks like they brought a few new things in here… These bones are pretty cool, huh? I love how the gray and white looks. Why do you think it looks like that?

There’s a crowd around the table over here… Oh, it’s because they have pins. Do you want to wait here a second and I’ll get you a pin? No, I don’t mind. Okay, be back in a second.

So, how’re you feeling? Want to look at some of the stuff upstairs? Okay.

Oh, they’re talking about lichen in here- It’s not BORING! Look how cool these antlers look! You’d think they were tree branches if you didn’t know better.

Well, you can think what you like, but I think lichen is cool. … No, kiddo, I’m not angry. I’m just being silly. People like different things sometimes, it’s no big deal.

Oh, I didn’t know the museum had a library! No, they probably only have books about history and biology. But it’s always cool to see some new books, especially old books like that one, or- Oh!

Look at THIS! This book must be four feet across - at least! It’s massive! I’d love to look through the whole thing. What kinds of things would someone put in a book this big?

Oh, cool! They have a room just for bugs? Awesome! I wonder what ki- Walking sticks?! Oh my gosh, I didn’t know there were ones with wings!

Look how leafy that one is! Or… No, it’s not a real leaf. I thought maybe they stuck one in there to trick people.

Oh wow! Look how big these spiders are! I know some people are scared of them, but I think they’re amazing. And I’ve held a tarantula before - they’re very soft little critters.

Hm, I’m not sure I’d want to wear jewelry with bugs on it. That’s a little too much for me… I guess it works for other people, though, so it’s fine.

Oh my gosh, look at them! I wonder if bugs like these are where people got the idea of fairies. The one with the purple wings would definitely look like a fairy princess if you saw it from far away.

That reminds me, next year the seventeen-year cicada will be coming back to our area. They live underground for seventeen years, spend a couple weeks singing and laying eggs, and then they all die. Wild.

Ooh, some of these guys are creepy. I like scorpions, but they do scare me a little - and that’s good, since they can be dangerous. It’s smart to be at least a little afraid of dangerous things.

Holy cow, this big one looks like an owl! Yeah, if I’M getting freaked out, I bet all the predators are terrified.

Look at all the legs- Hey, I saw that! No, it was definitely a yawn. You getting tired? Yeah, I’m tired too. We’d better head out.

So, did you have a nice time? I’m glad. How’re you feeling? Yeah, you can still take a shower, no problem. Do you want to nap in the car and I’ll wake you when we get home? Okay.

Alright, all clean and ready for bed. Yeah, you got a pretty sweet set of buttons, huh? We’ll get some more for the collection next year.

~🦀~🦕~🫙~🦥~🦬~🐪~😢~🪵~📚~🕷️~💍~🦗~🦂~🌃~

[smutty-ki113r]

hi it’s me🦦! i’m so glad you’re back we all really missed you. i guess i have a few updates to share but they are kinda long so brace yourself!

1. i’ve been feeling so envious lately and i know it’s normal and it happens to everyone but i just feel so weird man! i guess it’s a mix of a lot of different things with my friends that , that’s why i’m feeling this way. plus i just feel shitty from it because i know i should be happy for them, and i completely am, but i wish that same energy would come my way as well:/ it sounds selfish but it’s how i feel

2. i took a break from posting on my tumblr blog and no one noticed…i haven’t really been in the right mental state and fuck dude i decided it was best for me to take a break from posting on tumblr. i posted an update like 4-5 days ago saying how i was taking a break and if anyone needed me to clear up any questions they had on any requests they may have sent it and nope no one replied, no one cared, and. don’t even think people saw it:/ it kinda hurts because i’m not expecting people to send me anon shit but at least one person could have like it so i knew that my message was out their and that my followers know! so i’m kinda upset about all that stuff

3. more on a positive note my stationary should be coming in hopefully today or tomorrow! i’m very excited about that. it will be something to cheer myself up.

4. lately i’ve been just super bummed out and i just want to disappear! i doubt anyone would noticed though and i just want to crawl into a ball and cry. i feel as if i’m alone and i like my alone time but i’m starting to feel like a burden to my friends and if i’m being honest i feel like they secretly feel like that too. like they wouldn’t say anything to me but i feel like i do constantly bother them. i just don’t get excited doing stuff anymore. i feel so out of it that i just get excited for the night so i can just lay in bed and try to forget all my problems:/ i’m just drained and i feel so alone.

well sorry for the bummer rant i hope you have a great day though! ta ta🦦

You can ALWAYS rant to me- whenever you want! Its never a burden.

Ya know, ive learned that what seems like amazing and great for other people who have hurt you, it only lasts so long. Those people will only get whats really coming for them. And i know how it feels, cause why is that FAIR. I’ve been feeling super jealous too, I tend to. Literally it’s so stupid cause the person I like, a bunch of people like too 🤡 and I get super self conscious cause I start comparing myself-

It took me a while to come to terms with the fact that in retrospect this is just a social media platform, and its so so easy to get obsessed and addicted. I know I am at least, but your followers and the people on here aren’t usually thinking about you all the time, trust me I used to check my asks like 10000 times in an hour to see if this ONE person responded. A much as I hate to say it, if you don’t have a large following platform yet there is chance that not a lot of people are gonna regularly check your blog. I had to get to around 300 before i started getting anons and things like that.

IM SO EXCITED FOR UR STAITONARY YAY!!

Honestly that last paragraph I FELT!!! I mean on top of the fact that im about to get on my time of the month I also have these insane problems with my family atm AND it’s the retrograde starting today, so just a warning. Blame it on Jupiter. You’re not alone I promise, I used to feel like that a lot until I developed a strange sort of bond with myself that I never talk about cause I feel like people will tell me im literally crazy. Literally break, take a BREAK. From everything and just chill. Its actually super helpful.

ANYWAY LOVE U

[garthups]

the maze, part I

Part One of the story! Very excited to post this. -Leslie

I kept the car running in park while the shitty vents sputtered, trying my hands warm. Your Love by that band from the eighties was playing in the distance. I have a love-hate relationship with these roped off grassy parking lots, where there aren't actual spaces, just car anarchy. Take any spot you can find and let’s all hope that some semblance of a parking lot comes together. Sure there’s something inherently egalitarian about it, but they remind me of being scared to park when I was learning to drive. I was always positive that my Camry was too far over, and I’d brace myself for the crunch of metal on metal. 

The familiarity of coming to the maze made parking in the lot easier, and I didn’t have to reverse and drive into the same spot over and over again to be satisfied. My friends and I came to Hudler Farm every October for the autumn corn maze. Sometimes we’d take caramel apples in and chaunk through them while meandering.

 Fuck, that was always so fun. High school seems like a lifetime ago though. All it takes are a few hundred miles, and staggered midterms, and suddenly you talk to the guy in the dorm next to yours who gets drunk on natty seltzer more than the people who got you through your mcr phase.

 None of us got together last year, which was a bummer, but out of the blue Lottie messaged Sam and me. I watched the shadowy families walk by in the dark, my hands weren’t getting any warmer though. The idle LEDs were dim enough that I could see outside. A little boy running after his parents tripped and fell in the mud. I stifled a chuckle, because kids falling down is hilarious, and tried to screw with the vents, but they were already all open. Piece of shit car. When I looked up, the boy was still splayed out on the ground, shivering. Both his parents kept walking though. I scrunched my brow. I started fidgeting with my seatbelt, but my hands didn’t have much feeling in them. People were just walking around him, like he wasn’t there. 

“WHAT’S up dog!” My door exploded open.

“JESUS fucking god Lottie, I--” She took her spot in the passenger seat, laughing her ass off.

“Sorry sorry sorry, wow Phoebs I got you pretty good huh?”

“I mean yeah I’m just so ready to get killed in this parking lot. Hey I think that kid hurt himself out there pretty bad.” I breathed, still shaken.

“What kid?”

“That one.”

“Oh that one, sorry it’s dark, so it took me a sec. Yeah let’s go help.” Honestly, I could never stay mad at Lottie. Seeing her new dreads in person made me miss the big buns she wore in high school. We slammed the doors shut, and stepped onto the ground covered in too-damp leaves. Two guys beat us to him though, and they were helping him up.

“Oh wait, is that the kid you meant?”

“Lottie, why would I be talking about a kid that isn’t sprawled out on the ground.”

“I thought this one was playing snake or something. Anyway, let’s go meet Sam’s friend!”

We walked over to the boys, Sam’s friend was getting the kid back on his feet. Sam’s friend was a good head taller than he was, which wasn’t saying too much. The guy gave off an eagle scout vibe though, so his height was probably pretty important to him. Maybe camp counselor would have been closer. He was gently reassuring the kid.

“Feeling better? Okay, better go catch your folks, and make sure not to stay too far behind them, bud, okay?”

“Good call man, I thought he was just playing snake.” Sam glowed.

“Sup fuckers!” Lottie sang. The boy turned around, he looked about nine, so Lotties curse made him bust a grin. From the looks of it he scraped his cheek pretty bad. He dashed off. Sam’s friend laughed nervously since Lottie broke the unspoken rule of swearing in front of kids.

“Hey dudes! It’s so awesome to see you!” Sam laughed. “I told Matrix everything about you, so there’s no need to divulge any information to him. Don’t trust this guy with any more embarrassing stories about yourselves.” Matrix waved shyly, and I rolled my eyes.

“That’s cool. You know we called Sam “Shrimpy” all of sophomore year because his hair got all curly and he dyed it red?”

“Thanks Phoebe, that is something I like people to know about me.” Sam said while subconsciously making sure his hair was still a tight buzz cut. Matrix smiled a little.

“You must be Lottie?”

“It’s great to meet you! Lets get some apples.” 

The four of us were waved through by the teen collecting tickets. The entrance to the maze had a little banner raised up on two poles and a chair with an admissions person. Next to the entrance was a main pavilion with a tiny shop and some picnic tables out under the roof. Lots of families were congregating there, buying souvenirs and farm t-shirts. Thankfully this wasn’t one of the maze theme nights according to a big promotional calendar that outlined all the dates. Lottie groaned when she saw that they added alien night and we hadn’t bought tickets.

“Like what does that even mean though. Are there aliens in the maze? Do they scare us?” Sam said eyeing the kettle corn buckets.

“Yeah I mean, it’s probably just like zombie night and mermaid night where you just get like jumpscared by teens in costumes. Freakin aliens though! Imagine!”

“Uhh did you say they do a mermaid night here?” Matrix said.

“Dude I never told you about that! You’re looking at the three scariest volunteer mermaid teens that Hudler farms has ever known. We were unholy legends flopping after scared families.”

Sam and Lottie were wide eyed crowding around Matrix, telling him all about the glory days. Made me pity him, his bud probably had a whole different energy at college.

“They’re fucking with you! Why in god’s name would a corn maze have a mermaid night.” I finally shouted. Lottie pouted.

“Boooooo Phoebe! How dare you!” I wrapped my face up in my scarf to escape guilt. 

We all mostly ate our caramel apples under the pavilion just so we could give Matrix the rundown of the maze. The Hudler farm maze has these eight checkpoints which give you special tickets. 

“We don’t leave without all eight. Got it? Dee oh en tee. I don’t give a fuck if we die trying.” Lottie said through a mouth of caramel and nuts. It felt surreal having my friends here again. After all, the limited exposure I had to them was social media. I lived vicariously through the photos they posted of new friends.

There was a sign in the pavilion that gave us a rough idea of where all the checkpoints in the maze were. I resisted the urge to take a photo in order to preserve the challenge that the maze posed. Probably didn’t need it to beat our best time. I was the only one who hadn’t finished their apple for traditions sake. Hopefully the caramel wouldn’t freeze though.

“Ok so let's remember to hit that cluster of checkpoints in the northern corner first. We're gonna take a lot of rights and then keep going on that long stretch forward.” I strategized.

“I’ll eat that apple if you’re not going to Phoeb, you know I’m psyched that they got pink ladies this year instead of grannies smiths.” Begged Sam.

“I did a few youth group trips to corn mazes, so this isn’t my first rodeo guys don’t worry!” Matrix added.

“That’s cool.” Phoebe said straight faced. I wanted to laugh, but didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

Before I could respond, I saw it. I inhaled slowly as I took in the scene before us. The moon was thin and most of the lights were under the pavilion itself, but I felt like I should’ve noticed something so wrong before.

“Why is the all corn so fucking tall.” The question, er -- statement hung in the air for a few seconds while the maze came into view for everyone else. Corn stalks get surprisingly tall late in autumn, maybe like ten feet. This stuff though. It was like, way way way too tall. And not irregular. So, regular. The maze looked like it could have been a trimmed hedge. All the stalks stretched up and up, reaching out for the sky, each of them trying to escape from the ground. I suddenly was at a loss, something so ordinary was wrong in such an obvious way. Finally, Lottie broke our silence.

“Shit.” Great. I mean, she wasn’t wrong.

“That’s amazing. God is it this tall every year? That’s the tallest corn I’ve ever seen, must be 30 feet! Maybe more.” Finally Matrix had found something to be upbeat about.

“Ahh no man. It’s like normal usually. Lottie are you feeling alright? Do you want to take a sec before we head in.”

Matrix jumped in. “Nothing to be worried about. I’m sure it’s just like GMO’s or something. Gotta up the yield. They should seriously lead with that in the advertising though. Corn jungle! Towering Corn! Feast your eyes ladies and gentlemen on the worlds first corn metropolis!” He broke the spell on Lottie with his campy broadcaster voice. She joined in: “Keep your dame close as you delve into the mysterious corn caverns, where the CORN DRAGON DWELLS.”

Matrix Chuckled. “Well I don’t know about that. Hard to deliver on a corn dragon. But look I’m sure it’s fine, everyone else doesn’t seem to mind.” It was true, the usual fare of families and teen groups were venturing into the maze without concern. I watched the family from the parking lot get a safety flashlight from the teen working the entrance. I breathed in through my teeth.

“For a second I thought you actually made jokes, scooter. You’re right, it’s probably just a good year for tall corn. We can go.”

“Phoebster, you good?” Sam nudged me. It honestly took me a second longer than Lottie to take in all the explanations. It was such a weird thing to be off in such a significant way. Must have been some primal instinct of being afraid of the dark. The corn stalks were darker than the night sky around them; I tried to catch glimpses through the stalks but they blanketed out the stars. 

“Yeah sorry about that guys. I’ll remember more of the strategy once we’re in the maze. Let’s blow through this thing!” 

We went into the maze.

[lloydskywalkers]

in which the monastery almost burns down again

....and it is, technically, Lloyd’s fault this time. 

This is absolute unforgiving fluff, because I was in the mood and every time I try to write this family being functional it spirals out of control. But also I love Lloyd and he deserves happiness, so here’s a very quickly written birthday fic that I’m not entirely sure I finished but I have two hours left to post ahhhHHH

(Takes place just after the Final Battle, and I’m assuming that an entire year hasn’t passed so they’ve never actually ran into Lloyd’s birthday until now.)

Lloyd would’ve gotten away with it, too, if Cole hadn’t decided to insist on flu shots that year.

“Lloyd, it’ll take five minutes.”

“Yeah, five minutes for you to schedule an appointment, which I don’t need.”

Cole eyes him skeptically. “So you’re saying you don’t remember how sick you got last winter.”

Lloyd grimaces. “That was…different.”

“No, that was the flu,” Cole sighs. “Look, we’re all getting shots, but it’ll be a lot more trouble if you don’t fill out your medical applications so we can get coverage.” He bites his lip, glaring at the computer screen. Zane’s alone had taken him the better part of the morning, and Zane had been cooperative.

Lloyd remains stubborn. “Sorry, I think I hear Sensei calling me—“

“We both know he’s out right now, Lloyd.”

Lloyd grumbles something inaudible.

“Please, just sit down with me for five minutes?” Cole tries a different, probably-mean-but-he’s-at-the-end-of-his-rope-here, tactic. “I mean, now that you’re not so little, I thought you’d be up for it.”

Lloyd makes a face, his expression working. The transition from shooting up to a teenager in the span of a minute has been…something, but Lloyd’s been handling the maturity aspect rather well, if only out of sheer stubbornness (and the general weight of the world). He finally deflates, pulling himself atop the table so he can stare down imperiously at Cole.

“Fine. But I make no promises about shots.”

Cole meets his gaze head-on. “If you try and hide in the air vents instead of going again, I’m going let Zane have full-reign over desserts for the next month.”

“You wouldn’t,” Lloyd hisses at him, scandalized. “You know Zane doesn’t believe in dessert! He’ll just give us fruit.” Lloyd’s nose crinkles in distaste, and Cole hides a grin.

“Fruit isn’t all that bad, you know.”

“Says the cake-hog.”

“I told you, that was Jay, and it was my cake anyways.”

“Sounds like a bunch’a lies, to me—“

He finally gets Lloyd’s application pulled up, and cuts the argument he definitely would have won short.

They’re getting to these flu shot appointments no matter what it takes, because the Final Battle was enough trouble on its own, and no one in this family is going to fall prey a crippling illness and ruin the rest of the year they have left, if Cole can help it.

Despite his initial stubbornness, Lloyd is at least more cooperative than Kai was. Cole manages to get his height — geez he’s short — his weight — maybe they should be increasing his desserts, actually — and then spends a good fifteen minutes arguing over his eye color before they get stuck on the allergies section, then skip a good few sections until they’re close to the end of the application.

“Birthday,” Cole sighs, rubbing his temples.

“September twenty-second,” Lloyd says, through a mouth of popcorn — a compromise, since it is technically junk food, but also healthy enough to—

Wait. Cole frowns, then quickly checks the date on the little calendar icon.

Today is September twenty-fourth.

“Lloyd,” Cole says slowly, a creeping sort of dread making its way up his spine. “Repeat that?”

“September twenty-second,” Lloyd echoes, a bit slower this time.

Cole stares at him. “Like September twenty-second…as in two days ago?”

“Yeah,” Lloyd nods, throwing a kernel of popcorn in the air and trying to catch it in his mouth. He pouts as it misses, landing on the floor instead. Cole doesn’t even lecture him — he’s too busy having a mini-crisis.

“Your birthday was two days ago.”

“Yeah?” Lloyd’s beginning to look annoyed. “That’s what I said. I can write it down for you, if you want.”

“No, that’s—“ Cole blinks rapidly, running a hand over his face. “Wha— why didn’t you say something?”

“Why would I?” Lloyd frowns.

Cole…does not entirely understand what’s going on here.

“Why— because it’s your birthday!” he finally exclaims. Darn it, he’s never missed a birthday before — he even managed to pin down Zane’s, who had claimed he didn’t have a birthday. Now his record is broken, and worse, it’s broken on his baby brother. “We would’ve — we would’ve celebrated, why didn’t you say something?”

Lloyd’s shoulders hunch, and he looks a little on the defensive side now. “I mean, it’s not that big a deal,” he says. “I’m just a little older. S’nothing to get worked up over.”

“Not that big a deal — it’s your birthday!”

“I know that, Cole.”

“I mean, didn’t you ever do anything back—“

He pauses. Oh.

Oh no. Cole is starting to understand what’s going on here, and he doesn’t like it.

Lloyd gives him a strained, painful-looking smile, that’s honestly a terrible excuse of a smile in the first place.

“Darkley’s isn’t really big on birthdays,” he says, with a brittle kind of laughter Cole isn’t used to hearing from his youngest brother. “They didn’t really, uh, care. At all. Kinda just made you a target for the day, ‘cause you were older now, so you could take more hits, you know?”

Cole nods on blank instinct, like that’s totally normal and makes perfect sense. On second thought, why hadn’t they punted any of those kids off the roof of Darkley’s when they’d had the chance? Scratch that, why hadn’t they hunted the teachers down and punted them off?

“So yeah, not a big deal,” Lloyd shrugs. He laughs, that false kind of one again. “I mean, it’s not like I even know how old I am anyways, right? Tomorrow’s Tea, and stuff.” He slides off the table, giving Cole a grin. “Guess that means I can’t fill out the rest of the application, oops! Bummer.”

Lloyd makes a break for the hallway, slipping briefly in his socks before he grabs the doorframe, glaring at Cole. “And you better not put Zane on dessert.”

Then he’s escaped down the hall, leaving Cole to stare after him with his slowly-combusting mess of emotions.

Oooh boy, Kai’s gonna love this.

*********

Kai, as expected, takes it the worst.

“We missed Lloyd’s birthday?” he croaks, looking like he’s moments from tearing up.

“It was two days ago,” Cole says, shaking his head. “Two days. We did clean-up that day! We spent his entire birthday hauling debris around the city.”

“Oh, no,” Nya moans into her hands, where she’s yet to look up from since Cole broke the news.

“I can’t believe I missed this,” Zane says, looking appalled with himself. “I am normally better with dates…”

“Why didn’t he say anything?’ Jay exclaims. “Poor kid, he’s gotta hate us—“

“No, see, he wasn’t even upset,” Cole throws his hands in the air. “Guys, I don’t think he even knows how to celebrate his birthday. He got all tight-lipped about it when I asked, then said that Darkley’s ‘wasn’t big on birthdays’ and something about getting hit, and are we sure we didn’t save the names of his old teachers somewhere?"

Ah, maybe he shouldn’t have said that last part. Kai might actually be crying now.

“Those heartless punks,” Nya’s hissing, her head raised so her eyes can spear everyone with what’s practically lasers burning in them. “Those malicious jerks. What kind of stupid school—“

“I mean, Kai was a human piñata once, so we know it’s legal,” Jay says, his eyes sparking. “That’d be pretty festive.”

“Wha— no, Jay, no one’s getting used as a human piñata.”

“Tell that to Nya,” Jay sulks. Cole finally picks up on the conversation happening beside him, with no small amount of alarm.

“Nya, we are not giving Lloyd the teeth of his old school teachers as a birthday present.”

“I didn’t say we’d be giving them to Lloyd, just that I’d kick them out—“

“No one’s messing with anyone else’s teeth!” Cole yelps, waving his arms between them. He suddenly frowns. “Hold on, maybe I should schedule dentist appointments while I’m at it—“

“No!” comes the united chorus. To Cole’s disappointment, Zane’s voice has joined in as well.

“Lloyd’s birthday is what’s important right now, Cole,” Kai glares.

Well….point. But he’s still gonna put ‘make dentist appointments’ on a sticky note later.

“Okay, so we missed Lloyd’s birthday,” Nya says, determinedly. “That’s bad. What do we do?”

