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hq--fics · 4 years ago

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How The Captains Started Dating An Athletic/Sporty Fem!S/O

A/N: This is my first time doing this so decided to pick something at random. Feel free to request scenarios/head canons and I’ll do my best!

Characters: Daichi Sawamura, Kuroo Tetsuro, Bokuto Koutaro, Oikawa Toru, Ushijima Wakatoshi

Warnings: none

Masterlist

Daichi

Sport of choice: Football/Soccer

- You first met in the summer before starting middle school. You’d just moved into the house next to his. Naturally he came over with his parents to welcome you to the neighbourhood.

-Became friends almost right away when you appeared with a ball in your arms and asked if he wanted to play in the garden (anything to break up the boredom of unpacking) and got to know each other more, both finding your mutual love of sports an easy connection along with your open and friendly personalities.

- Your nervousness about starting school in a new area eased after finding out Daichi was going to be going to the same school as he was. At least you’d know one face in the sea of strangers. It was an even bigger relief when you were in the same class as him. Both of you swiftly becoming inseparable and best friends, though many classmates immediately assumed you were both a couple within your first month of school. Who could blame them with the way you both looked at each other?

-The gossiping was only intensified when they saw you walk to and from school together every day, both in your own little happy bubble. It wasn’t your fault that football and volleyball practice ended at the same time, even when you guys got home you both found yourselves in one of your back gardens talking about anything and everything while passing a ball around.

-A confession occurred naturally in your final year. You were both walking home and talking high schools. Daichi became nervous, worrying how a different school might change things but you surprised him by laughing softly and putting your hand in his stating and ‘Isn’t it obvious by now? Where you go, I go.’

-Both of you are a power couple at Karasuno, excellent captains of your teams and cheer for the other at all matches. He is very vocal and worries immensely when you and another player come into contact over the ball. He’s the one to help patch you up and soothe your bruises after a particularly intense match.

Kuroo

Sport of choice: Tennis

-You both met in second year of high school after being partnered together for a large science project. Up until then you barely had any interaction. Of course you had both looked at the other idly at times, you noticing his hands while he took an interest in your legs.

-After you were partnered you spoke briefly at lunch to work out what days and times would be best to get together and work on the project. He suggested the school library after school but you immediately declined stating firmly that you had practice, which caught his interest that only grew when you said it was tennis.

-‘Oh? You mean like the short white sports skirt and suggestive grunting?’ he asked showing you his trademark grin. ‘Can I come watch?’ He expected you to blush but instead you wrote your number on a slip of paper and slipped it into his shirt pocket.

‘Well if you’re as sharp with biology as you are with sports, we may actually pass.’ You told him with a smirk before throwing him a sly wink and left to have lunch with your friends and he couldn’t help but watch you go with a growing grin.

- On your first session together you both split the work evenly and begin on your respective sections and he wastes no time and immediately starts flirting with you in the hopes of getting some sort of reaction. You give him a witty remark in response most of the time or smirk. It’s entertaining and helps fill in the time you’re both researching through textbooks and notes.

-After your first session he insists on walking you home, managing to make you laugh out loud as he tells you about the antics he’s gotten up to at the training camps with the other schools. He could listen to that sound all day but his smile lessens when you sigh.

-‘Must be nice. Compared to volleyball, tennis is a lonely sport. I’m jealous.’ After that Kuro stops by during your practices, working on his side of the project and keeping you company. It works out well that your practice days don’t conflict with his so you can return the favour. Although both of you find it incredibly difficult to focus on the work in front of you, not when the other looks so good.

-You confess mutually to each other after school when you celebrate passing your project, both going into a tight hug after the bell rang gaining a lot of attention from the rest of the class.

Bokuto

Sport of choice: Gymnastics

-You both met as a result of his overly enthusiastic and energetic afterschool practice. He had spiked the ball so hard it shot out of the gymnasium and across the walkway, rolling to a stop outside the gymnasium you were in.

-‘You’re the one who hit it, you go get it.’ Akaashi had instructed him, refusing to throw another set to him until he went to retrieve the ball. Bokuto rushed out immediately and grabbed it, pausing when he heard music playing. Noticing the door was opened he peeked in.

