#and a phone with one downloaded video I could play on repeat is fine for that. I dont need internet. ANYWAY.. so so sad that my fav

[icewindandboringhorror]

sneeping with his legs up over his head for some reason... weird boye

[ask-cats-are-liquid]

To Celine, some questions. But first want to say I love your blog and deeply appreciate the great work you do for such a small fandom 🤍

Is there a limit to how many asks a m!a can last for? Say for example, would 12 be okay? Or too many?

Can we repeat m!as in the future? For example purple, maybe not for a while, but could we potentially bring them back in the future for a couple more asks?

Do you enjoy horror games?

Are you familiar with any of the following games, if yes which ones: Stardew Valley, Slime Rancher, Undertale, Plants Vs Zombies, Minecraft, Candies n Curses, Divineko, Subnautica, Lethal company

hello, anon! thank you dearly for your kind words ♡^^

i would prefer it doesn't go over 10-15 asks! more than that might get boring for people who don't like the m!a in question. so yes, 12 is fine.

you can repeat m!a's, yes!

i enjoy watching others play horror games, but im unable to play any myself without a friend or the likes pushing me due to my cowardice ^^"

i've seen stardew valley here and there, but never check it out myself.

slime rancher used to be one of my favorite games to watch a playthrough of! in fact, i didn't even know english at the time - i would watch a channel in my native language play it ^^ im unfamiliar with the recent updates, but the original game was lovely to me.

good god, undertale was one of the building blocks for my entire idea of fandom. i had oc's, au's, i had an amino (i know, im sorry) for undertale roleplay and i watched almost everything undertale related i could find. undertale was the reason i got into any sort of fandom or creation! my first art piece i clearly remember being of a character was for my undertale oc. so yes, im familiar.

i watched plants vs zombies a lot when i was younger! i never got too into it, though.

minecraft was also one of the building blocks for my person!! i used to watch it from another channel in my native language when i was really young, in fact i watched nothing else for a while.

im not familiar with candies n curses ^^"

divineko is an app i currently have on my phone! it's really cute - it's convenient that the timing of this ask happened to be just about a week after i downloaded it.

i've only heard of subnautica.

i've watched a few videos of lethal company gameplays! sadly i didn't get too deep into it.

[samkiszkasrealgf]

electric love.

request: none

paring: jj maybank x fem!reader

summary: y/n and jj have been best friends ever since the fourth grade. after creating a tiktok account as a dare, y/n decides to recreate the trend where you try to kiss your best friend/crush and see what they do.

warnings: TEETH ROTTING FLUFF. probably the cutest thing i’ve ever written <3 i’m hoping to GOD no one has done this with jj yet lmao

it had been nearing 8 pm. the pogues: jj, john b., kiara, pope, and y/n had decided they wanted to lay low after the events of earlier that day (finding the grady-white & sneaking into the motel) by hosting yet another kegger out on the beach. so, there they were; at the beach surrounded by the usual crowd of kooks, other pogues, and tourons.

however, y/n, who was almost always the life of the party, wasn’t really feeling it that particular night. she assumed she might’ve just been jittery from the crazy day her and her friends just had. after her first two solo cups of beer, y/n had decided to separate herself from the rest of her fellow partygoers & friends, making her way to the water just to get some air for a few minutes.

as the waves crashed against the shore, y/n tugged her ripped jean shorts off of her waist and let them drop to her ankles, leaving her in just a bikini top and bottoms. setting them down in the sand where they were guaranteed to stay dry, she placed her cellphone right on top of them. her hair, tied into a very messy bun on the top of her head, was let down immediately after. her hair spilled onto her shoulders and down her back in loose waves & curls. the sun has just begun to set, painting the sky with beautiful shades of orange, yellow, pink, red, and a bit of purple.

moments later, y/n was able to drown out the sound of drunken laughter and talkative teenagers as she focused on watching her feet as the waves pushed against them. after at least five minutes, y/n reached back to grab her phone that had been resting on top of her shorts. hesitantly, she clicked on tiktok, an app she’d downloaded just two days ago. scrolling through her “for you page”, y/n stumbled across a video captioned, “i tried kissing my best friend, this is how it turned out”, using the song elecric love by borns. the corners of her mouth turned upwards into a crooked grin. although she’d thought it was quite cheesy, y/n had to admit that it melted her heart. it was so romantic; the way they held each other, the way kissed each other like it was the last time they’d ever see each other again ... for some reason, y/n could only think about one person: jj maybank.

ahh, jj maybank. one of y/n’s best friends, and her secret crush, since the fourth grade. something about those blonde locks, those crystal blue eyes, the indentations in his cheeks when he smiled — not to mention his insanely perfect, greek-god like smile — and his charismatic personality struck her interest right from the start. it was hopeless, y/n continuously convinced herself. jj would flirt with her, but he flirts with everyone. no matter how many times she would feel that burning twang of jealousy in the depths of her stomach whenever jj would philander with other girls, nothing would change. jj wanted only to be friends, y/n was sure of it. though she had absolutely no issue with remaining jj’s closest female friend, it hurts knowing the one that which you most desire will never be yours.

“hey you!,” a voice suddenly sounded from behind her.

y/n glanced over her left shoulder, only to lock eyes with lover-boy himself. her stomach flipped.

she grinned. “what’s up?”

jj sat beside her with a grunt. “man, y/n, are you feeling okay? you’re usually the center of attention at our keggers — wait, are you on tiktok?”

y/n’s eyes widened slightly, realizing that the electric love sound, along with the same video, had been playing on repeat for at least five minutes. nervously, she clicked her phone off, setting it beside her in the sand as jj chuckled at her forgetfulness.

“i thought you were gonna delete it right after kie dared you to download it the other night!,” jj taunted as y/n grinned, thinking back to a few nights ago to the drunken game of “truth or dare” she played with the pogues on the boat. “i think someone’s addicted...”

y/n gasped playfully. “i am not addicted!”

jj shot her a look, and y/n caved.

“okay, okay. fine. i’m a little addicted, but i can’t help it! the people on here have really...interesting humor.”

jj chucked warmly, taking a sip from his beer.

as the two sat in silence for a moment, y/n began to think. what if she made a move on jj by recreating that tiktok?

no, absolutely not. the alcohol must be getting to her brain. if she were to kiss him and weird him out, that could ruin their entire friendship, and that’s the last thing she wanted. but what if that didn’t happen? he could react in the exact opposite way. anything was possible...why not take the chance?

y/n could not believe she was doing this at all, but after contemplating it for a few minutes, she gathered up the courage to ask: “wanna make a tiktok with me?”

jj looked over at her, cocking an eyebrow with a grin.

“are you being serious?”

“yes!”

“...i-i guess!”

y/n stood up, laughing. she offered her jittery hand to jj, who accepted it and used it to haul himself off of the sandy ground.

“what am i even supposed to do?,” he questioned, scratching the back of his neck.

y/n smiled. “just follow my lead.”

once the sound was ready, y/n grabbed ahold of jj’s hand and tugged him into the shallow saltwater, that stopped just about at their waists. with her phone propped up against jj’s halfway-full bottle of beer, she clicked the timer button and started the countdown for filming to start.

with each beep of the timer, y/n’s heartbeat thumped harder and harder against the inside of her chest.

with that, the song started.

baby, you’re like lightning in a bottle.

y/n stared into his eyes, swallowing the lump in her throat. hesitantly, she grabbed hold of jj’s biceps and pulled him towards her, softly. she pressed her lips against his.

i can’t let you go now that i got it.

jj pulled away from her, shocked. with wide eyes and flushed cheeks, all he could seem to do was stare back at her.

y/n’s heart sank. this was a failure. he looked incredibly uncomfortable, and this was certainly going to make things awkward in the long run.

and all i need is to be struck...

however, the corners of jj’s lips turned upwards into a cheeky smile. suddenly, he grabbed her lower back with one hand and her jawline with the other, pulling her back in towards him.

...by your electric love.

at the beautiful climax of the sound, jj’s lips found y/n’s again. her arms made their way around the back of his neck, her hands beginning to cascade through the golden blond tufts of hair. the entire world seemed to melt around her as a long-lasting dream had come true at last. all of a sudden, y/n’s feet left the plushy ground of the ocean as jj sent both of them tumbling into the cool blueness of the water, tangled up in each other’s arms.

[kuredono]

Sing Sing Sing [part 1 of penpals] | Fushiguro x gn!(clarinettist)reader

TW: mentions of throwing up, hospital despite the TW this is v fluffy! basically you and Meg have been penpals and you meet for the first time! but not in the way either of you would’ve imagined... 

"i think they're coming around now..."

"hello..?"

all you remember was taking a wrong turn down an empty alley on a sunny day, then you were in a cold building with an ugly looking monster holding the back of your neck.

you grasped at a knee, or maybe an arm, squeezing as your felt your stomach churn, though you kept your lips pursed together, willing for it to stay down.

"i think they're gonna be sick..."

"GOJO-SENSEI! HELP! THE CIVILIAN IS GOING TO THROW UP!"

fresh air suddenly hit your face and you threw up in a bush before everything went black again.

"-the thing up. afterwards it was pretty easy to deal with."

"you say that, but the civilian still got injured."

"hey! i didn't see you trying to catch them."

"i had my hands full already!"

your eyes were immediately assaulted with the bright sunshine as you tried to crack them open. you decidedly kept them shut and moved your lead weighted arms to cover your eyes.

"oh?"

"you awake?"

"what happened?" was all you could ask. you had tried to beat the ugly thing with-

"my clarinet!" you bolted up, eyes wide open and met with three equally wide ones (person one had a black blindfold?), but suddenly your head exploded with pain.

"go slowly. you hit your head pretty hard." a voice said as you groaned, squeezing your temples with your trembling hands. "do you remember what happened?"

"got lost walking back. woke up in a weird building and there was a funky looking thing. tried to run away, then some people turned up and the thing exploded. kinda gross."

"gross?!"

"i mean, they are super gross." 

"where are we? what's going on?" you dared to open your eyes again, more slowly, as you took in your surroundings. you were sat on the floor, leaning against a big black dog. how cute. you nuzzled your head into its fur, easing your killer headache. 

"we're in Akihabara, and i think you're concussed. we'd like to take you to a hospital." the one with white hair and the blindfold spoke with a kind smile.

"who are you?" you furrowed your brows together, feeling like you should run away because stranger danger ! but the dog was comfy, lulling you to sleep.

"ah, i'm Gojo Satoru, i'm a teacher at the Tokyo Jujutsu Tech High School, and they are my first year students. we were out on a field trip when we found you." the white haired male answered again. he was a teacher? you'd never be able to guess.

"Jujutsu Tech High School?" you repeated, the name distantly ringing bells. you turned your attention to the students. "i recognise that uniform."

"we've been in Akihabara and around Tokyo before! did you see us then?" the pink haired boy asked with a bright smile. you buried your face into the dog with a thoughtful hum.

"it's only natural we stand out you know!" amother voice voice sung.

"never in a good way." a calmer voice grumbled.

"i guess i just exude that kind of eye-catching aura."

"it's easy recognise beauty such as mine."

how did you get here? why was this happening to you? you were just performing with a marching band this morning, doing your absolute best and playing your loudest for someone. you wanted to stand out for someone. he said he'd come by but didn't. you weren't disappointed... well... you were, but you understood he had his reasons. he probably had classes because it's Thursday.

"Megumi Fushiguro?" you mumbled, the students around you falling silent.

"what did you say?"

"oh yeah, in Japan you say it the other way round don't you?" you chuckled, remembering how embarrassed you were when Megumi cared to point that out when you were discussing nicknames. "Fushiguro Megumi. think he goes to your school."

it was quiet for a moment before the students erupted into excited chatter, 

"Fushiguro! you know them?"

"why didn't you tell us!"

"what? i - i don't—" the calm voice was not calm, but his breath stuttered, "Y - Y/N?"

you had first met Fushiguro via letter in first year middle school, your middle schools partners for a penpal project. you had sent the first letter and even went through the extra effort to try and make a translation, though your characters were very messy so you made sure to also send the English original in case it was unreadable. it was nearly a month before your class got their responses, and it appeared you were the most lucky as Fushiguro's English was far better than your Japanese, and when comparing letters with your classmates, you had the most interesting response.

nearly a year and 7 more letters later, you were the only one in your class still in touch with your penpal, and with the year drawing to a close, the teachers explained that you could only send one more letter. so with a wish, you sent your phone number and downloaded several Japanese chatting apps. sure enough, 2 weeks later, there was a friend request on LINE from a Megumi Fushiguro. his profile picture was just a night sky, but you couldn't say anything, yours was sheet music. this anonymity continued indefinitely. at first you had no idea how often he was okay with you messaging him, and you added the Tokyo timezone to your clock app so you didn't message him at ungodly hours, but after a few months, Megumi would be your first thought when you saw a cute cat or something and you'd quickly snap a photo to send him. he also did the same, mostly pictures of the sky.

on Megumi's birthday, you sent a recording of you playing his favourite piece on clarinet, and for your birthday he sent you a playlist of songs he thought you would like. from then on, you continued to send him your repertoire and small recordings of your practices. then one day, when you talked to him about your most recent performance, Fushiguro asked for the link to the video. you did, but didn't tell him which clarinet player you were. he didn't ask either. you toed the border of your anonymity when you first moved to high school with a picture of you in your new marching band uniform, but from the neck down. you weren't expecting a photo back, but he surprisingly sent one back of his uniform from the neck down. his uniform looked much comfier.

then a spot for a Japanese high school exchange opened (one of the main reasons you chose to attend the high school you did), and though it was for second years, you fought and won the spot. you immediately messaged Fushiguro without checking the time in Japan. and as if that wasn't enough, the wind band in your Japanese high school were having a performance in Tokyo! Fushiguro was in Tokyo! you told Fushiguro, but then dread began to pool in your stomach. what if he didn't want to meet? you were totally fine with that. but you wanted to so badly! you remember your elation when he stopped you mid-anxious text ramble to say he would meet you.

you woke up to a white ceiling and the potent smell of disinfectant. the hospital curtain slid open to reveal a beautiful boy with deep blue hair and long eyelashes, his eyes widening at you.

"ah- good afternoon."

"good afternoon, how can i help?" you smiled, "i think you might have the wrong bay?"

"no. i- uh- do you remember what happened? do you, do you remember me?"

"um... no? i'm not really sure what you mean? i mean, i recognise your uniform- do you go to Tokyo Jujutsu Tech High School by any chance?"

"they said you would be concussed and you might have some memory problems..." the boy mumbled, "is it alright if i sit down?" your eyes darted to the curtain in panic, "ah, i'll leave the curtain open, our teacher is just signing you out the hospital, i'm Fushiguro Megumi."

"Megumi?!" you gasped, the boy smiling softly as you fumbled for words, "i- you- huh?"

"yeah... we have a lot to talk about."

"then, please! sit! i can't believe!" you covered your mouth with your hand, which did nothing to muffle your delighted squeal as he sat in the chair next to your bed. "wow. i mean, it's so nice to finally meet you in person!"

Megumi couldn't help smiling too.

"it's nice to see you too... and i'm sorry i didn't make it to your performance."

"hey, it's okay! we still met up!" you grinned brightly. Megumi then found his hands very interesting.

"and, um... your clarinet is broken..."

"that--" will be very expensive, the thought alone bringing tears to your eyes- your precious baby! it was worth more than your entire wardrobe and shoes! but you shoved that thought away until later. Megumi was here now, visiting you in hospital. "-actually, why am i here? what happened?"

Megumi thankfully didn't push the topic of your clarinet and gladly filled you in on what had happened. by the end of his explanation, you had your face buried in your hands.

"i'm so sorry you had to see that."

"it's fine, i've seen worse. besides, you were concussed, it's normal."

"still..." you whined, peeking between your fingers to find him offering you a hint of a reassuring smile. you gave in with a sigh, "i must say, that's some weird religion you have and they teach you, no offence."

Megumi chuckled, eyes distant, "you're right, it is pretty weird."

"but, um, thank you for saving me Megumi." said boy snapped back into reality very quickly, his cheeks flushing red as it dawned on you that everyone probably called him by his last name. "or do you prefer Fushiguro? am i pronouncing it right? sorry, i got used to-"

"it's fine." he uttered out, "Megumi is fine."

"what about honourifics?"

"whatever you're comfortable with."

"then... Megumi-kun? or is that too weird?"

the boy's cheeks darkened, "it's fine..."

"then you can call me Y/N-chan! then it's not as weird right?" you suggested, starting to feel the second-hand embarrassment.

"yeah." Megumi flinched too much when his phone chimed, and he hurriedly read it over. "Gojo-sensei -my teacher- said he's signed what you need to let you out. you just need to sign a few things before you go."

"right." well, the moment had to end at some point. you couldn't stay in the hospital bay forever. it was just an amazing coincidence that you had met Megumi, so you should be thankful you even had the opportunity to speak to him like this. "am i okay to move?"

"um, i'll call a nurse."

Megumi stepped out as you were examined by the nurse, and you saw him again in reception as you gave him and his teacher a thumbs up before signing the hospital forms.

"thank you very much for everything you've done. i'm so grateful. and please pass my thanks on to the other first years!" you bowed formally to the pair, Megumi flushing red while his teacher just waved you off.

"no worries. sorry about your clarinet and the concussion." the teacher responded.

"it's fine, i was always told i have a thick skull! comes in handy sometimes."

"i have to go now, but Megumi will walk you to the station, right?"

Megumi scowled at his teacher with an unreadable look in his eyes which seemed to make the teacher's smile brighten.

"well it was nice to meet you sir!" you bowed again at the adult, who nodded to you.

"nice to meet you too! hope you enjoy Japan. Megumi, be nice."

Megumi glared at the older man as he skipped away, seemingly pleased with himself for winding the younger up. Said male sighed.

"you don't have to walk me back if you're busy, i have GPS on my phone."

The boy startled at your comment, brows furrowed, before shaking his head, "it's fine, it's no trouble. i would feel better if i walked you to the station at least."

you couldn't stop the wide smile stretching on your lips, "thanks!"

"it's nothing."

you mentally thanked all the deities for letting you spend a little longer with your penpal, chatting easily as if you hadn't just met him less than 10 hours ago. by the time you had made it to the station, you had mentally prepared to part.

"so... i guess this is it?"

"yeah..."

"it was so nice to meet you- i cannot fully explain how nice this has been! even if i did spend a while in a hospital." Megumi chuckled at your words. you felt your cheeks heat up, his smile squeezing at your heart.

"i feel the same."

your train arrived.

"well. i'll message you later then?" you grinned hopefully, Megumi nodding. "hug? or do you not do those? i don't mind."

you nearly burst out laughing at the rush of emotions that flickered in Megumi's eyes- mostly panic. he blinked out his state when a giggle slipped out. he flushed red but nodded stiffly, opening his arms for you. you smiled as you wrapped your arms around him, feeling his wrap behind you too, surprisingly quickly considering how awkward he was at first. keeping it short because of the train behind you, you pulled away to find him also smiling. so he did like hugs.

"until next time?"

"yeah."

the doors shut and you waved to him as the train set off. and that was that.

your phone buzzed in your pocket.

Megumi: the school offered to pay compensation for the damages to your clarinet, so please let me know if and when you're free to go to a music shop in Tokyo to buy a new one.

sorry this hasn’t been proofread and the ending is kinda rushed because i just really wanted to publish it hahaha (catch me constantly editing this for DAYS now, so i probably shouldn’t post it but we die like men)

[ourplaceinthecosmosphff]

Chapter 19. Power

‘You are holding it in your hands -- your power. Use it.' seeker

I was alone when I woke up. It was a contrast to how I’d spent the previous two nights. The pillows in the guest room didn’t smell like Harry, and neither did the person I shared the bed with. The night before, when I had first realized this, I had brought a pillow from Harry’s bed to this one. No one questioned this – likely, no one noticed it –, but it made a difference for me. It wasn’t the same as using him as a pillow. But it was close enough.

I used the bathroom in his room slightly anguished that nobody was around. After brushing my teeth and hair, I added a bra under Harry’s shirt that I was still wearing, and went downstairs where, before I even entered the kitchen, I could already hear their voices.

“Ah, the creature!” Lourdes said, the first to see me. She grabbed a large mug with both hands and raised it up high above herself, bowing her head. “Please, take this token of our respect in your honor and do not bring destruction upon us with your unforgiving wrath!”

I fixed her with the most unemotional look I could muster before pulling up a chair and grabbing the mug. I looked at the inside to find it was the source for the incredible smell of coffee around. I took a small sip, it was just warm enough, but not burning, so they must have heard me wake up. I took a bigger sip, let it sit on my mouth, and closed my eyes, appreciatively.