“We’re a pretty half-rate family,” Jay muses.

“Obviously, we made a mistake,” Zane says, sagely. “So we must correct it, and throw him a birthday party to show that we are not, in fact, a half-rate family.”

Cole points at Zane. “Now there’s a better plan.”

“So like, the best birthday party ever, to make up for all the ones he’s missed,” Kai nods.

“Yeah, we’re making up for what, how many years worth of missed birthdays?” Cole asks.

They all fall silent, staring at the table pensively.

“Do we count the Tomorrow’s Tea for missed years or not,” Jay whispers.

Kai kicks him in the leg. “Of course we do!” he says, hotly. “That whole thing sucked, he’d better get something out of it.”

“Also, I don’t think Lloyd would be thrilled if we threw him a ten year-old birthday party,” Nya mutters.

“Ten years?” Cole frowns. “Is that right?”

“Yeah,” Nya says, just as Kai goes “No, it’s nine.”

They both stare at each other.

“Uh oh,” Jay murmurs.

“So clearly, we will not be putting a number on this cake,” Zane rubs his head wearily.

“No, no, we can figure this out,” Cole insists. “Maybe like, his parents will know?”

The others nod, just as Nya’s head snaps up.

“Woah woah wait, hold on a second.” Her eyebrows are furrowed, the growing look on her face thunderous. “Lloyd was with us the whole day, so we know for a fact that no one remembered his birthday.”

“Yeah, and?”

Nya looks at Kai again, who blinks rapidly, before a look that promises trouble crosses his face.

“Maybe we should bring his parents in on this conversation.”

*********

To Garmadon’s credit, he looks even more horrified than Kai did.

“No,” he says, frantically. “Lloyd’s birthday isn’t — no, it’s September already?”

To also be fair, Garmadon was very recently exorcised of some very nasty, mind-affecting snake venom. He’s kind of been through a lot.

“Yeah, it is,” Nya says hotly, clearly not in the mindset of being fair. “And Lloyd’s birthday was two days ago!”

Misako’s head is buried in her hands on the table. “Two months,” she’s lamenting in despair. “I promised Lloyd I’d be better and I made it two months.”

Kai is still arguing with Sensei Wu, while Jay is either attempting to defuse the situation or convince Wu that an exploding cake is a good idea.

“—lost track of time, after the Final Battle, you must understand how chaotic it’s been—“

“Then why didn’t you write it on your calendar or something?!”

“I don’t have a calendar.”

“Well there’s your first problem—“

“Which could be solved! By cake!”

It’s not until Zane shoots him a desperate look that Cole decides to finally speak up.

“Look, guys — hey, look,” he shoulders his way to the middle of the tense huddle they’ve managed to make in the monastery’s sitting room. He takes a minute to thank that Lloyd’s on patrol right now, instead of a room over where he could very easily hear his entire family arguing over who’s fault it is that they forgot his birthday.

“Look,” Cole sighs, once he’s (miraculously) managed to get everyone quiet for a minute. “That’s not the important thing now, okay? The important — lip it, Kai — the important thing, is that we’re going to fix it. Got it?”

While Garmadon and Wu look a little affronted at being ordered around in such a way, the others nod in agreement, and that’s all Cole needs. He’s had enough of the First Spinjitzu Master’s family drama in the past few months, Wu and Garmadon can suck it up.

“Lloyd gets back from patrol in an hour,” he continues. “So if we’re gonna throw a party by this evening, we need to distract him.”

“This evening?” Wu muses. “Isn’t that a bit soon?”

He realizes his mistake a second too late. He’s immediately set upon by four viciously gleeful students chorusing: “Never put off ’til tomorrow what you can do today, Sensei—“

“Alright, alright,” Wu ducks his head.  He mutters under his breath, “I didn’t think I’d be paying for that one so soon.”

“Anyways, distraction,” Cole repeats. “We need someone to make sure he stays out of here the rest of the day, who’s game?”

Kai immediately volunteers, followed shortly by Jay. Cole eyes them shrewdly.

“Let me rephrase,” he says. “Who can keep it a secret long enough for us to surprise him?”

Kai shifts guiltily, and Jay bites his lip.

“I mean, I probably could…” he says, slowly. Cole does not have confidence in that statement. He looks to Zane.

“You’re the only one I trust,” he says, solemnly.

Zane shakes his head with a wry smile. “I’ll bring him back by dinner, will that give you enough time?”

“Totally,” Cole nods, just as Jay says, “Not even close.”

In hindsight, Jay is probably more correct, but Cole will eat dirt before he admits that.

*********

With even further hindsight, Jay is really correct.

“We need presents,” Kai is saying, as he struggles to drag in the truly ridiculous amount of streamers he and Jay purchased. “What can we get for Lloyd that’s acceptable in the next two hours?”

Garmadon purses his lips, glancing briefly at Wu. “Our father’s tradition was normally just a larger sword.”

“Like Lloyd even needs a sword now,” Jay reminds them.

“Why don’t we play it safe, and get him candy, or something?”

“What, you want to encourage his sweet tooth?”

“I don’t hear you coming up with any ideas.”

“What about a mech?”

“That didn’t end so great the last time, remember?”

“There’s always those cursed scrolls, I suppose,” Garmadon muses.

Cole glares at him. “Stop suggesting death weapons!”

“They aren’t all death weapons,” Garmadon huffs. “I’m simply saying, he might appreciate the finer weaponry in life—“

Misako, at least, suggests something nice and safe, like comics. Nya likes that idea, though she also wants to find a complete signed edition of the Starfarer movies, which leads to a heated debate with Jay because “they aren’t movies, Nya, it’s a TV show, and you can’t just buy signed editions, they’re priceless—“

Cole, who has better things to do than watch Jay shoot his romantic life in the foot for the day, wearily takes the end of a streamer from Sensei and helps him put it up. Kai is on the other side, still pushing for a pet.

“What about a cat, though,” he pleads. “Cats are quiet, and they don’t need as much attention.”

“Lloyd would give it much attention,” Cole mutters.

“Exactly,” Sensei Wu sighs. “The monastery is not a place meant for pets. And besides, after his victory against the Overlord, Lloyd will be on the road more often than not. It simply isn’t the time and place for a pet. He has a dragon, I am sure he’ll be fine.”

Kai looks mildly devastated by this answer, and Cole makes a mental note to make sure Kai doesn’t sneak any animals in any time soon. This can come after the mental note that he can’t forget about those flu shots, which comes after the other mental note that they really need to get started on a cake if they’re gonna have one in time.

“He likes that kind with the sprinkles baked in,” Nya informs him.

“Funfetti,” Cole nods. Good tastes in cakes, a family trait. Nya, who clearly does not appreciate good cakes, simply shrugs.

“Sure. With lots of frosting, of course.”

“Great, that shouldn’t be too hard,” Cole decides. “And Jay grabbed candles while he was getting streamers, so we should be set. Let’s get on making that.”

“Oh no,” Kai suddenly groans. They all look at him. “Guys, we sent Zane to distract Lloyd.”

Jay frowns. “So?”

Kai spears him with a look. “That means Zane can’t make the cake.”

An icy silence of horror drops over the room. They all look to each other.

“I’m out,” Cole says.

“I’m still relearning what I can even eat as a human,” Garmadon moans.

“I’m…adequate, at best,” Misako grimaces.

“My cooking ends with coffee,” Nya says, despairingly.

“I can make ramen?” Jay offers.

Kai stares at them. He looks incredulously at Sensei Wu, who shrugs.

“I can make tea cake.”

Kai looks like he’s resisting the urge to roll his eyes back into his head. “Okay, I’m making the cake, since all you are disasters.” He shakes his head, grumbling to himself. “—have you even survived this long, Zane and I pulling all the weight—“

Cole thinks that last statement is rather unwarranted, but Kai can actually reliably make food without burning the house down — ironically enough — so he’s not about to pick an argument with their best bet.

So he focuses on settling another argument, instead.

“How many candles are we putting on this cake, by the way?”

He’s sorely disappointed.

“The Tomorrow’s Tea can be a bit unpredictable,” Sensei Wu says, his eyes guilty. “I…cannot exactly say how many years it would add.”

Cole resists the urge to roll his own eyes into the back of his head. “Thanks for nothing,” he mutters.

“Okay, well we can at least find out how old he was, and work from there,” Nya says, resolutely. She turns on Garmadon. “How old would Lloyd be this year, if he hadn’t aged?”

“Um,” Garmadon says. His expression contorts, eyes going distant. “He was born in that one fall that the coast got hit by a hurricane, so that would make him, ah…let’s see…”

“You have got to be kidding me.”

“I was overcome by the vicious blood of the Great Devourer soon after, years blur together when you’re immortal!”

Misako rolls her eyes, turning to Nya. “I remember, at least. This year he’d be—“

Cole misses the end of her statement as another vicious round of arguing breaks out behind him between Jay and Kai, who are supposed to be watching the cake in the oven.

“I’m his older brother, I’m bringing the cake out.”

“What, like the rest of us aren’t?”

“No, but I’m like — Lloyd’s supreme older brother, so clearly—“

“Oh please, you lost him to the Serpentine in an arcade—“

“Hey, that’s sensitive! And I rescued him afterwards!”

“Yeah, after you had an existential crisis—“

“For the last time, today is not about you,” Cole hisses, wedging between them and pushing them apart. “Cut that out, or I’m gonna think the Tomorrow’s Tea aged you down.”

Jay and Kai glare at each other, but they comply. Cole sighs.

“Look, Kai, you’re the overbearing brother and that’s valid, but I need you front and center when Lloyd walks in,” he says, as he takes the cake out of the oven.

“Why?” Kai frowns, as he begins frosting the cake, seemingly heedless of how hot it still is. Cole watches him in despair for a minute before answering.

“Because you’re the person he’s least likely to blast on instinct if the surprise goes wrong.”

They both make a face, but then shrug. “Point, I guess,” Jay says, tossing the box of candles from hand to hand. “Better him than me.” He glances at Cole. “So, how many candles we sticking on?”

Cole glances back to the now-decorated sitting room, where Wu, Garmadon and Misako are still locked in argument with Nya over…who knows what now.

You know what, he thinks. It’s not worth it.

“Just…stick a bunch on,” he sighs. “They can be, like, a symbol of light, or something.”

“If you say so,” Jay snorts. He proceeds to cram as many candles as he can on the cake, following Kai’s path as he frosts it. Cole watches in trepidation.

“Hey guys, Zane says he’s running out of ideas, so we’d better hurry it — woah, that’s a lot of candles.”

Nya blinks at the cake, frowning at Jay. “You know that’s gonna be a lot of fire when they’re lit, right?”

“And is there a problem with that?” Kai sniffs.

“Nah, don’t worry about it,” Jay waves her off before she can retort. “They’re trick candles, you know? Like the sparky ones that keep relighting? It’s gonna be great, haha.”

Great does not seem to be a word Nya agrees with, if the expression on her face is any giveaway, but they are running out of time and Cole can’t deal with this right now.

“Great, just finish it up, okay?” he says, hastily. “Zane and Lloyd are gonna be back any minute, and we still don’t have a—“

The unmistakeable roar of the Ultradragon comes from just outside the monastery, followed by the loud flapping of wings. Everyone goes still enough that if they were in a sitcom, this would be hilarious, but they’re not, and Cole’s going to lose his mind.

“Light the candles,” he hisses at Kai and Jay, who have frozen in horror. “Light the candles and turn the lights off, go go go!”

*********

Lloyd does not end up blasting Kai in the face with a beam of golden power, which is mildly disappointing.

But he does jump a good three feet in the air, his eyes going the size of dinner plates as he makes a sound like a surprised cat, and Cole thinks that’s just as satisfying.

Not as satisfying as the megawatt smile he wears while turning red as Kai’s gi as they all sing off-key to him, of course, but pretty close.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t delay longer,” Zane apologizes to Cole, as they both watch Lloyd dance around the cake, trying to get the candles to extinguish while Jay and Kai laugh mercilessly at him. “He was beginning to grow suspicious, and I probably checked my phone too many times.”

“You did great,” Cole assures him. A bright flash goes off around the room as Misako snaps a picture, capturing Garmadon tightly embracing his son. Cole shakes his head, his lips quirking. “I really don’t think we could’ve pulled off anything better, anyways. Probably best that you got here before it could get—“

The cake chooses this moment to go nuclear, Jay’s candles lighting up blindingly bright as everyone shrieks, jumping back.

“—any more out of hand,” Cole finishes weakly. Zane quickly darts forward with a yelp, helping Kai — who’s extinguishing the candles with his bare hands, the maniac — eliminate the fire hazard.

Lloyd is the one laughing now, bright giggles as Jay feels at the ends of his singed hair, yelping. His laughter is cut short as Kai plants a firm hand on the back of his head shoves his face directly into the candle-cleared frosting, Nya egging him on from behind.

“Hey, we all have to eat that!” Cole yelps, darting forward. This proves to be a fatal mistake, as he steps in front of Kai just as Lloyd’s trying to get him back by chucking cake at his face.

Well, at least it’s Funfetti, Cole thinks, wiping frosting from his eyes.

Lloyd’s eyes go wide. “Cole, I’m sorry, I was aiming for Kai—“

Cole shakes his head, patting Lloyd on the back. “It’s fine, green machine,” he says. His grin turns evil, and he shoves the hand on Lloyd’s back down, forcing him back into the cake. “Happy Birthd—agh!”

Somehow, they (read: Zane) manage to salvage enough of the cake that it’s still edible, an between the streamers and music Jay starts blaring, it’s a fairly nice party, as far as ones that are whipped up in an hour go. Everyone’s crashed on the couches around the sitting room, finishing the last of their cake, and as long as Jay doesn’t manage to offend anyone, it should be a pretty peaceful evening, all in all.

“A thousand,” Jay’s guessing at Garmadon, his eyebrows drawn together in concentration.

Garmadon’s mouth twitches, and he exchanges glances with Wu. “Incorrect.”

“Oh, come on,” Nya throws her arms up. “Higher or lower?”

Garmadon turns his palms up. “What do you think?”

Jay coughs. “Loaded question.”

Nya looks determined though, and she answers. “Higher.”

Misako snorts into her tea, and Garmadon looks mildly offended. “I hope you’re drawing that conclusion by looking at Wu,” he mutters.

“They can’t be that old,” Kai argues, through a mouthful of cake. He nudges Lloyd with his foot from where he’s sprawled across the couch. “Hey Lloyd, how old’s your dad?”

Lloyd shrugs. “Not sure” he says. There’s a gleam in his eye. “I could maybe tell you, if you guess how old I am.”

“Oh, you sneak—“

“Wait, I have another guess!” Jay’s lips twitch. “Four hundred and twenty.”

That kicks off an entirely different debate, most of which is concerning whether Garmadon and Wu actually get what the joke is, so Cole decides to remove himself from the conversation by clearing plates. Just before anything gets heated.

He’s made it halfway to the kitchen by the time he’s realized Lloyd’s following him, and he jerks his head toward what’s left of the cake. “Want some more? It was your face that went in, so it should be fine for you.”

Lloyd shakes his head, and spears him with a look. “Tattle tale,” he accuses, but his eyes are warm, and the corner of the mouth is twitching with the smile he’s holding back.

Cole flicks his eyes skywards. “I know you said it’s not a big deal,” he replies, fondly. “But it is to us.”

Lloyd ducks his head, flushing with a small, shy kind of smile. Cole ruffles his hair, before continuing. “We didn’t scrounge up a present in time, but if I know Kai, you’ll probably get something stupidly big from everyone in the next few days.”

“You guys don’t have to do that,” Lloyd laughs, a bit breathlessly. “This is—“ He pauses, an odd, watery kind of expression crossing his face before he shakes his head. “This is a present enough.”

Cole smiles at that. “Better than Darkley’s?”

Lloyd laughs, for real this time, without that tense bitterness. “A million times better than Darkley’s,” he grins. “A zillion.”

“Good,” Cole nods, satisfied. “It’s not over yet, either. Nya and Jay made a whole list of terrible party games they’re gonna force you to try out.”

“Oh yeah?” Lloyd says, looking faintly nervous.

“Oh yeah,” Cole grins. “There’s this really great birthday tradition I grew up with, where you make the birthday person sit in the middle and everyone has to go around saying something nice about them.”

Lloyd goes scarlet at the mere thought of it, and Cole’s grin grows wider.

“Please don’t,” he murmurs.

Cole takes mercy on him, flicking a bit of frosting from his blond hair. “We’ll pick something else instead, then.”

He’ll just spring it on him when he’s not suspecting it later, anyways. It’ll do the kid good to hear that people care about him.

If Cole’s learned anything from this family, it’s that.

[shadedrose01]

Maybe There's a Reason (To Believe You'll Be Okay)

Relationships: Harley Keener & Tony Stark (platonic), Harley Keener/Peter Parker (at the end)

Summary: Harley has a crisis, and Tony helps him through it (with a hint of parkner at the end).

Tags: Remix, Parkner Remix Event, Even though its barely parkner whoops, Emails, Letters, Phone Calls & Telephones, Tony Stark Acting as Harley Keener's Parental Figure, Sexual Identity, Identity Issues, Coming Out, Kinda?, Sexuality, Gay Harley Keener, Crushes, Harley Keener Needs a Hug, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Acceptance, Self-Acceptance, Love, Parental Love, Tony Stark is Good With Kids, tony stark is a dad, why is that not a tag, Parkner is only at the end, for like a paragraph, Just so yall know :)

For the Parkner Discord Remix Event!!

A remix of @official-impravidus ' fic "Sincerely, Me" (which you can read here!)

This is longer, so ao3 link is here!

Hope you all enjoy! Love you lexie!!

--

Wednesday, May 8, 2013, 1:24PM 

From: countryroadstakemehometotennessee@gmail.com

To: tes@starkindustries.com

Subject: Relationships and Mark V

I don't understand dating. Like, my friend Bryan started dating Rachel today, and that's fine, whatever, but I just don't get it. All they did was hold hands and kiss each other all day. Is that all a relationship is? What even is the point of it? I mean, I know humans are animals and our instincts give us our need to reproduce so we need to find a viable mate and all that stuff, but why do you need to always be together, and hold hands, and do all of that gross stuff too?

Either way, I finally got around to building a mark V for my potato gun! It's just a few upgrades up from the mark IV, for faster shots and farther range, but I think it'll be cool once it's done. 

I hope your day is going okay.

-Harley

 

~~~

 

Wednesday, May 8, 2013, 10:43PM 

From: tes@starkindustries.com

To: countryroadstakemehometotennessee@gmail.com

Subject: Re: Relationships and Mark V

Relationships are complex, and complicated. Humans are born to reproduce, yes, but dating, and finding a partner is more than that. It's finding someone you're compatible with, who can be there at your best and at your worst, and a bunch of other deep seeded emotions that are hard to explain.

You don't need to worry about that now, though. You'll understand more when you're older, anyways, so I wouldn't worry about it.

My day has been good. More of a lazy day today, Pepper and I ordered some take out and watched movies in our pjs. I didn't have my phone on me per Peppers request, or I would have answered sooner.

As for the Mark V, the updates sound good. Keep me posted, kid.

  -The Mechanic

 

~~~

 

Monday, September 8, 2014, 4:57PM 

From: countryroadstakemehometotennessee@gmail.com

To: tes@starkindustries.com

Subject: Middle School!!

I started middle school today!! And honestly? It wasn't as exciting as I thought it was gonna be. I knew that movies and tv shows oversell the wow factor of middle school and high school but I didn't think it'd be this dull. I'm still in the same class, with all the same classmates, and my classes are still crazy easy. I had hoped that the increase in grade would make it even a little bit harder, but I knew everything on the outline they gave out before the teachers even started teaching!! It's bonkers!

Apparently this middle school also has a STEM, or "gifted" kid program for kids like me though, so hopefully that'll be harder. I'm still gonna be so bored in my normal classes though. Ugh.

I have the STEM classes tomorrow, so I'll tell you how it goes. I know you've been stuck in those awful meetings lately, but I hope your day is going better than mine.

  -Harley

 

~~~

 

Tuesday, September 9, 2014, 5:04PM

From: countryroadstakemehometotennessee@gmail.com

To: tes@starkindustries.com

Subject: STEM Program

I had my STEM class day today, and it went a lot better than yesterday did! My teachers are all super nice, especially my math teacher, Mr. Trevor. He immediately starting teaching today, which was awesome, because all of my other normal teachers had a Ice Breaker class first (which I hate, we all already know each other, why do we have to say our names and something about ourselves??), but he just went right into it, and started teaching us trigonometry. I haven't learned any of it before, and I'm super excited to dig into it and find out how it works. It's seeming pretty simple so far, just formulas and using calculators right.

The only bummer is the class I got put with. They all seemed to click and get along well together, but none of them really talked to me much. I don't mind though. I'm more focused on my education anyways.

Also! I saw that Captain America and Black Widow took down SHIELD's headquarters on the news. What was that about? Do you know?? Apparently they leaked files too or something???

I hope everything is okay.

  -Harley

 

~~~

 

Friday, September 12, 2014, 10:27AM 

From: tes@starkindustries.com

To: countryroadstakemehometotennessee@gmail.com

Subject: Re: STEM Program

Hey kid. Sorry for the late response, things have been hectic here, as you probably know. It's been a PR nightmare, with the whole "Cap took SHIELD down" fiasco. I can't say more than that though. Legal things, NDAs, you know how it is.

I'm glad the STEM classes are testing your abilities more. I know the regular classes can be boring for someone of your intellect, but try to enjoy them while they last, okay? Soon you'll be an adult, and doing adult things, and trust me, it isn't as fun as they make it out to be in the movies either.

Don't worry about those kids too. Give it time, they'll come around.

  -The Mechanic

 

~~~

 

Friday, September 26, 2014, 9:02PM

From: countryroadstakemehometotennessee@gmail.com

To: tes@starkindustries.com

Subject: Update?

Hi. Just emailed to give an update on me. Everything's been pretty normal, I guess. Abbie's loving elementary school, her teacher, Mrs. Millar, is really nice. I did my trig test today, and I think I did well. Mama's working late again tonight, but that's just normal at this point too.

Have you ever, I dunno. Felt like you were weird? Or strange, or broken? Like, all of your friends are one way, and doing some things, but you aren't, and everyone looks at you weird, and treats you differently?

I don't know. I don't know where I'm going with this. I just feel off tonight. Think I'm going to go to bed early.

I'm sorry.

  -Harley

 

~~~

 

Friday, September 26, 2014, 9:48PM 

From: tes@starkindustries.com

To: countryroadstakemehometotennessee@gmail.com

Subject: Re: Update?