-His eyes widened and his mouth hung open as he watched you twist and leap on the balance beam, moving in ways he never thought possible but it was so hypnotic he all but forgot about the sport he was meant to be playing which is saying a lot.

-At one point it looked like you were about to slip and fall he felt his own stomach lurch but let out a sigh when you arced and continued with steely determination and grace he realised you were okay. When you leapt from the beam and onto the mat he let out a cheer that made you jump watching with wide eyes as he ran toward you already praising you.

-However he was quickly stopped when Akaashi appeared from behind him and took a firm hold of his captain’s shirt. He apologised to you making Bokuto stop and watch the exchange with lessening enthusiasm. Why did he already know your name and he couldn’t even introduce himself? He was beginning to pout heavily.

-‘We’ll let you get back to your practice, come on Bokuto.’ He lets himself get dragged away but he’s looking over his shoulder at you until you’re out of view. It isn’t until he’s back in his own gym that he interrogates Akaashi, finding out your name and that you’re in his setter’s class.

-Your poor classmate somehow becomes the middleman between the two of you. Bokuto begs him relentlessly to ask if he can have your number and is shocked when you approach him at lunch to sheepishly ask him for Bokuto’s. Blushing you said it was flattering that the ace had complimented you so much.

-After numbers are exchanged you’re both texting non-stop and poor Akaashi has to listen to you both gush about the other constantly.

Oikawa

Sport of choice: Volleyball

-You both know each other since middle school through reputation and watching each other play in tournaments and you’ve both hated each other since the first meeting. No one really knows how it came about it’s just always been there.

-He’s the Grand King that the girls scream and swoon over? You’re titled the Goddess of the Court by the boys. (It annoys him so much that your nickname is a rank higher than his but would never say it out loud.)

-You’re both the same year and spent your entire first year doing all you could to avoid the other. Class projects, trips, tournaments, festivals? You both point blank refused to be in the same group at all costs.

-When you do interact it’s snide comments and intense staring contests with Iwaizumi watching the two of you like it’s his favourite soap opera. He can feel the tension between the two of you and knows not all of it is fuelled by negative emotions. Far from it. While it’s his favourite thing to watch he can’t help himself but poke the hornet’s nest one day when both teams are at a tournament.

- ‘We should go watch.’ He suggests lightly tapping the roster and Oikawa clicks his tongue so sharply the first years flinch. ‘Our match isn’t for a while yet. You got a better idea to pass the time before we have to warm up?’ Some of the others speak up, eager to just look at the girls in general but won’t pass up a chance to see the Goddess play as a bonus.

- He joins the others regardless and when he takes his seat he realises he hasn’t seen you on the court since you were kids and now he’s taking notice of everything. The way you move, your presence on court, your silent but powerful dominance of the opponents that makes them lose hope with every point your team takes under your wordless command. You’re amazing.

-He finds you when your match is concluded and he’s on his way to his match and asks to speak to you in private. Iwaizumi has to bite the inside of his cheek to hold back his smug grin as he passes.

-You’re curious about the sudden change in him when he begins to apologise for his previous behaviour towards you and asks would you consider spending time together outside of the tournament. You agree on the condition he wins his next match, which he does that starts the beginning of your unstoppable relationship.

Ushijima

Sport of choice: Kickboxing

- Probably the most unexpected and unintentional of meetings for you two as dating was never really on either of your radars, both minds set on your ambitions and nothing else. Both of you were in the same year and knew of the other’s standing in their sport and respected that but there was no other interaction.

-That was however changed on one of his runs, his teammates far behind him as usual. Then he heard the muffled sound of music behind him and saw you pass by him with headphones on. Given the weather was starting to get colder he was surprised you were just wearing a tanktop and shorts but it did let him notice your toned body. (he may be stoic but he’d definitely notice the results of hard work and dedication.)

-He also notices the suspicious looks some people on the street throw his way and then he sees it; a guy his size running behind a young girl who doesn’t realise his there? Yeah that’d send warning bells ringing anywhere so he speeds up to overtake you. Last thing he needs is for the police to be called. Then he blinks to see you out of the corner of his eye taking the lead again which he does his best to avoid you in succeeding at.