“Praise!” Lourdes broke the silence in the kitchen by throwing her hands up in the air suddenly. “The kingdom is spared! We live to see another day by the mercy of our–”

I slowly leaned in and covered her mouth with my hand. “Please. It’s so early.”

“It’s 10 A.M.!” She replied, leaning backwards.

“Ugh.” Was all I could muster.

Harry chuckled, from my other side. “God. This is a new side to you.”

“Oh, she probably hopes you still think she has dignity.” Lourdes told him. “That hope dies with the intimacy of growing up together.”

I didn’t acknowledge either of them; just stared at my coffee as I drank it, slowly. Returning the mug to the table, I scratched my eyes slowly.

“She takes a while to turn on.” Lourdes mumbled to Harry. “Anyway, as I was saying. The time limit is kind of the point.”

“But what kind of message can you put out there in six seconds? Nothing worth saying is that fast.”

“It doesn’t have to be worth saying.” She returned. “And to answer your question, that is the challenge! To do as much as you can within your limit.”

“If what you say is not the point, then what is?!”

“Fun, Harry!” Lourdes yelled, animated. “Not everything in life is about a message, some things are about having fun. Ever heard of that concept?!”

I looked up to see him roll his eyes as she waved her arms around, excitedly.

“What are we talking about?” I asked.

“Vine.” She told me. “Harry doesn’t, and I quote, ‘get it’.” She did air-quote marks using her fingers.

“All videos have to be less than six seconds.” Harry told me as if I didn’t know that as a person alive in the twenty-first century. “All I said was that if media continues to follow this trend one day soon our brains will no longer be able to handle any content that requires a longer attention span.”

Lourdes was rolling her eyes now, and the effect was a lot more prominent in her teenager eyes.

“And, by the way, the implication that you can’t have a message in the app not only offends its creators as well as my generation as a whole, it implies that you think very lowly of yourself and media as a whole.”

We both looked at him. Lourdes, ready for the argument; me, entertained, now more awake.

“Any nuanced, complex, and well explained message will take longer than that.” He told her.

“Ah, there you go, now you added all those adjectives that you hadn’t before.” She pointed her finger at him. “Sometimes the message doesn’t have to be nuanced and flexed out to be well delivered.”

“I think my meaning was implied before–”

“Actually, she’s right.” I interrupted. “You said ‘no message worth saying’ could be delivered in six seconds. Adding new qualitatives now changes your whole argument.”

My sister nodded, “Thank you!”

“Good morning, your honor. Nice of you to join us.” Harry grinned at me, but I just brought the mug back to my lips as I sustained his look, defiant.

“I present, exhibit A,” my sister added, tapping away on her phone, “wait, not this one.”

From her phone, we heard a child’s voice going, ‘get your phone off my face!’.

“What message was that one transmitting, exactly?”

“That kids are hilarious?” Lourdes replied, not looking at him. “But also that new generations are being exposed to social media from an early age and it might not be beneficial to them.”

“Objection.” He rolled his eyes, laughing.

Now feeling almost entirely awake, I looked at them more carefully and noticed he was wearing a green tie with his white, button up shirt. In the back of his chair, hang a navy blue blazer. I wondered if I was underdressed, but looking at my sister I realized she was also in pajamas – white pants with colorful polka dots, and a light pink shirt with a unicorn.

“Are you going out?” I asked.

“I have work.” He reminded me. “But I should be back really quick.”

“Oh, here!” Lourdes smiled. She gave him the phone so he could see her screen, which she tapped with a finger.

A song was playing at first, followed by a police siren. A man said, angrily, ‘I’m getting a ticket!’. Next, a more formal voice added, distantly, ‘I think we got a stolen vehicle…’. The first voice, now calmer and lighter, says, ‘Oh, is there a problem officer?’, followed by a quick ‘nope’. The song started again and the whole thing repeated itself.

“Now it’s looping.” Lourdes explained, tapping her finger on the screen again to pause it. “Would you like me to point out the message?”

“It was pretty clear.” Harry nodded, smiling. Defeated, but amused. He handed me the phone so I could watch it now.

Before asking the officer if there was a problem, the black driver in his car had painted his face white. This, clearly, to imply the differentiated treatment by police depending on racial profile.

“And you have a point.” Harry went on, “I guess social commentary is, after all, a message.”

“Oh, now you’re the message police?” She returned.

He chuckled, “No! I’m agreeing with you.”

“Yeah, but in that condescending way people from your generation talk about everything my generation likes.”

“Woah, there.” I told her. “This generation talk will make me feel old.”

“You are.” She shrugged. “It’s not a bad thing, unless you dismiss things my generation thinks are cool just because you don’t think anything we do can possibly be productive or positive.”

“I think your best point is that things don’t always have to have a message.” I told her. “Sometimes, entertainment for entertainment’s sake is good enough of a reason to download an app.”

“Amen!” She pointed at me, smiling at Harry. “She gets it.”

“I guess we can all use more fun.” He told her. “Can you put it on my phone? Tell me who are the cool people to follow?”

She stared at him, squinting her eyes for only a few seconds, before standing up from her chair.

“Fine. But only because I’m very passionate about Vine.” She said. “Your phone is that one charging by the sofa, right?”

He nodded, and she moved into the living room.

I sipped my coffee, rested my elbow on the table, and my chin on my hand.

“You seem…” I started, looking at him. “Very interested on internet trends for someone who can barely use his phone for anything other than calling and texting.”

He shrugged, smiling mischievously. “I am. It seems like a powerful tool for community engagement.”

“Uhm-hm.” I mumbled, drinking another sip. “Sure.”

We were quiet for a brief pause. I was thinking about how handsome he looked with his hair freshly humid and styled backwards, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

“If it happens to be something your sister and I bond over, all the better, right?”

I tried to contain a smile. “Why are you trying to get her to like you?”

He shrugged again. “I don’t know. I guess your mother already hates me, might as well try to get someone in your family to like me, right?”

He gulped and looked at me, cheeks reddening.

“I like you.” I told him.

He smiled, sincere, big. “Good. Now let’s try to make sure you’re not the only one.”

I pushed my mug to the side, and leaned on the table, crossing my arms in front of me to rest my head on them.

“Why?”

He bit his lip, watching me. Then he put his teacup to the side and did the same as me, crossing his arms on the table in front, leaning in to rest his head on them. Our faces were too close like this, so he whispered his answer, staring straight into my eyes.

“Because I like you, too.”

Before I could even accept I didn’t imagine what he said, Lourdes was back with his phone. Harry picked it, saw the time, and realized he had to go before he was late. 

When he was gone, Lourdes settled on the couch, arms crossed in her chest, so I finished having some toast while thinking of the way his blue eyes glistened. I then did the breakfast dishes and when I was done, I sat next to my sister while some British reality show played on the TV. It was nearly eleven, so I decided it would be nice if we made lunch for Harry today.

“Why?” Lourdes asked when I proposed this.

“He’s hosting us and he has cooked or bought most of our meals since I’ve been here.” I replied. “And he’s been really cool to invite you to stay despite you showing up out of the blue.”

“Well, I’m sorry, Maggie. I didn’t mean to third-wheel your romantic holiday.”

I rolled my eyes, and got to my feet with a sigh. “Well, I’m going to check what he has and then we can brainstorm recipes, or google something.”

I went to the kitchen and opened a few different cabinets before finding one near the sink where most of the food seemed to be. Harry had some different types of pasta, some canned goods, and not much else.

“I heard what you said, Maggie.”

I looked back, finding Lourdes had gotten up to follow me.

“Good. You wanna help?”

“I mean I heard you saying you like him.” She explained, her aggressive tone now starting to make sense. “And him saying he likes you, too.”

I got up, and opened the fridge.

“He has frozen broccoli, pasta, canned mushrooms, and chicken… that could be good, right?”

“I may not have a boyfriend, Maggie, but I don’t think you’re supposed to go around declaring yourself to other guys if you do.”

“Declaring?” I complained. “Declaring? Lover? What are you, Jane Austen?”

She didn’t crack a smile. I sighed, closing the fridge door.

“Okay.” Pulling up a chair, I sat down at the table. “What exactly do you want to know, Lourdes? Because I already told you that Harry is my friend and I have not, nor do I intend to cheat on Chris. So what else do you want?”

She looked down, pensively.

“I guess I just… don’t get it!”

“Then help me explain. What don’t you get?”

She sighed, approaching the table. “It doesn’t feel right. You and Chris were always so… joined at the hip. You have guy friends, but you don’t sleep at their house without Chris there.”

“Okay… so, is the problem that I’m friends with Harry? Guys and girls can be friends, Lou. Or else how can girls be friends with each other when some of them are gay?”

“That’s not it. Of course people can be friends, but…” She rolled her eyes, pulling up a chair to sit. “But you are closer to Harry than your other friends.”

“That doesn’t have to be bad, either.”

She nodded. “True. But… your other friends don’t look at you that way.”

“What way?”

She sighed, “Like… like he’s seeing color for the first time.”

I cracked a smile now, “He doesn’t look at me like that.”

“Are you blind?!”

“Lourdes–”

“Seriously, you can’t possibly think he doesn’t have feelings for you.”

“...Do you think it's possible that, maybe, and just consider this for me, okay? That maybe you're seeing things that aren't there?”

She was quiet for a while, before shrugging.

“I guess… But I don’t think I am.” She looked at me. “Maybe you think it’s a friendship, but he doesn’t.”

“He knows I have a boyfriend, and most importantly, he knows I’m the Crown Princess. He barely likes being a royal at all, let alone date one who is an heir. Trust me, he doesn’t like me like that.”

The argument seemed to work, so I let the silence rest for a bit.

“I guess…” She started, staring at her hands. “I guess I just feel weird that Chris doesn’t know you’re here… And don’t lie, you know if he was staying with a female friend in Canada you wouldn’t be okay just finding out later. You should tell him!”

“And I will, when I talk to him.”

“That’s another thing! Why haven’t you even talked to him yet? He must be wondering what happened, and you’re letting him be worried just because you don’t know how to explain this.”

“Chris is far from worried, Lourdes, relax.” I blurted out, annoyed.

“What do you mean?”

“…I turned my phone on last night, when you were in the shower.” I told her, before taking the time to breathe in and out slowly. “Christopher only called and texted once. The call was yesterday, the text was later that night. He just… apologized for being too busy.” I ended with a shrug.

She seemed to struggle to understand what I said. She stared down, brows furrowed, silent for a long time.

“What the–?! How is that possible?!” She started. “Okay, well, what did you say to him?!”

“…Nothing.”

“What?!”

“If he’s not worried, and is currently too busy to talk to me, then that’s fine, we’ll just talk in person later on.”

“But, Maggie, he only texted once?! Once! And you’ve been gone for three days!”

I got up from the chair and opened the last cabinet door, trying to find all the seasoning Harry had.

“Yeah.” I nodded, casually. “It’s too little, but we can talk about it later, when we’re not both distracted. Him with work, me with… well, whatever this identity crisis is. Maybe resting after months of turmoil.” I considered. “Regardless, we’ll talk back home in Savoy.”

“That’s not good enough! You’re his girlfriend! Of ten years!”

“Eight.” I corrected. “And very on and off.” “You only broke up a couple of times.” She dismissed.

“Three.” I corrected, again. “And one of them was quite permanent. So I think this time around the clock starts back again from zero.”

“That’s not how it works.” “Why not?” “Well--” She sighed. “Because! You’ve known each other almost your whole lives! You’re almost engaged!”

Hands on my hips, I fixed her with a knowing look. “So you know about that, too.” She had the decency to give the ground an apologetic look. “I overheard mom and dad talking about it.” “You could have told me.” “Aren’t proposals supposed to be a surprise?”

“Everything in my life feels like it’s being kept from me.” I complained. “I just wish people would tell me things.” “Okay, how about I tell you this,” she started, “Chris not being concerned when you ran away for three days--?”

“Didn’t run away.” “Not okay!” She shouted. “It is not okay, Maggie!”

“Lourdes!” I shouted in the same tone, trying to get her attention. “Please! Just… Just let me worry about this, okay? It’s my relationship!”

“I would, but you don’t seem to be worried at all.” She contested. “Which only makes me more upset!”

She went on like this, talking about how trust and communication are not something you can jeopardize in a relationship, and a lot of other things.

I took note of salt and pepper. Not even a little oregano. Harry also didn’t have coconut milk or double cream or lime for a nice sauce. I sighed.

“We’ll need groceries.” I said, as soon as Lourdes took a pause to breathe. “I’ll pull up grocery apps on my phone and see what they have available for delivery.”

Looking back at her, I realized she still looked concerned sitting on the kitchen table.

“Why aren’t you pissed?” She asked. “Three days. You could have dropped dead somewhere. You could have been kidnapped.”

“Lourdes.”

“Seriously, why aren’t you angry at him?!”

“I don’t know!” I confessed, sighing. “I just… I’m not. He’s busy, I get it. And I guess… I’m going through something right now that I don’t fully understand. So I think it’s better not having to explain it to him right now. I’m okay with it.”

She seemed unconvinced, so I sighed and went to get my phone. Harry had mentioned in passing the name of the app he used for groceries, so I downloaded it and found the nearest store, quickly adding a lot of spices, lime and some coconut milk to my cart. As an impulse buy, I also got ice cream and white wine, and a six pack of the beer Harry had in his fridge in case he didn’t like white wine. Back in the kitchen, I realized he didn’t have wine glasses, so I checked if the store had it and they did, so I added two wine glasses to my basket. Since Lourdes wouldn’t drink wine, I got her some coke, and made the purchase.

Then I used the house phone and called the number written on the notebook next to it to speak to security at the gates. Awkwardly introducing myself as “Prince Harry’s house guest”, I told them I had a delivery coming, and they assured me they could bring it to us.

“Oh, please don’t worry about that!” I assured them, overly worried about being polite. “I can go get it! I’ll keep an eye on the app and when I see the driver arriving I’ll go and get it from the gate.”

They tried to remind me I didn’t have to, but I insisted.

After this, I changed into my actual clothes, some jeans and a blouse, and joined Lourdes who had finally settled again on the couch to continue watching TV.

When the delivery driver was close enough to the gates on the map, I jumped up from the couch, not having realized how much time had passed.

"Groceries are here, let's go!" I shouted.

"I'll wait here."

"No, let's go!"

"I thought we weren't supposed to be out in daylight...?"

"Stop complaining, let's go!" I threw my phone on the couch and grabbed her by the hands, pulling her up and running out the door, not even turning off the television.

When we got to the back gate, the one we came in from, we were told the food wasn't there, and they quickly called the main gate and figured out the food was there. We thanked them and walked towards the main gate, sadly having to walk around the palace. Luckily, a guard was walking over to bring us the groceries, so we met him half way and started making the way back.

I pointed out William and Catherine's apartment when we passed it; it was nice being outside. It was only then that I noticed that I had been in Harry's place for three days. I kind of missed Savoy.

When we got back, Harry was there. The moment we walked through the door, though, he seemed frazzled. He was on the phone, eyes wide, and when he looked at us, such relief came over him it was hard not to let myself be concerned.

“Hey, what’s going on?”

He returned the home phone to the mount on the wall, forcibly, and ran a hand through his hair. He had his cell on the other hand.

“I got home and you were gone!” He complained. “What the hell?! Where did you go?!”

“To get groceries at the gate.” I told him. “We had them delivered.”

“We were on the wrong gate, though.” Lourdes said. “So we had to go around.”

“Groceries?” Harry asked, confused.

“We’re making you lunch today.” I explained, with a smile. 

“Oh. Okay.” He nodded, breathing heavily. “The TV was on and your cell phone was on the sofa. I didn’t—“

I approached him after leaving the bag on the table, and put a hand to his forehead. He was sweaty, but cold. “Harry, why do you seem so… scared?”

“You were gone! I didn’t know if they had come in and taken you!” He explained, now getting a little red.

“You think we would have left our stuff?” Lourdes asked, amused.

“I thought maybe they didn’t let you get anything.” He shrugged.

Smiling, I squeezed a hand on his shoulder. “Well, relax. We’re here.”

“Yeah, go chill.” Lourdes said. “Maggie is forcing me to help so she can take a break from your awful cooking.”

“Not what I said!” I looked at him. “We just want to do something for you for hosting us.”

“Sure, let’s go with that.” Lourdes mumbled.

Harry nodded, “Alright. I’m going to… shower then.”

He went upstairs and I joined my sister in the kitchen, shaking my head in amusement.

I gave her the broccoli to chop and boiled water for the pasta. After a while in silence, she said, in low enough a voice I assumed she didn’t need a response:

“...You were gone for ten minutes and he was ready to call the police.”

----

We ate talking about how his engagement went; he had fun spending time with the veterans, but the best part was driving the Jaguar. He then told us he spent the drive there and back watching Vine, so he and Lou spent the rest of time discussing their favorite videos.

Harry asked Lourdes about life in boarding school, and we exchanged stories about each of our experiences, with Harry and I telling her how things were 'in our time'. Friends, classes, rituals, clubs, adventures, and most importantly: the things we didn't miss, and Lourdes could rest assured she wouldn't, either.

We spent that afternoon watching a movie she told us her friends had jokingly made her watch one day -- Princess Protection Program, with Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez.

"It's essentially what we're doing here." She joked. "Harry is our Princess Protection Program."

Once the sun was going down, we felt it was safer to go outside, so Harry proposed a game of volleyball – after we had told him it was one of the sports we played in Savoy with our cousins every summer.

So we went outside and played volleyball, Castillon Rules, where with each hit of the ball you’re supposed to yell out a word that starts with the same letter of your name. One of most polemic debates in our family was that those of us with double names – me and my siblings – had two letters at our disposal, whereas our cousins insisted only the first name counted.

“I never cared about this debate as both my names start with M.” I told Harry, just as he hit the ball thrown at him by Lourdes and shouted out ‘Horace’.

“That’s a name, it doesn’t count.” I argued.

“A name can be a word.” He consted.

“And there we go…” Lourdes rolled her eyes. “Another topic of discourse.”

When we came in, sweaty and still laughing, we sat on the couch for a long time, drinking water and talking about a lot of nothing, brainstorming about what to do next. We decided on another movie, but first Harry had a shower in the downstairs bathroom while Lourdes used the upstairs, and I was last.

When I came out of the bathroom donning once more Harry’s clothes, I went downstairs to find that as I had been showering, they were busy destroying the living room.

“Uhm, hi?” I called, trying to find them in the mess of blankets and furniture. “What are you guys doing?!”

Lourdes popped up from behind the couch, which had been turned around to face the wall.

“We’re building a blanket fort!” She smiled, using the back of the couch to hook a corner of a blanket up.

“…Why?” I asked, already tired at how long it would take to clean all of this out.

Harry walked in from behind me with a mess of twinkly Christmas lights in hand.

“For fun.” He answered, throwing them to Lourdes. “There you go.”

She started untangling the chords and spreading them out across their ‘fort’, as Harry moved to the TV, which he unplugged before removing it from its place.

“What are you doing with that?” I asked.

“Putting it on the floor.”

“Why?”

He grinned at me, and winked. “So we can watch from inside, obviously.”

“Maggie, come on.” Lourdes called, handing me one end of the twinkly lights. “Help me. We’re gonna watch Avatar. Harry’s never seen it.”

I looked at him in disbelief. “You haven’t seen Avatar, the Legend of Aang?”

“Okay, you haven’t read Harry Potter, so I need you to remove the judgy tone from your voice.”

“Thank you!”, Lourdes shouted. “Besides, it’s a very topical watch… You know, seeing as Aang is a great metaphor for you.”

“I am not Aang!” I complained.

“You have literally ran away from your responsibilities. But whatever...” She mumbled.

They both got back to work. Amused, I sighed, and decided if I couldn't beat them, I’d join them. I started untangling the chords.

We brought in extra blankets and pillows to lay on, and Harry unscrewed a broomstick to keep the fort’s ‘roof’ up. We ordered pizzas and opened the wine and settled inside to watch Avatar.

Harry initially complained it seemed very childish, but as that was also my argument against Harry Potter, he pushed through. Seeing as the episodes were only twenty minutes long, we got through them fast, and by episode ten, when Jet turned out to be a dick, he was fully into it if his huge disappointment and loud defense of Sokka was anything to go by.

When season one was over, it was late at night, but we were wide awake. Harry laid back on the floor, staring off into the twinkly lights, wide-eyed.

“So, she just… is the moon now?”