 

You don't need to apologize, kid. You did nothing wrong.

I used to feel like that, quite frequently if I'm being honest. When I first went to MIT, I felt weird. I stuck out like a sore thumb, and had people talk about me behind my back because of how young I was. But then I met Rhodey, and things got better.

And then Afghanistan happened. And the invasion. Let me tell you kid, I've never felt more broken and alone after that. I had panic attacks, as you know, but I also struggled with a lot of paranoia. Lack of sleeping or eating properly, mixed with trauma does that to you. I was a wreck, and I was so certain I couldn't be fixed. That I'd be like that forever.

And to an extent, I will be. I'll always struggle with it, but it's much, much better now than it used to be. I went to therapy, talking about my feelings, which sucked ass (don't tell your mom I said that), and learned mechanisms to help myself. Learned breathing techniques, practiced meditation, focused more on self care, and now I'm doing so much better.

So, moral of this long, way too personal story. You aren't broken, kid. Whatever is going on, whether it's similar to me or not (I hope not), it'll be okay. You will be okay. Things will work out. And don't worry about what other people think. Focus on yourself, and do what makes you happy, no matter what.

I'm always here if you need to talk, Harley. I might not be much help, or be very good at this whole hormonal preteen emotions thing yet, but I can try.

I'm glad things are going okay outside of that though. I'm glad your sister's settling in well, and I'm sure you aced your test. You're a smart kid.

Goodnight.