- It goes back and forth until you both have to stop at the traffic lights. That’s when you pull your headphones out to throw him an incredulous look. ‘There a problem?’ you ask wondering were the sudden racing competition came from.

-‘I don’t want people to think I’m chasing you like a pervert.’ he answers so matter-of-factly you blink and let out a laugh. You can’t argue with that and when the light turns green you lightly punch his arm.

- ‘You’re welcome to run beside me…if you can keep up.’ You challenge playfully and start running again. It takes him a moment to register your words and feels where you hit him as his lips quirk into a brief smirk and sets off after you catching up in no time.

-This ritual of running together starts after that day and after a while Ushijima notices you’ve stopped listening to music completely on your runs and notes his observation aloud one day.

-‘Why would I when I’m spending time with you?’ you answer before throwing him a teasing grin. ‘Besides I need to listen out for potential perverts chasing me.’ ‘Not while I’m here.’ He answers simply and you smile, sensing the deeper meaning to his words. You both fall into a relationship easily after that. While you both can’t attend all of the other’s events you both support each other fiercely and loyally, knowing you’re both more than capable of keeping up with the competition.

#haikyuu!!#haikyuu imagines #haikyuu headcanons #hq imagines #daichi #daichi sawamura #daichi x reader #kuroo #kuroo tetsuro #kuroo x reader #bokuto #bokuto koutarou #bokuto x reader #oikawa #oikawa toru icons #oikawa x reader #ushijima #ushijima wakatoshi #ushijima x reader

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kaibashadow · 3 years ago

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Tsukishima Kei – Drifting

One brisk and shadowy night, Kageyama Tobio sees Tsukishima Kei standing in his path under the lighted lamp post as if he has been waiting for him all this time. Tsukishima smiles at the setter, but if Kageyama knows any better, then he is right to assume that that is not a genuine smile from the middle blocker. Kageyama is aware and has heard of the news and lots of gossip surrounding and revolving around his tall teammate lately. None of them seem good towards the middle blocker. If anything, it could be a sign for needing some help.

However, Tsukishima has a way of hiding his true feelings from the others by building up a sturdy wall and never letting his emotions get the best of him. It helps that he is really tall, so he does not have to see at eye level about some things that he would rather not talk about. He has been used to doing this throughout his life, so he does not really see this as a problem that needs to be addressed.

Instead, he is quite smart in his academics, and everybody knew that. If someone had been asked the question who they think is the smartest in the class, then they would all point to him. Tsukishima would not even try to deny that fact. He knows he is at least one of the smartest people in his grade. None of the teachers had any problems with him. He would even be asked to sometimes help tutor other people, even if he really did not want to, but he did it anyways.

Tsukishima normally is quiet and would keep things about himself only to his own self. He does not want to share much about himself, and he is okay with that. He just wants to go through the day without having any issues and try not to stand out that much, even if he is the tallest in the room.

But he can also be quite witty, sarcastic, rude, and mean when he makes fun of other people. But to what expense? Do other people think that he has a superiority complex? Do they think he can be some kind of bully because of his height? Does he really mean to hurt other people?

Or can anyone tell that he is just doing this to put up with the façade that he has built on into his life? Can anyone see that he really feels inferior about himself when compared to his peers?

- - -

Kageyama concentrates on Tsukishima at their next volleyball game. Tsukishima is not the type of person to ever lose his cool, especially during a match, and he does not plan on starting now.

However, no matter how hard the middle blocker tries to keep up his stoic and strong appearance, Kageyama knows better. The setter keeps watching his teammate and analyzing his every move. One fierce glare from the King surprises the tall blonde, making him wonder what Kageyama is thinking about.

Well, not that he would care though. Why would Tsukishima care what other people thought anyways? They won this game. They could all go home. This middle blocker wants nothing more than to just listen to his music and go back into the comfort of his own room.