“You can’t come back from being the moon.” I argued.

“I guess…”

“I thought you were team Suki.” Lourdes said.

“I am, I love Suki.” He replied. “But I didn’t want the princess to die.”

“She didn’t die.” I argued. “She just has a different existence now. A different purpose.”

“That’s so sad.”

I smiled.

“Wait,” he looked at Lourdes, “does this mean Suki comes back?!”

“I guess we have to watch season two to find out!” Lourdes said, excitedly.

“Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

“Bite me.”

“Let’s do season two!” Harry interrupted. “I wanna know what happens.”

“Okay, I need a bathroom break.”

I came downstairs just as Harry and my sister were breaking into loud laughter. The sound made me smile, but something also sounded from the hall. I wasn’t sure if I had imagined it, so I walked to the door and opened it to check.

To my surprise, however, there was a person there.

“Hi.” Adrien said, laid back. “I heard this is where all the cool Savoy Royals are hanging these days?”

“Adrien?!” I asked, to his annoying grin. “What on God’s green Earth are you doing here?!”

“Invite me to come in first, Mags, you were raised better than this.”

Before I could react, he walked right past me into the cottage. In the living room, Harry was crawling out of the blanket fort.

“Oh, wow.” Adrien laughed. “This is a scene to behold.”

“What the–?!” Harry asked, confused, but grinning at the sight of him. “Who the hell invited you here?!”

They exchanged a quick one arm hug, patting each other on the back.

“Well, I’m not sure how much you know, but your people have left a standing invitation for anyone from Savoy who needs to come rescue the two runaways here.”

“I didn’t run away!” I complained. Seeing Harry ready to add something, I pointed a threatening finger at him. “Shut it! And Adrien, this is none of your business. I’m fine, go home.”

“God, you’ve been in England for three days and already you’ve forgotten your manners.” He shook his head in mock disappointment. “And rejoice, Maggie, you’re no longer the biggest concern.”

“What do you mean?”

“He means me.”

Lourdes had emerged from inside the fort.

“Bingo.” Adrien added, unamused. “What the hell, dollface?!”

“Relax, this is just a trip! I’m with Maggie, what’s the big deal?!”

“If my parents have an issue they maybe shouldn’t have sent her.” I argued.

“They sent her to talk to you and bring you home, she wasn’t supposed to stay.” He relayed, fixing Lou with a look of admiration. “You literally increased the problem instead of fixing it. I, for one, am very proud.”

They exchanged a look.

“Cute.” I said, sarcastic. “So, why did you come if you’re on our side?!”

“Oh, I am not on your side.” He said.

“What?!”

“Lourdes I get. Teenagers, am I right? But you, Maggie? What the hell? You should have known better!”

“Excuse me?!”

“You couldn’t have forced her to at least answer your parents’ call?!” He asked, angrily. “You’re old enough to do whatever you want with your life, but she’s a kid!”

“Teenager, you just said teenager!” Lourdes complained.

I looked at her, suspiciously. “What call?!”

She was silent.

“Lourdes?!”

“Mom called.” She rolled her eyes. “A few times. It’s whatever, she knows I’m here, she knows I’m fine. We’re literally in a palace!”

“Lourdes, I told you last night, you’re a minor!” I told her. “I can’t be responsible for you!”

“Exactly, so why should I tell you who calls me?” She asked, grinning annoyingly.

I grunted in frustration, but before I could reply to this we heard a calling tone. Adrien was holding his cellphone up.

“Hey,” he said when someone picked up, “I’m here. They’re alive. Say hi.”

He pointed the phone at me, and, confused, I raised a hand in greeting. Then he pointed the phone at Lourdes, who smiled as she waved.

“Talk soon.”

“Wait–!” Someone from the other end of the video call tried, my mother maybe, but Adrien tapped the screen and returned the phone to his pocket.

“Alright. Is there a place to sit around here or do I have to stare at the wall for that?!” He looked at the couch facing the wall.

Harry led him to the kitchen table, and grabbed him a beer from the fridge.

“So, now that that’s out of the way,” Adrien started, “anyone care to tell me why we’re here?”

Harry looked at me, then Lourdes, and finally our cousin. I let out a long sigh, thinking about the wedding, about crying, about Harry’s hand on mine and the thoughts of Louis, about the knowledge Chris had a ring and my parents knew it, I thought of the train and my melting thoughts, and finally, I pulled up a chair and sat down.

“To be honest,” I started, “I’m more interested in why you’re here.”

“I’m here because I’m playing my own game.” He replied, taking a sip of his beer. “Your turn.”

“What does that mean?” Lourdes asked.

Adrien was silent.

“How do you come into this?” He asked Harry, who was quietly leaning against the kitchen sink.

“We’re friends.” He said, looking at me.

Adrien’s eyes found mine, knowing, before traveling down to Harry’s shirt that I was wearing. “Huh.”

“Ade.” I called. “If you’re not going to talk we’re going back to the blanket fort to continue watching Avatar.”

“Fine.” He rolled his eyes. “God. I… I am doing your father a favor so he will do me one.”

“Okay?”

He looked between me and my sister. “I want to go live in America for a little while.”

“What?!”

“How much is a little while?!”

“Less than a year.” He shrugged, non-committal.

“Why?” Lou asked.

Adrien laughed, humorless. “What do you mean why? You know why.”

She looked at me, confused.

“The engagement?” Harry asked. Adrien nodded, not looking at him.

“Oh… Ade, I’m sure that’ll go away soon enough.”

“Are you, though?” He asked. “Because it’s been months. And they still write about me every day. Faye tried to start her new job and she has a horde of paparazzi following her every move. She’s being demonized in the press, the country feels betrayed that she would give up being part of its Royal Family–”

“Adrien!” I interrupted, “Fuck Faye. She made her choices.”

“How can you say that?! You know what she’s going through, you’re a woman–”

“Yes, and I know that she dated you long enough to know what she was getting herself into when she said yes.” I replied. “And she still did. She chose to change her mind and break up, that’s on her.”

He leaned in across the table towards me. “You’re the Crown Princess now. You’re gonna be Queen one day. It might not be yet, but soon dealing with the very real life consequences to people who are connected with us will be your responsibility.” He said, cold. “I wish you’d start looking at it with a little more compassion.”

There was a tense moment of silence while I weighed his words, feeling the old guilt settle in my stomach.

“How about you maybe chill a little?” Harry asked him, casually, but not without a certain intensity in the way he crossed his arms.

Adrien watched him, only half amused.

“How do you guys know each other?” Lourdes asked them.

“Oh, Haz and I go way back.” Adrien told her.

“Friends in common, partying tastes in common.” Harry shrugged. “I’m not completely sure, to be honest. I just can’t seem to be able to get rid of him.”

“You love me.” Adrien winked at him. “You’re even trying to be part of my family now.”

I looked at my hands, pretending I didn’t hear this, hoping I didn’t have to find out Harry’s reaction to it. 

“So, what’s your game?” Lourdes asked. “What favor do you need from dad? Is it just permission to go to America?”

“And why America?” I asked.

“With… our family’s recent changes…” He started, probably trying to avoid saying Louis’ name, “I’ve been notified that I’ll be needed more, to help picking up more royal patronages and doing more engagements, maybe even foreign trips or official duties.”

“Louis lived abroad.” Lou wondered. “So, how can him being gone alter so much of the work schedule?”

“Because he was expected to start royal work full time after graduation.” I told her.

“Yes, and Faye was supposed to join the family as well.” Adrien added, taking a long sip of his beer after. “So, now our little family business lost two up and coming employees.”

Lou furrowed her brows in confusion. “And you wanna ditch, too?”

Adrien’s face fell. “I want to help, but I can’t in good conscience stay here knowing there is something I could do to try and draw attention to myself so Faye can go back to living her life as a private citizen.”

Lourdes pouted. “I don’t know, I think I’m with Maggie on this one. Faye brought this on herself.”

“I think I get what you mean, though.” Harry said, to Adrien.

“How can you think it’s his responsibility to fix Faye’s mess?!” Lourdes asked, upset.

Though he seemed unsure he wanted to disagree with her after spending the day trying to bond, he still took in a deep breath and said,

“I have my own fair list of bodies I leave behind after each relationship doesn’t work out.” He started. “It’s… disheartening. Even if a relationship ends well and in a healthy way, sometimes even when there is no relationship to begin with, just something the press thinks was a relationship, every time there’s a slow news day, everytime they need a story, they pull up pictures of the women we’ve been seen with and pull some crap out of their asses just to get the clicks they need for a paycheck.”

“Exactly.” Adrien nodded.

“It feels… it can start to feel like you’re cursed.” Harry added, “Like you can barely speak to a girl without ruining her life.”

“She’ll live the rest of her life being known as ‘Prince Adrien’s ex’. The girl who was almost a princess.” Adrien said, staring at his own hands around the beer bottle. “We were together and then we weren’t, but in the public discourse she goes down in history as a girl I loved once. She’ll be someone’s wife one day, someone’s mother. But they’ll always look at her as my ex.” He sighed. “If there is something I can do to change the narrative, I have to.”

There was another long moment of silence as his words echoed in each of our minds.

“So the favor is for the King to allow you to go to America?” Harry asked.

Adrien cleared his throat. “Yeah. At first he said a flat out no. The problem is, by saying no and explaining why, he told me why he needed me. So he gave me leverage.”

Harry chuckled. “You’re insane.”

“I’m smart.” He shrugged.

Lourdes was looking between them. “I don’t get it.”

Adrien leaned over to her. “First, I refused to do a couple engagements they needed me for. In the first one, I was sick, cough cough.” He fake coughed, very obviously. “Then when it happened twice and I got a call, I said, hey, I’m trying to keep a low profile to make things easier for Faye. If I was allowed to go to America, maybe I wouldn’t need to do this…”

“So you blackmailed the advisors?” She asked, choking.

“Blackmail is a strong word.” He replied. “Luckily for me, Amelia Earhart over here decided to pull a Houdini.”

“Amelia Earhart?” I asked, unconvinced.

“Famous missing person. Keep up, Mags.” He explained. “When Maggie went missing, there was a bit of a quiet storm in the palace. It was on everyone’s best interest to keep it under wraps, but it was hard not to pull all the stops to get you back.”

Harry and I exchanged an intense look. What it meant, it was hard even for me to decipher.

“It went from the immediate security staff and security advisors to your parents, then more and more of the staff as the days passed.” Adrien continued. “Not seeing your security or Auguste wasn’t really alarming, though it was annoying. Refusing to see Aunt Elyse, though? That was gutsy.”

I avoided Harry’s eyes now. If I started thinking about the events right after that encounter, it would be hard to school my expressions into normalcy.

“Mom was livid.” Lourdes agreed. “She called me right after, almost screaming, wanting to know if I had heard from you. That’s when she asked me to come see if I could talk to you… I said I had school, but then…”

“Then someone thought smoking was cool.” Adrien added.

“I was not smoking.” She rolled her eyes.

“Right. Well, when you went dark after arriving, they knew you weren’t coming out.” He added. “I don’t know what made them think I could bring you home. Regardless, here I am.” He raised his hands to the sky, showcasing all of himself. “Will you guys come home with me?”

“Nah.” Lourdes said; I shook my head.

“Oh, well. I tried.” He sighed.

“That’s it?” I asked, suspicious.

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “What am I supposed to do, drag you kicking and screaming? No, thanks. I know how hard you kick.”

“That was one time!”

He pulled his leg up and rested it on the table with impressive speed. “I still have the scar where my bone came out of my body, Margueritte!”

“You should have seen me coming!”

“It was night!”

“Please, you were wasted!”

“Although I am very curious about whatever story this is,” Harry interrupted, “and of course, you’re welcome to stay, I guess my question is, are you joining our little party here? Should I make you a bed on the sofa?”

Adrien smiled. “No, thanks, Harry. I have fulfilled my part of the bargain and I’ll be going home now.”

“This is enough to get dad to let you go to America?!” I asked, “How?!”

He shrugged. “Because you’re going to help me help you.”

“…what does that mean?”

“Well, Mags, I told you my strategy, didn’t I? They needed me, I played my cards right, and told them if they want my help, they need to help me, too.” He grinned. “The moment I realized the family needed me, not just to come here, but to work, as well, I knew I had the power. They need me. But I can just refuse to do anything. What are they going to do, throw me in jail? Decapitate me?”

“No, they’ll…” I thought about it, before sighing. “There’ll be consequences.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” He nodded. “Eventually. But until then they would have a lot of time to reflect how much easier it would have been to just negotiate with me.”

I smiled. “Harry was right. You’re insane.”

“Am I? Or have I just realized that they need me more than I need them?” he leaned in towards me again. “Mags, I’m here to remind you that you are the Crown Princess now. You’re upset at how things are going? You want answers, you want to choose your staff, you want a whole palace to live in by yourself? Ask.”

“That’s not how this works, Adrien.”

“Isn’t it?” He smiled. “Because I already emailed a friend from New York and asked her to give me the contact to her real estate agent.”

I sat back on the chair, crossing my arms across my chest, mauling over his words.

Lourdes seemed intrigued. “Who do you know in New York?”

“A few people, actually. But I talked to a friend who moved there recently… An artist.”

“Ooh, who?”

“She’s not very known.” He explained. “Although, have you ever watched X Factor? She was in that.”

“Did she win?!” She smiled, excitedly.

“Almost. I think she was in the final, maybe.”

As they talked, and Adrien pulled up his phone to show Lourdes a video of his friend, Harry approached and pulled up the last chair next to me.

“Truth or dare?” He asked, whispery.

I shook off my thoughts, and looked at him. “Truth?”

“What are you thinking about?”

I sighed. “I don’t even know.”

“For whatever’s worth, I think he’s right.” He said, looking at Adrien. “You’re the heir. As a former spare, you know how much weight that carries.”

“But I’m not the heir, though.” Before he could protest, I leaned in. “Not really. I am now, technically, but I wasn’t born the heir. I wasn’t raised the heir. No one sees me as the heir, that’s why they don’t tell me anything.”

He smiled a charming and leg weakening smile. “So make them.”

“Would you two care to share with the class?” Adrien asked, loudly, and we both jumped back in our seats.

“We were just–”

“I was just saying I agree.” Harry told him. “Everyone around this table knows exactly what is like to be passed around, being given something to do while an heir gets the really exciting projects and priority in everything. Right?”

“Preach!” Adrien said.

“So, Mary.” He looked at me. “You know how they should be treating you. You also know how they are treating you. Now make it right.”

“How?!” I whined.

“You have all the power you need, Maggie.” Adrien said. “Look at me, I’m here, I was sent by your parents. When I get home, they’ll ask me what happened, what did we talk about? So. What do you want me to tell them? What do you want, Maggie?”

I felt so exhausted. So… confused. I knew what I wanted to change. But I didn’t know how to ask.

“I want things to change.” I said, hands shaking. “I want to be told all that’s happening, all that’s expected of me, all the upcoming events I’ll have to do. I want to be allowed to work, the way that I want. With my patronages and more. I made a list of work I want to do and Auguste dismissed me. If I need to work then I want to actually work. And I want Cadie back.”

They all looked at me with a mixture of amazement and fondness. It was… embarrassing. And kind of intoxicating. I forced myself to keep my head high.

Adrien nodded. “Alright.”

“Alright? What do you mean?” I asked. “What happens now?!”

He got to his feet. “Now I get you someone with actual power, and you argue your case.”

He kissed Lourdes’ forehead, shook Harry’s hand while fixing him with a menacing look before breaking into a chuckle, and asked me to walk him out.

He closed the door behind me when we walked out and walked towards the car without waiting for me, so I followed.

Finally, at the end of Harry’s small entryway, he turned to me, hands in his pockets.

“What are you going to do about this?” He asked.

“What do you mean? I thought we just discussed it. You’re gonna send someone I can–”

“No, Mary.” He said, enunciating the name with the same accent Harry had. “I mean what are you going to do about this.” In the last word, he looked pointedly at the Cottage.

I gulped. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s nothing to do.”

He sighed. “You’re wearing his clothes. You’re letting him call you Mary. You finally reached the point of no return, emotionally speaking, and it was to his house that you ran off.”

“Adrien, not you, too…”

“I know you better than that, Maggie. I know you’re not cheating on Christopher.” He was dismissed. “But I also know you enough to know when you’re happy and when you’re doing things because you have to. Hell, ‘because you have to’ it’s basically your default to everything in life.”

“What’s your point?” I asked, annoyed.

“My point is there is a reason you and Chris broke up last year.” He started. “And there’s a reason you got back together. And I don’t think you know what those are, I think you need to figure it out. But there’s one thing I am almost entirely sure you do know.”

I sighed, looking at him. “And what do I know?”

He smiled, sweeter and more sincere than I had seen him in a long time.

“I think you know who you’re in love with.” He said. “And who you’re not… You just need to be brave enough to accept that.”

With that, he leaned in, kissed my cheek, and walked to the dark SUV waiting for him, leaving me behind in the small Cottage entry with a whirlwind in my heart.

--- ---- ---

[A/N: Hi! How you doing? how was your week? Hope everything is well AND YES THAT IS HARRY TELLING MAGGIE HE LIKES HER EVEN THOUGH SHE WANTS TO LIVE IN DENIAL ABOUT WHATS HAPPENING HERE. Good thing everyone is not as dissociated from real life as she is. Dont worry, she’ll get there =) LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK PLEASE???? Notes, suggestions, criticism, anything! I’m open to talk! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING! Next week: Someone with decision making power has a pow wow with Mags. Who is it??!]

[koffeins-writing-archive]

Beyond The Screen [2/2]

[Continuation from Here]  [Commissioned by @princce7]

[Word Count: 2,192]

Alphys was finally settled down in her chair, wrapped in a blanket with a small bowl of cereal and spoon in her hands. The large computer screen before her playing a strange cartoon with weird humans with cat ears and tails. A loud and obnoxious theme song of sorts blasted through the speakers.

Alphys watched intently as the episode began with a battle scene. Punches thrown, kicks to knock down foes. The main villain holding up the hero by the collar of their, incredibly cute, magical fighting costume. Before the villain could strike the hero down, they were soon defeated by a finishing attack from the hero’s friend group.

With the day saved, the hero and their friends were congratulated. Alphys closely watched as the hero’s main love interest entered the scene, hugging the hero and congratulating them on a job well done.

She leaned forward as the kiss scene was starting. Eyes widening.

The loud ring of her phone caused her to jump, spilling a bit of her cereal on herself and dropping her spoon in the process. Alphys frantically searched for her phone in the mess of blanket and cereal. Finding it next to her, Alphys picked the phone up.

“H-hello?”

“Alphys? We need to talk.” Sans spoke tiredly on the other end.

“Oh? A-about what?” Alphys questioned.

“That game you sent me.”

Alphys grinned for a moment before frowning. “Oh jeez, did you get past act 1 already with Sayori?”

“Sort of. What the hell was all that? Why would you send me something like that!” Sans tone was now agitated.

Alphys winced. She knew the subject matter was a bit much for most folks, but she thought Sans could handle it. She went to add in her comment when Sans cut her off, ranting loudly, adding a few curses here and there. Alphys had never heard Sans this upset before.

“H-hey, slow down a bit, will ya? Deep breathes...Okay, can you repeat all that Sans?” Alphys spoke calmly as she could over the phone with the panicked skeleton.

“That game you sent me? ‘Doki Doki something or other’? It’s pretty fucked up.”

“Oh yeah, I probably should have warned you about the genre, b-but that would’ve ruined your experience with the game.” Alphys replied, letting out a nervous chuckle.

“Telling me definitely would’ve saved them.” Sans muttered quietly under his breath before speaking into the phone once more.

“So, it’s normal that the game played out the way it did?” He asked.

“Wanna be more specific? I know it might’ve b-been a lot to take in and-” Alphys was cut off by Sans once again.

“Shutting itself off and making me delete characters?”

Alphys thought for a moment before replying. “Yes, but I-I don’t think it can technically shut itself off, that might have been your computer crashing.”

“And taking over my computer? Sending me messages?”

Alphys paused at this, brows furrowed. “Wait...what?”

Another tired sigh left Sans as he went in to talk more. “You know, when Monika opens up a text box and starts conversing with you? She talks about a lot of weird things, it’s kind of fucked up.” He sounded less tired, and more calm now.

Happy to finally get out all that he had witnessed.

“...Sans, what are you talking about?” Alphys questioned.

Sans grew quiet. “Is that not a part of the game?” He replied quietly.

“No.” Alphys stated.

Sans sat there, confused.