  -Tony

 

~~~

 

Tuesday, October 7th, 2014, 3:38PM

From: countryroadstakemehometotennessee@gmail.com

To: tes@starkindustries.com

Subject: Call

Hey, can we call? I know you're probably busy, and we don't normally do that but I'm kinda freaking out about something and I don't know who else to talk to. My number is (___)  ___-____

  -Harley

 

~~

 

Tuesday, October 7th, 2014, 3:41PM

From: countryroadstakemehometotennessee@gmail.com

To: tes@starkindustries.com

Subject: Re: Call

Nevermind, ignore that last email. I was being overdramatic, and stupid. I'm fine, everything is okay.

Sorry for bothering you.

  -Harley

 

---

 

He didn't expect anything from the emails. He assumed the older man would've read his last email, and shrugged it off, pretending the previous didn't exist like Harley longed for him too. As he said, he was being dumb. It didn't matter that his heart was pounding, that his brain was screaming at him that he was a freak, and dirty, and so so so wrong , that he was shaking like a leaf and on the verge of tears. It didn't matter. It was stupid. It didn't matter.

He didn't expect that Tony would actually still call him.

He stares at his vibrating cell phone through teary eyes, blurry vision, the number unknown but he knows who it is, knows it because nobody else calls, because when his friends call, they call the home phone, not his phone, so who else could it be?

He blinks the tears out of his eyes, rubbing them away quickly when a few escape, swallowing down his fear and panic and self hatred as he scrambles to pick it up before the call ends (he doesn't think Tony would appreciate it very much if he let it ring to voicemail), stuttering out a shaky, higher pitched "H-Hello?"

"Hey, kid." Tony's voice, much lower and rougher than his, rings through the phone, and Harley braces for the questions, the interrogation he knows is coming, knows Tony's gonna ask him about it, about what's bothering him. Why, why did he email him? Now he's gonna have to tell him what's wrong, now he's gonna have to admit it, admit how wrong and messed up and broken he is- "How was your day?"

Harley jerks back slightly, mouth gaping and eyes wide, caught off guard by the unexpected tame question. "Huh?"

"How was your day?" The man repeats calmly, tone smooth, even, relaxed, like it's a normal conversation on a normal, boring day. Nothing like how Harley is feeling, nothing like the swarming thoughts in his mind, like the flood of emotions in his chest, like the churning in his stomach, the burning ache in his lungs. 

"U-uhm," Damn his stutter, he had grown out of it years ago, why was it suddenly coming back now? "I-it was good." He lies, trying to keep his voice from wavering, trying to keep it steady, trying to stay composed as the tsunami of emotions tries to pull him under. "Yeah."

"Yeah?" Tony prods lightly, voice softening slightly, and Harley shakes his head in a nod, firm, even though Tony can't see it, even as tears start to burn at his eyes again, even his chest winds tighter and tighter and tighter .

"Mhm." He forces out, not trusting himself to speak anymore, his throat closing as his feelings start rising up his esophagus, a sob clawing its way up his throat, trying to escape.

There's a pause, then, a moment when everything freezes. A moment right before the iceberg tips, right before everything crashing and burning down around him, right before the beginning of the end. And then, time starts again, as the mechanic asks, quiet, hushed "What's going on, Harley?"

And Harley crumbles .

The sob rips from his throat, echoing loudly in the large emptiness of his garage, a trembling hand covering his mouth as soon as he does. But the floodgates have already opened, tears are streaming full force down his face, his body shuttering through shaky gasps and shattered sobs. "I-I-Im sorry ," He chokes out as he sits down heavily in his old, pachy wheely chair, curling into himself as his body shutters again. He rubs his eye with the hand on his face, sniffling and coughing through a whimpered, "I-I know you're- you're probably b-busy, you- you don't h-have to-"

"I have nowhere else to be." Tony murmurs simply, cutting off Harley's poor attempt at waving him off, at delaying the inevitable for any longer. Harley lets out a small whine as the older man speaks up again, soft, soothing, repeating gently, "What's going on, kid?"

"I-I dont-" He hiccups, running a hand through his shaggy, too long blond curls, tugging slightly as his knee bounces rapidly. "M-My friends, or my classmates, they- lately, they've been, I don't know, they've been talking- talking more about crushes and girls and stuff." Harley sniffles, tugging his hair harder as his vision starts to blur again, the words tumbling out of his mouth now. "And- and I never really c-cared about it, you know? I never really- really unders-stood it, didn't see the appeal, s-so I didnt m-mind it. But they- they just keep talking about it, and getting g-girlfriends, and-and talking about their bodies and I didnt get the- the i-interest, so I thought maybe something was wrong with me-"

"There isn't." Tony chips in, but Harley just runs right over him, keeps blabbering. He knows it's rude, knows his mama taught him better, but he can't seem to stop talking now that he started, his words getting more and more wobbly, panicked the longer he goes.

"But there is , there is something wrong with me, I- I know there is now, be-because when I-I went to school today, the- the past few days really, I started- started noticing that I started f-feeling weird, and- and it sounds- sounds similar to how the- the others say they feel, but it doesn't make sense , it can't be that, I dont- I cant-" Harley's breath catches, and he grinds his teeth together, refuses to speak another word, refuses to accept it, refuses to admit the god awful truth, refuses to utter the words. Because it can't be right, it can't be true, it can't be-

They sit in silence for a few moments, when he assumes Tony thought he would continue speaking but he wont, he refuses , until the softer, calmer voice returns, slightly staticky through the speaker, but barely more than a whisper, as if he spoke any louder, Harley would shatter. He probably would. "So, if I'm understanding correctly, you think you have a crush, and you're... scared?"

He doesn't sound patronizing, just honest, if a bit curious, but it doesn't help calm Harley any, a higher pitched, frustrated noise escaping the back of his throat, his free hand going out of his hair going back to rubbing at his face, rubbing off the tracks of tears, trying to rub away any sign of upset, until his skin is red and raw. "No, I-I mean, kinda- its not- I can't- god , this is so stupid."

"Its not stupid. I get it." The man responds, and Harley wants to laugh, feels the bitter feeling bubbling in his chest, because does he? How can he get this? Harley doesn't even get this, it doesn't- he shouldn't- "What's her name?"

The sound erupts out of him at that, but instead of laughter like he thought it would be, it's just another pitiful whine, another loud, agonizing sob. Because that's the thing, the thing that's been haunting him ever since he figured it out earlier that day, the issue that's been plaguing his mind and freaking him out, winding him up more and more and more as the day went on until he got home and sent those messages. 

Because- because when he thinks back to earlier that day, he thinks of lunchtime, of sitting at his lunch table with his "friends", of them talking and laughing, of Harley feeling those weird feelings again, especially when he looked across from him, and saw big, forest green eyes, saw a big, toothy grin, saw two small dimples and scattered freckles, saw short, short black hair, saw a sharper, thinner jaw, saw male male male, felt butterflies flutter, and realized he was wrong, wrong, wrong .

Because- "It's not a girl." His voice is small, defeated, barely a whisper, his whole body tensed up in fear, waiting, waiting for his reaction.

There's a pause, before a faint, quiet, sympathetic, "Oh, kid." That Harley immediately the wrong way, because he hates him, oh god he hates him-

"I'm sorry!" He gasps, jerking upright, sitting ramrod straight and the apologies spilling from his mouth. "I'm so sorry, I didnt- I dont mean to, and I-I know its wrong, and I shouldn't, and I-I know I'm weird and- and a freak , and-"

"Hey, hey, woah!" Tony's voice is louder now, stronger, and Harley hushes up immediately, his mouth slamming shut, even as his body trembles with a silent sob. "It's okay, kid. You aren't any of that."

"But- but I am!" Harley whimpers. "I'm w-weird, and everyone else isn't like this , and-"

"Am I a freak?" Again, the random question sends Harley for a loop, trying to grasp onto any of his quickly scattering thoughts.

"W-what?"

He can hear a faint smile, faint amusement in Tony's tone as he asks again, still so so calm, so reassured, "Am I a freak?"

Harley narrows his shining eyes, still full of tears, staring down at the wooden table in front of him, at the chips and nicks covering the side of it, wondering if this is a trick question. "N-No? Of- of course not, you're Iron Man."

He can hear some noise in the background of the call now, squeaking as if someone's leaning back in a chair, before Tony speaks up again, voice full of warm amusement now. "Well, Iron Man has had a few rendezvous with men in the past, and still likes them to this day. Does that make him, and therefore, me, a freak?" When Harley doesn't answer, mostly out of pure shock than anything else, Tony keeps going, tone going serious again. "Kid, I'm gonna get this out there right away. There is nothing wrong with you for liking boys, you hear me?"

He swallows, and wants to agree, longs to agree, but- "But- but my friends, they all like- like girls , and mama, she- she said that traditional marriage was what God wanted and-"

Harley cuts himself off this time, and Tony only waits a few beats before murmuring softly, "Is that what you think?"

He just shrugs, picking at the table, sniffling, whispering quietly, "I don't know what to think anymore."

There's a soft hum and another pause. "You're different, Harley. I'm not going to beat around the bush, you are different." Harley stomach drops. "But," Tony continues, "Kid, you've always been different. You're so smart, way too smart for your own good, if I'm being honest. And there's nothing wrong with that. People may try to bring you down, or kick you while you are down, but you've gotta remember that, okay? There is nothing wrong with you."

Harley waits a few moments, let's the words wash over him and wrap him in a blanket of warmth, of security and comfort, but there's still one little thing that keeps rearing its ugly head, that's still making him antsy. "But, what if I'm just- overreacting? And I don't actually... y-you know." He finishes lamely, still not ready to completely admit to everything yet.

Tony doesn't seem to mind. "Then that's okay too." He says simply, a bit of shuffling coming through the line. "Kid, how old are you again, like twelve?"

He can hear the teasing in his tone, and rolls his eyes as he huffs out, "Thirteen." 

The older man chuckles for a second, before his voice goes back to calm, quiet. "Seriously though, you're thirteen , Kid. You don't need to have everything figured out right away." He snorts, then. "I sure didn't. I think I was a mess at your age, wasn't even thinking about relationships. At least, not long term." There's a pause. "Point is, you don't need to know right now. This might be a fluke, and you might end up liking only girls from here on out. You might end up just liking boys, liking both, or neither, who knows? But you've got time, kid, and that's the key. Give it time . And whatever it ends up being, whatever ends up happening..." His voice softens at the end, a smile prominent in his tone. "It'll be okay. You will be okay." 

For the first time all day, Harley finally takes a deep breath. His shoulders finally relax, his body practically melting back into his chair, and a smile grows on his face, warmth blooming in his chest. "...thanks, Tony." He whispers, hoping that the amount of pure, unfiltered gratitude he's feeling can be heard in his tone.

He thinks it can, as there's a hint of embarrassment and awkwardness in Tony's voice as he responds with a simple, "Don't mention it, squirt." 

Harley just chuckles at the sudden discomfort of the older man, before his eyes widen. "Oh! While you're here, did I tell you I passed my trig test?"

"Hey! I knew you would, kid, I had no doubt." Harley's grin widens, before he throws himself into another story, feeling warmer, safer, and happier than he has in a while.

A few years later, Tony was getting off of the elevator to his penthouse with a huff, having just gotten back from a rough meeting, when he freezes. His heart warma and a smile grows on his face when he notices Harley, now 17 years old (almost an adult, god he was so old ), curled up into Peter's chest, his face pushed into his neck, seemingly fast asleep. Peter's head rests on top of Harley's, eyes open but hooded, as if keeping them open was getting difficult. They glance over to Tony immediately, though (damn his spider sense and increased hearing), and a faint blush forms on his cheeks even as he smiles lightly, his eyes softening as he glances back down at his boyfriend and presses a firm kiss onto his head. Tony watches the interaction with a soft grin, before quietly stepping away, his chest full of mostly warm, sappy feelings, but also full of pride and joy, knowing his pseudo son is accepted, happy and loved.

[twoidiotwriters1]

Starcrossed Losers (Josh Wheeler xReader)

A/N: Cause no one was doing it so I might as well go do it. If you like it and want part two don’t forget to leave feedback! 

Words: 1,892

Warnings: Blood, this is an apocalyptic world so, plenty of gross. Swearing and bad writing cause I did this in a hurry to get it out of my system, this is a series so the end of this chapter isn’t the end of the story uwu

Next chapter

Oh. Hi. How’s life?

Well, I guess that if you’re reading this, life isn’t exactly going fine. You looked for this, you know what’s up, with the apocalypse, I mean. Not with me, so I guess I’ll start with that.

My name is Y/N L/N and my life is great. Kinda. 

Okay, my life is good enough. The problem is that before this whole thing I wasn’t popular. No, I wasn’t a loser either; or an outcast that only played by her own rules. I was just a kid. 

I was the right amount of friendly, I was an “ok” student at school, I was free to go to parties and I did, but I also spent plenty of Friday nights binge-watching Netflix at home until I couldn’t feel my butt. No one ever watched me up-close, and now I don’t even have parents that look after me or to talk about how my day was. And I really wish I had someone that I can tell how my fucking day was. If I’m honest, these last few weeks have been nothing but a lonely existence.

“But Y/N!” you say, “Didn’t you mention you had friends?”

Well, yeah. Emphasis on “had”. See, even if I had plenty not all of them wanted to form a new group: two of them left with the cheeramazons, others found their home with the gamers, some even were brave enough to leave the city and go look for relatives their age that might still be alive. I was one of them. I went looking for my sister with my ex-best friend to her college hoping that I would find her; which I did. Turns out being twenty years old is enough for you to turn into a ghoulie. So I parted ways with my best friend and I went back to Glendale, the only place where I know my way around because I’ve lived here since I was a baby, and I’ll probably die here in about a month or so, let’s face it.

Since most of the tribes intimidate me, I quietly made my way into the far lines of the jocks. I wasn’t noticed, kind of like the backstage crew, I did things here and there whenever they asked me to do them and got no recognition from that. I was fine with it, honestly. That until Turbo finally lost it and started to kill kids for fun. Like we didn’t have enough with Baron Triumph!

So I left the place and nobody stopped me, of course, no one really cared. My normal life was quiet; my post-apocalyptic one is just that, but with a bit more of freedom. I’ve been living on my own for like three months now, and I think I’m doing pretty good so far. Adapt and survive, right? Just like in Highschool.

And I was doing just that until Josh wheeler decided to crash into me.

“Hey!” I growled from where I was laying on the floor, my knee and elbow scraped and burning, “What the fuck are you doing?”

“No time! The jocks are chasing me, c’mon!” 

Now, I could’ve said ‘No thanks! I’ll leave you to it!’ but the guy was scared shitless and he didn’t wait for a reply, He stood up and pulled me with him. He got on his skateboard without letting go of my hand and I had no choice but to move along, my roller-skates were going so fast against the asphalt, that I was sure they’d be ruined once we reached… wherever it is Josh is taking me. 

At some point, he let go of my hand and I simply decided to stick around for a moment. If he was actually in trouble, he could need a hand.

“Wait, here…” 

Josh gave a sharp turn to the right and into an alley, I followed. Once he made sure no one was there he leaned against the wall and sighed deeply, eyes closed. I stood there with my arms crossed, waiting for the explanation he owed me. When he opened his eyes and realized I was still there, he tilted his head.

“Y/N, right?”

We knew each other, barely though. We got paired up for a school project and that was it. Josh was the typical new kid that no one really pays attention to. He didn’t have any specific traits or amazing talent. He did manage to date Sam Dean I think, I don’t know how did he manage to do it, but I guess the thing is that he’s nice. A good guy overall. He was just Josh.

“Josh,” I frowned, “care to tell me what the hell did you do to piss off Turbo?”

“Nothing!” He scoffed, “It’s all fault of the golf team, I thought they had Sam and I went after them… turns out it was Angelica.”

“Bummer,” I said, though I didn’t really care, “so it was your fault.”

“I just said-”

“You went out of your way to annoy the golf team cause you thought they had Sam Dean kidnapped or whatever, and now you’re saying it’s their fault that you’re being chased down?”

“Yeah?” He stopped for a second, then continued, “okay so it was kinda my fault…”

“Yeah,” I scoffed, “you probably messed up a bit.”

He let out a dry laugh, then stared at me for a moment.

“So what are you doing? are you part of any tribe?”

“Me?” I raised my eyebrows, “I used to, now it’s just me.”

“Yeah, same,” He nodded, “well, I never belonged to a tribe but, I mean, it’s easier, isn’t it? On your own”

“I don’t know… I guess” I looked down at my shoes and whimper at the sight of them. They were most definitely ruined.

“Roller-skates?” He asked with a smirk, “seriously, Y/N?”

“Who are you to judge?” I replied with a frown, “a shitty skateboard against the monster trucks that Turbo drives around? Yes, that’ll definitely gonna leave them biting the dust”

“Hey, my skate is great! And I have a car,” He defended himself, “but… fuck, I guess I left it on jock territory”

“We should keep going,” I replied, deciding not to comment on what he had said, “they might be getting close.”

“You could leave if you want,” Josh shrugged, “after all this whole thing is not your fault”

“I could, but I just left my place cause it got destroyed, my skates are fucked and if the jocks don’t find you they’ll be on the hunt for something else to play with so to be honest, I think that staying with you for a couple of hours won’t hurt.”

“Cool,” He sighed, moving away from the wall.

“Good,” I moved beside him, “ so, where are we going, exactly?”

“Uh,” Josh rubbed the back of his neck, chuckling nervously, “the mall?”

I stopped dead in my tracks, looking at him in disbelief.

“Are you trying to make all the wrong choices today?” I huffed, “Do you have a death wish?”

“No,” He rolled his eyes, stopping in front of me, “Someone told me Sam might be there, so I’m going”

“Do you realize that is Baron Triumph’s territory?”

“Yes, I do. Thank you for reminding me.”

“What is up with you and Sam Dean anyway?” I asked in annoyance, “Were you two together during this mess and then one day you fought, she left the house and now she’s missing?”

I was trying to be sarcastic, I wasn’t expecting him to reply with:

“Yes, that’s exactly what happened.”

“Oh,” I blushed in embarrassment, “sorry, I didn’t… I didn’t think…”

“It wasn’t exactly like that,” He lowered his eyes to the ground, kicking the dirt, “we weren’t together when it happened, but we did fight before. I haven’t seen her since the whole apocalypse stuff.”

We stayed silent for a moment, I didn’t know what to say, not because I didn’t understand the situation, I did. I also had someone important that I wanted to find desperately, and when I finally did, it was too late. I think that I was surprised, I never saw Josh Wheeler as the type of guy who would stand alone in front of Turbo and his crew just to find a girl. If he could be that stubborn about love, he certainly had to be it for surviving. 

“Alright,” I said in a defeated voice.

Josh looked at me in confusion.

“Alright what?”

“Let’s go then, to the mall.”

“You coming?” He smiled, “seriously?”

“I know you don’t need me,” I moved until I was standing face to face, “but I think that we can make a good team, for a few hours though. I hate group projects.”

Josh laughed, giving me a simple nod.

“Don’t worry, we’ll finish this in no time.”

And boy, was he wrong about that.

We hurry our asses off to get to the mall fast and unnoticed, once there I saw two kids cornered by a woman against the doors and I pointed towards them, Josh hurriedly pulled out his sword and stabbed the ghoulie, the woman turned around and ran away, revealing two familiar faces that I was definitely not expecting to see.

“Ah, shit! My sword!” Exclaimed Josh, losing grip of his weapon.

“Y/N?” Asked the boy.

I looked at Josh with a stern face.

“Wesley Fists?” I said, “you ally with Wesley Fists and our school’s drug dealer?”

“I didn’t get much of a choice,” He grumbled.

“You suck at heroing,” Said the blonde girl.

Josh turned around to look at her.

“I saved your stupid lives. Twice.” Then he leaned to grab his skateboard from the ground and added, “now hurry, Turbo’s on our ass.”

I moved to a side and waited for him to open the door when Wesley spoke up again.

“Uhm, no. He’s not,” We all looked back, facing the empty street, “Why aren’t they chasing you?”

Almost as if to answer the question the sound of an engine coming closer made us quiet down, and a black figure appeared in front of us.

“Baron Triumph,” mumbled Josh, probably about to shit his pants like the rest of us, “oh, shit…”

He stepped back and pulled me with him by the hem of my shirt, my skates moving easily against the dusty road.

“Anyone know who the hell this idiot really is?” Angelica, the little blonde girl on my left asks in an upset tone.

“I heard is Marco Lions, that gearhead that lived in Hollywood?” Offered Wesley.

“Didn’t your bestie, Jayden Hoyles ride a motorcycle like that?” Asked Josh in a bitter voice.

“Well,” Wesley nodded without looking back, “Hoyles is a real prick.”

“And you just figured that out?” I asked.

“Whoever he is,” Interrupted Angelica, “here he comes…”

Everyone prepared their weapons for the fight, and it was then when I realized…

“Fuck!” I whispered, “I don’t have anything to defend myself!”

“Don’t worry, we got you” Josh whispered back.

“You literally just lost your sword on a ghoulie’s back.”

Josh was about to reply when Baron got off the motorcycle and we all froze once more. He swiftly took off his helmet, and…

“What the…”

So what’s my life like during the apocalypse?

It’s never what I want it to be.

[artificialqueens]

Revelation Sunshine, Chapter 8 (Courtney/Vixen) - Veronica

A/N:  Look, sometimes a story has conflict and narrative tension. And sometimes you just want to write about characters you love wearing fancy clothes and having self-indulgent fun. Thanks as always to @theartificialdane for her help. Previous chapters are here.

Last chapter: Vixen got settled into her new life in LA, and Courtney enlisted Violet’s help for a Met Gala ensemble.

This chapter: A romantic weekend in Paris and a star-studded Gala both bring old friends back into Courtney’s life. 

***

The plan was for the Met Gala to be their first public appearance together. A sort of coming-out, as Adore put it.

But all of that went to shit in early April. Vixen had just wrapped up the last of her workshops in Chicago, her friends and family throwing her a huge going-away party, making her promise to visit often. Then, instead of flying to Los Angeles for the Spring term, she found herself sipping champagne on a flight to Paris, where she was meeting Courtney for a Met Gala fitting-turned-romantic-getaway.

And it would have all gone to plan, probably, if not for the crafty French paparazzi, who caught wind of Courtney being in Paris and began to tail them through the city.

It had been a gray, drizzly day, the clouds not breaking until early in the evening as the sun was setting, encouraging them to leave their little café and stroll across the Pont Neuf to Square du Vert Galant, hands clasped together, giggling about Courtney’s attempt to get oat milk in her coffee with broken French.

When Courtney caught Vixen’s face in the warm light, she couldn’t resist pulling her in for a kiss, hands stroking her cheekbones before brushing their lips together, tasting the perfection of the moment, overcome with joy and gratitude for her gorgeous, loving girlfriend.

The nearby paparazzi went nuts, and that’s when they both realized that they’d been followed.

“Oops,” Courtney whispered, biting her lip, still unable to let go of Vixen’s face, unable to tear herself away.

“Cat’s out of the bag, huh?” Vixen said. Fortunately, she didn’t seem too broken up about it.

“Yeah.”

“I guess there’s not much we can do about it now.” A smile played on her lips, and Courtney was overcome with the urge to kiss her again.

It wasn’t until they separated slowly that Courtney thought of a possible solution.

“We could beat them to it…”

She pulled out her phone, taking a series of photos, the setting sun and rain-washed buildings around them doing half the work of making the pictures glowingly beautiful. Vixen’s eyes were bright with happiness, and Courtney couldn’t help gazing at her with total adoration, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

She posted the pictures as they stood right there, captioned with a simple heart, and then put her phone away, taking Vixen’s hand and continuing on their walk like everything was business as usual.

***

Vixen wasn’t sure what to think when they finally arrived at Violet’s on Saturday morning, an ordinary-enough apartment building.

“You’re sure this is a legit designer?” she asked, and Courtney grinned at her, pulling her inside. She held a box of pastries and a Glimmer-branded reusable bag full of swag for Violet’s five-year-old daughter, Melati.

“One of the best I know!”

When Violet opened the door, Courtney greeted her like a long-lost sibling, pulling her into a fierce hug, kissing her cheeks. Violet seemed to tolerate this, but still let out a relieved sigh as Courtney let go.

“Violet, this is Vixen!” Courtney said excitedly.  

“Hello. Nice to meet you.” Violet stuck out her hand and shook Vixen’s, very formal and professional.

“Vix, Violet is basically a sorceress with fabric. I can’t wait for you to see her stuff in person,” Courtney told her, sliding off her shoes. She then let out a happy squeal, spotting a tiny face with big dark eyes poking around the corner bashfully. She bounded forward to greet Melati with a happy, “Bonjour, Melati!”

Melati’s eyes widened and she disappeared, hiding under a table.

“Sorry. She’s still processing that Princess Lucie is real, and knows her name. I’ve attempted to explain that you’re an actress, but Sutan keeps sabotaging my attempts,” Violet explained. “Something about keeping the magic alive.”

Courtney giggled, dropping to her knees and peeking at Melati under the table, singing, “Bonjooour, mon petit chou!”

Vixen had removed her shoes by this point, holding them awkwardly in her hands.

“You can put your shoes on the top shelf there,” Violet said kindly. “I’m afraid our dog can’t be trusted with anything. I’m still mourning the loss of a pair of Louboutins.”

Vixen chuckled, placing her shoes (and Courtney’s) carefully onto the shelf, and then followed Violet into the house.

Melati seemed to have gotten over her initial shyness, jumping into Courtney’s arms and laughing joyfully as Courtney swung her around.

“Courtney, not in the living room, please,” Violet said, then to her daughter, “Pas ici.” Melati obeyed, sliding down from Courtney’s arms and clinging to her side.

“Je suis désolé!” Courtney cried dramatically, and Melati giggled. She looked at Vixen and explained, “I know that from Madonna’s ‘Sorry.’”

“Impressive,” Vixen told her, while Violet rolled her eyes.

“Shall we get started?” Violet asked, guiding them quickly through the apartment and up a small flight of stairs.

“Where’s Sutan?”

“In London for the weekend. He sends his regrets.”

“Aww, bummer.”

Violet opened the door to her studio, then turned to them with a stern look on her face, addressing Courtney directly.

“Child rules apply in here. You may look, but don’t touch.”

“Oui madame!” Courtney said with a salute, then walked inside, immediately exclaiming over a bunch of intricate fabric flowers, picking one up to ask, “Did you make this?!”

“Courtney! What did I just say?” Violet snatched the flower out of her hand.

“Sorry. Can’t take her anywhere,” Vixen said.

“Ooh, I love this beading…” Courtney walked towards the wardrobe rack, Violet nearly diving in front of her to stop her from touching that, too.

She put her hands on her hips, making Courtney pout playfully, and then leaned down to tell Melati something in French.

“Viens,” said the little girl, pulling Courtney out of the room by the hand.

“Help, I’m being kidnapped by a tiny little person!”

“I told her to keep you out of trouble!” Violet called after them, then turned to Vixen with an apologetic look on her face. “I’m sorry about that.

“It’s fine,” Vixen laughed. “I live with her, so I’m pretty used to it.”

Violet chuckled under her breath, and walked to the wardrobe rack to unzip a few garment bags.

“If you’ll please disrobe, we can get started. I can give you some hangers for your things if you need.”

“Oh...that’s okay.” Vixen was wearing skinny jeans and a black t-shirt. Not really clothes she’d normally hang. She began to remove them slowly, feeling only slightly awkward.

“I’m sorry that we haven’t had a chance for more consultations, but with the distance, and my job, and my family…”

“Please don’t apologize! I’m so grateful for all the work you’re done.” Vixen turned around, down to her bra and panties.

“The top has a built in bustier, so no bra is needed.” Violet held it out, and Vixen nearly gasped.

The sketches had been lovely, but this was absolutely stunning, a flowing sleeveless top with gorgeous pearl and gold beading in cascading floral patterns. When you looked closer, it became apparent that the beads were in fact pearl buttons, gold cufflinks and other menswear elements.

“Given your desires, and my own aesthetic, it was a bit of a challenge to incorporate the menswear theme, but I did my best. I still have a bit of beading to do, but it’s mostly done.”

“It’s incredible,” Vixen said, unclasping her bra. “Really, so far beyond what I was expecting.”

Violet gave her a satisfied nod, hanging the top and lifting another garment from the rack.

“Shall we try on the trousers?”

‘Trousers’ wouldn’t exactly have been Vixen’s way of describing the bottoms: a pair of draped, beautifully moving pants, with a satin strip down the side reminiscent of a tuxedo. After showing her, Violet quickly turned them inside out and then held them out for Vixen to step into.

It was a very strange experience. This woman that she barely knew dressing her, something she hadn’t experienced since she was a small child and her mom helped her into her clothes for preschool. She tried not to be awkward about it, happy that she’d at least remembered to wear nude panties today.

Violet stepped back, examining her with a critical eye, before picking up a set of pins and kneeling. Vixen stood as still as possible, trying not to be self-conscious. This was Violet’s job; she probably dealt with people’s bodies on a daily basis. The fact that her tits were out surely didn’t faze her, so why should Vixen feel weird?

She worked quickly and carefully, getting up to examine the pants from multiple angles. Her long dark hair was pulled away from her face, into a high ponytail, and as Vixen studied her serious expression, she realized that what could be read as coldness was actually just deep concentration, a passion for her work that made Vixen feel right at home.

They tried on the top next, the heavy and intricate beading telling Vixen that it was by far the most expensive garment she’d even had on her body. It was amazing.

Vixen watched herself in the floor-length mirror, turning slightly, admiring how beautiful the whole ensemble looked. She started fantasizing about what she was gonna do with her hair, when Violet’s voice cut into her thoughts.

“Have you thought about shoes?”

“Oh, um...not really. What do you think?”

“I can give you some suggestions if you like,” Violet offered, and Vixen smiled at her.

“That would be great! Thank you.”

Violet was walking around the room, again examining the look from multiple angles, once in awhile stepping forward to place a pin here or mark something down on her notepad. At one point, she gave a thoughtful nod, then said, “You carry this look well. How do you feel about it?”

“Oh, um...it’s beautiful!” Vixen could tell by the thoughtful way she said it that a compliment like that from Violet must be rare and sincere. She felt comfortable enough to continue, admitting, “I’m a little nervous--not about the clothes! Just...I’ve never been to anything like the Met Gala in my life.”

“That’s understandable, but I wouldn’t worry,” Violet assured her. “The most nerve-wracking part is the red carpet, and you’ll be with Courtney, who I think might actually like it.”

“I know she likes it,” Vixen laughed.

“Right.” Violet shook her head. “I will never understand her.”

***

The rest of their time in Paris (well, the day and a half before they had to fly back to L.A.) was like a dream. Of course, their social media had been blowing up like crazy ever since posting those pictures, and Courtney did nothing to quell the wild speculation, posting more pictures, as well as tweeting mysterious, romantic things like “I get to wake up to her every morning. #gratitude” and “When she’s breathing beside me, I’m home.”

But for the most part, they ignored all of the messages, all of the questions, and simply enjoyed the fresh spring air and the beautiful city, doing their best to avoid the ever-present paparazzi until they realized that it was no use, and just rolled with it.

On Monday, Courtney woke up to clear, blue skies and sunlight filtering in through the gauzy curtains. She rolled over, brushing away a curl that had fallen across Vixen’s face, smiling at her eyes fluttered open.

“Good morning,” she said, placing a soft kiss on Vixen’s cheek.

“Morning…” Vixen rubbed her eyes, yawning, then snuggled against Courtney’s body, seeking out the warmth of her skin.

“You bummed to be going back home today?” Courtney asked, and Vixen shook her head.

“Mm-mm,” she said, voice slightly muffled against Courtney’s neck, then added. “How could I be bummed? I’m going back with you.”

Courtney inhaled sharply, caught off guard by her sleepy sweetness, and pulled her in tighter.

“I love you so much,” she whispered fiercely into her hair, and Vixen gave a small, adorable sigh.

***

There was really no reason to be this nervous, Vixen thought. It wasn’t like she was a real celebrity. The cameras and attention would be on Courtney and Honey, the actual movie stars, not on her.

Nevertheless, she couldn’t deny the rush of butterflies as she sat beside Courtney in the car. The ensemble Violet designed fit her perfectly, and upon her suggestion, she’d paired it with some Miu Miu stilettos, ruby lipstick and a jeweled hair clip in her brand new weave--long, rich, dark brown hair with chestnut highlights, styled in meticulous Marcel waves that made her feel like a goddess. She caught Courtney’s eyes, grinning at her.

Her girlfriend was stunning as usual, her black, high-necked, open-backed tuxedo gown just the right balance of revealing sexiness and teasing modesty. The full skirt had a slit almost the whole way up that you didn’t see until she was in motion, and her blonde hair was tucked under, giving her an almost masculine illusion. Her minimalist jewelry consisted of a simple diamond bracelet, the only splash of color her shiny, short, deep red nails.

“You look very classy,” Vixen commented.

“Yeah?” Courtney asked. “I don’t know how I feel about such an extreme lack of color.”

“No, it’s good.”

“Yeah,” Honey chimed in, from where she sat with her date across from them in the limo. “You need to give the rainbow explosion a break once in awhile.”

“Well...I do have pink and yellow panties on,” Courtney admitted, and they all laughed.

“Of course you do,” Vixen said.

“I mean no one will see them!” she exclaimed. “Probably. Unless the night gets real crazy.”

“Can we make bets?” asked Honey’s date, Michael, making Vixen giggle. She’d only met him a few minutes before, but she already liked him.

“Let’s not,” quipped a woman tersely from the front seat. She was a publicist from Disney whose name Vixen kept forgetting, instead just thinking of her as The Dragon.

“Oh, right,” Courtney said, reaching for Vixen’s hand as they approached the Met. “I guess since we’re here on Disney’s dime, I need to be on good behavior.”

“Only until we get back to the hotel, though, right?” Vixen asked, and Courtney shot her a naughty grin.

“We’ll see…”

Honey and Michael exited the car first, the photographers going nuts over her stunning white pinstripe suit, tailored to perfection.

“Ready?” Courtney asked, and Vixen nodded.

The Dragon was already shooting instructions at them. Well, mostly at Courtney, but it made her head spin a little.

Before they got out, Courtney leaned in and whispered, “If she pulls me away, stick with Michael. He’ll take care of you and make sure you guys stay close.”

Vixen laughed, steeling her nerves, feeling weirdly like she had back in junior high before a basketball game. Here we go...

***

Once Courtney was finally finished with her press obligations, she turned to Vixen with a happy, relieved sigh. She couldn’t help but once again think about just how gorgeous she looked: the cream and ivory ensemble Violet had designed made her dark skin glow, and she’d opted for an understated, barely-there look with her eye makeup--all lashes and just a hint of shimmer. Plus those lips. So red and full and kissable...Courtney could barely wait to get her alone later and just ruin it.

First, though, they had to get through this gala. Courtney took Vixen’s hand and led her inside, where they wandered around together. They looked through the exhibit, and exchanged pleasant, mundane small talk with a mind-boggling number of people. Vixen completely cracked Courtney up with her impression of one of the Vogue editors, and then for a little while, they played a game where they pretended to be museum docents, describing the various pieces to each other with the most pretentious language they could come up with.

While Vixen used the restroom, Courtney found one of the bars and got them a couple of drinks. Champagne always went straight to her head, but she figured that if there was ever a place to get a bit silly, this was it.

“Yes, you heard me. One champagne and a tequila sunrise,” said a familiar voice, and Courtney turned, a big smile on her face.

“Bianca!”

Bianca’s gruff expression melted into a grin as she reached forward to give Courtney a hug.

“Hey there! Nice dress!” she held Courtney by the waist to get a good look. “Siriano, right?”

“Yeah. And I see you really took the menswear theme to heart.”

Bianca was wearing one of her favorite silhouettes: a boat-necked, figure-hugging, floor length gown with a trumpet skirt. It was black and beaded and of course looked great on her, but had nothing whatsoever to do with the theme.

“Listen. Anna Wintour can’t fucking tell me what to wear!” she barked, and Courtney threw back her head with laughter.

“Never change, B.”

“Not much danger of that at this point,” Bianca said, accepting the drinks from the bartender. “I’m glad I ran into you. We found your date, but-”

“We?” Dread filled her stomach like a lead balloon as Bianca directed her gaze to where Vixen stood, talking to none other than Miss Fame herself. Seeing them, Courtney had a lightheaded rush of fear that she hadn’t experienced for almost ten years, and she inhaled sharply.

“What’s the matter?” Bianca asked. “You think Fame’s gonna eat her?”

“I…” Courtney couldn’t explain it. How the anxiety that she felt as a 21-year-old could still return in the presence of that woman. She knew that logically, everything was fine. In recent years, things between her and Fame had gotten downright friendly. And she appeared to be having a perfectly pleasant conversation with Vixen, clad in one of her signature 50-shades-of-white ensembles.

“Relax,” Bianca said, chuckling softly, forearm resting on Courtney’s shoulder. “Our brides are fine. They actually look cute together, don’t you think?”

A laugh bubbled up from Courtney’s chest; they did look awfully bridal, especially standing together. She turned to Bianca, a rush of gratitude coloring her cheeks, thrilled by her tacit approval. She pulled her in for a hug, saying, “They do.”

“Aww, look who else just arrived,” Bianca said, and Courtney turned again.

Raja and Raven, in complementary outfits of royal purple and gray, had joined the little group.

“Okay, now we really do have to save her,” Courtney said, rushing towards them, Bianca laughing behind her.

***

When they finally arrived back at their hotel, the first thing they did was kick off their hideously uncomfortable shoes and strip down. The hotel had sent up a huge basket of luxury bath products, and Courtney suggested filling the jacuzzi tub and dumping all of it in. The result was a fragrant tub with so much bath oil and moisturizing products that their skin immediately became slick and slippery.

Vixen relaxed against the side of the tub, one of the powerful jets aimed at her lower back, and another at her feet. Courtney leaned against her, eyes closed as Vixen’s fingers carded through her hair, slowly removing bobby pin after bobby pin until her hair hung down in stiff waves. She dunked her head under the water, scrubbing to remove the residual mousse and hairspray before coating her hair with a thick layer of conditioning mask and cuddling up once again.

“It was more fun than I thought it would be,” Vixen said, breaking the comfortable silence, fingers trailing up Courtney’s arm.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Less stuffy. Not that I’d want to do it often but, I had a pretty good time.”

Courtney smiled, leaning her head back to rest on Vixen’s shoulder.

“I did too…” she said, then added almost as an afterthought, “Bianca approves of you.”

“Oh yeah? Did you need her approval?” Vixen asked. It was a casual enough question, but it still seemed to make Courtney pause. Did she need Bianca’s approval? Vixen waited for her to respond, realizing that she’d be okay with any answer. After all, Bianca was an important person in her life.

“No...not exactly…but it was still nice.” Courtney smiled sheepishly, and twisted around slightly to tell Vixen, “I guess maybe I didn’t realize how much I didn’t need it until I got it.”

“Fair enough,” Vixen laughed, dropping a kiss to Courtney’s shoulder.

“So...I’m glad you liked it.”

“I did. Although I think I underestimated my ability to wear stilettos for that many hours without dying.”

“Aw, do your feet hurt, baby?” cooed Courtney. She slipped from Vixen’s arms to the opposite side of the tub, where her feet were.  

“They’re killing me…”

Courtney took Vixen’s feet into her lap, and began to give them a gentle massage. Vixen’s eyes fell closed blissfully, luxuriating in the warm water and tender caresses. Courtney began with her feet, but after awhile, moved up to her ankles and calves. Vixen nearly fell asleep three times, but finally blinked her eyes open, pulling Courtney towards her for a kiss.

“Can I do something for you now?” she murmured, and Courtney lifted her head to give her a heavy-lidded smirk.

“Let’s get out of here and see…”

“I was thinking like, helping you rinse this shit out of your hair, but...” Vixen touched her hair, still covered with that thick mask.

“Oh fuck,” Courtney giggled. “I guess we better do that first.”  

Vixen smiled at her, taking the handheld nozzle off the hook and turning it on. She tested the water with her hand, gesturing for Courtney to turn around, and then quickly rinsed her hair, fingertips scratching at her scalp. When she turned it off, she pressed a kiss to Courtney’s neck.

“Come on. Let’s go get bath oil all over those fancy sheets…”

“Sold!”

***

There was something different in Vixen’s eyes tonight as she hovered over Courtney on the bed. She was usually content to be pampered and guided--not submissive exactly, but certainly leaning in that direction. Tonight though, Courtney shivered in anticipation, looking up at her hungry brown eyes, shining dark in the dim light, every once in awhile catching a glint of gold.

They’d been at it for awhile, having tumbled into bed after their bath, Vixen’s mouth traveling all over Courtney’s heated skin. She’d lost track of time completely as Vixen made her tremble and whimper, getting her all worked up, only to tease her cruelly. Her fingertips now danced up Courtney’s thighs, light as a feather, making her breath catch in her throat. Courtney reached up towards her, one hand on her waist, another one her face, thumb stroking her cheek.

The corner of Vixen’s mouth twitched, becoming a smirk as she looked down at Courtney. One finger began to trace slow patterns along her collarbone, little circles getting bigger and loopier over her chest. Courtesy whimpered, back arching, trying unsuccessfully to pull her body down.

“Trying to tell me something, baby?” The pad of her finger circled one of Courtney’s nipples teasingly.

In response, Courtney arched up again.

“I want you,” she said, failing to suppress the pathetic need in her voice.

Vixen crawled forward slightly, pressing a thigh up against her pussy, giving her something to grind wetly against. It was good, so good that Courtney gasped in pleasure, Vixen’s thigh flexing against her as fingers continued toying with her tits. But soon, it wasn’t enough, and Courtney was pulling Vixen’s hips down, head falling back to expose her throat.

Vixen licked up her neck, layering kisses against her hammering pulse point. Courtney’s legs spread open, the gentle pressure of Vixen’s weight pressing her down into the mattress.

Courtney loved Vixen’s body. She had small tits that fit perfectly in Courtney’s hands, long slender limbs, and the most buttery soft skin she’d ever felt, especially fresh out of the bath. She loved to touch her, to feel her and taste her and kiss her all over.

She was painfully aware, though, that there were things she needed to be sensitive about when they were together. Even though she and Vixen had jumped into bed together on their first date, she’d spent a lot of their excruciating months apart asking gentle, probing questions about what she liked, what she didn’t, if there was anything that made her uncomfortable. Vixen was a bit shy at first, so Courtney didn’t push too hard, but every once in awhile, if she’d had enough wine, she would open up quite a bit, giving Courtney real insight into her fantasies.

And then of course, once they’d been able to really take their time and explore with each other, Courtney discovered a whole world of possibilities. Where she was most sensitive, how her fingers flexed and then curled slowly into fists when she liked something. How she was generally more interested in gentle, loving touches than hard, orgasm-focused penetration.

Courtney was careful to go slowly, and to follow her lead for anything below the waist. She didn’t want to make any assumptions about her body, or make her feel fetishized - but she also wanted to make sure to express how beautiful and sexy she found every part of her. It was a fine line, a balancing act that Courtney wasn’t sure she always got right.

She knew, for example, that Vixen preferred the term “girldick” and was partial to having it treated more like a clit - kissed and licked and rubbed and gently sucked. And Courtney was happy to oblige, loving the feel and the taste of her, how her cum had a faint sweetness to it. But recently, she’d surprised Courtney with a whispered confession in the dark that she wasn’t expecting.

“I’ve been thinking that maybe I want to try...topping,” Vixen said, hiding her face in Courtney’s hair, adorably bashful. “I mean, it’s so hot when you do it, and it doesn’t make me think of you as any less of a woman, and so…”

“You’re 100% woman. Every bit of you,” Courtney whispered back, but she’d also been a tiny bit nervous. After all, the last time anyone had tried penetrating her had been a bit of a disaster, and ever since then, she hadn’t wanted to revisit it. But on the other hand, she loved Vixen so much, and trusted her, and so maybe it was time to rethink her own boundaries.

“I don’t know if I can, though,” Vixen then added. “I mean, it doesn’t get hard the way it used to…”

“We can figure it out,” Courtney had said, kissing her, wrapping her up into a sleepy embrace. But the conversation never went any farther. Vixen hadn’t brought it up again, and Courtney didn’t really think any more about it. Until right now.

And tonight, there was something so fucking sexy about the way Vixen rutted against her, soft little sighs leaving her as she rolled her hips. Courtney grew wetter and wetter, fingers digging into her firm ass, pulling her closer. Vixen lifted her head, interrupting a deep, messy kiss to look into Courtney’s glazed eyes.

“Is this okay? Are you…”

“It’s perfect…You’re perfect.” Courtney could feel the soft tip of her girldick pushing against her, and she arched up, welcomed it deeper with her hand, loving the feel of Vixen getting closer and closer with every thrust.

It was so different from anything Courtney had ever experienced; so flexible and warm. It was a gentle kind of fullness, nothing rigid or demanding or painful like it had been for Courtney in the past. Courtney hugged Vixen’s hips with her thighs, hands sliding up her back, raking over her shoulder blades and back down to her waist.

“Baby, this is so hot,” Courtney whimpered, and then Vixen angled forward so that she was rubbing vigorously against Courtney’s clit, making her moan. “Fuuuck…”

Courtney could feel herself getting close, right on the verge. She captured Vixen’s lips in another kiss, sucking hard on her bottom lip and then tangling their tongues together. She panted into her mouth, snaking one hand down between her ass cheeks to stroke her, eliciting a little gasp from Vixen’s thoat, a familiar sound that told Courtney she was close too.

As Vixen’s hips pumped faster and faster, Courtney tried to hang on, but knuckles brushing over her stiff nipples was the last straw, and suddenly she was racked with ecstatic pleasure, wave after wave hitting her. By the end, she was barely moving, just clinging to Vixen’s body as her muscles convulsed, ankles locked together to keep her as close as possible.

The intense, messy kisses soon turned slow and gentle again as Courtney slowly caught her breath, bodies still sandwiched together.

“Wow…”

“Uh-huh...”

“That was different,” Vixen said, lips brushing against Courtney’s temple.

“Did you like it?” Courtney asked, fingers dancing up Vixen’s spine.

“...that might be an understatement.”

“Yeah, it was pretty...amazing,” Courtney giggled, nodding, catching her gaze. Her brown eyes shone softly in the dim light. “I love you so much.”

“Me too, baby.”

[wetookanoath]

personal struggles, the fate of this and other blogs and apologies.

This year so far has been strange and not good for me and this blog. Some of you know my long history with hate in this fandom and while it’s always nice to hear your kind words, the hate I get is every day worse to the point I had to take off the anonymous option on this blog, my personal, the Library, the writing events and even the damn porn blog.

A few months ago I said I was gonna delete all blogs, and as promised I also deleted my twitter account, passed the instagram account to someone else (who hasn’t done anything with it yet), deleted other b*zzf*ed related blogs I ran, and left others I helped in.

I answered to every and all asks on this blog and the porn blog (most asks now on queue or drafts, waiting to be posted slowly to not spam), finished the event that didn’t went as good as it seemed and passed the administration of the Library to my personal account to never left it die down.

During this time, something happened in my personal life and I found myself in a very dark place I never thought I would go back to after it happened to me many years ago. But it did, and I had to dealt with it all over again, but this time there was a difference, this time I knew were to start and it helped me because I was able to ask for what I needed and get help.

I’m on meds again. I’m not proud of it and it... makes me angry that I’m ashamed to admit it. I’m making less money, lost a person, stopped writing, entered a rehab therapy for two weeks for depression (I didn’t tell anyone but my family, which won me a very long fight with my best friend and two of my best friends online), ended in the hospital last month. 

That long period I spent away from this blog, forgetting to answer replies I got e-mails for and the days of check-in and whatnot for the Exchange, god they were so good even with all that mess going on. I watched and read so many things, even if suffered not writing and other physical things. But I felt good, I really did. Which I think it’s why I was happy to get back here, just to find hate on my inbox yet again (from the same person as always, by the way. This woman really is the saddest person on the planet. Yes, it’s about you. I know you are reading this), and I really thought “why do I keep doing this to myself?”

And then weeks ago I finally realized why. And it’s because I like this show so much. I like the pictures and the stories, the chat group I’m in even if sometimes I feel like they don’t like me, and most important, in spite of all the hate we get here, I love the stories I write for this fandom, and my ship. I’ve never wrote this good, gotten the chance to improve and learn better english too.

I love the writer I am in this fandom and I have wrote so much these past few weeks, and all because I started to write shy*n again. 

So what do I do?

There are days when I forget this blog exists. It’s been so boring, this hiatus and how things have changed, the lack of content makes things dry and easier to forget. I just forget it exists, but then when I get in, it’s fun when there’s no hate. I find it entertaining to go into my blogs and tag everything properly, organize tag pages and make lists of films based on things, make edits, answer old asks I didn’t have time for before.

Since now that anonymous is off I don’t get any asks, I had have the chance to answer in depth so many things I had left behind before, it’s been fun. Like it used to be, January-July of 2018 came again to remind me of how things were before The Change. I enjoyed preparing this blog for my deperture, and I found myself not wanting to go.

My first thought after that revelation? “People is going to hate on me on anonymous for changing my mind”. Isn’t that fucking sad? That I have to condition everything I do so people won’t hate me on anonymous and say horrible things just because I complain bout things, then calm down and change my mind like any other normal person does on a daily basic... on my own, personal blog? 

So, so far, this is what will happen:

The blog reminds, since it’s also kind of an archive for this fandom with how much has been posted that I know it’s resourceful to people for all kinds of things.

Anonymous will perpeturally be off in all my blogs. The Library’s inbox will remain closed.

I’m still going to take my long periods of ignoring this blog, so I’m sorry if you sent me any qs and I don’t answer right away.

It will be on perpetual semi-hiatus, since I will come back once a week to answer things, tag stuff, stock the Library’s queue and the one on this blog.

About the updates, I’m just going to post things I would like to archive myself.

New fanfics/chapters of fics coming every Saturday until I’m done posting everything I wrote these weeks. I’m still writing, so I guess my day of the week to check replies, messages and asks will be on Saturday.

I don’t think I will be around for the new season, not the way I used to. I’m so gonna watch it, but no posts from me anymore. This is a big maybe, since I’m not sure of many things right now, especially with my health as fragile as it is right at the moment.

There’s, so far, 131 original posts on queue. These are: lists that were requested on this blog on such things like all episode Shane called Ryan ‘baby’, personal favorite shyan moments with links (I worked so much in this one, I ended up hating it), etc., edits from many things, included shoots found in old articles and so on, the ongoing ‘fave insta pics’ series of Ryan, Shane, TJ, Sara, Kelsey and the boys in other people’s instagrams, more favorite fanfic edits, and more buzzships edits. Also, a few headcanons, rec lists and solo recs.

Queue will post three posts a day, one original text, one reblog, one original edit. Texts are less than the edits, so when they are over, it will be two edits and one reblog. I will be stocking the queue during my weekly visit, so I don’t know if it will eventually run off original posts or not. 

Library reminds what it is, inbox closed until further notice.

Writing Events is over, though. I’m too tired for that. At least for a long break.

This really all depends on my health and how things are once the show is back. I miss the interaction a lot, so having lost the anonymous option it’s really a big bummer for me, and maybe to the people who did like to interact with me and the blog’s content in a positive way via this option. We’ll see.

And finally, I want to apologize not only for the long of this but for my negative reactions months ago. It was wrong, childish at times and out of character. I didn’t realize I was getting bad, and when I did it had already gotten worse. I can now look at all those desperate posts and see how bad I really was at keeping it together and how desperate I was to be okay. 

While I still believe I didn’t deserve the harassment I was getting, I should had never given onto it and answer back. I shouldn’t. It was not only bad for me, but to the people who followed/follows this blog and engaged into the negativity too. 

I caused that by acting exactly how the hateful people wanted me to, and instead of showing myself as the imperfect human being I am, all people saw was a crying girl asking to be appreciated and loved back. And the reality is that forcing those things to happen won’t make it any better, on the contrary, it makes it worse.

All those times I said, “why does people have to insult me for you to care about me?”, it was because I made it happen. I decided to posts those answers and reply to the hate, and it made people, worried by my answers and the tone of them (yeah, I was pretty suicidal and paranoid, I didn’t realize until recently), send their support. It made it look like that was the case, that I needed to be hurt for people to appreciate me.

But now, I don’t post those things. Had to shut down anonymous asks. And last week I got one ask, just one, of someone saying they love this blog. There was no reason for it, just someone who saw me online and send in their positivity. And it was the best thing in the world, those short words, the best ones.

So yes. My sincere and deepest apologies to everyone, involved or not, for having acted, well, toxic in the past months. Hopefully, it won’t happen again. Meds, no anon and semi-hiatus will make a difference, I hope. And things will be fine.

Thanks for the support, the kindness and the love. And thanks for reading this bible.

Love you,

Nina.

[puckrmn]

Nobody Actually Likes Salads || Peychuck

tagging: @thepuckrmn & @peytonhudson

location: Joe’s

time frame: April 22, lunch

warnings: some light salad bashing (dw i actually like salad sometimes)

This has been the longest Peyton had gone not seeing Puck since they’d started sleeping together. He was becoming such a constant in her life that when he was gone it took everything in her not to reach out, and not to randomly show up in his bedroom the same way he used to show up in hers. But proving to herself and to him that she did believe the best in him meant trusting him when he told her he was doing it for her. That he wasn’t going anywhere. She’d spent the morning in class, and as she walked into Joes she was silently cursing the fact that she didn’t put more effort into her appearance before she took Lexi to school — Mornings were hectic. Jeans and an oversized sweater would have to do. It had been a while since her heart raced like it was right now, and the butterflies in her stomach fluttered somewhere between excitement and nervousness. All their text conversations hadn’t helped the latter. Spotting him at a booth she couldn’t stop herself smiling even if she wanted to, “Hey... You waiting for someone?” She says quietly, sliding in across from him. “I was meant to be meeting a potato, but I don’t see any soooo can I sit here while I wait?”

Puck leaned back in his seat as he watched people walk by the window of the restaurant. A night out with Kitty and still not completely ventilated apartment had him feeling tired and hungover. He chuckled to himself when he realized he was still wearing his sunglasses inside. Pulling them off, he tucked them in the front of his shirt before grabbing a menu off the table. He was looking over his options when he heard a familiar voice in front of him. Looking up, he smiled at his lunch date. “Think you need to get your eyes check because I’m looking extra potato today.” Leaning across the table, he pressed a kiss to her cheek in greeting. He sat back down and took a sip of his soda. “How were your classes? Finals are right around the corner huh?”