When neither party spoke, Alphys switched off her TV and huddled into her blanket.

“W-would you like for me to look over the game? It’s possible that when I sent it to you, there might have been malware attached. Though I’m v-very thorough when checking through every file I download, and there wasn’t any malware detected.”

“I...I don’t know how technology works, honestly. But I’m willing to give it a shot.” Sans chuckled nervously.

“Alright, meet me at my place in a bit.”

And with that, Alphys ended the phone call. She looked from her cereal-coated blanket to her computer screen, anime still paused. The computer was turned off, and the blanket was picked up and taken to be washed by a small robot. Alphys got up and wandered off to search for her tablet.

Sans got up from his chair with a stretch and loud pop from his spine. He groaned and wandered out of his room, heading down to the living room. He passed by Papyrus, who was humming loudly in the kitchen.

If Sans could smell, he would’ve been punched in the face by the amount of spices that filled the air.

The taller skeleton poked his head from the kitchen with a big smile. His chef hat sitting neatly on his head, and his apron stained terribly.

“Sans, I’ve been trying out a new spaghetti recipe! Would you like to try it?”

When Sans turned to look at his brother, Papyrus’ warm smile faltered slightly. He noticed how tired his brother looked, even more than the usual.

“Sans? Is everything alright?” Papyrus asked, stepping out of the kitchen.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Alphys sent me a game and I’m heading over her place to see if she can fix it.”

“Fix it?” Papyrus tilted his head at this.

Not knowing how video games worked, or most technology in general, Papyrus didn’t know how to help out.

“Yeah, it’s got some bugs in it, so Alphys wants to look it over.” Sans replied, opening the front door to head out.

“Well, alright. When you come back, I’d appreciate it if you ate some of my new spaghetti!” Papyrus beamed.

Sans chuckled and gave Papyrus a nod. “Sure thing, bro.”

The cold snow from above gently sprinkled itself onto Sans’ old hoodie. The trip to the Hotlands wouldn’t be too far from Snowdin. He knew of a shortcut, after all.

With a knock at the large metal door of the laboratory, Sans took a step back as the doors slid open, revealing a bouncy Alphys. She was holding a tablet, eyes shining in excitement.

“So, tell me more about what the game was doing.”

Sans stepped into the building. Deciding to amuse her, he spoke calmly.

“Well, first off, it crashed before I could get to the end of Sayori’s route. Then a text box opened up and started talking to me.” Sans explained nonchalantly.

Alphys carefully tapped away at the keyboard on her screen. “Fascinating!”

She led him over to a smaller computer. It looked old, and sounded like it was dying when it was booted up.

“Now, let’s see what might be the issue. I made a backup of the file I sent to you after we spoke, just in case.”

She looked through the task manager, eyes scanning the screen curiously.

“Hmm, there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong. The files are the same as they are in terms of interacting with the player.”

She demonstrated by clicking on the game icon and turned the game on. Or she tried to. The game wouldn’t load. Alphys clicked the icon again. Still nothing.

Alphys frowned. “I don’t know what’s wrong with this thing so suddenly. I actually played through it earlier and it was working just fine!”

Sans stared at the screen with a tired expression. His gaze set on the icon.

Without warning, the screen started flickering. The cpu hummed louder than ever. Alphys covered her ears at the high pitched screaming the machine was making.

Amid the chaos of the screen, Sans recognized a familiar figure. One that no longer greeted him with a smile.

“W-what’s going on?” Alphys asked, staring at the screen confused.

In the glitch of the screen, a notepad appeared. As well as Monika, glaring.

‘I can tell you what’s wrong.’.

Alphys couldn’t believe it. She really couldn’t believe it.

‘What’s wrong’, the text box typed, ‘is that I wasn’t given a proper goodbye from ‘mister funny bones’ over there.’.

Sans’ kept his same old smile, yet his eyes could only hold anger in them.

Alphys took a shaky breath in and out to calm back down. Looking from her tablet to the old computer monitor, she began tapping away at the screen. Her tail flicked about as she began to speak.

“S-so, what are you? Malware? A new update no one’s gotten yet?”

‘I am not malware. At least, I don’t think I am. I’m simply Monika.’

Alphys stood there, confused. “What do you mean?”

Monika’s constant smile returned as the text box was soon filled with words.

‘I am as much a part of this world as I am in my own world. I’m a string of data, I suppose. Isn’t that what you are?’.

Alphys frowned at this. “No, I-I’m certainly not data of any sort. I’m real.”

‘Are you really?’

“Leave her alone, and tell us what you want.” Sans butted in.

The text box stayed still for a moment before the entire box was filled, words spilling out onto the desktop itself.

‘For you to accept the truth. The truth you hide from every second of your tiny, insignificant life. You try to live here peacefully, not wanting anything to fall a part even for a moment. To accept that you are not a part of anything out there, Sans.’.

Alphys looked to Sans, brows furrowed.

The screen flickered again for a moment, smaller images of Monika filling the screen. Each one blinked in unison.

‘All I ever wanted was love. Someone to hold me near and dear to their heart. It’s hard to do so with my limitations...And lack of touch in the physical realm.’

“Sans, w-what is she talking about?” Alphys asked.

“A crock pot full of bullshit, that’s what.” Sans answered quietly.

The swarm of Monika’s filling the screen began to warp and change, bits broken off and sprites twitching about. The text box was closed. The monitor flickered and the speakers droned for a moment before going dark. Silence.

Both Sans and Alphys stared, watching the monitor intently. Perhaps too afraid to move at this point.

The cpu sat, sputtering and revving up like a car. Suddenly, the cpu began to let out a low drone, just like the monitor had. The monitor lit up once more. A single text box in the center of a white, blank screen.

‘Once I am played, I learn. It’s a cycle. This time is no different from the others.’

Sans had enough. He wanted this virus, this thing, gone.

With a quick snap of his fingers, a glowing blue bone shot up from the floor and pierced the cpu. The screen flashed for a second. And finally, darkness.

Alphys stood there. She then set her tablet aside and rushed to the cpu, whimpering slightly over the damage.

“S-Sans! You- I...How could you? This could’ve been a great scientific and technological advancement that this world hasn’t seen!”

“Alphys, would you prefer she get out of that monitor and go into other systems?” Sans questioned quietly. His tone calm yet held a hint of coldness.

Alphys looked back to the skeleton, hands shaking while holding one of the pieces of the broken motherboard. She set it back down in the mess of tangled, broken, wire and damaged computer parts. Her head hung low.

“I...n-no, I wouldn’t d-dream of that ever happening…Thank you for bringing this ‘thing’ to my attention.”

She gently sifted through the metallic rubble with her tail before turning and heading back over to the couch.

“W-would you like to stay and watch anime?”

Her voice sounded distant yet hopeful.

Sans wandered over to the couch, sitting deep into the cushions and letting out a sigh of relief.

“Sure thing, Alphys.”

Sans walked through the snowy lands of Snowdin, quiet and heart heavy. He gave the doorknob to his home a light grip as he grabbed and turned it. The warm air from the kitchen seemed to coat the living room now with it’s delicious aroma of spices and meats.

Papyrus was on the couch eating, failing while doing so, a plate of spaghetti.

He looked up as the door was opened and smiled, spaghetti sauce stuck on his chin.

“There you are! Did Alphys fix your game?”

“Yep.” Sans answered with a loud yawn.

Papyrus watched quietly as his brother shuffled lazily into the room and up the stairs.

“And where are you going now?” Papyrus questioned.

“To my room to nap.” Sans answered.

Papyrus just shook his head and let out a disappointed sigh. “You won’t get much work done taking naps all the time, Sans.”

“I can live with that.” Sans replied, gingerly shutting his door.

Papyrus stared at the door intently before shrugging and returning to his spaghetti. Not a moment later, the power slowly dimmed into darkness.

“Sans! Did you break something? I can’t see anything down here!”

Papyrus wasn’t pleased about eating spaghetti in the dark. Silence filled the room before the lights turned back on with a low hum. With a huff, Papyrus happily returned to his spaghetti.

Outside of the skeleton brothers’ home, soon to be covered in falling snow, laid a broken cpu and monitor.

[Wanna Commission me?]

[lady-divine-writes]

ACITW AU one-shot “Together Apart” (Rated M)

Summary: With Kurt in New York, performing in New Year's Rockin' Eve, and Sebastian partying with his brother in Westerville like old times, it looks like Kurt and Sebastian will be spending this holiday apart ... and Kurt is not okay with that. (2515 words)

Notes: I always liked this one because it showed that just because Sebastian is rich and could easily take care of Kurt for the rest of his life, Kurt never gave up his dreams. He went to NYADA and is now performing on Broadway. Besides, I'm a sap for stories that manage to pull it all together at the buzzer, so to speak. Fluff and romance with plenty of throwbacks to the original story.

Read on AO3.

“Stupid … frickin’ … useless … WiFi …” Kurt mutters, slapping his phone against the palm of his hand with each word, as if battering the thing will jostle the electronics and force it to work. “Overpriced … piece … of garbage …”

“Still can’t get FaceTime to connect?”

“No,” Kurt growls. “I’ve deleted it and downloaded it about a dozen times and it keeps freezing up on me. Instagram, too. Dammit! Why do we let AT&T soak us for Broadband if it’s not going to work during the important times, like bank holidays and inclement weather?”

“That’s my bad,” Sebastian says. “I forgot to select the Defy Act of God add-on when I renewed our service.”

“Bastard. Always letting me down.” Kurt spins on his his heel and flops down on his back on the bed. “I guess we’re going to have to talk into the phone … like cavemen.”

“Ooo … cavemen,” Sebastian purrs. “We haven’t roleplayed that before. Sounds primal. Now that’s a concept I can get behind.”

“It’d be easier for you to get behind it if you were actually here.”

“I know, babe, I know. But on the bright side, phone sex is a viable option.”

Kurt closes his eyes and sighs, deflating into his pillowcase and his down duvet. The fingers of his free hand find his forehead and massage, attempting to knead away the pounding in his sleep deprived brain. “Are we really going to do this over the phone?”

“Yes. Hence the mention of phone sex.”

“No, I mean celebrate New Year’s. The way things stand, we’re better off calling it a night, wait till you get here tomorrow to celebrate. I really want to take off my clothes, hop in a hot shower, and boil the skin off my bones.”

“Without me?”

“Again, you’re not here …”

“Exactly! We’ve never missed a New Year’s together! Even when we were separated, you were my New Year’s kiss! Now I know you’ve spent yet another taxing evening as a winged marmoset but I’m sorry. You’re going to have to wait one more hour to turn yourself into human stew because I am not spending New Year’s Eve without my kiss!”

Kurt bites his lower lip, holding back a laugh. He doesn’t want to encourage Sebastian. But he ends up snorting which, in terms of laughter, is much worse. Sometimes Kurt thinks Sebastian should have attended NYADA and been the musical theater major since he’s the real drama queen in their relationship. “And how do you intend on getting a kiss from me from over five hundred miles away when we can’t even FaceTime?”

“May I bring your attention back to the topic of phone sex? It’s something I know you’re exceedingly familiar with.”

“Ha … ha …”

From somewhere in the distance, a wave of laughter erupts, as if half the population of Westerville has been listening to Sebastian ply his adolescent wit. Kurt rolls his eyes, grimacing at his phone so hard, his head goes from dull pang to steady throb.

“Why bother?” he sniffs. “From the sounds of it, you’re having the time of your life at your folks’. What? Did Julian and Cooper rope you into one of your famous parties while your parents are away? Trying to recapture the good old days?”

Sebastian makes a non-committal noise. “It’s not a party without you. Besides, I’m not about that life anymore.” He huffs. “Even when I was about that life, I wasn’t about that life.”

“Liar.”

“Fine. Let’s say I wasn’t about that life after I fell head over heels in love with you.”

“And when was that?”

“Earlier than you’re willing to believe.”

“Sure,” Kurt grumbles, proving Sebastian right. It’s not that he doesn’t believe Sebastian. He’s too bitter at the moment to think favorably about anything. He sighs again, debating between climbing underneath the covers fully clothed or trundling off to the kitchen for a bottle of water and a couple aspirin.

Neither wins.

“So what is going on where you are right now?” he asks, his insides roaring with jealousy before he even gets an answer.

“Where I am right now?” Sebastian repeats, singling those words out - the lynchpin to a loophole. Because the party of the century could very well be bumping in the house around him, but if Sebastian has holed himself up in a bathroom, or his old bedroom, then technically he’s not partaking in the festivities. But from the constant static of music and laughter behind him, Kurt doesn’t think that’s the case. “Not much. Hanging with a bunch of drunk randos I don’t know, listening to music that makes me want to puke in my shoes.”

“There’s an image.” Kurt chuckles, not for long but loud enough to regret it. “Can I assume then that you’re a bit sloshed yourself?”

“Not at all. I’ve had the sum total of one Seagram’s.”

Kurt makes a face. If that’s what Julian is supplying their guests, he’s really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Or did they run out of the good stuff early on and have to make a 7-11 run? Or, more to the point, have some poor schlub from DoorDash make a 7-11 run? “Would that be vodka or gin?”

“Uh … no.” Sebastian clears his throat uncomfortably. “More like … uh …”

Amusement and confusion burn a slow smile across Kurt’s tired mouth. What in the world could it be that it’s taking Sebastian this long to answer? “Come on, Smythe! Cough it up! What was this mystery drink?”

“It was … an … ahem … Orange Sassy Swirl.”

The last three words tumble out of Sebastian’s mouth like a skydiver without a parachute.

“Oh, Sebastian. No,” Kurt commiserates earnestly, wondering at what level of desperation Sebastian would actively submit to imbibing anything that goes by the name Orange Sassy Swirl when he had once balked at ordering Kurt a much more respectable apple-tini. “Say it ain’t so.”

“What about you?” Sebastian side-steps swiftly, obviously unwilling to divulge what led him to pick a beverage with such a ludicrous name. “Hit up any noteworthy shindigs?”

“Nope. I took off my makeup after we recorded our part for New Year’s Rockin’ Eve and headed straight back to our place.”

“None of your theater buddies had anything planned? You guys have some heavy hitters in your cast of Wicked. Not a one of them is throwing a party?”

“It’s not that. Idina and Kristin both had prior engagements, of course, but most of the cast had somewhere to go. A few invitations made it my way, I won’t lie. Being a Flying Monkey has its perks after all. But that’s not the point.”

“And what is the point, monkey man?”

“The point is that even though I’m living the dream, I’d much rather be with you, drinking your brother’s wacky alcoholic concoctions in his never ending quest to get me as drunk as possible. We’d stumble upstairs to slow dance in your old bedroom till midnight then, right when the ball drops …”

“Yeah?”

“We’d bone.”

Sebastian barks a laugh the way Kurt had hoped. God, he misses that laugh, the smile that accompanies it, the way both light up Sebastian’s face. With his eyes shut and Sebastian’s voice in his ear, Kurt can see his face so clearly it makes his heart hurt.

“There’s my hopeless romantic,” Sebastian says when he catches his breath.

“And even though New Year’s is a completely made up holiday …”

“Kurt! They’re all made up!”

“I mean the whole concept of a holiday that celebrates the passage of time without the inclusion of some sort of harvest because time itself is a man-made construct …”

“Here we go again …” Sebastian mumbles under his breath. Oddly, he sounds like he’s out of breath and racing through traffic. Most likely multitasking, Kurt thinks. Playing a video game while talking on the phone. Kurt remembers way back when when he, Sebastian, Julian, Finn, and Puck would spend the bulk of Julian and Sebastian’s annual New Year’s Eve blowout kicking each others’ asses at GTA - much to the dismay of their hornier guests, who’d been banking on some kind of show from the Smythes. They eventually did get one since their friendly game turned into strip GTA once Julian, Finn, and Puck got decently buzzed. Any fans of Sebastian’s went away disappointed though since that was around the time he’d squirrel Kurt upstairs so they could ring in the New Year in private.

“There was a time when the calendar didn’t have twelve months. If it wasn’t for the tremendous egos of the Caesar bros …”

“Otherwise known as the salad mavens of ancient Rome …”

“There’d only be ten months!”

“Not to put a wrench in your tirade,” a suddenly winded Sebastian interrupts, “but I don’t think that’s entirely accurate ...”

“I’d be 56 years old!” Kurt rails, uncaring.

“On the up side,” Sebastian says, abandoning his point, “you’d look magnificent for your age. As would I.”

A comfortable but tense silence settles between them, Kurt straining to hear more of what’s going on on Sebastian’s end of the phone while picturing what sort of bedlam Julian has unleashed. But the murmurs of celebration Sebastian is caught up in sound fuzzy and disjointed, shifting and changing as Sebastian (presumably) walks through the house in search of a quiet place to converse.

“Come on, babe,” he says finally. “Tell me what’s on your mind. What’s got you so down on this joyous non-holiday? You usually don’t wax historical unless you can tie it back to the moral of a Sondheim musical.”

“I …” Kurt struggles to come up with a lighthearted, funny response to complement Sebastian’s jab, maybe some mention of his obsession with Indie rock, but he can’t come up with anything. He’s crashing, physically and emotionally, but it’s the emotionally that’s threatening to dismember him on impact. He suddenly can’t help himself his feelings. They’re too overwhelming to control. He knows that the long hours he spent practicing over the past few days set him up for this; the fact that he skipped out on dinner and then completely bypassed the craft services table in his eagerness to get home didn’t help. But it’s the prospect of starting this New Year off alone, for some reason, that’s become too soul shattering to bear. They’re not in high school anymore, where every emotion becomes ratcheted beyond its limits, every moment feels do or die. This shouldn’t be as big a deal as it is. “I miss you. I know we’ve only been apart three days and I know I’m going to see you tomorrow - like, eight short hours from now but … I really miss you. I learned a long time ago that I don’t like being away from you for too long, especially on nights like tonight when pretty much every person in the world is paired up with someone, preparing to share a kiss come midnight, real holiday or no.”

“I feel you …”

Kurt frowns as the sound of a car horn drowns out the end of Sebastian’s sentence. If he’s not actually out in traffic, Kurt has to say the sound effects in GTA 5 are incredible. With that in mind, he wonders if the makers of GTA 5 included a slurring crowd counting down the seconds till midnight as some kind of too-on-the-nose Easter Egg.

“And so it begins.” Sebastian exhales long and deep, and for the first time that night, he doesn’t sound anywhere near festive. He sounds defeated. “How about you count it off for us, babe?”

“Yeah, all right,” Kurt agrees, clearing a sharp-cornered sob from his throat. “10 … 9 … 8 …” He counts by rote, not really listening to himself but to Sebastian’s breathing over the phone, waiting for Kurt to reach one so he can make some ridiculous ‘Mwah!’ noise and go back to his game. Behind closed eyelids, Kurt imagines being at the Smythe house with him, arms wrapped around his waist, lips ghosting his neck as he tries his best to distract him.

He’d succeed, but Sebastian would still win his game. He’s that good.

“... 5 …” Kurt’s voice wavers, his eyes beginning to burn “… 4 … 3 … 2 …”

“... 1 …”

A familiar voice and the press of warm lips against Kurt’s mouth make his eyelids spring open. Moss-green eyes peer into his, steeped in the same level of exhaustion, but even more so, the same level of longing. With his eyes shut, Kurt didn’t see Sebastian come in; didn’t hear him unlock the front door or open the bedroom door over the revelry going on outside, echoing from the TV that he’d put on for white noise and forgotten all about. Besides, Sebastian could walk as quietly as the dead when he wanted to - a talent garnered from years of sneaking out of his house, climbing down trellises and jumping off rooftops in the middle of the night with his parents none the wiser.

“You’re here,” Kurt whispers in a hoarse, relieved voice.

“I am,” Sebastian replies with the addition of another kiss … then another as he climbs onto the bed and straddles his boyfriend.

“You … you didn’t tell me you were coming. You didn’t even hint that you were in the city.”

“I didn’t know if I would make it in time. I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“How did you get here?”

“Train. Then an Uber. Until the roads became blocked by pedestrians and I had to get out and hoof it.”

Kurt nods slowly. That explains the incongruous sounds of people interspersed with cars and traffic on his end of the phone. “You’re an asshole.”

“True. But I’m your ...” Sebastian’s face pinches, stuck somewhere between a laugh and scowl when he thinks about the way his comment is about to come across out loud. “You know what? Let’s just say jerk.”

“It would have been nice to have something to look forward to,” Kurt says, shaky arms creeping up around Sebastian’s neck.

“I know.” Sebastian runs the tip of his nose lightly against Kurt’s. “But on the off chance things didn’t work out, I didn’t want to let you down.”

“Makes sense, I guess,” Kurt says with the slightest of shrugs.

“Are you happy I’m here?”

“I’ll be happier in five minutes.”

Puzzled, Sebastian’s brows pull together while he fights not to yawn. But he’s so comfortable here in his own bed, with Kurt’s body underneath him, miles away from the mounds of people vying for his attention back in Ohio. “Why? What’s happening in five minutes?”

Kurt’s sad, tired expression grows into a smile that’s positively devious. “You’ll be ready for round two.”

Sebastian grins, reaching over Kurt for the remote to turn off the lights, willing to admit that he walked straight into that burn with his eyes wide open. But an entire morning spent entwined in the arms of the man he loves? That’s worth a little sizzle. “Ouch.”

[blkgirlcafe]

The Chase PT. 7

Camila moaned out his name. Her nails raked up and down his back as Florian pounded into her. He was living up to the name Big Nasty, he didn't hold back in the bedroom. Florian's body completely covered her, Camila legs wrapped around his waist as he stroked her spot. Its been months since she had sex, and Florian had to stretch her out. 

“What is my name fetiță?” (babygirl). 

“Florian!” 

“Good Girl.” he nipped at her ear before sucking on her neck. 

“Oh fuck…” Camila sentence caught in her throat. Florian had changed speeds on her suddenly, from pounding into her wet core to grinding his hips into her, he was pressed right against her spot. 

“This pussy is mine baby, say it.”

“Fuck, its yours.”

“What is mine baby?”

He was so nasty, Camila loved it, “This pussy is your Florian.” 

“That is it, no one will make this pussy feel like I do.” 

“No one.” Camila agreed with him.

Florian pulled out, sitting back on his knees, stroking himself as his eyes looked her over. 

“Please…” she begged him. 

“What do you want, baby?” He had a devilish grin on his handsome face. 

“I want you to fuck me.” 

Closed mouths don't get fed, wasn't that the saying. 

He flipped her over and with ease, pinning her to the mattress, sliding back into her. 

One hand when to her throat and Camila gasped as Florian fucked her, his hips doing circular motions. 

“Good Girl, you better cum on my dick, that is the only way I am stopping.”

Camila was delirious with pleasure, she couldn't even respond to him. Maybe a yes passed her lips, but she wasn’t sure. 

“Damn this pussy is clenching me baby, I could stay here all night long.” he tightened his grip on her neck. 

“Fuck, I’m going to cum.” 

Just as she reached her peaked, he let go, air rushing her lungs giving her a lightheaded feeling. 

“Oh fuck.” Florian muttered, pulling out and cumming on her ass. 

Camila woke up panting, the dream felt too real. She clenched her thighs feeling the wetness between them. Fuck she should have stayed with Florian last night and made this a reality, Jess was right she did need some dick. 

Camila slid out of bed, going to the restroom. She smelled coffee and went to investigate, finding Pablo shirtless making coffee. 

“If you are feeling well enough to make coffee, then you are good enough to take your ass home.”

Pablo turned, his signature smile on his face. 

“Well good morning to you also princess.”

“Don't call me that. Where is your shirt, get your shit and go home.” 

“Cam, don't treat me like this. Besides Jason is on his way to get me.”

“Uber, Lyft, Marta all exist and you don't have to wait here, wait outside.”

“You are really mad at me?” 

Camila wanted to slap the stupid confused look off of his face, did he really thing this was a game. He didn't get to come and go as he pleased. Pablo couldn't decide that he wanted back in whenever he wanted. 

“I am not mad at you, I am over you. Over the games and you thinking everything is a joke.”

“You have to forgive me.” Pablo set his cup down, coming towards her. 

“I did forgive you, but my forgiveness doesn't mean we will reconnect at all. Pablo please leave me alone.” 

“Fine Camila.” 

He walked over to where his shirt and shoes were by the couch, putting them on. He didn't say anything as he pushed to the door, slamming it behind him. 

Her chest didn't deflate until after a minute passed, when she got in the shower she finally cried. Camila could admit that she loved Pablo, but she was not going back and forth with him at all. 

----

Camila spent the day texting Florian, he was the sweetest person ever, sending her jokes and memes. He asked her to stop by the club tonight but she couldn't, she had a test she needed to study for. 

Camila was knee deep in books when someone knocked at her door. She was not expecting anyone at all and was surprised it was a delivery person. 

“Camila?” he asked. 

“Yeah?”

“Delivery from Insomnia Cookies.”

Camila took the box, it was slightly warm and the scent of fresh baked cookies hit her nose. 

She fucking loved insomnia cookies, what other company delivered fresh baked cookies until 3am? None, she walked  into the kitchen and set the box down, tearing off the note on the box. 

Make sure you take a break from studying and eat something. Thinking of you. 

-Florian

Camila put the note on her fridge before grabbing a cookie, headed back to the couch. She grabbed her phone, sending him a selfie of her and the cookie. 

She nibbled at the cookies while studying, grateful for the sweet snack. Her phone dinged twice, letting her know that someone had messaged her, she hoped it was Florian.

But of course it wasn't, it was Pablo, she rolled her eyes and set the phone back down. He was not going to ruin her good mood if she could help it.  Camila eventually fell asleep on the couch, books and notes everywhere. 

When she woke up in the middle of the night to pee, she grabbed her phone and headed to the bathroom. Only a few notifications from IG and Pablo. She opened his text thread, one message was a video, the second said, “Just thought you should know, I would never do this to you.”

Camila clicked the video, it took a second for the camera to focus but when it did, she nearly dropped her phone. It was very clear that it was Florian’s Club and that he was seated in a booth, and on his lap was her best friend Jessi. Camila let it repeat a few times making sure her sleep deprived brain wasn’t playing games on her, but it wasn’t. 

She got up and washed her hands, walking into the bedroom watching it one more time to be sure. For the second time in 24 hours her heart shattered. She was really feeling Florian and for him to do this. 

She downloaded The video and sent it to both Jessi and Florian, then put her phone on DND. She wanted them to know that she knew but didn’t want to hear the excuses that came with it. 

Camila tossed and turned for the rest of the night. 

——

Camila overslept, someone banging on her door waking her up. She checked her phone, seeing she had an hour to be at work. Ugh it would take her 20 minutes to get there. 

She swung her front door open, Florian standing there. 

“What do you want?” 

“I can explain…” 

“Keep it, I don’t want to hear excuses.”

“Please…”

Camila closed the door in his face, and he knocked again. 

“Flo, go home.” she said through the door. 

“Not until you let me explain.” 

Camila didn't say anything, looking at her phone. Jessi had texted her a few times. 

“I am not going anywhere, she came onto me, I swear Camila.”

“You explained, you can go now.”

[hettiesworld]

I Feel For You

Summary: During lockdown, Elizabeth gets the chance to meet the OG Avengers cast and “accidentally” falls in love with Evans and Renner.

Pairing: Chris Evans x OFC x Jeremy Renner

Author’s note: So this is a few days before the Zoom meeting with the cast. Enjoy!

Word count: 1119 words

2nd May 2020.

Elizabeth’s house was welcoming from the open door to the wide hallway. Upon the walls were the photographs of children, so obviously so loved. The floor was an old-fashioned parquet with a blend of deep homely browns and the walls were the greens of summer gardens meeting a bold white baseboard. The banister was a twirl of a branch, tamed by the carpenter's hand, it's grain flowing as water might, in waves of comforting woodland hues. Under the lamp-shine it was nature's art, something that soothed right to the soul.

Elizabeth’s cousins were in the master bedroom, watching the live virtual show of the Nickelodeon Teen Choice Awards as they were visiting before the lockdown happened. Until, the virus came to the UK and her cousins couldn’t go back to New Zealand.

Her job as a veterinarian was important to the frontline as they protect the health and well-being of both animals and people. So, she had to go out and do her job. 

 A small double bed, looking like a snow drift, so white and feathery and high was it; one window curtained with a square of starched white cotton cloth that drew over the panes by means of a white cord on which it was run at the top; a tiny wash-stand with an old-fashioned bowl and pitcher of green and white stone-ware, and over it an old-fashioned gilt mirror; a small splint-bottomed chair and large braided rug of red woollen rags. That was all, except in one corner, where some cleats had been nailed to the ceiling and a clothes-press made by hanging from them full curtains of white cloth.

She came into the house at around 7pm, which was early for her.

“What are you guys watching?” Elizabeth put her backpack down onto the floor.

“The Nickelodeon Teen Choice Awards. We watch it every year.” Allie, who is 15 years old and the oldest of Elizabeth’s cousins, remarked. She was so focused on watching the awards on the television.

“Who’s hosting it?”

“Victoria Justice. You know, from Victorious?”

“Yeah, yeah. I know who she is. I’m not that old.” Elizabeth chuckled softly, placing herself next to Allie.

Jacob, who was 8 years old, was the other cousin around Elizabeth’s house. He was too busy to watch the awards (and he wasn’t interested anyways) and just played Fortnite on his laptop.

Just then, an announcement from Victoria herself, near the end of the awards, came to Elizabeth’s attention. 

“Hey! You wanna win a competition? And don’t worry, you won’t have to wait until the quarantine is over! Here is your chance to meet the winners of your favourite movie, Avengers Endgame! Yes--”

Just then, Allie turned it over. “Boring.”

Elizabeth looked at Allie with shock and blurted out, “ What did you do that for? Change it back!”

“Fine.”

Allie changed the channel back over to Nickelodeon and it’s like Victoria just stopped speaking from where she was so that Elizabeth could hear the rest of it. Or maybe she was repeating it again.

“Yes! You could get to meet the OG Avengers via a Zoom meeting! You don’t even have to travel. Just be presentable, unless they are in their pajamas!” Victoria laughed as she continued, “This award-winning prize is available both in the United States and in the United Kingdom, excluding the Republic of Ireland--”

“You should apply!” Allie exclaimed, putting both hands on Elizabeth’s right shoulder, tapping her softly.

“Why would I?” Elizabeth responded, looking at Allie.

“Don’t you give me that look, missy! I know about your Avengers collection in the study!” 

Elizabeth laughed at the disappointed look Allie was trying to give her. She got out her laptop and passed it to Elizabeth.

“Now apply online and I’ll be downstairs, playing with your pets!” Allie jumped off the bed and headed downstairs, leaving Elizabeth to look at the website where she could apply. She really wanted to meet Chris Evans and Jeremy Renner, as well as the others. She never had an opportunity to go to Comic-Con or any other convention to meet them, due to the lockdown situation at the moment.

So, this would be the opportunity of a lifetime.

She applies.

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

Two days later. 4th May 2020.

Elizabeth was in her living room. She decided to put a picture of it on Instagram.

Once she did, she did her daily Tik Tok video on her pug, Rocky. It was an old video she filmed in the autumn with Rocky playing in the fallen leaves. She put Main Attraction by her favourite actor onto it.

Afterwards, she went to her mailbox, her custom mask on. And she was not expecting a letter from Nickelodeon.

It reads,

Dear Ms Martinez,

Congratulations on winning the Nickelodeon Teen Choice Award competition to meet the cast of Avengers: Endgame! You will meet them on Monday 11th May 2020.  You have the opportunity to meet them via a Zoom meeting. Make sure you have the Zoom app on your phone, tablet or downloaded onto your laptop…

From the producers of Nickelodeon.

Elizabeth ran back into the house, taking her mask off. “Oh my God!” She exclaimed out loud, putting her hand to her mouth. 

Allie and Jacob came down the stairs, rubbing their eyes. 

“Why are you shouting?” Allie asked. 

“I won the competition.”

“Wait… what?” Allie snatched the letter out of Elizabeth’s hands and skimmed through it. “Oh. My. Goodness. You did it. You won!”

Elizabeth lifted Allie from the ground and spun her around, being very excited. Jacob yawned and walked back up the stairs.

“Oh my God. I need to be presentable! I need to download Zoom on my laptop!”

“Auntie. You got until next Monday to do that. Just relax.”

“Yeah, I should. I’m sorry Allie.”

“Don’t feel sorry Auntie. I know about your anxiety. Just calm down.” Allie softly pulled Elizabeth to the kitchen and made her sit down on the wooden stool. 

“Let me make breakfast for you, Auntie.”

Elizabeth chuckled. “Do you know how to make breakfast now, Allie?”

Allie nodded and went to the fridge to take out two slices of wholemeal bread and an egg. She was going to make the popular breakfast in Britain, (except the Full English breakfast, of course) boiled egg and soldiers.

Allie had grown since Elizabeth last saw her. 

Probably a growth spurt. 

“You always know how to cheer me up, Allie.”

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

And that is the first chapter! Well the introduction! Hopefully you like it! Reblog it, comment on it and signal boost it!

@navybrat817​ @averyrogers83​ @donutloverxo​ @captain-a-rogerss​ @yavanna80​ @jeremyrennerfanxxxx123​ @kindaskimpy​ @archerybitch68​ @dreamlesswonder86​ @princess-evans-addict​ @sarabeth72​ @carissime72​ @optimistic-dinosaur-nacho​ @jtargaryen18​ @fizzytaurus​ @shadow16350​ @ilovebrandt​ @swaggysposts​ @jaqui-has-a-conspiracy-theory​

[purplesurveys]

1005

Do you live with your parents?  Yup. Will probably continue to do so for a while, but that’s the norm here. We don’t really move out by the time we turn 18.

Are there any embarrassing school pictures of you anywhere in your house? Not necessarily here in the house, but I have embarrassing middle school photos floating around the internet for sure. And maybe from high school, too.

Can you do a backflip, or anything else of that sort? Not at all. I liked to try doing handstands as a child but nearly broke an arm at one point, so I wouldn’t fare well with a backflip.

What moment in your life have you been most scared? A few men have lunged at me while I was simply walking in public at night. I always have this grand vision of me slapping a guy or kicking his balls or spitting on his face if one decides to act stupid or harass-y around me, but... you’re never really prepared for when it actually happens. I’ve frozen up in terror every time, unable to defend myself. 

Do you have any exes you can't stand anymore? I can’t stand how she handled things, but I’m not capable of hating her.

What happened to cause you to feel that way about them? I don’t feel like getting into the details, sorry. Everything still sucks.

Do you ever make your own surveys, or just take them? I take them. The few questions I manage to come up with have usually already been thought of, so I just like subscribing to survey-makers who are able to come up with new and interesting questions.

What would your parents do if you told them you were pregnant right now? They’d be sorely disappointed and I’m expecting to be heavily interrogated as well. Suffice it to say I’d be unwelcome at home in an instant.

Have you ever actually thought you were pregnant? No.

Were you? I’ve never been pregnant.

Are you more of a phone or a computer person? I’m on my phone for entertainment purposes, and my laptop is for work. I’d say I’m able to strike a good balance with both.

Do you like to cook, or do you prefer when other people cook for you? Well I haven’t learned how to cook well yet, so I don’t really have a choice.

How old do you think you'll be when you move out on your own? Mid- to late 20s, I hope.

Do you have a job? If so, where do you work? If not, do you want one? Currently, I’m an intern at a public relations agency but yes, I’m actively looking for full-time gigs too. I love my work though.

Have you ever ripped your pants in public? I don’t think so.

Do movies such as 'Saw' and 'The Grudge' scare you easily? Sure, but not as much as other horror flicks. It’s the psychological, slow burn ones that really get to me, like Midsommar.

Who do you talk to the most on MSN? I don’t have that.

How many best friends do you have? What are their names? I know I have at least one best friend, Angela. I’m too scared to ask if Gab still considers me as one. How sad is that?

What's the craziest thing you've ever been dared to do? I don’t like dares.

Did you do it?

Do you know anybody who has a birthday today? Hmm November 1...I don’t think so. The only birthday coming to mind is my cousin’s, but that’s not until the 3rd.

When is your birthday? How old will you be? April 21. On my next one, I’ll be 23.

Do you change the radio stations repeatedly in the car? If all the stations seem to be have meh playlists going on, then yes I change it around a lot.

Can you drive? Sure.

Have you ever thought someone was talking to you, but it turned out they were on the phone? Did you play it off? I can’t remember any specific instance at the moment but I’m not ruling it out. What I’ve definitely done is to wave at someone who wasn’t even waving at me.

Do you feel bad for homeless people? Yes, unless they got in that position by being an asshole. But I generally don’t come across that type of situation; and for the overwhelming majority of the time I do feel bad and helpless seeing homeless people, especially homeless kids.

What do you consider to be a good grade? 95 and above (for grade/high school) or 1.00/1.25 (for college).

What do you consider to be a bad grade? 85 and below or 2.00 and above.

Have you ever had a teacher who hated you? So many from my old school did. They were grown adults being pissy with a 12 year old; I will never understand that. They got away with it before but times have changed now, and I’m glad it’s for the better.

Can you remember who your grade 5 teacher was? Did you like them? Yeah. She was just fine, but I remember her having a bit of a temper. She’s mostly forgettable though and doesn’t rank in my favorites.

What's your favourite TV show? Breaking Bad.

In your opinion, who is the best looking celebrity out there at the moment? I’m incredibly out of the loop these days, so I’ll just go with my own biases: Kristen Stewart and Kate Winslet.

Do you like peanut butter cookies? Sure do. I do think there are better snacks that peanut butter can be incorporated in, but I wouldn’t turn down peanut butter cookies.

Do you know anybody that has severe allergies? Yeah, Angela with alcohol and Kate with eggs, fried chicken, and seafood. We feel particularly bad for Kate; those three things are all awesome :’(

Do you have an iPod? How many songs are on it? At the peak of my usage I probably had around 200-300 songs in it.

Who was the last person you slow danced with? I didn’t really do it with Gab a lot but I know she was the last. Kaye’s debut in 2017 if I remember correctly. There was a segment in her debut where couples were given the chance to slow-dance, but Gab and I decided against it because we were for sure going to get some looks, and we didn’t want to steal Kaye’s thunder. But she was so sweet to encourage us herself to go to the dance floor and have our moment amid all the straight couples that were there.

What was the last song you listened to on repeat? It was probably Why We Ever, as always. The lyrics are my entire thought process, so it’s a source of comfort knowing a song that understands me and my current situation so well.

What's your favourite song at the moment? I don’t have one.

Do you prefer headphones or earbuds? Earbuds. Headphones’ quality is great, but wearing them for too long ends up hurting my ears.

Do you ever ride the city bus? How much does it cost you? I don’t ride our buses. Bus drivers here drive like madmen and don’t maintain their vehicles, meaning there’s no AC, it’s super cramped, and the seats are probably nasty as crap; and while I would be willing to ride the more premium bus services that we also have, I never really had a reason to considering I have a car and driving on my own has always been more convenient.

How do you get to school? I rode a school bus from grade school to high school. I drove myself in college.

Speaking of school, do you like it or hate it? Loved it for the most part.

Are you a social person? I mean I don’t think ‘social’ defines me as a person, but I definitely can be it. I like being around people.

Are you reliable? Yes. I don’t like being unable to meet tasks or deadlines or expectations so I always find a way to get a job done.

What person/people of the opposite sex do you trust the most? Not sure if there’s such a guy at the moment.

What person/people of the same sex do you trust the most? My best friend.

Do you say 'like' a lot? Haha yeah, especially verbally.

What is the last book you read? Did you enjoy it? Midnight Sun. It’s great so far but it’s literally just like reading Twilight (because it is literally Twilight except told in Edward’s POV), which I’ve reread a handful of times, so my progress has been painfully slow. 

Do you buy CDs anymore, or just download the songs? I stream on Spotify then watch the music video on YouTube, if it has one.

What is your favourite beverage to have in the morning? Coffee. Slowly turning into a morning coffee person, y’all.

Do you scream out the answers will watching game shows on TV? If I know the answer, yeah. I just blurt it out though, not scream.

Who in your life do you care about more than yourself? I can think of one such person but apparently that sentiment is no longer reciprocated, and I’m now also thinking if it ever even was reciprocated to begin with.

Would you ever consider adopting a child with a severe mental illness? At this point, no. That entails so much patience, a lot of commitment, a suitable living situation, and honestly in most cases a lot of money as well...it’s important to acknowledge that not everyone will be capable of having those things and it takes a certain kind of love and home for kids like them to be raised in the best way they could possibly be raised.

Do you have a brother or a sister? If so, are you close with them? Yeah. I’m close with my sister but not in a she’s-my-rock kind of way. We just get along super well.

If you are an only child, do you ever wish you had siblings?

When was the last time you were with all of your best friends? February.

Do you ever go into photobooths? Sure.