“A slightly tired potato maybe?” she teased, smiling softly as he kissed her cheek. There was so much she wanted to say to him, but for a moment she just wanted to look at him. She’d missed that face. Peyton nodded at the question, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Yup, next week. I’m pretty sure I’ve got this now... I dream about flash cards, my entire living room is full of post it notes to remind me of things I need to know, and Lexi has heard so many random facts I’m fairly sure even she could sit my finals for me.” She chuckled, and picked up the menu from the table, twirling it in her fingers. She’d lived in Doveport her whole life, she didn’t really need to see what they had. “How have you been? Besides the turning into a potato thing.” She asked, placing the menu to the side and resting her arms on the table in front of her.

He chuckled as he listened to her, remember how wound up she got before her final exams the previous semester. “You’re gonna kill it. You’re literally the smartest person I know. And you already know everything there is to know about animals. Dr. Peyton Hudson. Has a good ring to it,” he said as he dropped his gaze to look over the menu once more. “I’ve been chill. The studio has been slammed lately. I think I’ve tattooed half the town in the last two weeks. Everyone must be bored or something. Turning into a potato was also fun though. Apartment still smells like weed,” he commented with a shrug. Puck glanced over the menu once more before looking up at Peyton. “I’m thinking the chicken sammie. What about you?”

Dr. Peyton Hudson. With graduation so close and a job offer sitting in her emails, the reality of that title seemed to be closer in reach than ever before. She also wasn’t too proud to admit she liked the way it fell from his lips. “As long as no one asks me for medical advice on a plane, I think I’m pretty excited to be a doctor,” she quips, chewing at the inside of her lip as she listened to him talk about his life. “Yeah, I had a few people come and ask me for ink, but unfortunately with finals I had to send them all your way... you can thank me later.” Peyton joked, looking down at briefly at the menu and nodding. “As lame as it sounds, I think I have to eat a salad... and cheese fries. You know, on the side?” She chuckled. “The nutritional value of one outweighs the other, obviously, and if I don’t eat a vegetable sometime soon, my body may rebel.” She should really make note of that later when it came time to feed Lexi and she has pizza for the third time in five days. When the waitress comes to the table, Peyton ordered politely and handed the menu back to her before turning her gaze back to Puck. There’s silence for a second as she found the words, trying not to ramble for once. “Thank you, Puck... I mean, for the space. I didn’t love it all the time,” she admitted, ducking her head. “But I think I needed it. So, thank you.”

“Oh yea. My biggest tattoo competition in this town. No wonder I was mostly only doing finger letters these past couple of weeks.” Puck shrugged at her lunch choices. “Not judging. Salads can be not boring some times.” He ordered his food when the waitress arrived and asked for a refill on his soda, needing as much caffeine as possible to get through the rest of the day. As a comfortable silence fell over the table, he returned his focus on people watching outside. He was about to point out something funny when he heard her speak up once more. Puck fiddled with his straw wrapper as she thanked him for the space. Shrugging slightly, he glanced up at her. “I was just trying to do what was best for you. It’s obvious that we kinda lost ourselves for a bit there. And if we just kept going like nothing was wrong we would’ve ended up breaking up completely instead of just taking a break. But I’m glad things are working out for you. You found someone to talk to about everything?”

Biting at the inside of her cheek nervously, Peyton nodded. She didn’t need Puck to know everything she’d done over the past couple of weeks to move past what happened with their non-pregnancy, but she needed him to know she was okay. “Yeah... I did,” she mumbles, momentarily distracted when the waitress returns with the soda and the coffee. Coffee was essential pre-exams seeing that sleep was almost non-existent. After quietly thanking her, she brings the hot drink to her lips and lifts her shoulder in tiny shrug. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.” She commented, still looking down at her drink. “I guess I just really wanted it more than I thought I did. The timing was awful, but... it would have been ours. And then I blamed myself... and my body.” Her lips twist and she finally looked up at him with a small smile. “I’m okay though. I know these things happen... I mean, I’m going to be a doctor in a week so it’s basically my job to know the science.” Peyton held the coffee in her hands, wishing she was able to nudge him or touch him somehow. Why are tables so big? “I have missed you though, Puck.” A lot. But bringing too much sappy out at Puck all at once was never a good thing. Unless they were naked. Which, unfortunately, was not the case.

His fingers tapped the side of his glass as he listened to her explain what happened between them. “I know you didn’t mean to hurt me. None of this was or is your fault. Shit happens. Life isn’t fair sometimes. When it’s the right time…it’ll happen. It just wasn’t the right time for us. I’m not going to hold it against you, Peyton,” he said with a shrug. His life had been full of bad luck and shitty situations, so he was unfortunately used to things going wrong for him. He would never blame Peyton for something that was out of his control. His issue was with how she acted towards him after all was said and done. Reaching across the table with both hands, his fingers ran down her forearms slowly before grabbing her hands with his. “I’ve missed you too, Peyton.” He squeezed her hands softly and looked up at her. “I really am glad you’re doing better.”

Peyton shook her head slowly, “That’s not exactly what I meant. I’ve come far enough to know that what happened wasn’t actually my fault. Or anyones. But at the time... I didn’t believe that. I kind of have this bad habit of not asking for help when I need it. So I started to believe that you were seeing me the way I was seeing me. Or I was scared that you were going to? Which don’t worry, I don’t believe anymore, but you were right. I got insecure. I mean, more than the normal occasional Peyton insecure moments, and I took it out on you. So... I didn’t mean to hurt you. I guess I just need you to know that it wasn’t you, it was me. And I’m sorry for making you believe that I don’t think the best in you.” So much for not rambling. She sighed quietly, and lifted her gaze to Puck for a beat. When he leaned forward and ran his finger tips down her arms to her hands, she finally let out the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding since she got here. “Me too,” She murmured, squeezing his hand back tighter than she’d meant to. “That’s all the deep things I had to say today. Oh! and Lexi says hi. She drew on the wall the other day and told me she was tattooing the house, safe to say she also misses you.”

He listened to her ramble away quietly. It was a bummer that she had been struggling for that long and he hadn’t even noticed. Sighing, he squeezed her hands softly. “Hey it’s chill. You can stop apologizing. At some point we gotta like…put this stuff behind us so we can move forward or we’re always going be stuck,” he shrugged. Puck played with her fingers for a moment. Chuckling at her Lexi story, he nodded his head in understanding. “I drew on SO many walls when I was a kid. My mom would whoop my ass every time. She obviously didn’t appreciate my budding artistic talent.” Puck let go of her hands and leaned back as the waiter came by and placed Peyton’s cheese fries on the table between them. “Don’t let Devon know that you’re cheating on his cheese fries.”

“If only she knew you’d grow up to be the second best tattoo artist in the state,” she smiled softly, looking down at their fingers for a moment before the waitress returned. There were two things she wanted right now more than anything: to pass her exams and become a vet, and to not be “stuck” in pause with the person she loves. Oh, and for Lexi to stop using the word ‘fuck’ at school. She chuckled as he spoke, reaching for a cheese fry and placing it in her mouth. “You know I’m terrible at keeping secrets, the likelihood of me blurting it out the next time I see him — which will probably be tonight, because what is cooking? — is incredibly high. I’ll just tell him his are better. Devon is understanding, everything will brie alright.” Peyton didn’t want to push Puck. With him she’d learned that sometimes it’s better for him to do things in his own time and his own way. If keeping things light was what what was needed right now for their whatevership, then she could do just that. “Cheese fry?” She offered, leaning over to hold the fry up to him. “Don’t expect mind blowing.”

“Don’t think about it as keeping a secret…think about it as lying to protect poor little Devon’s feelings.” He couldn’t help but roll his eyes and chuckle at her cheese pun. “You dork,” he commented softly. Puck glanced from her face down to the fry she was offering him. Leaning forward, he grabbed the fry with his mouth, making sure to press his lips to her fingertips before pulling away. He pretended to be deep in thought as he chewed and swallowed the cheese fry. “Devon’s are still better. Maybe it’s because I only call him when I’m drunk or high…but his are just better.” Taking a sip of his soda, he leaned back as the water came by with the rest of their food. “How’s studying going? I heard McKenna came up with a pretty interesting incentive program to help you out,” he said with a smirk.

“Whatever the reason, he knows his cheese fries. I’m not sure how I survived without him for so long,” she chuckled, still feeling her fingertips tingle from where his lips had pressed against them. When the food comes, Peyton looked down at the salad and pushed it around on her plate for a second before take a bite. Next to cheese fries, salads aren’t nearly as exciting. With his next question, Peyton had to swallow quickly to stop herself from choking slightly. “Oh my god,” She murmured, bringing her hands to her face to hide the way her cheeks were blushing underneath them. “Of course she did.” Dropping her hands, she glanced up at him returning the smirk on his lips. “Strip studying. It’s the new and improved studying technique to ensure you ace your finals. Very effective. Wanna take part?”

Puck laughed loudly at her reaction to him knowing about the strip studying shenanigans the girls got into. His kept laughing as her face turned red. Smirking, he took a bite from his chicken sandwich as she calmed down. His smirk grew at her offer to take part. “Mmmm…I dunno. I don’t think I’d look as good in that lingerie as McKenna did. You’d probably wanna do whatever you can do to keep my clothes on,” he joked. Puck took a couple more bites of his food. “You know…I am a little disappointed in you. I mean I’m impressed that you had the will power to see McKenna in that outfit and not rip it off of her…but a little disappointed that you didn’t take advantage of the situation.”

She laughed quietly, biting down hard on her bottom lip and silently urging her cheeks to stop blushing. “You’re right, I’m not sure you could pull off the lingerie she did. It’s your lack of butt, sorry. But I am rather partial to seeing you without clothes on... and it’s all about incentive to get questions right”. With this particular conversation, she momentarily ditched the salad and turned her attention back to the fries. Comfort food also included embarrassment food, right? “Hey! I stripped too when I got answers wrong,” she replied, holding out a defensive finger to Puck. “I mean, it was hard. McKenna is perfect and I will watch her strip any day of the week, but... I guess my body still wants something else. And I’ve become pretty great at making it work by myself until I get it.” She shrugged slightly, cocking her head with a half smile. “How do you know what outfit she was wearing? Do I need to be concerned you’re peeping in my living room windows, Puck Puckerman?”

He nodded his head in agreement to her statement. “No butt would be an issue. I also don’t know if I’d be able to fit the little general in those panties. And accidentally nuttage is not sexy,” he joked before taking a bite out of a french fry. “Okay so both of you were pretty much almost naked and you guys didn’t fuck?? Come on, Hudson. I thought you were better than that.” He raised his eyebrow at her following statement. “Been putting that bottom drawer vibrator to good use?” He ran his hand through his hair as he pictured it for a moment. A laugh from his lips at her accusation. “No no. She pulled a Peyton and wrong number texted me the previews that were meant for you.”

She couldn’t help but roll her eyes at his comment, chuckling softly to herself. This disappointment she could deal with. Peyton was a lot of things, but her heart — and her body, apparently — were both stubbornly loyal. “It’s been moved to the top draw.” She quipped simply, the smirk growing on her lips. “Easier access that way.” Peyton took a few more bites of the salad, now thinking about the pizza she was definitely going to be ordering tonight. “Wow, I’m hurt I never got the previews. But the real thing was better.” Peyton teased, leaning back into the chair and running her fingers through her hair. It was nice to talk to him like this. Sex is nothing short of amazing, but Puck was also one of her best friends before this. And contrary to what a lot of people believe, their whatever ship was more being together than just hot sex. “I may regret the salad.”

“It’s like a minor league player being called up to the majors. Time for his big debut,” he joked. He smirked and pulled out his phone, pulling up the photos that McKenna sent him. “The black looked pretty damn good. But I think she made the right move going with the white,” he said as he slid his phone across the table for her to look at. Grabbing his knife, he cut his chicken sandwich in half. He took the untouched half and placed it on Peyton’s plate. “I won’t tell if you don’t tell. There’s lettuce and tomato on it so it’s like…kinda healthy.” Leaning back in his seat, he popped a couple of fries into his mouth.

She raised a brow as she looked down at the photos, nodding to herself and agreeing in Puck’s assessment. “I can’t argue with that. The white was really hot... Best wrong text you’ve ever received?” She laughed and slid the phone back to Puck across the table. Her eyes widened when half of the sandwich was placed on her plate, and it was yet another thing she wasn’t going to argue with. “It can be our secret,” she muttered, reaching down to take a bite of food that didn’t taste like rabbits food and humming contently as it hits her mouth. “I take back everything I said about wanting to eat healthy. I’ll just stick to running and pacing nervously through my house.” Peyton picked up the coffee cup, holding it firmly between her hands as she let the last couple of sips of caffeine get into her. “Thanks for agreeing to meet with me today,” she said quietly, placing it down and brushing her hair behind her ear. In habit more than anything else.

Puck looked at her and shook his head. “Studying burns a shit ton of calories or something like that. I dunno. I never really studied so I always had to go to the gym,” he joked as he finished the rest of his food. Pushing the plate away from him, he leaned back in his chair and gestured for the check from the passing waiter. “You don’t gotta make it sound like this was pure torture for me. I like seeing you. This wasn’t a business meeting. It was just us hanging out,” he replied. Puck pulled out his wallet to pay for their lunch, giving the waiter his credit card and waving him off before Peyton could try to pay for herself. “Next time we should hang when neither of us have to go back to work or studying.” He thanked the waiter and signed the receipt before pocketing his card. Standing up, he offered her his hand. “Ready to roll?”

Peyton sighed softly, really wishing he didn’t read into everything she said like that. It was just a thank you. She might have been okay, but it seemed like he was still waiting for her to say the wrong thing. “I invited you out to lunch. And I ate half of your food... I really should have paid for lunch,” she pointed out with an eye roll. Accepting his hand, she stood up from the booth and followed him out of the restaurant. “Can we not go this long again without seeing each other?” She asked once outside, reaching her free hand up and brushing her thumb over his cheek gently. “I guess I should go back to studying,” she muttered as she stood to her toes and pressed her lips against his cheek lovingly. “Don’t be a stranger, Puck.”

[myassbrokethefall]

1. Are you thinking about watching The Crown? (I don't remember ever seeing post stuff about it so I assume you haven't yet) I only started it when Helena Bonham Carter was announced as Princess Margaret, she's my fave and I knew I'd want to watch her episodes so I might as well catch up untill those . I liked it much more and I was much more engrossed in it than I thought I would.

2. I find the reactions to Gillian being cast as Thatcher very interesting. Many have focused on the fact that her boyfriend is the writer/creator of the show and that’s why she was cast in it and/or she accepted the role. Then there’s people who don’t want to see her as Thatcher because she was an awful person. That might the reason Gillian was interested on the part, maybe she wants to play a monster, but do I think worrying Thatcher might be whitewashed is a very legit concern.

I’ll probably watch the Gillian parts, eventually. I haven’t watched The Crown. It’s not really the kind of thing I’m super into, I had just made it through Downton Abbey (which I started watching with my sister and had gotten sucked into and then was strapped in for until the end) and I was a bit landed-gentry-of-the-early-20th-century’d out, and in the raw days when we had just found out G was dating Peter I WAS bummed out initially by the whole end-of-the-gillovny-ferris-wheel-ride situation and so I had a bummer association with it. (Plus I got defensive about it when it became apparent that the fandom was dividing into newly minted The Crown stans versus people who thought Peter was a nefarious wife abuser or whatever it is, and I did not want to choose either of those sides and felt like I was being asked to do that to some degree and felt resentful about it. For a while, to be honest, it became impossible for me to even identify my actual feelings about the show The Crown in a vacuum.) I wouldn’t now not watch it for that reason, but now it’s been on for a while and I don’t really wanna catch up on something that is not my thing. I’m just not that into Period Drama. I’m allergic to the Jane Austen and all that kind of stuff. I like historical stuff up to about Elizabeth I times and then it gets more boring for me. If Peter Morgan does an Anglo-Saxon thing next or a thing about the bubonic plague I will watch the hell out of it. 

I’m sure if I did watch it I’d be sucked in as well like I was with Downton. I did get sick of hearing about it, both because Gillian would not shut up about it for months when she got together with Peter, and also Netflix used to offer it to me 45 different ways every time I logged in and it got old. (Netflix has more content now. That is good.) But if none of that had happened I probably still would not have watched it because it’s just not my thing any more than Marvel shit or like, The Bachelor. People are welcome to all of those things and everyone has different tastes. 

(OK, I’m putting the rest of this under a cut because as usual I went on and on, sorry. tl;dr the rest: Gillian in “iconic” roles has gotten real old for me.)

I agree Thatcher being whitewashed is a concern, but honestly I’m sure it’ll be fine and I’m not that concerned about that part of it. I know the show is well-written and I’m sure PM or whoever isn’t going in all ready to make Margaret fricking Thatcher out to be some kind of unsung hero (I hope at least). For me the main eyerolly part of her being Margaret Thatcher is that I have become very sick of Gillian playing “iconic” roles and also “strong women” roles that are like battleaxes/mean bosses. I pretty much hit my capacity for the “icon” ones with American Gods, and like, I love Gillian! You know? Of course she’s amazing and can play anything but…it felt so silly dressing her up as all these people and making her do an impression of them. Like, why? I just don’t get what the appeal of that is. It’s sort of novel and fun when you first see it but then what is the point? The David Bowie one was neat but like…I still didn’t really get it. I feel like her range could have been so much more awesomely showcased if she’d played TYPES of people on TV (we had a whole discussion about this before one time so if I’m stealing someone’s shit I’m sorry), like a sitcom mom, a Real Housewife type, a news anchor, a soap opera lady, a yelly talk show person…the possibilities are ENDLESS and would allow for some ACTINGGGGGGG. But no, Bryan Fuller loves Gillian so much that he wants to make her dress up like Judy Garland. WHATEVER. Anyway. Tangent. (I love BF but that choice was a miss for me. There are hits and there are misses etc.)

Anyway. So when I heard Thatcher I was like UGGHHH. But maybe it won’t be like that. But all this Gillian worship in the past few years, which is awesome, still sometimes frustrates me because this particular flavor of it feels very remote. I haven’t seen The Spy Who I Forget The Title but that’s an example. She’s like, a scary remote icy boss lady that everyone thinks is hot? OK, thanks for your EXTREMELY SURFACE-LEVEL appreciation of GA based on a time that you watched one (1) episode of XF for 10 minutes at 3 am while you were doing your homework 22 years ago. (ETA: I freely admit also that this is a way of looking at/appreciating Gillian that many people do relate to and that I simply do not.) And all the press for that movie is, omg Gillian is so hot I was nervous to meet her. I thought she would be mean and scary but she was nice. Like she’s this visiting deity. It’s cute that people are so impressed by her and I love that (I have that “keep complimenting my baby” tag for a reason), but after a while it’s like, we get it, Gillian Anderson is a celebrity! The other people in the movie are just people I guess but Gillian Anderson is Gillian Anderson, omg! 

And so I also often feel like people just want to put her into these huge roles like dressing her up like a paperdoll because she’s GILLIAN ANDERSON OMG how awesome would it be to see GILLIAN ANDERSON play [whatever]. Not just for the looks, I mean, also to see what she will do with it because she’s awesome. And I’ve just had ENOUGH of this. It’s not that I want to discourage her from going for these big iconic roles; she had obviously dreamed of playing Blanche for a long time and she worked super hard and did a fantastic job. And now she obviously sees something in the AAE role that speaks to her. She should do the roles she’s interested in and of course she should get credit for being awesome and iconic. But I also kinda felt this way when people were like SHE SHOULD PLAY BOND. I think she would be a great Bond, but it would be all the stuff that is boring to me: an iconic role that everyone can’t wait to give to her, a bunch of action, iciness, steeliness, all that stuff that I feel like people are always foisting on her and that she is so much more than (and more interesting than). This BIGGER THAN LIFE thing that people want her to do because GILLIAN ANDERSON!!! IS AN ICON! 

Sex Ed (which we found out that we also have Peter to thank for! So this is not a “Peter is evil” post, thanks) was so WONDERFULLY refreshing in both these regards and I hope hope hope hope hope G gets more roles like that in the future now that everyone knows that she is A DELIGHT. And she can play a fallible weirdo, and be funny, and wear normal-person clothes and not just a pencil skirt and high heels, and just be a random person that lives in a town with all the other people, and have an emotional arc where she’s unsure of herself and a little foolish, and not just be someone that basically is the silent center of everything and everyone’s afraid of her and she just walks around being amazing and intimidating everyone. She’s good at that! It’s great and fine! But that’s not all she is! And when those are the roles she plays I want to be like, how isolating is that? Maybe she likes it? I don’t know. It’s certainly flattering but to me it feels like an extension of people fangirling over her at a con or something. She shows up, she’s interacting with everyone but she’s on this pedestal. 

So, I don’t think the Thatcher thing will be exactly like that, but it’s another role where she dresses up in period clothes with a big stiff wig and does an impression of a well-known person and (I’m guessing) will be steely and untouchable and a mean boss lady. (And if she’s not that will be another concern, the “humanizing Margaret Thatcher” angle.) And everyone will be like, what an ICONIC ROLE for GILLIAN ANDERSON! So, yeah. It’ll be fun to see how it all comes together and I’ll be curious to see how she looks and how she pulls it off and all that stuff. But it’s not a role where I personally am like omg I can’t wait to see Gillian do such a thing. When am I going to get to see her in a pair of jeans working in a gardening shop with a dog or something? I’m sure she could be ICONIC and AMAZING in that role too. 

Anyway, complain complain. It’s a great role and I’m sure it’ll be good for her career. I’m GLAD everyone loves her and that she’s doing so well! I just hope she keeps getting offered more comedy-type stuff too.

Sorry, I pretty much got off track answering your ask here. Oh, and: OF COURSE she got the role partly because Peter is her boyfriend. I mean, that’s a little eyerolly but you know, it happens. I don’t think it’s like how Tori Spelling said she auditioned for Donna in 90210 in disguise wearing an ugly blouse from JC Penney (to quote a very old SNL sketch) and claimed no one knew she was Aaron Spelling’s daughter. Like, they knew. And I don’t think The Crown auditioned Margaret Thatchers and picked Gillian blindly and then Peter Morgan was like “Whaaaaaat, that’s my girlfriend!” and they were like “WHAT?? I HAD NO IDEA” like, obviously she got it partly because she’s Peter’s girlfriend. Pretending otherwise is silly. But people cast their friends/etc all the time. And it’s not like she’s some shitty actress who doesn’t deserve the role. She certainly DESERVES it, and it’s very much along the lines of stuff that people cast her for all the time. 

Anyway. These are just my opinions based very much on my specific tastes, which Gillian is not required to cater to! She will do great in this role and I hope she gets a ton of kudos and maybe even awards attention for it. I’ll mean to watch her parts of it and then knowing me I won’t get around to it as I never have for Great Expectations, the French movie, the Michael Caine movie, Viceroy’s House, the one where she plays Wallis Simpson…etc. 

[icharchivist]

Kind of a weird curiosity. But I remembers years ago when there was talk over what it'd be like if Allen had been a girl instead (I even read a girl!Allen fic about her time with Cross. It was surprisngly good. Probably because it had no shipping =p). For some reason I just start thinking about that topic again and I wonder how Allen and Lavi's dynamic would be? For the most part I don't see most of Allen's dynamics changing at all (except more (more) fanboys. Lol). But then I remembered Lavi -

2 and I think it's been pointed out Lavi treats females a bit differently. He doesn't seem to prank or tease them as much as the males (not that he's the perfect gentleman either. Komui Talks makes me wonder how innocent he actually is XD). Nor give them nicknames. With this is mind I wonder if Lavi would still act the exact same (chaotic prankster. Touchy feely physically. Retaliating over rough housing) or if he'd tone some things down but do other things more (maybe try to be more like a -

3 big brother initially if he kinda of bases off from Lenalee and Komui, w/o the complex, to get closer to a female Allen?). Lol, Idk. This is kind of more of a Lavi meta question since it's been stated Allen's relationship is utterly crucial to Lavi's character. Again, I'd be curious if a dynamic w/girl Allen would be slightly different or the exact same (in a you're an exception. And people bop him more because 'stop picking on a sweet girl' while Allen cackles menacingly from behind).

Oh my this is... interesting to think about.

I think it’s fair to start with... the fact that Allen was originally a girl. Or more- when Hoshino pinched the idea to Shounen Jump she made a one shot with a main character called Robin. Here you can find it. And Robin... was an akuma. A girl in a boy’s body. Long story short, you can read the one shot if you hadn’t yet - but ye that was originally the character we were going with.It’s to argue that it would make a point for Robin planned as a transwoman in those instances.

According to the Gray Arc however, when the series became serialized, her editors were against the idea, because “No one would care if a girl would be crying”. That’s litterally word for word the reasoning. So Hoshino had to scrap it.

and she mentions quickly that it was one of the reasons she had no idea what to do with Allen to start with. He kinda started with him being a revamp of her character. (What I admire a lot with Hoshino is how much Her Vision can be affected by little things? Like how Lenalee became an entiere different person in her head the moment her editors forced her to have her with long hair.)

There’s also the elephant in the room that considering the timeperiod it was originally written. DGM was originally published with some big name shounen, Shounen Jump had some control over some choices, would react to fan backlashes (Lenalee being forced to have her hair long again is among those btw) ect... I mean like I think people may take for granted that for instance, the Alma arc was a complete anomaly when it came out in 2009/2010. That it had like. Major effects on fanbases. I’ve seen so much dudebros yell at this arc while i was thriving my friend. And tbh before the Alma arc DGM was often lurped in the “basic Shounen” category. A lot of people argued about the tropes it had to follow or not, and if this sort of things had any impact on the writting of the manga earlier? I can see how things wouldn’t go smoothly.(The Alma arc rooted out all the bad dudebros i’ve known of though. I don’t even care what people’s reaction nowadays are to it, to me back then, from the experience i got from fandom, it was revolutionary when it came out.)