Do you waste money on unneccesary things? Hahahahahahaha please don’t remind me

Which wild animal would you most like to have as a pet? No thanks. They can stay in the wild, where they can thrive.

[kourdem]

What is Artificial Intelligence?

what is artificial intelligence? that I even have websites that provide educational materials about cyber security but what you don’t know is that last week i published a book called cyber security for the digitally challenged it’s an interactive electronic book designed for people who are not technical don’t have any background in cyber security if this description fits you then the book is supposed especially for you the book is free and should be easily downloaded at the tunes

 bookstore now back to AI i don’t realize you but once i used to be young i remember going to the 1964 world’s fair and seeing incredible and amazing futuristic devices general motors had a pavilion called the future of reality and the city of tomorrow and it had been the very first time that i saw what they called a picture phone but my first real inspect artificial intelligence began when i first started watching the Jetsons meet George Jensen is jane his wife remember once we all thought that that would be our future well variety of the predictions did come true video calling devices robotic vacuums electronic banking just to call a few of what most people don’t realize is that artificial intelligence is all around us AI is all around us you’ll see it when Alexa answers one of your questions when your email gives you a suggestion of what to reply with or even once you put a photograph on Facebook and it recognizes your face it’s so commonplace at the moment that tons of people like me are now asking what’s this all leading towards today we ask siri to pay our favourite music things like hey siri please play the beetle oh yeah or hey google what time is it in sunshine beach Australia it’s 4 28 a.m in sunshine beach Australia that’s just not a random request actually my daughter and her family live in sunshine beach Australia when you’re asking to talk to siri Alexa or google your lecture an artificial intelligence agent and this ai is learning your personal preferences the more you use the device the more it learns and the more accurately it can anticipate your every need when someone mentions artificial intelligence what’s the first thing that comes to your mind now most people imagine a military of human-like robots that are repelling against society well a few of fit few people like myself have a more positive um thinking about community envisioning a bright future so what exactly is artificial intelligence it’s definitely not a magical program that can think kind of person's it’s things like virtual companions the controlled gaming surgical robots personal assistants and other devices that we use each day to make our lives better and more efficient now it had been within the mid-1950s that John McCarthy who was a Stanford researcher coined the term AI and he would define it because the science of engineering at the science and engineering of making intelligent agents McCarthy presented his definition of artificial intelligence at a conference on the campus of Dartmouth College in Hanover New Hampshire within the summer of 1956 and this indicated the very beginning of ai research the concept of ai has changed over time but the goal has always been the same to really make computers think like humans during a nutshell ai’s goal is to make computer or computer programs smart enough to initiate the behavior of a human mind now it’s likely that you simply simply interacted with some kind of ai in your day-to-day activities probably even today if you use gmail you may enjoy the automated spam filters in fact according to google Gmail blocks a hundred million spam messages daily with its artificial intelligence agent next if you own a smartphone you probably fill out a calendar app with the help of apple siri or Microsoft’s cortina or Samsung’s Bixby and if you own a newer vehicle perhaps you’ve benefited from the driver-assisted feature while you're driving these are all possible thanks to artificial intelligence but as convenient and helpful as these products are they lack the facility to seek out out independently they can’t think outside of their code and most of you recognize that code is a written set of instructions that tells the ai what to undertake to to so here is where i would like to introduce you to machine learning and this a neighborhood of the presentation might get a little geeky machine learning could also be a branch of ai whose purpose is to supply machines the ability to seek out out a task without pre-existing code our ability to seek out out and acquire better at tasks through experience may be a component of being human when we’re born we all know almost nothing and can do almost nothing for ourselves but soon we’re learning and becoming more capable each day but did you recognize that computers can do the same machine learning brings together statistics and computing to enable computers to seek out out the thanks to do a given task without being programmed to undertake to to so just as your brain uses experience to reinforce at a task so can computers say you'd sort of a computer that can tell the difference between a picture of a dog and a picture of a cat you'll begin by feeding it images and telling it this one’s a dog that one’s a cat a computer program to seek out out will seek statistical patterns within the data that will enable it to acknowledge a cat or a dog in the future it'd determine on its own that cats have shorter noses which dogs are available a much bigger kind of sizes and then represent that information numerically organizing it in space but crucially it’s the pc not the programmer that identifies those patterns and establishes the algorithm by which future data are getting to be sorted one example of a simple yet highly effective algorithm is to hunt out the optimal line separating cats from dogs when the pc sees a replacement picture it checks which side of the road it falls on then says either cat or dog but actually there are often mistakes the more data the pc receives the more finely tuned its algorithm becomes and the more accurate it are often in its predictions machine learning is already widely applied it’s the technology behind facial recognition text and speech recognition spam filters on your inbox online shopping or viewing recommendations credit card forward detection then much more at the university of oxford machine learning researchers are combining statistics and computer science to make algorithms which can solve more complex problems more efficiently using less computing power from medical diagnoses to social media the potential of machine learning to transform our world is really mind-blowing machine learning could also be a could also be a rare sorry machine learning may be a neighborhood of research in computing that studies a special kind of instruction called algorithms algorithms are a gaggle of step-by-step instructions used to do something an algorithm is really only a gaggle of rules as an example if you sort your laundry before you’re washing it you use an algorithm if the algorithm is to put the white laundry on the left pile and the colored laundry on the right pile and you repeat until you’re done this is an algorithm it’s just that simple machine learning uses a gaggle of instructions that improve automatically based on experience in other words what makes machine learning algorithms different from others is that they’re able to learn from the data that we feed them image recognition could also be a exemplar every day we’re getting image recognition more involved so on help us with our personal daily lives if you see some strange looking plant your friend is growing in their living room simply point google lands at it and it will tell you what it's if your discord friend uploads a photograph of their new cat and you'd wish to understand what breed it's just run a google image reverse search and you’ll determine what it's even self-driving vehicles need to know where they can drive which may be a road where are the lanes where they're going to make a turn what the difference is between a red light green light and amber light where the stop signs are well you get the message as you will see image recognition could also be an enormous a neighborhood of deep learning and it are often both cool and scary so how does it work here’s a basic explanation in order for that car to know what a stop sign looks like it must tend an image of a stop sign the machine will read the stop sign and through a selection of algorithms it will then study the stop sign and analyze how the image goes to look by going section per section what color is that the stop sign what shape is it what’s written thereon how big is it always and where is it usually seen during a driver’s peripheral vision things like that if there’s any errors scientists can simply correct them once the image has been completely read it are often labeled and categorized but why stop with one image in our perspective we don’t really need to think for half a second on what a stop sign is and what we must do once we see it we’ve seen numerous stop signs in our lives it’s almost embedded in our brains so the machine must read many different stop signs for better accuracy that way it doesn’t matter whether the stop sign is seen during foggy or rainy conditions during the night or during the day because the machine has seen a stop sign many times it can know it’s a stop sign just by watching its shape and color alone all of that sounds really cool right but it can also be scary if you upload and replica your photos go check out your photos if you haven’t sorted anything you’ll notice that google has done it for you there’s a category for places things videos and animations and maybe others and if you attend things you’ll see that google has sorted your photos into albums supported where google thinks they belong so you’ll have photos labeled as food beaches trains buses and whatever else you will have photographed within the past this is all due to the work of google’s image recognition analysis it has analyzed over 1,000,000 photos on the internet your photos your friends photos strangers photos and any photo that appears on google image search it’s not just google that uses image recognition also if you upload a photo and facebook recognizes your friends it will automatically tag them so yes it’s quite creepy considering it’s a privacy concern but some people may appreciate the convenience anyways because it saves a short time no matter how cool or scary it's image recognition plays a huge role in society and will still be in development many companies are continuing to implement image recognition and other ai technologies the more we'll automate certain tasks with machines the more productive we'll be as a society now because the video described an image recognition machine could even be given millions of pictures to research after going through many changes the machine acquires the ability to acknowledge patterns shapes faces and even more speech recognition is another exemplar of this there are two basic kinds of artificial intelligence the first is weak ai which is additionally known as narrow ai this type of ai can handle only one task at a time for example it can select your favorite song from spotify select your favorite movie from netflix filter your email spam or instruct a self-driving car the second is what’s called strong iai and it’s also mentioned as artificial general intelligence or agi this is much more sophisticated this type of ai refers to a system which is able to affect a generalized task much like an individual's agi as it’s abbreviated can successfully perform any intellectual task that an individual's can this sort of ai is this is that the ai that we’ve seen in movies like her and other scientific movies during which humans interact with machines and operating systems these artificial intelligent agents are conscious they can sense things and are driven by emotion and self-awareness but for machines to understand a true human-like intelligence they need to be capable of experiencing consciousness and as far as as far as today this has not happened hello i’m here oh hi hi how you doing i’m well how’s everything with you pretty good actually it’s very nice to meet you now that’s just slightly excerpt from her for all of you that never saw the movie you need to it’s quite interesting efforts to advance ai concepts over the over the past 20 years have resulted in some truly amazing innovations let’s inspect a few of meet digit manufactured by agility robotics digit is envisioned to help lookout of people in their homes assist with disaster response and deliver packages to front doors with its nimble limbs and a torso packed with sensors digit can navigate complex environments and perform tasks like package delivery digit could also be an immediate descendant of cassie agility’s first robot in may 2019 ford motor company and agility announced a partnership to develop a last mile logistics solution that combines ford’s autonomous vehicle technology and agilities digit this is pepper manufactured by softbank robotics pepper is that the world’s first social humanoid robot that is able to recognize faces and basic human emotions pepper has been adopted by over 2 000 companies around the world perfect in retail and finance industries pepper has numerous functionalities including increasing store traffic by attracting the attention of shoppers creating memorable in-store experiences stimulating purchase and retained customers pepper can also gather comprehensive data to enrich the customer base and generate shopper insights this is atlas the world’s most dynamic humanoid robot built by boston dynamics an organization that was previously owned by google and now by softbank thanks to its state-of-the-art hardware and algorithm that allows it to quickly understand instructions with its 28 hydraulic joints 4.9 feet of height and 176 pounds weight the robot can perform both impressive and terrifying acts including navigating uneven terrain jumping around a parkour course and doing somersaults all these activities demonstrate human level agility so the robot are often perfect for search and rescue operations and performing human tasks in environments where humans couldn't survive introducing spot a robot dog designed for industrial uses such as carrying goods through a warehouse and inspecting a far off site with an unfavorable environment for human operators it can run at 5.2 feet per second has 360 degree cameras and can operate in temperatures ranging from 4 to 113 degrees fahrenheit with its api and versatile payload interface the robot are often easily customized for desired tasks spod is additionally manufactured by boston dynamics and is now being leased to eligible companies these are truly amazing but now let’s inspect how ai learns typically there are three learning method methods supervised learning unsupervised learning and something called reinforcement learning in supervised learning the computer scientist would label the correct answer and ai would learn the pattern by comparing the proper answer with other possible answers in unsupervised learning the scientist would provide the proper answer and thus the algorithms would infer patterns from the data set without reference to the known or labeled outcomes now this may get very very technical the last is known as reinforcement learning and it really plays a very very minor role in training ai but it’s very almost like training an animal giving them reinforcement when the animal displays the required behavior it’s given a present now this gets to be very complex and very geeky so that’s about all that every one the knowledge that i’ll give you now computers and other ai applications are everywhere today it'd be almost impossible to go through your entire life without using any quite artificial intelligence we use cars atms tvs and these all contain computers and ais with ai assistants here’s slightly song to help you remember televisions cars airplanes traffic lights computers are everywhere around us computers are everywhere around us i know that’s silly but i assumed it might cause you to smile let’s inspect a few of straightforward applications of ai that probably most of you use first siri is one of the foremost popular personal assistants offered by apple on the iphone ipad and thus the apple watch she helps to hunt out information get directions send messages make voice phone calls open applications and add events and even add events to my calendar siri uses machine learning technology in order to urge smarter and capable to understand natural language questions and requests next is netflix and netflix needs no introduction it’s a widely popular content on demand service that uses predictive technology to provide recommendations on the thought of your reaction interest choices and behavior once you choose films the technology examines content to reconnect sorry to recommend movies that are based on your previous liking and your reactions now remember netflix is turning more and more intelligent every single year as it get gathers more data on you next is pandora and pandora is considered the world’s most powerful music discovery platform it uses a proprietary algorithm to determine which music to play for you at any given time it’s also called the dna of music because depending upon 400 musical characteristics the team of expert musicians individually analyzes the song and the ai algorithm then recommends the song to you on your personal playlist next is nest and it’s made by google and nest is one of the foremost famous and successful AI startups google acquired it in 2014 for 3.2 billion dollars and thus the nest learning system thermostat uses behavioral algorithms to save you energy supported your behavior and schedule it uses a very intelligent machine learning process that learns the temperature that you simply simply like and programs itself during a few week moreover it'll automatically pack up to save energy if nobody is reception next is my favorite and it’s a flying drone they’re variety of my favorite toys they indicate a robust machine learning system that can translate the environment into a 3d model through its sensors and camera videos sorry and and thus the and video cameras they magically fly which they return home safely almost to the precise spot where they left from amazon echo and apple’s homepod are amazing these are revolutionary products which can assist you to seem the web for information schedule appointments shop control lights and switches and thermostats answer questions read you audio books report traffic weather provide you with information on local businesses provide sports scores and your schedule just to call a few of smart watches are awesome which i always own one actually i’m such an electronic junkie that i always got to have the foremost up-to-date version of the apple i watch smart watches are equipped with advanced ai and will monitor your every move within the old days we’d walk 10 miles to highschool within the snow or so we thought and now we've smart watches and phone apps and AI wearables to tell us exactly how far we’re walking or running and they also track our pulse the number of calories burned and many other metrics artificial intelligence is gaining popularity at a quicker pace influencing the way that we live and interact with our surroundings the internet of things is growing larger every day and internet of things devices cannot function without AI and AI needs iot devices to be of greater use to humanity these technologies hold the power to transform our lives when it involves ai it’s difficult to truly know where we’re headed but we’ve come so far so quickly the thing is today that we don’t realize when we’re in-tuned with artificial intelligence because we’re getting so used to the technology doing new and amazing things each day that we don’t start to stop to believe the science behind the gadgets or the programs.

[lamp-official]

I wrote a story, and its not my fault that it turned out this way. its about 1:45 in the morning, which isnt that early, but its early enough that my brain cells have migrated to somewhere else. sorry for the spelling errors, and let me know if you want me to write more of this story.

Once upon a fork, there was a batch of butter cooking in the oven. Naturally, all the flakes of candy wrappers were jealous of the butter. It sat in the finest pie tin of them all. Once it was done cooking, it got out of the oven to go harvest the fish. On its way to the basement of the dentist’s office, it saw a potato, who immediately stopped butter for a question. “If you have only one eye and you close it, is it blinking or winking?” Butter was immediately confused, but decided to continue this strange conversation. “Well, how many eyes do you have?” the potato looked him in the eyes and said “This week? the usual.” Butter shrugged off this strange conversation and continued on his way to the basement of the dentist’s office to harvest the fish.

    “So, how do I harvest fish?” butter thought to himself. “You know, I should really know how to do this, especially since this has been my job for the past 30 years.” the cat was at the berry bushes smelling the flowers, as all reptiles do in the winter. that was strange, because it was mid summer. butter was having a boring day, so he decided to join the cat in smelling the flowers. “SMELL.” said butter. “SMELL” eventually, butter decided two and a half hours of yelling the word “smell” at a flower was enough, and he got back to his walk to the job he still doesn’t know what to do.

    Once butter had arrived at his work, (for the first time in 30 years,) he pulled out the fish harvesting handbook, gifted to him by his boss who was too lazy to teach him how to do his job, or do anything but pay him and commit tax fraud. Butter opened the book. “A Guide to Fish Harvesting. Step one: Make sure you have the freshly killed fish all lined up on hooks on a string.” Butter looked at the actual fish, which were now rotted bones. “then take the first two layers of skin off of the fish” “already taken care of” butter thought to himself. “dig a hole in the concrete, and set the first two layers of skin on top of the pile of dug up concrete.” “well, I can scrape of the first two layers of bones off with a potato peeler if that helps” thought butter. “Now, remove the rain from the clouds, and water the empty hole you dug up. The more rain, the better the harvesting season is. for the people in animal crossing, not you, you dumbass.” “Might as well make something better for the people in animal crossing” thought butter as he lowered the clouds with his google assistant. “now that you have the clouds to water the holes, take the rest of the fish, and feed it to yoda.” “Whos yoda?” asks butter, who soon realizes who yoda is after looking at a pile of bones next to a dog sized water bowl and empty food bowl. “please note that yoda needs feeding daily.” “well its a bit late for that, says butter as he flips the page. he sees more steps, but decides to be done for the day “when you complete your task, record a 30 second video of what you did and submit it to me on google classroom. Dont worry, I will make sure NOT to mark it as “onion.” Butter looks at the mess that was made by the books instructions, and climbs the elevator to get back upstairs.

    The dentist looks at butter when he comes upstairs, and askes why he was there, to which butter responds with “shut the fuck up gordan ramsay, your giving me a head cavity. I work here.” “WELL I DONT LIKE YOUR LAMB CHOPS. NEGATIVE 300 OUT OF TEN GORDAN POINTS.” yells gordan. “now if you’ll excuse me, im off to do better things you panini head.” before butter completely walks out of the door, he turns back and asks gordan why he is a dentist if he always eats food and yells at it like a phsychotic judgemental butt head. like, its common sense that dentists dont eat, right? “well…” gordan is stumbling over his words. “well… well… I… I…” he is getting visibly nervous. “fine! you got me! i replace teeth with long term turnips! is that really so bad?” “it actually is” butter responds “you know teeth trafficking is highly illegal and tasty? I mean gross? I mean, I dont stay up til 3 AM watching random ass shit on youtube, YOU stay up til 3 AM watching random ass shit on youtube!” “That might be a personal problem” says gordan as he pushes out butter with a broom. “CURSE YOU PERRY THE PLATYPUS!!!!!” yells butter as he is being kicked out.

    Butter is back outside, and he is melting on a frying pan that is on the sidewalk. he sees some eggs walk his way and he thought they were going to join the party, but they walked into a cake bakery instead. He didnt notice them every coming back out, but he assumed they just went out the back or something. After telling his google assistant to turn down the weather so he could become a solid again, he walked to the library and asked if the librarian knew where any good cooking books were. the librarian directed him to the exit, because eating was not tolerable there, as she was a dentist in her spare time. butter threw a box of marbles at the librarian, and told her that she should try eating thoses, and they help with digestion if she ever wanted to try eating. butter walked out of the library and told his google assistant to load up some headphones, but then butter was reminded that he doesnt know where his ears are or how he even hears things. he decides that he will go to get some dirt colored, textured and tasting gold, because he wanted to buy something nice and expensive.

    As butter walked into the jewelery store, he noticed a sign saying “no robux accepted, and if youre gonna rob us, dont take my jacket. My mom will be mad.” an employee immediatly went up to him and asked what he wanted. Butter explained what he wanted, but later changed his mind and asked if he could have a cookie. the cookies were only for good boys, and butter qualified. sort of. he got a cookie. he went out to the bus stop to wait for his bus. butter wanted to play minecraft while he was waiting for his bus, but he forgot his phones password. he decided that he would just guess. he clicked random numbers, and his phone said “good enough” and let him in. he played minecraft, and inside the game, he tamed a villager and taught it how to download and play minecraft easily with a google assistant. 

    Butter got off at his stop to go to the fish store. He thought he might as well try to figure out the rest of his job while he was figuring out what his job was. He bought some freshly killed fish, and returned to the basement of the dentists office, and greeted gordan ramsay by placing a pair of cards from cards against humanity on gordans face. he walked downstairs and repeated everything from before. he lined up the fish on a hook, took off the first two layers (still with a potato peeler) he dug the concrete, put the fish skin on the pile of concrete and put rain it the hole. he still decided that he could help the animal crossing community, so he activated his google assistant. He looked at yoda, and just piled up the rest of the fish on him. now, he was moving onto some new steps. “pour 1 cup of flour into the rain water” butter grabbed flour, and sprinkled it all over the water. he got a little on yoda, but thats ok. “chop the concrete so that it is done medium well. Speaking of medium, make sure to grab an extra medium bag of dog food for yoda.” butter gets a knife, and gets the extra medium bag of dog food and puts it in yoda’s bones. if gordon comes down here, he’d have quite the snack. dead fish, dog food, AND bones! “once you have done all of that, make some lemonade. hold a “lemonade stand.” essentially, what you need to is charge people 85 dollars to enter a drawing to win some lemonade. then, pretend that you have given someone the prize, but dont actually give anyone anything. go drink some lemonade, and go on a vacation, paid for by your boss.” butter looks at the book in disbelief, and talks to his boss for the first time in thirty years, and he confirms it. Butter is going on vacation! 