I’ve stired away sorry, but Lenalee also works better, bc I know Hoshino fought for the Alma’s arc and that her editors didn’t agree with the direction she was taking. But if you read some of the interviews of the Grey Arc specifically, you see that Hoshino was constantly told how to rewrite Lenalee to fit a male audience sort of. Her editor pushed her to have long hair bc “that’s the kind of idol he found cute”, there was a complete backlash when Hoshino managed to cut her hair, the fans supported the editors, Hoshino talks all about it with such a bummer because “her Lenalee” had short hair. (also during that specific interview her editor calls her a moron. Later on she got called very annoying for sassing her editors after they called her dumb when she had a writter block writting the 14th song, and she sassed them asking for help going “since you���re far more intelligent than me-”. And the editor failled hard, Hoshino didn’t even use his writting, and the editor insulted her for being bossy. Needless to say I’ve since then been filled with anger with how the early days of DGM must have been hard on Hoshino).

I’m forced to make this preface because I truly think it would have affected Allen’s writting had he been a woman. 

If i’m optimistic i would like to think that nothing much would change because Allen’s writting kinda transend genders. But If i’m realistic i know it wouldn’t have happened.

As for Lavi specifically (wouh 7 paragraphs in and i’m finally touching the point of this post) the thing is that he also has a soft spot for women. (I mean i personally would argue he describes Dug as “cute” far too much in his novel to be 100% straight but he at least show his attraction to women more easily in the manga). 

And ye he does tend to treat the women differently but he also doesn’t... have a lot of women to be around to. I mean Lenalee whom he respects (and can be worried Komui will kill him if he tries anything), Miranda that he kinda met at the wrong time? He was always so overly serious around her because he was griefing and we didn’t see him with her at all since he got better. Aside then from his occasional crushes, that he does let himself feel, he didn’t really have an opportunity to spend more time with those women.

My point is just that the women he had met don’t help us set up a patern about how he treats them more casually: in term of pranks for exemple. Like in the day-by-day, we only have Lenalee and Miranda, and pranking Lenalee would be really putting a target on him to be murdered by Komui, while I would argue that Miranda’s anxiety (and the circumstances in which Lavi met her) would make him go softer on her. It doesn’t mean we know for sure he wouldn’t tease a woman in his peer surrounding in others circumstances.

I would love to think he would make an exception for Allen if only because of the timing: He was still handling Dug’s recent death and I think even if Allen was a woman the parallelisms would be there for him to be bitter. 

I want to think that because of that Lavi would still have teased Allen normally like he teases guys. But it’s not impossible that he would have treated Allen differently.

I think eventually like... If Lavi recognizes his soft spot for women (that it is with his strikes and whatever) he might actually be more ready to keep a guard up around them? Like I personally think he has a major soft spot for Lenalee but it took eventually Allen shaking everything up for him to acknowledge this soft spot. That he would have otherwise just protected himself against.

That, the reason our Allen was so effective was that Lavi really, really didn’t expect anything like that. and I think expectations would have been his doom, and I am inclined to think if allen had been a woman, he would have had some expecations.

Regardless: The major plot points that changed Lavi’s mind on Allen were emotionally driven and would still have had the same impact had Allen be a girl, i’m convinced of that. 

So it’s only on how he would treat that Allen more casually. And tbh... considering how vicious Allen can be, I feel like if Lavi treated her “more softly”, Allen’s reactions would probably have ended up with Lavi going “nevermind she’s a prick” and tease her just like he teases our Allen. I mean just taking the Vampire’s arc, with a whole joke about when Allen got bitten and that Lavi was lowkey scared because of that that Allen would turn into a vampire- in the term of, Allen being a danger to him. And Allen therefore sassing him because Lavi was being a moron. I don’t see how the gender would have changed anything, and if Lavi did treat Allen softly “as a girl”, I think this sort of things would have stopped him dead in his track as in “ye no she’s a PRINK where is my sharpy i’m gonna draw on her face.”

But that’s wishful thinking. I honestly don’t know and I think a lot of this post is more how i’m tryng to reason it. 

I’m sure more people would be more able to pinpoint exactly the characters and how it would work. I think i can’t ignore what went down backstage in term of the women’s writtings  so i cannot help but let it affect how I would see the manga as written by Hoshino be affected by it. But also perhaps if Hoshino had managed to keep her female main character, she could have gone more “fuck you” to her editors and manage to flesh her out to a point where half of what i’m worrying about wouldn’t even matter. 

If we divorce the story from the backstage stuff, perhaps there would be a complete different take to have - and it’s cool if people get to explore it. I am just... not the one placed for that.

I used to be good at transformative media, like headcanons and fics, and let those a little take over, but I got kinda insecure of my interpretations so i started to rely on canon a lot more. I already get insecure when I push my interpretations of canon too far. So something that really get me out of my comfort zone is not where you’d find the best answers about that, i’m sorry. 

But hey i hope this ask made sense? If not for the second half, at least for the half where I mention the backstages issues.

Take care!

[unfolded73]

Helloooo, thiiis is the Ghost of Fics Paaaast~ 👻 Ignore the pressures of updating and writing problems for a moment and relive some of your past creations. Share with your followers: one story you are particularly proud of and why, one story that you wish had gotten more attention, and one story that you feel a more personal connection with. If none of these ideas strikes you, just share whichever fics you choose! Don't forget to share links!

Sorry I didn’t have time to answer this yesterday, ghostly anon. I’m in a weird transition period when it comes to fic right now - after a couple of years of high productivity in the ouat fandom, which followed (after a multi-year drought) a couple of years of high productivity in the doctor who fandom, I now don’t know what to identify with. What significance do my 2 guardians of the galaxy fics or my one new 13th doctor fic hold? Will anything grab my attention sufficiently in the future to inspire me to write like this again? (As you can see, I’m incapable of ignoring the pressures of writing problems.)

Anyway, here’s wonderwall:

One story I am particularly proud of:

I’m proud of a lot of them. But I’ve been thinking about the ramifications of ouat s5 again lately, so I’m gonna say The Author here. Captain Cobra still makes me weak because of what it meant for Killian to be a proper stepparent after the way he screwed things up with Baelfire. And having recently reread this fic, I still think I captured teen emotions pretty well.

One story that I wish had gotten more attention:

The fandom splintered and shrank in the final year of the show, and that’s completely normal and natural. Because of that but probably more because the topic is a total bummer, Enough of Feeling Like This about Killian’s alcoholism didn’t get very many notes. But I’m pretty proud of it nonetheless. (Hmm, another fic about parenting a teenager, I’m noticing a pattern...)

One story that I feel a personal connection with:

To round out the parenting hat trick, I’m gonna go with the duology of The Swans in the Evening and Six Weeks here. (Cheating a little on the one story thing, but whatever.) I mean, I just totally ripped stuff from my own memories of the early days of having a baby and slapped it down on the page for these fics. The Swans in the Evening was so personal that I felt a little sick to my stomach posting it. 

(Is the fact that I just saw my older kid off on a 10-day trip to France the reason I picked these fics today? All signs point to yes.)

[oldnintendonerd]

Tis the season... to be hunting

Aw yes! Here we are folks. Yard sale season. You know what that means. Actual finds. Spring cleaning has come and gone! People are now having Yard Sales, and donating to thrift stores. We are already chock full for this post, so sit back and relax, I have pictures of everything, and it is a long one.

First up is Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for Playstation - Found 2018.04.20 at Goodwill

I have never played this game, and have no intention of playing this game. Hate to start out o a bit of a negative note, but Harry Potter is of no interest to me. It was $0.99, so with tax, $1.06 out the door. Strictly resale bait. Anything I can sell for about seven to eight times what I paid for it, I’ll always pick it up.

Next up, you are witnessing the very first yard sale I was able to get to this season. It was literally within walking distance of my house. I happened to see the sign on the way out to get breakfast on the morning of April 21st. It was so convenient I really had no thoughts of actually finding anything. But of course I stopped anyway and lo and behold... three very nice condition PS2 games. Nothing earth shattering, but I’ve been wanting to try the Ratchet and Clank games for a while. Now is my chance.

Ratchet and Clank - PS2 - Found on 2018.04.21 at a yard sale

As you can see from the masking tape price tag, it was only $0.50. Those are my kinds of prices, especially for clean, well taken care of games. It is complete and in great condition.

It has instructions/poster. Which are in A condition, as well as a solid A disc, and A case. I will be looking forward to checking out this game in the near future. Not sure when, but soon. Especially since the lot came with an additional Ratchet and Clank game...

Ratchet and Clank Going Commando - PS2 - Found on 2018.04.21 at a yard sale

Another one in pristine condition for being as old as it is. Same ratings accross the board as it’s prequel. Could not ask for much more. Solid games for a very good price at this sale.

Once again, just minty fresh, and complete with instructions/poster. Definitely going in the collection, right along with Ratchet and Clank.

The third one they had may go in a bundle or be trade bait, I am not a big Star Wars, or Lego movie/game fan, don’t get me wrong, I love Legos. I just always thought the games and movies were hoakie and kinda blah. But, for $0.50, its hard to really pass up any title. I may have bought freakin Madden games for that price just to have extra cases or bundle fodder.

Lego Star Wars The Video Game - PS2 - Found on 2018.04.21 at a yard sale

Once again, just immaculate condition. A’s accross the board. There were kids at the sale, but I cannot imagine this was ever handled by them, I have a feeling the homeowner was also the PS2 owner. There were no other games or consoles out. Which is strange. Who puts out just three PS2 games. However, being the first sale, and so dumbstruck was I that I even found something, I broke my very first rule. I forgot to ask about more games. So I’m not sure if they would have had any more, or be willing to part with them if they had. Dropped the ball there, it won’t happen again.

An item that is a little off topic from the usual blog content, I also picked up a really nice Sony dual tape deck for $1 at the same sale, it says “turns on but won’t play”,  I immediately figured it needed belts. I opened it up and it does in fact need belts. They are snapped and gooey, wrapped around the flywheels and gears. I have ordered a set and I can’t wait to get those in and fix it up, and listen to all my old cassettes. Maybe even turn a few of them into MP3. Not traditional music Cassettes, these are recording I made when I was a kid, and even live concerts i recorded off of the radio back in the early 90′s. Can’t replace those. So backing up to digital would be very nice.

Well. Since that is not related to the normal content of this blog we’ll just stop talking about that one right there. Though if you don’t mind seeing a few things here and there outside of gaming for finds, I’m happy to toss one in here and there. Leave a comment if you feel one way or the other on that topic. Here is a pickup recap photo with the tape deck in it for fun anyway.

Moving quickly on, or this will be a mile long and you will be here all day reading this post. I think it may get to be a mile long anyway. Sorry about that.

A couple days later I popped back into a Goodwill and found a game I never could get to play on any of my machines at the time it came out. I think I had a demo, and it absolutely destroyed both my rigs at the time. It was unplayable. It is old enough to be on 5 CD ROM discs, no DVD ROMs here! In a nice condition double disc jewel case I found...

Far Cry - PC - Found 2018.04.23 at Goodwill

I picked it up and thought, there has to be a missing disc, or they are all scratched to hell. But nope, every disc was accounted for, and they were in immaculate condition. Ubisoft releases patches for their older games, and after a quick Google search in the store, it appears there is one that will allow this to work on Windows 10. So I bought it. $1.06 out the door from the CD bin. I haven’t tried it yet, and even if it doesn’t work, that’s a cool piece to have.

Next up is another one I had a long time ago, not valuable or rare or anything, but was a good game that I enjoyed playing in the early 2000′s.

Fable - XBox - Found 2018.05.03 at Goodwill

This was in a little rougher condition than I’d have liked, but it might still play. See the scratches on the disc below.

Worst case I can get it resurfaced for like $2. The scratches do not have a “catch” to them when you run your fingernail over them, which is a good sign. They will likely buff right out and it’ll be good as new. Unfortunately that would put it up to a total cost of $5.21 since this guy cost $3.21, and with a value at only $7.36 it doesn’t really make it much of a bargain. But I can live with that if it is added to my collection in working order.

Still a couple bucks under retail, and if I’m lucky, I won’t have to resurface it, making it even closer to a bargain at about half price. So disc is about a C. The case has a small crack, placing it at about a C+, and there is some wear on the manual. The manual though is not falling apart so it stays in the B’s with a B-. Some days later I found a minty “Platinum Hits” edition of Fable at another Goodwill, but the case was empty. I took it to the counter to ask if I could have the case, and they said no, unless I wanted to pay $3 for it. Bummer.

I don’t know why all of a sudden most of the Goodwills in the area are keeping people from taking empty cases. The one closest to my house still lets me take them if I get the right employee/manager on at the time, but the others still won’t let me take them without paying at least a little bit for them. At least they don’t want full price. Maybe they are getting a good deal on recycle material or something. It’s irritating though, glad I got the cases I did throughout last year while I had the chance.

Anyway, moving on.

This was actually the same store and trip that I found the empty Fable case. The game section had close to zero games in it, and I was about to leave (and see if the cashier would give me the Fable case) when I decided to eyeball the toy section in case some controllers or other accessories got tossed over there. For some reason three PS2 games were sitting on the shelf. Two of them were of no interest and were not valuable enough to even buy at $3. But, this one I was interested in playing. I had Defender of the Future on the Dreamcast a LONG time ago. That version is a lot more valuable than this one now of course. By about double, but if it is the same game, I’m in.

Ecco The Dolphin Defender of the Future - PS2 - Found 2018.05.06 at Goodwill

Another very good condition case and disc. Id put the case at an A-, you can see some wear on the outer plastic. Disc is a solid A, as is the manual.

I was always mesmerized playing this game on the DC, how fluid, and realistic the movements of the dolphin were through the water. If this one is as good as the DC, and plays the same, it will stay in the collection as well.

Side bonus to this one, the clerk only charged me the DVD price of $1.99, instead of the video game price of $2.99. Score! I’ll take any small discounts I can get. That $1 could be a GameCube game at a yard sale or something.

The very next day I wound up at another Goodwill and noticed a Wii bundle in the showcase. It was marked $49.99. I noticed there wasn’t a power cable, video cable, or sensor bar sitting with it, which was making me start to shy away from it. It did have several games with it, along with a first party Classic Controller, which I could use, I don’t have one, and have been on the look out for one. Additionally it had two first party nunchucks. I need nunchucks, I only have one first party nunchuck. As far as stuff that did not help the value, there was a Wii balance Board and it also had two third party controllers with it. Which were junk. Additionally it was missing flaps. So I felt at the top end, I was willing to pay maybe $25. The store manager noticed me looking at it and immediately apologized for there not being a sensor bar, power or AV cables with it. He said he usually tries to get them complete before they are put out, he wasn’t sure why this one was out, and it was definitely priced as though it was complete, so he dropped the price to $30 right there. Okay, now we are getting somewhere, but another $5 off would be better.

I said thank you, I appreciate that, that does compensate mostly for the missing cables, though I have a couple other concerns. The GameCube controller port covers are missing, and the two Wiimote controllers it has are absolute junk. How about $25? He didn’t even think about it, he immediately said yes, and dug it out of the showcase to bring it over to the register for me. I wish I’d offered $20 first now. Worst case he comes back with $25 and we end up there anyway.

Wii Bundle - Found 2018.05.07 at Goodwill

I looked closer at the games while he ran around behind the counter for a few moments, then helped a couple other employees with something, and they are all in extremely good condition. Of the games in the bundle, I am interested in adding Mario Galaxy, Donkey Kong Country Returns, and Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz to my collection. So I will do close ups on those below. The rest are in almost as good condition and I’d like to sell off as a bundle, and get close to or more than I paid here for it. Sonic was in the DVD / Games bin and cost an additional $3.21 to get that as it was obviously not part of the Wii bundle. It was also in immaculate condition. So I couldn’t pass it by. I included it in the picture because it was all the same purchase. As he was ringing me up, and because he was so eager to get me going, I almost thought maybe he knew something was wrong with it. But when tested, it booted right up and reads discs OK. Likely it was just busy in there and he was looking to get the transaction taken care of and me on my way.

As for the games themselves, well, have a gander.

Sonic Mega Collection Plus - PS2

I have been playing Sonic games almost as long as Mario games. Maybe less by perhaps 4 or 5 years. While not as near and dear to my heart, I do hold them up as quality games. I owned a Genesis/32X/Sega CD monstrosity for a number of years and played Sonic 2, Sonic CD, and Knuckles Chaotix a lot in my later teen years. I also had a Game Gear with a Sonic game, and this title proclaims to have Game Gear titles on it as well. So I’m looking forward to that.

Super Mario Galaxy - Wii

What can I say about this find? Freaking. Perfect. Condition. Perfect. Like someone took the cellophane off, and brought it to Goodwill. So crispy. I absolutely LOVE finding games in this condition. It is nearly flawless. Close to crystal clear outer art sleeve.

Manual is an solid A, one tiny dent there in the lower right-ish corner prevented the A+, but otherwise looks like its never even been touched. So happy to have this one in the collection finally. I never owned it, even having owned a Wii since at least 2008, I’ve never played it until recently. Looking forward to giving it a proper spin.

Donkey Kong Country Returns - Wii

Wow. Just. Wow. Immaculate. It astounds me that something this old can be in this good of condition coming into a Goodwill. This game was released when? November 2010 according to Wikipedia. So it could be anywhere from roughly six to eight years old or so depending on when this copy was actually manufactured and bought. This belonged to someone who either didn’t care at all, or hated the game the first time it was played, set it on a shelf and it was forgotten until donated, or it was loved and well taken care of. Considering it was donated, I’m going to wager a guess on the former scenario as the most likely.

The crispiest of manuals. A+. Just look at that. Did anyone EVER play either of these games!? I love it. Disc is A+, not a mark on it, flawless. Case is a solid A as well, very clear jacket, no dings, dents, cracks or chips.

The game itself to play is quite good as well, good play control, the visuals are on par with the DKC series, and is updated into the “New Super Mario Bros Wii” style, by rendering everything then fixing the camera in position to create a side scrolling platformer that can be smoothly zoomed in and out, as well as create pseudo parallax scrolling by placing layers of rendered backgrounds behind the area in which you are playing. Backgrounds become the play field in this game as well. I’m enjoying it so far.

I dig this game a great deal, and will also be giving this a proper play through sooner than later.

The condition of most of these finds this month has been stellar so far. Super crispy and clean games. The exception to this is the following game.

Super monkey Ball Banana Blitz - Wii

Really good shape for the most part though, the only blemish on this game is the sticker. GAH! At least we can get that off of there with relative ease, the blog post from a while back I did shows my technique for this. It is very effective and uses nothing more than a damp cloth and packing tape. No goo gone required. So case is an A-. I do however, find the two stickers inside to be rather amusing. They appear to be actual Chiquita banana stickers, with Monkey Ball characters on them, so I think those will stay. It adds to it in my opinion. Manual is A+, very crispy. Disc is a solid A as well.

This game isn’t great because of the controls in my opinion. I much prefer the GameCube games, but my son is a big fan of the series and played the original and the second one on our Wii with a GameCube controller pretty regularly. He has tried this one, and was not as thrilled with it because he cannot use the controller easily, it is all motion/tilt control. But I can see him trying again when he understands the control better. Hes still only three, he will pick it up I’m sure.

Side tangent for a second, does anyone else hate certain games on the Wii because of the controller options? Or rather, severe lack there of? Taking a series like Monkey Ball, or Metroid Prime, that originated on the GameCube, and then make it so you HAVE to use a control scheme that incorporates the new Wiimote motion control. It infuriates me. How hard would it have been to allow fans of the series that played the games on the GameCube to plug in their favorite controller, and seamlessly pick up the game using the same control scheme they know and love. It was simply left out of the game entirely. A big middle finger from Nintendo. Nope, you have to use our new way, we innovated this new motion control platform, and we are going to force you to use it in EVERY game. Plugging in a GameCube controller to a game series that is a continuation FROM THE GAMECUBE should at least be an OPTION. Another example, a game like Twilight Princess, where it was actually a GameCube game ported to the Wii. Not just a series continued from the GameCube. But an actual GameCube game. The original control scheme with a GameCube controller should be an OPTION. But it isn’t. They even mirrored the entire game just so Link would carry the sword in his right hand to match up with 99% of people’s “sword hand”. Really? Oi.

Speaking of Zelda...

*grumble grumble*

Moving on.

To round out this month’s finds I have two more to go. First is a small find from Goodwill. A single game, but, it is on a system that I just do not see games for in Goodwills around here. Gamecube. Nothing spectacular by any stretch, but I had to grab it considering it was GameCube.

Medal of Honor Frontline - GameCube - Found 2018.05.09 at Goodwill

Relatively good shape, I’d give the case a B. Manual is an A, very crispy. Disc is a solid B, a few light scratches, but no question it will play. It will go in the collection for now, but might not stay forever, FPS games and I do not generally get along on consoles.

Still happy to get it, of course it ran the standard $3.21, it only weighs in at a little over $5 on pricecharting though. Oh well. A GameCube game is a GameCube game these days.

Last but certainly not least, my final yard sale find of the month is a Glacier Game Boy Advance, with Pokemon Red version included.

Game Boy Advance with Pokemon Red - found 2018.05.11 at a yard sale.

I’ve only ever owned an original Game Boy DMG-01. I played Tetris, Revenge of the Gator, Metroid II, TMNT, Mega Man, Super Mario Land and other games for hours as a kid growing up in the late 80′s and early 90′s. The GBA was released after I’d become an adult, and portable gaming was lower on my priority list at that time. I was doing less riding in cars on road trips because I was now the driver on road trips. I had a girlfriend/wife or friends to talk to on those trips in any case, so even if I wasn’t driving, it wasn’t like I was bored off my ass in the back seat while we drove to another family vacation. Or sitting in school or something. I had a job. Way less free time.

So, having never owned some of them when they were new, I am down to get my hands on a few of these portables at this point. If nothing else, I can give them to my son to play with on some family road trips!

I saw this one in a picture in a Cragslist ad, the person’s ad for the Sale had photos. It was on a table along with a TI-84 Plus and an Apple TV. No price tags were on any of it in the photos. I’d hoped to get all three for a steal, and flip the Apple TV and calculator for a profit to help fund the collection. My hope was about $10 for the Apple TV, $15 for the Calculator at most, and perhaps $10 for the GBA. I arrived at the sale only a minute or two after it was scheduled to start. Of course there was already a swarm of people and I thought “damn, I’m sure it’s gone by now.” However it was not gone, as you can see from the picture, marked at $20. Double what I was hoping for. Probably why it was in still there. A glacier GBA is only worth about $25 according to Pricecharting, and I would also assume that price assumes the battery cover is present. This one does not include the battery cover. So I asked the guy if the price was flexible. He said he could go $15. I pointed out it was missing the battery cover and that I was hoping for $10. He said he hadn’t noticed the battery cover, and in that case he could go as low as $12. Knowing Pokemon Red had to be at least a ten dollar bill, I bought it.

As you can see it works fine. I figure this could also be a unit I will take thrifting with me to test GB, GBC, and GBA games right in the store before buying them. Will be handy.

Incidentally the TI-84 was marked at $40, they are only worth about $50 to $60, and this one was a little rough. The Apple TV was marked at $30. But only worth $40 to $50. If I could have gotten them for the prices I was hoping for, I may have picked them up, but given the price he wanted for the GBA, I don’t think I could get him that low, so I didn’t bother even making an offer. The only item I was really after was the GBA, and I think I got a good enough deal on that.

That wraps this post up for a little more than about the last month of hunting. A lot of stuff this time around, the season is just starting to hit stride. Hopefully this continues. The finds have already been fairly good.

So now down to the official business. We had $57.46 at the end of the last posting.

Harry Potter was $1.06, that takes us to $56.40. Ratchet and Clank, Ratchet and Clank Going Commando, and Lego Star Wars were 50 cents each, taking us to $54.90.

Then we found Far Cry, another $1.06 takes us to $53.84, and Fable at $3.21 takes us to $50.36. Ecco the Dolphin Defender of the Future was only $2.13, but that still drops us to $48.50.

That takes care of most of the one off stuff and brings us to the Wii bundle with Sonic Mega Collection Plus. All of it was $30.08 out the door. A little ouch compared to what we have available for funds. But a good deal for what I got. That shrunk the total to $18.42. But it was worth it, those games were in stunning condition. Plus, I should be able to eventually make back every penny on the leftovers. Assuming I'll run across some cables at some point. A Wii bundle with the games that were left, the Wii Fit Board, the controllers, nunchucks, and all the cables should fetch at least $30 - $40.

The last one off game was Medal of Honor Frontline for the GameCube. It ran $3.21. Taking us down to $15.21. Only just enough to bring home the last item, the Glacier Game Boy Advance with Pokemon Red Edition. That $12 brings us down to what I believe is a record low. $3.21.

Ironically, just enough money to buy ONE game at a Goodwill without going negative if one turns up.

Not to fret though, I have a small pile of items I will be listing very directly, which should refill our till so we can move into peak Yard Sale season fully armed.

Slated to hit eBay soon are: Pokemon Red Sealed copy of Wii Fit Plus Sealed copy of Wii Play A copy of Dragonball Revenge of King Piccolo The Lot of 007 Games from last post.

I might list the entire 007 lot for something between $12.99 and $17.99 buy it now with free shipping. I feel like that should move fairly quick, but we'll have to see what's going for what price as I'm listing it all to really choose final pricing.

That’s all for now, happy hunting to my few readers! I love you all.

2018.06.02

[hoodie-at-the-bar]

and as soon as possible, it ended

Steven said ASAP a lot, especially when dealing with getting back to me. After the movie night we still texted daily. I knew his birthday was coming up on the 23rd, and I had mentioned to him I’d love to take him out for his birthday. I mentioned it a few times.

He was always saying things like, “Aw thank you! that’s so sweet -” but then would never follow up with a commitment, of yes he was free for me to take him out. At one point, I felt I was being fairly clingy asking him constantly, if he was free or if he knew what he was doing. He wasn’t sure, but he’d get back to me ASAP.

The day before his birthday, he finally said his dad was coming up to stay with him but that he’d get back to me ASAP. At this point i had to call the lifeline - this was just too weird. Is he blowing me off?

I finally pulled the trigger and asked Loren what she thought. She said and admitted he was a bad communicator, that he actually had no plans and last minute asked Blaine and the guys if they wanted to hang out and have dinner. Ok that’s fine - maybe he just didn’t want to confirm with a girl he barely knew, but wanted to keep his options open. I love a guy who likes keeping his options open. 