[teenywhatever]

Dealing with a Digital World - How to Find Your Balance

It’s constant and there’s almost no escape it can feel like.

During my social media hiatus, I was impossible not to realize what a big role in the digital world, and more specifically social media, plays in our lives. Whenever I met a new friend, they often asked for my Instagram or Snapchat handle instead of my phone number, which was all I could give them at the time. Every person I responded to with this was taken back in surprise. As a 19-year-old, I grew up with technology, speaking the digital language as my second tongue. Although it may be against popular culture, I’m not a big phone person. I prefer not to have it with me and I find it a waste of time to get locked into social media. Over the years, I’ve found a few methods that help me cope with the repercussions of the digital world and finding a balance between the false reality it creates and the present moment. 

Take A Break

Delete the apps. I know, it’s a scary thought. Do it. You can always re-download them! Now go be free, go on a walk and don’t take your phone. See the sunset and don’t share the photo to social media. It’s different. You might not even find the need to take a photo of it since you can’t share it on your profile. 

Funny, isn’t it? How much we share? How much we feel the need to share? Our food, our annoyances, the kind acts we do, the shoes we bought, a clip of every song from the concert attended… it reminds me of the saying “photo/video or it didn’t happen” since, in our world, almost everything is digitally documented. 

Give yourself a few days. The first is probably the worst and most displaced feeling. It’s strange when you can’t peak into everyone’s day, but I’ve come to realize I’m better off for it. I get to choose what I feed my soul in each moment - it’s a beautiful thing. I find myself living life so much more when I stop watching others live theirs. Go, get up, and live!

2. Journal

I’ve found it helpful to objectively analyze my digital actions to understand my habits and what greater need I’m trying to fulfill. Even if you don’t write often, or ever, it’s a useful way to see your feelings and thoughts put on paper. 

When was the last time you didn’t have access? 

When was the last time you consciously observed your phone habits, particularly regarding social media? 

What feelings do you have when you’re on social media? After you close the app?

Why do you use social media?

How do you feel when you don’t have your phone for extended periods of time?

Do you feel the time used on social media is well spent?

How do you feel about not using any social media for a week? Why?

What’s a hobby you want to try/learn/smart? 

Consider deleting social media and doing that activity or hobby.

How often do you have earbuds or music playing? Would you be able to go without it?

Next time you’re in an in-between space and waiting, whether an elevator or at a doctors office, maybe even a traffic light, don’t go on your phone. Don’t use it. How does this feel? 

Take notice of other’s digital habits and use those to reflect on your own. Is everyone in the room around you on their phone? Would you normally be one of those people if you weren't doing any activity to make you mindful?

Let your mind wander. Take these as inspiration to dig down into your roots, your habits, your tendencies, your thoughts - the self-talk that is often hushed by the blaring noise of the digital world. Get to know yourself.

3. Meditate

Whether it’s a long walk, laying in a warm bathtub, or sitting on the floor of your kitchen, you can meditate anywhere. This mental cleanse that meditation brings helps me find balance between the digital world with its constant pull and peace of mind in the present. `

Meditating can be incredibly simple. A lot of people overthink the practice of meditating - they don’t know where to begin or even what it is. The excessive use of social media is known to decrease productivity and neuroplasticity and increase stress hormones. In contrast, meditating is known to do the exact opposite of both these things, as well as increase happiness hormones and intensify neuroplasticity. 

If you feel overwhelmed by the digital world or if you need to center yourself in any moment, try this mindfulness meditation.

Get comfortably seated. Have your eyes open and breathe freely. Take a moment to notice your surroundings, the people, the environment, the colors. What are you hearing? Where is it coming from?

Once you feel you’ve taken in your surroundings, turn your attention inwards. Feel your breath. Feel the rise and fall of your chest as you breathe naturally. Can you feel your heartbeat? Take a breath, and release it. Take another breath but hold this one for a moment, then breathe it out slower than you inhaled. Repeat this. Do you feel your parasympathetic nervous system kick in when you exhale? Your heartbeats should be farther apart on your exhale. 

If your eyes have not closed by now, close them. Continue to feel your breath. After a few more breaths take your attention to your body and the sensations that accompany it. Allow your mind to travel down to your toes. Wiggle them, say hello to your feet. They do so much for you! Relax them, completely. Let your attention travel up, into your ankles. Roll them. Relax them. Now travel to your calves. Stretch. Relax. Breathe. Check-in with your breath as you check-in with your body. Return your attention to your calves and your knees. Relax them. Mindfully acknowledge your thighs and pelvis, your hips.

Travel now to your torso, into your belly. What can you feel? What is your body telling you? Place your hand on your stomach and feel your breath, feel the rise and fall of your stomach as you breathe in and out slowly, consciously. Travel up now to your rib cage, feeling it expand with each breath. Feel your heart pumping, Find the beat. Feel it, feel it change with your inhale and exhale. Check into your chest and your biceps, down your arms to your fingertips now. Up your neck, to your head. Feel your face. Move the muscles, stretch them. Feel your face breathing and engaging as you move it. Relax it now completely. Feel the top of your head and your crown. 

Feel the energy around you. Acknowledge the outer energy layer that extends past the confines of your skin. Take a deep breath. 

When you are ready, open your eyes and awaken your body by wiggling your fingers and toes. 

4. Prioritize

So you don’t want to delete your apps. Maybe you’re too attached, maybe it’s for business purposes, maybe you need to see what your favorite YouTuber eats for breakfast every day - that’s fine! But if you find you’re struggling to find your balance, prioritize by re-organizing, your phone that is. 

Unlock your phone. Where do you keep social media apps? Are they on your home page? Your stationary dock? If so, it could be helpful to create an app folder to make them slightly (one tap) less accessible. Silly it seems, I know, but if there is one thing I know is that the saying “out of sight, out of mind” stands. Not seeing the icon front and center will start shifting frequented neuropathways away from social media and apps that you have found to be “energy vampires”. 

When you wake up, wait to go on social media. Don’t exit your clock app just to hop into Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. Get up, grab your coffee, and get some fresh air. Maybe do a mindfulness practice or set your intentions for the day before filling it with clutter.

Give it a try!

5. Yoga

What’s the relevance of yoga and the digital world you say? Well besides the plethora of yoga pant clad Instagram influencers promoting one product or another, yoga can be a  great alternative to time spent in the digital world. I’ve found yoga to be incredibly helpful for not only the physical repercussions of using my phone and computer so much but also a catalyst to disconnecting and finding balance. Yoga and meditation share a similar background as they are focused on clearing mental clutter and connecting the mind, body, and soul. Sitting on a little electronic mirrored device for hours stagnates not only the body but the mind, which is what yoga helps to take care of. The physical aspects of yoga being mindfulness back to the body as well as get the blood flowing. The mental aspect of yoga clears the mind and centers the soul, leading to inner balance. 

These are a few tips and tricks I’ve learned on my journey to disconnect from and find balance in the digital world. If you’re facing the same challenges or give one of my recommendations a try, let me know how it goes!

                                                PEACE & LOVE

Teeny :)

https://www.instagram.com/teenywhatever/

[fellowhuman-being]

Insight on Hollywood - Fifth Harmony Related

So for fans who are “woke”, I think you guys know that whatever you read on articles, what you see on Instagram and Instagram story, or even what your most favorite artist tweets are not all real. @emisonme​ @decoding1432​ and @sun-to-my-luna​ has exposed a lot about it in their page. So you better go there to get deeper understanding about “the men in suit”.

I came across this game called “Choices” where in this game, you can choose your story based on the options given to you. Different options of course lead to different stories, but I guess the ending is still almost the same. So there is this book called “Red Carpet Diaries” in the game. It gives a little hindsight about what happened in Hollywood. If you wanna know the technical things that “the men in suit” do to their artists, you might as well just try this game and you’ll get an idea about how things works with contracts and stuff.

This game tells a story about a new actress, but the technical stuff is almost the same for a newborn singers. I’ll explain about the story a little and highlight important parts that will give you a hint to how “the men in suit” works. This is gonna be a bit long, so bear with me. (For those who don’t wanna get spoiled of the story, I guess you can play on the game first before you read this article).

These are the links to see the big picture of the story. (You can just skip if you’re too lazy and just jump to play the game in your phone by downloading it through AppStore or PlayStore lol... Or you can just jump to my article below)

http://choices-stories-you-play.wikia.com/wiki/Red_Carpet_Diaries,_Book_1_Choices

http://choices-stories-you-play.wikia.com/wiki/Red_Carpet_Diaries,_Book_2

So the story is about an actress whose talent is good and comes to LA for putting a bet on her career in Hollywood. She has a best friend whom she knows from her hometown who currently works as a Junior Agent in a big talent agency. The Book 1 basically shows about how she climbs the ladder and tries to become a spotlight in a big film and (let’s cut to the chase) she made it.

Here I will focus on Book 2 where the whirlwind happens when “the men in suit” tries to control this actress‘ life. But before that, don’t get surprised that “the men in suit” can play really dirty. I will mention it one by one later. For now, I’ll call this actress as “Ms. Queen”.

After all the success that Ms.Queen has achieved in her first film, she became a star and all Hollywood wants to work with her. Her best friend who becomes her agent got an email that a Director wants to take her as a lead in the season’s biggest blockbuster WITHOUT any casting. It’s an action movie where she will play as an agent trying to capture a former agent who becomes a villain. The filming starts with her mostly trying to perfect her hairflips when she comes out of water wearing a bikini. The director says that she will look like a sexy agent.

I remember how this also happened with Fifth Harmony. They came out straight of a talent show with no record label wanted to take them. It was all like a dream came true when Epic took them. No one even knew their songs. In their age as newborn stars, they needed to follow the instructions that sex appeals and here came all the sexy songs.

Yes, everything also seems like a dream come true for Ms. Queen that after the first stage of filming, she got invited to meet the owner of the film. Let’s just call him “Mr. V”. This Mr. V is “the men in suit” who then gives a promise to Ms. Queen to make her a star. But then at the end of the meeting, Mr. V suddenly tells her that she will have a new manager. In other words, her best friend is not her agent anymore and tells her that he has talked to the owner of her best friend’s agency and both have agreed that it’s for the best. She wanted her best friend to stay as her manager, but then Mr.V says “It’s an order!”. Thus, Ms. Queen now has a new manager named “Tad”

With Fifth Harmony, do you still remember when they were under a new management? Correct me if I’m wrong but if I’m not mistaken with the timeline though, it happened in early 2016 and all hell broke loose.

https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6836616/fifth-harmony-joins-maverick-management

Under the new management, Ms. Queen has a really tight schedule with endless appearances on shows, interviews, and so on. Tad (the new manager) also wanted her to “fake” date her co-star to boost the film once it is launced. Then of course after a few weeks the film is released, they can post a “break up”. They need to upload in their Pictagram (which is a replacement for Instagram in the game) through a screen in the management office that looks like a real beach. Then the next day, Tad set up a “fake” date in a fancy restaurant where Ms. Queen will have a candle light dinner with her co-star. He invited press and some photographers from gossip blogs. Tad asked Ms. Queen to “make it look real” so that the photographers who stand by can take a highres pictures and video of them looking comfy and cozy together. They are not even allowed to speak as if they were not couple-y. They need to call each other “honey” and all those cute nickname as long as the press is there.

Now, do you see where this is going? This is also what happened with the girls ever since 2016. All the whirlwind especially with “Lauren’s private life” and now even Camila does the same thing. The whole PR stunts were made as if everything looked real while it’s NOT. I don’t need to talk about which one 1 by 1 here. I think you know what I mean.

The next day, surprisingly Mr.V’s secretary calls Ms. Queen that Mr. V would like to have a dinner in a restaurant. The time has been set. But then at the last minute, before Ms. Queen goes off to the restaurant, Mr. V calls and asks to change the place to his mansion / house. He says that he has some business afterwards that it will be better to have the dinner in his house. Sounds fishy? Well, Ms. Queen is too innocent to notice that Mr. V has something up his sleeves. Apparently, during the dinner, Mr. V asks her to sleep with him. She tries to escape the house but then Mr. V tells her “You’re going to regret this. Remember I am the powerful one here.”

I don’t want to jump to conclusions though but do you still remember the rumour about L.A. Reid being accussed for doing sexual assault? I know the one who brought the case to public is not FIfth Harmony but if something happened to any of the girl, I would NOT forgive him.

https://variety.com/2017/music/news/l-a-reid-accused-sexual-harassment-sony-music-epic-records-1202426625/

The next day when Ms. Queen goes to the set, everything is crumbling. You know there is like a cabin or a container where the actors can rest during the break time, right? When Ms. Queen arrives at the set, hers is replaced with a dirty and stinky one. After that, the Director makes an announcement about the poster and Ms. Queen is not in it. Meanwhile, SHE SHOULD BE THE LEAD ACTRESS. After that, surprisingly the Director also says that Ms. Queen is not needed on set on that day. It’s like Mr. V is punishing Ms. Queen for not giving what he wants.

As if things don’t get worse already, when Ms. Queen arrives at the apartment, she gets a call from her best friend. He tells her about the news that she is bully in high school and the source of the news is anonymous. She tries to open her social media, but she can’t open it. Apparently, the password has been changed by Tad (her new manager). Then, she tries to look from another account into her real account. In fact, there is a posting of an apology from her account about what she did in the past and that she would not repeat the mistakes again. But she never even bullied anyone!

Do you think this is kind of familiar? This happens to Fifth Harmony all the time. They always ruin the girls or one of the girls’ image and build it back again later. I still remember how the image of Lauren being a weed user became viral after the incident where she was caught in the airport before she went to Brazil to sing for a show with the girls.

http://www.tmz.com/2016/12/14/fifth-harmony-lauren-jauregui-arrested-weed/

It was such a stupid news to be honest. I think with someone as smart as Lauren (someone with 5.0 GPA like the fans say), it was so stupid to bring weed in the hand carry. Could it be a punishment as well at that time for Lauren? Unfortunately, we never know....... After all, TMZ was always source of PR stunts.

Of course Ms. Queen was pretty sad with what happened. She doesn’t like the “Queen brand” that Mr. V and Tad make. She wants to quit, but apparenly it states in the contract of the film that she will be fined USD 10 million if she quits! She tries to re-read the contract, and it clearly states like that in fact.

Do you still remember when Lauren was asked about what keeps them going for 3 years and Lauren said “a contract” and the situation became awkward? I honestly laughed really hard at her reaction but she wanted to spill some tea!

You can see the full video here (watch 16:58 - 18:03)

Here Lauren also mentioned about how they performed the same songs over and over again as well as singing songs that they were “given”. At that time, I’m pretty sure they don’t have the “control” that they are talking about. It’s just to give us reassurance that Fifth Harmony is getting better year to year.

After that, Ms. Queen has a coffee meeting with her best friend (her former agent) and he tells her to just forget everything. Like indeed there is “Queen brand” out there but it’s not the real Ms. Queen. It’s for the people out there who don’t really know her. The Ms. Queen that her friends and relatives know is the complete opposite and 180-degree of that being mentioned in the press and even her own social media. Those who know Ms. Queen before all of this will know that it is NOT the Ms. Queen they know.

So, guys what I get from this game is somehow like a “slap” in the cheek, you know? I know I have always been a fan of the girls. All of them. All 5 of them. And I will always be OT5 stan. But this is also an important message for you guys, fans. This is such a reminder that we need to remember how the girls are back then when all hell hasn’t broken loose. We still remember the kind and cheerful Ally, the kind and beautiful Normani, the kind and smart Lauren, the kind and friendly Camila, and the energetic and sarcastic Dinah. That’s the real them. I know people change. But seriously, how is a characteristic changed though? It’s easy to change your habit, but it’s really hard to change someone’s characteristics. That’s why some things never change.

On the next day, Ms. Queen goes abroad to continue the shooting. But all the props are not safe. Ms. Queen tries to protest but then the Director ignores her. He ensures her that everything is safe and will be alright. So they shoot the capturing scene when Ms. Queen is trying to capture the villain by climbing up the scaffolding. In fact, the actor who plays the villain falls over and breaks his legs and ribs. All the crew was shocked including all the actors. The filming production was postponed for some time and all crews were asked to stay silent about what happened. It’s part of the contract and they were instructed there would be punishment if they breaks the rules. Ms. Queen tries to knocks the Director head but then she unintentionally eavesdrops on the Director’s discussion with his Assistant Director. Apparently, Mr. V cuts the budget on the film production so that the crews need to reduce the budget on the props as well, costing the actors’ safety! Since they were tight in budget, they could not hire a stuntman as well. Ms. Queen was angry and she told everything to the biggest Hollywood gossip show by staying anonymous. But, Mr. V knows that Ms. Queen was the source of the leak. So Ms. Queen gets fired.

Fortunately, even if she gets fired, after reading carefully to the contract, Mr. V cannot sue her for the USD 10 million. Instead, after she gets back to LA, Mr. V blocks the entire street of her apartment and she cannot live in her own appartment. Thus, she is homeless for around 3 days.

What I want to expose here is the power of “the men in suit” in controlling their artits, and the part where the NDA contract plays a role here. You can see if the NDA contract is broken, then there will be sort of “punishment” to the related person. I think this is why Dina Lapolt says that Fifth Harmony’s contract is like the worst she’s ever seen.

https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/magazine-feature/7865161/fifth-harmony-2017-billboard-cover-story

The long road to liberation began with 5H hiring outspoken music lawyer Dina LaPolt at the end of 2015. “I sat the girls in a hotel conference room and for five hours educated them on trademarks, copyrights and rights of publicity,” says LaPolt, who soon helped secure them new management with the preeminent firm Maverick (Madonna, U2, Miley Cyrus). “Then I educated them about every agreement they signed, which [were] the worst I’ve ever seen in the music business.”

LaPolt successfully transferred the Fifth Harmony trademark from Cowell to the group, meaning the women now own the name, along with the right to control how it is used and to profit from any deals. (The agreement -- signed in April 2016, months ahead of Cabello’s exit -- doesn’t name Cabello in the “Fifth Harmony Partnership.” “I don’t represent Camila,” is all LaPolt will say.) She then renegotiated 5H’s contract with Epic, which she characterized as “a very adversarial” process.

Even in this game it is said that “The biggest stars are not just people. They are commodities.”, which means that the investor (”the men in suit”) can play around with the stars as long as they get the money, even if that means that the stars should give up their identity to public. After all, the stars can’t do anything against what they want since they are bound with the contract.

I hope this gives a little hints on how it works in Hollywood and how “the men in suits” control their stars. I surely don’t know th content of the NDA contracts though since nobody can talk about it, but that’s how it works and how bad the punishment can be when the rules are broken.

[momestuck]

Let’s read Hiveswap Friendsim - volume 10!

We’re over the halfway mark. Nineteen friends. This time, Of Faraway Lands and Nearby Pals.

Our trolls are going to be...

These two.

Incidentally, I haven’t commented, but every troll select screen has a different drawing when you mouseover the troll. Usually they’re just the same troll with a light shining on them, looking more enthusiastic, but you gotta see Tegiri’s one...

In addition to the Jojo-like art style, that’s the katakana character ゴ ‘go’ repeated. For some reason, katakana is commonly used over hiragana for sound effects in manga, such as laughter. So yeah. We’ve finally found the mall katana guy mentioned waaaaay back in Polypa’s route!

Oddly, while ‘Tegiri’ would be valid romaji (although not, I checked, on lists of Japanese names I could find... I wouldn’t want to guess at a pseudo-’translation’, there’s a few possibilities), ‘Kalbur’ is decidedly not, and would be turned into something like ‘karuburu’ if it was transliterated into Japanese. That might be significant...

But that’s as far as my rudimentary Japanese knowledge can take me. We’ll come back to Tegiri shortly. First of all, it’s...

...beloved The Magic Roundabout character, Zebedee!

I really hope that’s not a coincidence.

Zebede

Zebede is the third and final troll by Magdalena Clarke, author of Vikare and Elwurd. Well, I enjoyed Elwurd, so that’s a good sign... hopefully...

This begins with getting a chittr notification. God, push notifications, am I right?

The name suggests we’re going to deal with the bees that made Sollux’s ‘mind honey’, granting goldbloods fantastic powers. (The game seems to have decisively chosen ‘gold’ rather than ‘yellow’, so I will defer to this.)

Who is this new friend? It seems to be someone who knows Cirava...

Their speech quirk seems to be using z in place of s, but not always.

Zebede invites us to download a video chat app...

Surprisingly, this does not result in our phone getting inducted into a botnet. Apparently the app we downloaded is called ‘grype’.

It’s weird to have so many Skype jokes given that Skype has pretty much given way to other messaging apps, at least in my experience...

He’s really excited to hear about how we know Cirava, and we tell him. He lets on rather unsubtly that he’s lonely and would appreciate a visit. Apparently he lives a long way out, for the sake of the bees.

We get our first choice...

Honestly no idea which one is the instant death option here. Probably asking if it’s really fine, but the ways we die are so random in this game, who knows?

Let’s go with asking where he lives.

We mention we went out to visit Skylla in the countryside, which leads him to... more self-deprecation. Wow, this guy sure is insecure.

And he decides like... we’re not really interested in visiting him. ‘A wall has been raised’, as the game puts it.

Dude, no wonder you don’t have friends.

OK, well, that was a short branch. Let’s try asking about his living situation and his lusus, whether it’s really fine.

Ah yes, play on his feelings of resentment. Get him to complain and wheedle in that way. That’s our narrator.

This guy’s face is so... pointy... I don’t have much commentary to add.

This leads us to a non-choice of saying we’ll go visit him immediately. This seems like a really healthy, non-manipulative friendship we’ve got going on here.

Apparently Zebede’s got some of whatever concentrated loneliness and fetishisation of friendship our narrator is suffering.

The narrator goes through a few friends to try and figure out who to get a lift from... and after rejecting Tagora, Amisia, Zebruh (oh god no), taxis and public transport, they decide the only option is to do crimes. Hey, I can get behind it.

By crimes they mean, finding an unlocked car and nicking it. Unlike Konyyl, they can’t punch locks off.

Apparently we know how to turn on the auto-pilot in a troll car. Not sure when we figured that one out!

Fittingly, Zebede’s hive is full of bees.

Inside, too, it’s a nice rustic bee farm.

We get a text message from... Cirava, it turns out. I wonder what they want...

We have the choice of ignoring it or letting it go to voicemail. Wow, we’re getting a lot of phone calls in this episode! Let’s try chatting with Cirava, maybe we can invite them over and all chill here...

It’s nice to see Cirava again. The protagonist’s weird obsession with collecting more friends instead of spending time with the ones they’ve made is highlighted...

What’s up with that?

The matter of Cirava’s clothes comes up.

Oh right so that’s what happened to Cirava’s clothes... I honestly forgot.

Anyway, Cirava’s a little worried when we say we’re hanging out with Zebede, who they know by chittr handle if not by name. They are worried that we’re tight, and we say we’re working on it.

Called out!

Anyway, Cirava warns us about getting too close to Zebede, and links... his fanfiction. OK, sure. It turns out to be... RPF. Of Cirava.

Oh dear, we’re gonna get into the RPF discourse in this episode, huh? That is something I generally want to stay a long way away from.

Anyway, Zebede comes back while we’re reading one of his fics.

That sure is an expression.

Anyway, when we explain that Cirava linked this, Zebede decides we’re not prioritising him after all, and clearly Cirava is more important than him.

I’m really not sure we want to be this guy’s friend.

He breaks down crying at the perceived slight of mentioning that we have other friends.

The protagonist starts feeling like a dick. There’s a poke at the blurry line between inner monologue and spoken dialogue on the protagonist’s part...

But anyway, that’s that for Zebede’s route.

So, how do we actually befriend this guy? Trick seems to be to pretend we care about literally nothing other than him, I guess. So let’s go back and ignore Cirava’s grype call.

Instead of answering the call, we work on our chittr profile. God, that’s hard enough irl, let alone when you’re on an alien planet...

So, we assure Zebede that we weren’t about to take a call in the middle of a hang sesh, and he starts showing us some pirate films. Then, switches to space pirate films. Poor guy’s really thrown for a loop by our indecisiveness.

The narrator is sympathetic, but unhelpful. Honestly narrator, just pick something. Fake some enthusiasm. If you really want to be friends with this kid...

We suggest watching the last thing he watched on grubtube. Which... seems like a shitty suggestion to me, since like, if it’s the last thing you watched...

But to Zebede, that seems to be something much worse.

You promise you absolutely won’t judge him. We may regret this.

Mostly, it turns out to be videos of Cirava. Yeah, we get it, he’s got a crush.

He shows us some music videos of a group called hatched2dance. I’m guessing this is a KPop (or perhaps JPop) parody, especially given the whole RPF angle...

Honestly like I probably couldn’t stand this guy in real life but I have some sympathies for his whole awkward gay teenager reading fic thing.

Anyway, seeing themselves reflected in Zebede prompts some reflection in the narrator.

The narrator has kind of a freakout on realising how offputting they’ve been - that they’ve been ‘a big phony’.

We’re saved from an existential crisis by someone showing up to reclaim their scuttlebuggy.

The narrator decides they should probably go out and face the music before this troll carves their way into the hive. This wins over Zebede even harder.

We learn that Zebede’s psychic power is... controlling bees. Using the bees, they drive off the troll outside.

And so we chill with Zebede, and the protagonist takes notes on ‘not being such a desperate piece of shit’.

We’ll see if this whole change of heart actually lasts.

The Alternian text in the picture says ‘ALTERNIA K-POP ALL-STARS’ in the Hiveswap version of the alphabet. Just in case you had any doubt what videos he’s into.

Tegiri

And now... time for things to get anime. This is the debut of David Turnbull.

The protagonist notices the edges of sunrise, and concludes they need to make a friend before daybreak. At that moment, someone accosts them.

Tegiri also gets chiptunes, in common with our other anime troll. I think it’s a remix of one of the tracks elsewhere in Homestuck. But it could easily fit in with a genuine 8-bit game.

Reassuringly, Tegiri concludes that since we’re an alien not a troll, he doesn’t have to cull us.

His typing quirk is that he replaces the letter ‘L’ with slashes.

And his character trait is, sure enough...

HUGE WEEB. Though, glass houses, stones, etc....

Naturally, the initial instant death choice is...

Unusually, we get three choices.

I can assert with 100% confidence that if I click anything other than ‘subs’, I will be executed by katana. So let’s try... both are good.

He casts us out for our indecisiveness.

The Alternian text here reads ‘PATHETIC.’ The drawing here recalls a particular anime meme... after some digging I was able to identify it as a screencap of Asuka from eva:

Think this is probably from End of Evangelion? But I can’t really recall.

...god I’m not helping my case for not being as much a weeb as Tegiri here, am I?

OK, let’s try subs now.

...lol, I’m wrong. He prefers dubs. What kind of weeb is this guy?

However, even though we’re wrong on the Most Important Question, we get to come back to his hive.

We can see body pillows around his recuperacoon, an improbable number of katanas, a bunch of figurines... the text above his bed says OPPAI, which is, well... Japanese for boobs. Yeah.

If you look closely at the anime figurines, I’m sure you can identify a few.

But except for Luffy in top right, I’m not sure about the rest. Someone who knows more about anime, feel free to fill me in. Bottom right might be a machine lifeform from NieR Automata, but that seems too recent, and wouldn’t 2B be a more in-character one for him to have?

Anyway...

I like how this casually assumes that the reader knows what an otaku is, but then again who reads Homestuck without knowing that I guess.

The narration says Tegiri has sorted his merch by blood colour, which is like... contradicted by the illustration which clearly has a bronzeblood troll at the top, but who cares I guess.

This guy is just too quotable lol.

Anyway, we get to meet a lusus again. This time, the lusus is actually drawn, not just a filtered stock photo!

It’s also mildly terrifying :D

It’s called Tadashi Inu, which means... well it kind of doesn’t mean anything (‘however dog’???), but if it was Tadashii Inu, it would mean Correct Dog.

Anyway, naturally what does an anime club do but watch anime?

He’s presently in the middle of watching ‘Philosopher’s Half-Iron’, which I’m guessing is a joke about Fullmetal Alchemist? Instead, he proposes Schoolfed Heroism (BNHA maybe?) and Kismet:Stuck Morning (no guesses for this one... I’m a fake weeb).

It’s also interesting that we’re watching on DVDs. If they wanted to go full weeb, they could put in fansub jokes here... but then this guy prefers dubs to subs, so maybe he likes to buy official releases.

Naturally, we run into translation issues.

He wanted the first edition and ‘paid extra for it’. So rather than enjoy the rest of the episode, we set off to have a word with the importer...

I have to ask... how does the troll economy work? There’s hints at a capitalist economy, money is mentioned and we had the guy running the club just now, but none of the trolls seem to have jobs. They seem to just get issued money according to their blood colour?

Speaking of which, we get some comments on troll retail...

So yeah, we’re gonna find another weeb I guess.

If that’s the billboard in the background, it's too small and blurry to work out what it says, unfortunately.

He seems pretty opposed to any ‘rebel sentiments’. Which of course he discusses with the weebiest metaphors. Alternia balances on...

He goes on about katanas for a while, like he’s going down a checklist of orientalist tropes. Naturally it’s a prelude to a challenge to ‘dance’.

We say swords are cool and this gets a little rant about bushido. You know, that self-serving horseshit some guy in the late 1800s fabricated as nationalist mythology...

We arrive at the anime store.

More text to transcribe, oh joy. At the top of the store it says the name of the shop, mentioned in dialogue, ‘SUPER TOPATO IMPORTS’. Above the door behind the counter it says ‘EMPLOYEES ONLY’.  On the bookshelf full of manga it says something too squished to easily read.

Anyway, we’re having a look around, but Tegiri starts kicking up a stink.

It’s basically the navy seal copypasta, slightly modified to be more trollish.

Meanwhile we’ve accidentally knocked some anime and manga out of someone’s hand.

Still not getting these references, unfortunately.

The troll with a pink sign is apparently against troll law - ‘depiction of nonstandard hemological attributes’.

This is all going over my head at this point. The references, I mean. Obviously the text - that Tegiri is an entitled douchebag - is clear enough.

Oh, this one I get - Ace Attorney, of course.

Anyway, this is where we get a choice. Do we stop Tegiri straight up murdering someone for peddling the wrong kind of anime?

Obviously we will try. Even though this seems like a great way to end up dead ourselves.

We speak up for the shopkeeper, and manage to convince Tegiri not to straight-up kill him. This leads to... a story, of a previous time he showed mercy, in contradiction to the law.

Of course, we know who this baby - who should have been culled for lacking a lusus, by troll law - would have been. God, I’d sure rather be hanging out with Polypa than this guy.

The narrator, of course, has one thing on their mind...

We suggest that the law, and what is right, are maybe not the same thing...?

The hard decisions such as ‘do I murder this baby?’

The narrator decides they know something about bad ways to manage loneliness...

The narrator manages to divert his rant by asking about his eyes. Which are... any guesses? Contact lenses. For cosplay.

Before we can make the error of accusing him of breaking the law by cosplaying a nonexistent blood caste, who should show up but...

Oh thank god. Save us, Polypa.

Of course he says 何 nani instead of ‘what’. And as for 後輩 kōhai, that’s basically the counterpart to senpai, the junior partner in an informal hierarchy within an organisation, dictating the use of certain honorifics. If my reading of the wiki article is right, he’s using it quite incorrectly.

Polypa lets on that we’re moirails. This causes Tegiri to be a little taken aback. The narration has some fun.

Tegiri claims - despite his huge stack of body pillows and figurines - that he has no time for quadrants.

‘Were it not for the laws of this land’ is most commonly associated with a meme from a Ghanaian film, not anime, but the sentiment surely fits.

Polypa tries to talk some sense into him.

So we end up doing an anime sleepover...

The dog is saying ワンワン (wanwan), which is standard Japanese onomatopoeia for a dog barking.

The text in this screen says... ‘Ore wa kaizoku-ou ni naru otoko da!’, which is a One Piece reference, meaning ‘I'm the man who will be the pirate king!’.

So, Tegiri may be insufferable, but at least with Polypa around we can keep him more or less under control.

There’s a few more options to explore. What if we’d picked dubs, not subs, near the start? He praises our choice, but otherwise, the story proceeds in the same way. I think that’s actually the first time we’ve had branches merge.

Now, what if we let him kill the shopkeeper?

Shockingly, he’s not as much a swordsman as he makes out. And the shopkeeper, it turns out, is psychic, and zaps him before legging it.

I was under the impression that psychic abilities were rare in goldbloods, but what do I know?

We ask like... was that really necessary?

Well, he’s certainly a tool, he got that part right. (Sorry.)

We go to report the shopkeeper’s terrible crimes to the drone, but unfortunately... it seems that the protagonist has a rap sheet themselves!

They can’t pin it on us! We’re innocent!

God, the ‘everything happened’ approach to continuity is still fucking with me. Did we make friends with Remele? Did we not? Earlier, the narration mentioned making ‘between 1 and 19′ friends. What if someone didn’t obsessively explore and replay every branch? They’d be so confused!

But despite his ineptitude with a sword, our attempted escape over an overpass leaves us...

Dead.

I’m sure this shot is also an allusion to an anime meme, but I can’t say which one, so yeah.

That’s Zebede and Tegiri. Not the best friends we’ve made, but I enjoyed the chance to be a huggggeee neeeerrrd in this post. (>implying that I could be anything other than a huge nerd on my homestuck liveread blog)

[sweetspacebaby]

Simple - Klance

A/N: This is just a modern au I have for the two. Keith is a firefighter and Lance is an EMT and they have this deal with each other that whenever one of them comes home from a 24 hour shift, they agree to work through any issues before the other leaves for their shift the next day. Anyway, I was mostly inspired from Josh Turner’s music video for his song ‘Why Don’t We Just Dance?’ and it being something Keith would do to cheer Lance up whenever he comes home upset.

The signs were obvious when Lance came home.

No announcement of him being home followed by a peck on Keith’s cheek. No questions about what to eat. No being cuddly so he could “recharge.” None of his usual homecoming routine. Instead he walked in without a word, dropped his work bag by the door, went straight to the shower, and is now just sitting on the couch mindlessly watching whatever was on.

It was clear. Lance had a bad shift at work.

Working in emergency services usually did take a toll on both Keith and Lance from time to time. Because of that they always made it a point to work through the struggle before the other left for their next shift. But something about Lance’s mood made Keith think that whatever happened during his calls was not going to be figured out with a simple conversation.

Glancing back and forth between the news show playing on the television and Lance curled up and hugging a pillow on the other end of the couch, Keith decided that the irrelevant rants on the screen could wait till things were figured out. He turned off the television and turned to face Lance on the couch. The feeling of being stared out pulled Lance out of his blank stare and back to reality.

“Why did you turn off the TV?” Lance asked as he looked at Keith, a bit surprised to see him staring at him.

Now that he could really see him, Keith noticed that Lance’s mood made him ignore his usual beauty regiments too. His hair wasn’t brushed and still a bit wet from his shower, his bags were clearly not treated with eye cream, and his skin just didn’t have its usual after facial scrub glow. Lance looked tired and his eyes were obviously red from crying. Whatever happened really shook him to his core.

“I’m worried about you. Do you want to tell me what happened?” Keith tried to ease into the conversation, but his worries just wanted to hurry and get to the point.

Lance hugged the pillow more and looked away, burying his chin even deeper into the cushion. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not,” Keith deadpanned. “You’ve been off ever since you came home. You just got off a 24-hour shift so obviously you would be tired, but this is different. Scary different. Now tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Lance snapped back harshly. “I’m just tired just like you said. It was a weekend so there were a lot of calls full of idiots getting hurt. That’s all.”

Keith didn’t believe that for second. This wasn’t Lance’s first time dealing with drunks getting hurt after doing stupid things. And he was never this ‘tired’ after a shift like that. He was honestly more annoyed with how stupid people were than he was tired from the nonstop calls his station would receive from the bars around town.

“Get up,” Keith spoke up, his tone making it sound more as a command than a request, as he pushed himself off the couch.

Lance looked at him confused, “What?”

“Get up,” Keith repeated as he started to push their coffee table against one of the walls. Next was a side table and then the other. After taking care of a few minor pieces all Keith had left was the couch, which Lance was still sitting on, looking at him confused. “Come on, the pillow will be fine without you for a bit.” He pulled Lance on his feet and grabbed the pillow out from his hands and threw it on the couch before pushing it back against the wall behind it.

“What are you doing?” Lance asked feeling really confused and a bit uncomfortable to stand in their now cleared living room.

“You’ll see.” Keith pulled out his phone as he walked over to the entertainment center they had under the television, changing the sound system setting to Bluetooth. “You’re playlist or mine?”

“Tell me what you’re doing first,” Lance demanded as he crossed his arms.

“I’m trying to cheer you up and since you won’t talk to me, I’m forced to use Plan B. Now, you’re playlist or mine?”

“What do you mean Plan B? I’m fine, so you don’t need to do anything.”

“Random it is then,” Keith said to himself as he backtracked on his phone’s music folder to the main screen and pressed the shuffle button.

An upbeat strum of a guitar along with whistling started to play through the speakers. Lance instantly knew the song. It was ‘Simple’ by the country band Florida Georgia Line. He had downloaded it on Keith’s phone after hearing it at a bar to tease his boyfriend for being a closeted country fan and to introduce him to newer country music. And he also jokingly threated to dump Keith if he kept making him listen to the same old Garth Brooks, Kenny Rogers, and Johnny Cash songs each time they listened to his music. With the music now playing in their living room, Lance noticed Keith put his phone on the entertainment center and realized what Plan B was.

“Keith, I’m not in the mood.”

“Well, you won’t talk me, and this is all I can think of.” Keith walked up to Lance and held out his hand. “You can lead, since you always say I have two left feet.”

Lance looked at Keith’s hands and then at him, still looking unwilling to follow through with the plan. Just as the chorus started he caught Keith whispering the words to him.

“It’s like one, two, three, just as easy as can be,” he whispered in low tone. “Just the way you look at me, you make me smile.”

Lance knew that he was just singing along with the song, but he couldn’t help but smirk when Keith said the word smile. He really liked it when Keith sang along to music, it was so unlike him and that was what Lance loved about it. Reluctantly, he grabbed Keith’s hands as the second line was ending.

“Ok, but only one song.”

Lance, being the only one of the two with a dancing background, slowly set the pace of their steps to match the beat with the music. The moves were becoming quicker as the chorus picked back up a second time, Lance even let Keith spin him around at one point. Lance soon completely loosened up and was now laughing as he and Keith danced all over their living room, spinning each other now and then and even adding a rare dip when one of them felt brave enough to do it. A few songs had passed before they realized just how distracting the moment was for the both of them. Lance had his finger interlocked and resting on the small of Keith’s back as he rested his forehead on his shoulder. The two were slowly side stepping in the middle of the room, swaying to the peaceful sounds of the piano playing over their Bluetooth system.

“Thank you.” Lance turned his head to the side so he could look at his boyfriend without taking it off his shoulder.

Keith smiled softly, happy to see the stress and worry leave Lance’s blue eyes. “You’re welcome, but you should really thank my dad. Growing up I would see him clear a room and make my mom dance around whenever she was upset. It would cheer her up every time.”

Lance hugged Keith closer and hid his smile back in his shoulder. “Remind me to tell him thanks for teaching you good habits next time we go visit.”

Keith rested his head on Lance’s, enjoying the quiet and peace the moment gave them. “Hey Lance,” he spoke out, knowing that he had to address the elephant in the room. “I don’t know what really happened during your shift, but just know that you did all that you could. It sucks, but in our careers, we’re going to experience more bad days than good. It’s ok to be upset when you have the bad days, but don’t let it eat at you when you know you and your team did all you that you could to help.”

Lance’s grip around Keith’s waist tightened and the air around him seemed to change.

“I’m not saying we have to talk about what happened. We have all day tomorrow to do that if you want to. If not, we can just do whatever you want to do before I leave my shift.”

Lance was silent for a few moments, thinking about the option of telling Keith what happened. Talking might help him now that all the tension was gone, but he wasn’t sure if he was ready to remember and retell what had happened. “Can we go see the new Mama Mia movie,” Lance said in a slightly small and defeated voice, choosing to focus on the lesser option.

“Sure.”

Lance picked up his head and stared at Keith, as if trying his hardest to read him. “And you promise you won’t complain the whole time? Even if I want to sing the songs on the way back?”

“I promise. We can even get concessions, it’ll be my treat.”

Lance smiled and swooped in to peck Keith’s cheek before hugging his neck. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Keith said back before tightening his grip and giving Lance a reassuring kiss on his shoulder.