Then I saw on his Snapchat he had a few friends over, and I overheard a girl's voice. Was it his friends’ girlfriend or a girl he was into? I became that girl who was uncertain and started going down the rabbit hole of a story I created: he didn’t confirm because that day was for girlfriend #7. The bummer part is, in most of my experience when your radar goes off (via photos of your guy standing a little too close to some girl or the sound of a girl’s voice) - it often means something’s up.

I tried to keep a distance and only texted “Happy Birthday” or “Hope you have a great day!” type messages. His birthday was on a Tuesday so I waited until Thursday before reaching out. I asked him what he did for his birthday and he said it was “chill”, and that he just “had dinner with his dad and played golf”. Why omit the truth that he had dinner w/ Blaine and friends? Was there more to hide? it just seemed odd with how he didn’t mention hanging out with his friends, knowing I’m friends with Blaine and can see his Snaps. Spidey senses went off.

The second time ASAP was in full effect was the camping trip we casually planned. Back in June when I was in Key West, I told him we should go RV camping sometime. Yes, just he and I: I had plans for us. He said he had a EDM musical festival at the end of July, so the first weekend in August he was free. Cool - as we get closer we can figure out if we want to do Friday to Sunday or just one night. 

Before his birthday I had asked him if he got the day off, he said he forgot and he would ask his boss. When I texted him that Friday morning after his birthday before his weekend at the Gorge, I asked him again if he had scheduled the day off. He said no, but told me we should still go so “reserve the date” - okay that was something. I got a bit concerned that the camping weekend was just a week away, and he would be at this music festival for the next 4 days. He said he couldn't request it off until he gets back to the office on Thursday, which was 24 hours prior to the trip.

What? He gets back on Monday, and has Tuesday and Wednesday off - he can’t ask then? He has to wait until he’s physically in? If he really wanted to go camping with me, or knew how to problem solve, he would just go in on the day after he returned, but maybe that’s just me.

“Oh dang it I forgot to ask. I’ll have to ask when I get back on Thursday.”

“Damn! Think they’d let you off so close to the ask? The Motorhome sales world is foreign to me”.

“Yeah it all depends on how much I’m selling really. If I’m selling a lot they don’t really care.”

Ok, so… do you think they’ll care? It’s Friday bro, you are going to wait six days before asking if you can have the following day off? Can you at least guess the chances of your boss approving? I grew tired of this game. 

“Snap - then good work on all your selling.”

“Ha, thank you!”

“Have fun at the Gorge this week. Drunk texts welcome”

I was being too nice and supportive and just kept thinking: you’re not his girlfriend, you don’t have the right to dig in to get him to commit to camping. I didn’t want to come off as a nag offering a solution for every sentence he made, especially over text. Most people are not that direct so it can be taken as abrasive. I tend to continue a conversation until there is a solution, getting creative and asking questions, but often times when a guy doesn’t want to do something and they don't know how to articulate, then they just end up getting frustrated that I keep hounding. Then I thought no, even if he was just a friend, you don’t blow off people or act non-committal, it’s just rude!

At this point I was half annoyed and half bummed that I was feeling ghosted. Saturday night while I was at a birthday party he snapped me “Miss ya”. The “ya” part wasn’t as romantic, but it made me feel a bit better about the anxiety of whether or not he was into me. It all went downhill from there.

Monday: he returned from the Gorge. I didn’t reach out

Tuesday: I texted him welcome back. I also asked how his dad was because he posted something cryptic about his dad’s well being on Instagram . I told Steven I was going to a concert tonight and asked if he wanted to come. He did the usual slew of fake interest, but no action.

“What concert?”

“Oh yeah! That’s cool!!”

“Haha, still famous!”

“Ok will do”

Then finally, 

“I’m feeling super chill today so most likely going to hang out here. But if I’m feeling a little cray I’ll tell ya”

Why? Just tell me you’re out, better yet, before all the “oh cool!” texts. For some reason I kept trying. Now it was just a vendetta to get this guy to say : I’m not into you. I did get him to say “most likely going to hang out here” - it was a carrot to keep me going, to win at him saying something finite. 

“ALSO I know we “may” hang out on Saturday [since he still hasn’t asked for the day off] but you wanna 2x that and do something fun tomorrow?”

“Like what??” 

False excitement, phantom enthusiasm. This reeled me in, I got joy from it, to only realize it was a stalling tactic.

“Discovery Park? Ever been?”

“Uh uh. Is it cool?” 

Was I speaking to a toddler?

“It’s very neat. It’d be a flat hike that leads to fun views and stuff”

“Ooh” 

What. What ooh?

“Anywho, I’m not as pressed about tomorrow as the weekend so you can make game day decisions. I’ll be doing some adult things around the house and relaxing.  (But if something comes up and I’m not free I’ll let you know) - I’m a communicator, it’s a thing.”

Do you see what I did there? I tried to not be overbearing about hanging out on Wednesday, while also letting him know I really needed to know about the weekend. Lastly - let him know what good communication looks like! I had a friend who’s birthday was on Saturday and I had to say I’m not sure if I could go because I ‘may’ be camping? I normally plan more than a month in advance, here I am, three days prior and have no idea. This should have been a clear indicator that Steven and I were not compatible.

“Oh for sure. I will let you know about both ASAP”

I should take a shot every time this kid says ASAP - to be fair, I don’t think he knows what it mean.s

Wednesday came, and I got sassy. It was the end of the workday and I hadn’t heard from Steven if he was up to go on a city hike.

Clearly we seemed like two people who didn’t really feel like hanging out with each other. I wanted to see him, go on a hike to see if I can get to know him better, or even go to his house and have an adult conversation about our communication styles, and how it wasn’t working for me. But being an afterthought to hanging out with him and his friends wasn’t appealing. Again, this would have been a great point to say something to the extent of, “Hey Steven, I wanted to spend time with just us, so I can have a conversation with you about us” - but the thought of it sounded more and more exhausting. I may have a high bar and assume if I ask a guy to hang out, he knows it’s me asking him to hang out together in a date-like fashion. I could be more explicit and say I want to hang out with you and only you because… but then at that point, it’s a compatibility issue for me and someone I need to use 2x more words than I’d like. For Pete’s sake can you just get it? I’ve had conversations with humans who did. There is a limit to explicit communication - and pass that limit is hand holding.

I had told some friends I wanted to ask him what he wanted out of this - figured we had slept together and it was a fair question. My friends reminded me that I myself wasn’t sure what I wanted, or if I even liked him (enough). So, did I need to rush into things? I said no, but the anxiety of not knowing what my plans are was enough for me to raise a flag. He didn’t have to say if he wanted to be together exclusively, but I did need him to communicate better as to whether or not he is committed to hanging out, if we planned to continue progressing.

Thursday came and he texted me about the RV. 

I didn’t want to press. Examples of what a guy would say if he actually wanted to spend time together, in no particular order:

“But we can still go tent camping if you’re down?”

“Sorry i couldn't get the day off. How about we do dinner?”

Something, anything - instead he just sounded whiny about his RV privileges. I didn’t care. I even asked a question that made his text conflicting: His second sentence said no employee can use RV’s, but said his privileges got taken because he broke a window? I was confused if the broken window mattered, or if he piled on the reasons to ensure we couldn’t hang out, the age old “I can’t go out because it’s late, I mean I don’t have any money, I mean I have plans.”. I didn’t even try to solve the problem, I just left it at that.Eight days past, and neither of us texted. I knew I would eventually have to get closure and call it off. Then he messaged:

He kept asking me questions to move the conversation, and I was trying to give short answers because I was annoyed this fake enthusiasm is coming up again. I had invited him to a BBQ at my house a while ago. He RSVP’d during the eight days we hadn’t spoken, but I assumed he wasn’t going to show up. Afterall, he couldn't’ commit to a birthday dinner, a hike at Discovery Park or even camping - why would he show up to a party with just under 100 people he didn’t know?

Then he texts me to see if he could bring a friend. I’ve been in scenarios where a guy brought another girl in daft fashion, but at least Steven did not. It was an older guy who dressed just like him and smelled of axe body spray. My friends thought they were a couple. Steven knew no one at the party and it was awkward.

I felt anxiety during the party because I wasn’t enjoying his presence, but also didn’t want to ignore him - and I was hosting. I felt I had to give him attention, but it reeked of obligation. Weaving through a crowded house, I didn’t know how to introduce him: this is Steven, we were sort of hanging out but now we're not - then he showed up to the party. Who wants a refill??

Why couldn’t I just say “this is Steven?” Because all of my friends knew each other through the parties I hosted, so if anyone is new into the picture, it's very apparent and the details get shared of the origin story - it’s a classic big party ice breaker. This is even more apparent since I haven’t had a boyfriend in eight years, all eyes on deck when an unknown man walks through the door.

A couple hours later, he found me to say goodbye and I apologized for not being around. He said he got it because I was hosting, and he left. Weight was lifted off my chest, and I could finally start to enjoy the party.

Gareth asked me if I thought I was dating down - I always thought due to my attraction to Steven I was dating up, but I didn't know anymore. So Gareth told me to be direct - that neither of us wanted to continue seeing each other. So I texted Steven, in my own writing style, to ensure there were no hard feelings. I didn't hate the guy - I’d be happy to hug him at a party in the future with a smile - but I was done talking to him one on one.

Another eight days went by and I decided to call it off, or give it closure. My first draft was to tell Steven that our style of communication wasn’t working for me but I am open if he thinks I’m wrong for any reason. My therapist told me I should be honest with myself: it wasn’t working, for either of us, period. Gareth, my therapist, said it was clear neither of us wanted to continue spending time together, so call it what it was.

Gareth had also asked me during this time, what it was about Steven I liked, and I had to think about it. I knew a good foundation was the story: I noticed Blaine and Loren’s friend five years ago, I was infatuated, and I got to have him, even if for a little while. His messages always seemed happy, positive and enthusiastic, to only find out he was like that for all things, and had a density I hadn’t realized. He was also Blaine's best friend, and I respected Blaine: Blaine was a solid guy and his wife Loren, wouldn’t tolerate anyone not worth my time. 

I was confused - I gave him a friendly out! I was done! How should I have responded?

If I said no, I’d feel like a dick.

If I said yes, it would appear I was playing games, fishing for him to want to talk to me.

My honest answer would have been, “No not really, but if you need to then I’d be happy to” - but I still didn’t know him enough for that to not come off as hurtful. This is a foreshadow by the way.

So I settled on “Sure” - with a shrug and a circular head motion behind the scenes.

Even Gareth laughed when I told him Steven’s response and didn’t know how to respond to that. Was Steven just trying to be nice? Or did he actually want to talk.

I never heard from Steven... well, for six months.

I found out months and months later from Loren that Steven thought I was mad at him. I laughed and said I purposely put emoji’s in my message and said I’d smile and wave. Can you imagine if I actually wrote “Not really, but if you want to I can” - he would have pissed himself. 

She said he wasn’t used to women who were direct and upfront. Well, I don’t know what to tell you - I was trying hard not to be as direct because I didn’t want to stress the delicate petals of this sensitive flower with my direct sunlight, but even with sunglasses on a smile, the guy thought I was mad. 

Six months after his last message, he sent me a happy birthday text, and I said thank you.  It grew more and more apparent we had different lifestyles, his social media streaming him taking videos of young women in short dresses touching each other at night clubs. I never engaged.

A month later he sent me another message, responding to a post of me cooking.

Again, I was polite and said yes with a smile. I imagine these sporadic messages will come though, but it’ll be treated now as an acquaintance saying hi.

Goodbye Steve

[batterymonster2021]

The Zipf Mystery

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/the-zipf-mystery-4/

The Zipf Mystery

Hi there, Vsauce. Michael right here. About 6 percentage of the whole thing you say and read and write is the "the" – is probably the most used word in the English language. About one out of each 16 phrases we encounter on a day-to-day basis is "the." the top 20 most original English words in order are "the," "of," "and," "to," "a," "in," "is," "I," "that," "it," "for," "you," "used to be," "with," "on," "as," "have," "however," "be," "they." that’s a fun fact. A section of trivialities however additionally it is extra. You see, whether or not essentially the most often used phrases are ranked throughout an whole language, or in only one booklet or article, just about at any time when a weird pattern emerges. The 2d most used phrase will show up about half of as probably as the most used. The third one 1/3 as mostly. The fourth one fourth as traditionally. The fifth one fifth as traditionally. The sixth one sixth as in general, and many others the entire means down. Severely. For some rationale, the quantity of occasions a word is used is just proportional to 1 over its rank.Word frequency and ranking on a log log graph comply with a satisfactory straight line. A energy-law. This phenomenon is known as Zipf’s legislation and it would not most effective follow to English. It additionally applies to different languages, like, good, all of them. Even historical languages we’ve not been competent to translate but. And here’s the thing. We don’t have any idea why. It is stunning that some thing as problematic as reality should be conveyed by way of anything as inventive as language in such a predictable method. How predictable? Good, watch this. Consistent with WordCount.Org, which ranks words as determined in the British countrywide Corpus, "sauce" is the 5,555th most normal English word. Now, here is a list of how regularly each phrase on Wikipedia and within the entire Gutenberg Corpus of tens of hundreds and hundreds of public domain books shows up.Essentially the most used word, ‘the,’ suggests up about 181 million instances. Realizing these two matters, we can estimate that the word "sauce" must appear about thirty thousand occasions on Wikipedia and Gutenberg combined. And it pretty much does. What gives? The sector is chaotic. Things are dispensed in myriad of methods, not simply vigour legal guidelines. And language is private, intentional, idiosyncratic. What about the world and ourselves might rationale such complicated routine and behaviors to follow this type of general rule? We literally do not know. Greater than a century of research has yet to close the case. Moreover, Zipf’s regulation doesn’t simply mysteriously describe phrase use. It is usually located in metropolis populations, sunlight flare intensities, protein sequences and immune receptors, the quantity of site visitors web sites get, earthquake magnitudes, the number of occasions academic papers are noted, last names, the firing patterns of neural networks, parts used in cookbooks, the number of cellphone calls persons obtained, the diameter of Moon craters, the quantity of persons that die in wars, the repute of opening chess strikes, even the price at which we put out of your mind.There are a lot of theories about why language is ‘zipf-y,’ however no firm conclusions and this video doesn’t incorporate a specific clarification both. Sorry, i do know that is a bummer, due to the fact that we show up to like figuring out greater than thriller. However that stated, we also ask greater than we reply. So let’s dive into Zipf’s ramifications, some associated patterns, some feasible explanations and the depth of the mystery itself. Zipf’s law was once popularized with the aid of George Zipf, a linguist at Harvard school. It is a discrete form of the continuous Pareto distribution from which we get the Pareto principle. Considering the fact that so many actual-world methods behave this manner, the Pareto precept tells us that, commonly of thumb, it is valued at assuming that 20% of the factors are dependable for 80% of the end result, like in language, where the most normally used 18 percentage of phrases account for over eighty% of phrase occurrences. In 1896, Vilfredo Pareto showed that approximately 80% of the land in Italy was owned by way of simply twenty percent of the population. It is said that he later observed in his backyard 20 percentage of his pea pods contained eighty percent of the peas. He and different researchers looked at other datasets and found that this eighty-20 imbalance comes up rather a lot on this planet.The richest 20% of humans have 82.7% of the sector’s income. In the U.S., 20% of patients use eighty percent of wellbeing care assets. In 2002, Microsoft said that 80% of the blunders and crashes in windows and workplace are caused by using 20% of the bugs detected. A long-established rule of thumb in the industry world states that 20% of your consumers are responsible for eighty% of your profits and eighty percent of the complaints you obtain will come from 20% of your buyers. A guide titled "The eighty/20 precept" even says that in a home or workplace, 20% of the carpet receives 80 percent of the wear and tear.Oh, and as Woody Allen famously mentioned, "eighty percent of success is just showing up." The Pareto principle is everywhere, which is just right. Via focusing on just 20 percentage of what’s incorrect, which you can mainly anticipate to resolve eighty percentage of the problems. A type of special unrelated factors purpose this to be true from case to case, but if we will get to the backside of what reasons a few of them, maybe we’ll find that one or more of those mechanisms is liable for Zipf’s regulation in language. George Zipf himself notion languages’ intriguing rank frequency distribution was a consequence of the precept of Least Effort. The tendency for life and matters to follow the path of least resistance. Zipf believed it drove so much of human conduct and hypothesized that as language developed in our species, speakers naturally preferred drawing from as few phrases as possible to get their thoughts out there. It was once less difficult.However to be able to fully grasp what was once being mentioned, listeners desired larger vocabularies that gave more specificity, in order that they needed to do much less work. The compromise between listening and speaking, Zipf felt, led to the present state of language. Just a few phrases are used almost always and many many many phrases are used hardly ever. Latest papers have urged that having a few short, probably used, predictable phrases helps dissipate expertise load density on listeners, spacing out main vocab so that the know-how rate is more regular.This makes sense and much has been realized by using making use of the least effort principle to different behaviors, but later researchers argued that for language, the explanation used to be much more easy. Only a few years after Zipf’s seminal paper, Benoit Mandelbrot confirmed that there could also be nothing mysterious about Zipf’s regulation at all, when you consider that although you just randomly type on a keyboard you’re going to produce words disbursed consistent with Zipf’s law. It is a sexy cool point and that is why it occurs. There are exponentially more different lengthy words than quick phrases. For example, the English alphabet can be used to make 26 one letter phrases, but 26 squared 2 letter phrases. Additionally, in random typing, whenever the space bar is pressed a phrase terminates. In view that there may be continuously a unique risk that the gap bar shall be pressed, longer stretches of time before it occurs are exponentially much less probably than shorter ones.The combo of those exponentials is pretty ‘Zipf-y.’ For example, if all 26 letters and the spacebar are equally more likely to be typed, after a letter is typed and a phrase has begun, the probability that the subsequent input will be an area, as a result creating a one letter phrase, is just one in 27. And sure sufficient, in the event you randomly generate characters or rent a proverbial typing monkey, about one out of each 27 or 3.7 percent of the stuff between areas, can be single letters. Two letter words appear when after opening a phrase any personality however the space bar is hit – a 26 in 27 hazard and then the gap bar. A three-letter phrase is the chance of a letter, yet another letter after which an area. If we divide by means of the quantity of particular phrases of each and every length there will also be, we get the frequency of prevalence anticipated for any unique word given its length. For illustration, the letter V will make up about 0.142 percent of random typing. The word "Vsauce" zero.0000000993 percentage. Longer phrases are much less probably, but watch this. Let’s unfold these frequencies out in step with the ranks they’d soak up on a most on the whole used record.There are 26 possible one letter words, so each and every of the top 26 ranked phrases are anticipated to occur about this often. The subsequent 676 ranks can be taken up through two letter phrases that exhibit up about this in general. If we extend each and every frequency according to how many participants it has, we get Zipf. Subsequent researchers have distinct how altering up the initial conditions can smooth the steps out.Our mysterious distribution has been created out of nothing however the inevitabilities of math. So perhaps there is not any thriller. Maybe phrases are just the influence of people randomly segmenting the observable world and the mental world into labels and Zipf’s legislation describes what naturally occurs when you do this. Case closed. And as consistently And as at all times, thanks for… Wait a minute! Actual language may be very different from random typing. Conversation is deterministic to a unique extent. Utterances and topics arrive headquartered on what was mentioned before.And the vocabulary we have got to work with absolutely isn’t the result of in basic terms random naming. For example, the monkey typing mannequin cannot provide an explanation for why even the names of the factors, the planets and the times of the week are utilized in language according to Zipf’s legislation. Sets like these are limited by means of the natural world and they’re now not the effect of us randomly segmenting the arena into labels. Furthermore, when given a list of novel words, phrases they’ve on no account heard or used before, like when caused to write down a story about alien creatures with unusual names, humans will naturally tend to use the title of 1 alien twice as on the whole as one other, three times as regularly as one other… Zipf’s law seems to be developed into our brains. Perhaps there’s something about the way in which ideas and themes of discussion ebb and drift that contributes to Zipf’s legislation.One more means ‘Zipf-ian’ distributions occur is via approaches that change in keeping with how they’ve earlier operated. These are referred to as preferential attachment procedures. They occur when something – money, views, awareness, version, buddies, jobs, anything fairly is given out according to how so much is already possessed. To go back to the carpet example, if most folks stroll from the residing room to the kitchen across a targeted direction, furniture will be placed in other places, making that course even more wellknown. The extra views a video or photograph or put up has, the extra likely it is to get advocated routinely or make the information for having so many views, both of which offer it more views.It’s like a snowball rolling down a snowy hill. The more snow it accumulates, the bigger its floor subject turns into for gathering more and the faster it grows. There doesn’t must be a deliberate option using a preferential attachment procedure. It will probably occur naturally. Do this. Take a bunch of paper clips and take hold of any two at random. Hyperlink them together after which throw them again in the pile. Now, repeat over and over again. If you seize paper clips which can be already a part of a chain, hyperlink ’em anyway. More customarily than no longer after a even as you are going to have a distribution that appears ‘Zipf-ian.’ A small quantity of chains include a disproportionate quantity of the total paperclip rely. That is without problems due to the fact the longer a chain gets, the better proportion of the entire it involves, which gives it a greater risk of being picked up one day and accordingly made even longer.The rich get richer, the tremendous get larger, the popular get popular-er. It is just math. Might be languages’ Zipf mystery is, if now not induced by it, at the least bolstered by means of preferential attachment. Once a word is used, it’s extra probably for use again soon. Critical facets could play a role as well. Writing and conversation in general stick to a subject matter unless a imperative point is reached and the area is changed and the vocabulary shifts. Approaches like these are identified to influence in vigor legal guidelines. So, ultimately, it appears tenable that all these mechanisms could collude to make Zipf’s regulation essentially the most normal means for language to be. Possibly a few of our vocabulary and grammar was once developed randomly, in step with Mandelbrot’s thought. And the natural approach conversation and dialogue comply with preferential attachment and criticality, coupled with the precept of least effort when speakme and listening are all responsible for the connection between phrase rank and frequency.It’s a shame that the answer is not less complicated, nevertheless it’s intriguing on account that of the penalties it has on what communication is made from. Roughly talking, and that is mind blowing, just about half of any publication, conversation or article will be nothing however the same 50 to one hundred words. And nearly the opposite half can be phrases that appear in that selection most effective as soon as. That is now not so stunning when you do not forget the fact that one word accounts for six percentage of what we say.The top 25 most used phrases make up a few 1/3 of everything we are saying and the highest 100 about half of. Significantly. I imply, whether or not it is all of the phrases in "moist scorching American summer," or all the words in Plato’s "whole Works" or within the whole works of Edgar Allan Poe or the Bible itself, best about one hundred words are used for practically 1/2 of the whole lot written or mentioned. In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 44% and in Tom Sawyer 49.Eight% of the designated words used appear only once within the e-book. A phrase that’s used handiest as soon as in a given determination of words is referred to as a ‘hapax legomenon.’ Hapax legomena are vitally primary to understanding languages.If a phrase has handiest been found as soon as in the entire known assortment of an historical language, it can be very intricate to determine what it approach. Now, there’s no corpus of everything ever stated or written in English, however there are very very tremendous collections and it is fun to seek out hapax legomena in them. For illustration, and this frequently will not be the case after I mention it, but the phrase "quizzaciously" is within the Oxford English Dictionary, however seems nowhere on Wikipedia or in the Gutenberg corpus or within the British countrywide Corpus or the American national Corpus, however it does show up when searched in only one outcome on Google. Fittingly, in a guide titled "ElderSpeak" that lists it as a ‘rare word.’ Quizzaciously, by the way, manner "in a mocking method," as in "The paradist rattled off quizzaciously, ‘good day, Vsauce.Michael here. But who’s Michael and how much does right here weigh?’" it can be a bit unhappy that quizzaciously has been used so infrequently. It can be a enjoyable phrase, however that is the way in which matters go in a ‘Zipf-ian’ procedure. Some things get all of the love, some get little. Most of what you expertise on a every day foundation is forgotten, forgettable. The Dictionary of vague Sorrows, as it most commonly does, has a word for this – alright – the realization of how few days are memorable. I have been alive for almost 11,000 days but i couldn’t inform you some thing about every one among them. I mean, not even shut. Most of what we do and see and feel and say and listen to and believe is forgotten at a cost really much like Zipf’s law, which is sensible. If a quantity of factors naturally selected for considering and speakme concerning the world with tools in a ‘Zipf-ian’ way, it is smart we’d remember it that way too. Some things rather well, most things hardly ever at all. Nevertheless it bums me out many times given that it signifies that a lot is forgotten, even things that on the time you idea you might by no means omit.My locker number – senior yr – its combo, the jokes I liked after I saw a comedian on stage, the names of folks I noticed everyday 10 years ago. So many memories are gone. Once I look at the entire books I’ve learn and have an understanding of that I are not able to keep in mind every detail from them, it can be just a little disappointing. I mean, why even bother if the Pareto precept dictates that my ‘Zipf-ian’ mind will consciously don’t forget generally best the titles and some basic reactions years later Ralph Waldo Emerson makes me think better. He as soon as stated, "I can’t don’t forget the books I’ve read any more than the meals i’ve eaten. Then again, they’ve made me." And as always, thanks for gazing. .