- - -

That night after the game, on a dark, well-lit, lonely street, the first-years are walking and heading on their way home. Yamaguchi Tadashi and Tsukishima Kei are leading the way and talking amongst themselves about random different topics that come up. Well, mainly Yamaguchi starts talking and bringing up these said topics, and Tsukishima retorts and reacts every once in a while to whatever the conversation was at hand. They have been friends for so long that Yamaguchi was used to Tsukki being this way, and Tsukishima does enjoy his company, even if he is not willing to admit that fact out loud even towards his best friend.

Meanwhile, Hinata Shoyo, the one holding and gripping onto the handlebars of his bike is looking ahead to playing another volleyball match and Kageyama Tobio are also walking alongside each other and are not too far behind the other two. While they both are not close enough to eavesdrop on the others’ conversations, Kageyama stares at his tall teammate at the back of his head. The setter has to try to say something to the middle blocker, or the thought of just mashing it all down inside him and ignoring and keeping quiet about the situation will only make this worse for both players.

Kageyama calls out, “Tsukishima.”

Upon hearing his own given name, the tall player turns around to face the setter. Both Yamaguchi and Hinata glance at both of their teammates and are curious to know what is going on.

Kageyama gazes at Tsukishima and points out, “How you’re talking to yourself is rude.” The talented setter has been making observations about all of his teammates lately during practice and at real matches to get an idea of their capabilities and quirks when it comes to how he should set for them, which he was able to learn this from watching and gaining this from the other setter on his team.

And Tsukishima is no exception to this rule. Kageyama had a real challenge when it comes to learning and adapting to Tsukishima’s behavior, antics, and habits because he is such a private person. But whenever they do interact, they are at each other’s throats. But if Kageyama wanted to be the best setter in volleyball and finally get to Nationals, then he needs all of their teammates to do their best as well.

It is no secret that Tsukishima is not as dedicated to volleyball as the rest of his teammates are. Even his best friend, Yamaguchi, is giving his all in this sport as well, and he is not even an official starter when it comes to these games. Hinata may have some limitations particularly when it comes to his height, but he makes up for it by being energetically enthused, having an upbeat personality, having an insane amount of stamina, and through his determinate hard work. Kageyama is already talented having played this game for years as if this was his only way to live. He can play any position on the court and excel exceptionally at it no matter where he is at, but he chose to be a setter in the end. Each of those players on the team have their own reasons for pushing themselves to get better. They all have the same goal in mind: Get to Nationals!

That is, all except for Tsukishima.

Tsukishima listens to Kageyama with disbelief. He cannot fathom to believe that even a guy like the King of the Court himself would ever pay enough attention to say something like that to him. That middle blocker never ever loses his cool.

…

At least, not in front of anyone.

…

Did Kageyama notice at some point during a timeout in that game that Tsukishima was very frustrated with himself after not being able to block the opponent’s spike? It was just a point, but even the middle blocker had set his own expectations to try to block the ones he is sure to get. Tsukishima checked to make sure that no one, even Yamaguchi, was around him when he started to diss himself about these small things.

Tsukishima cannot help but shrug his shoulders down at the comment and reflect on that memory. He knows he could do better if he tried, but what is the point? It is not like he ever wants to lose or be the one responsible for losing a game, but why should he put in the extra effort? Why should he go beyond his limitations and exhaust himself when he just wants to be alone and relax himself the best way that he knows how. Sure, the tall blonde has heard many rumors about him circulating through other people’s conversations as well, but he does not let those stories get to him.

…

Or, does he?

- - -

The next day, Karasuno plays another game. As per usual, every single player is playing their same roles as the previous game. Kageyama knows how each of his teammates are different from each other and what kind of preferred set each spiker would like. Even Tsukishima has a very specific and unique calculated set that he would like to hit if the King wanted to send the ball his way.

But this time, Kageyama wanted to try something new. He is tired of sending Tsukishima his usual preferred usual sets, so he decides to send this one a little higher. He knows that the middle blocker has his own height to his advantage, so he might as well put his body into some good use. Hitting the ball and gaining the point should be no problem for Tsukishima to do.

The tall middle blocker jumps up for the ball, but he did not expect the setter to deter from his comfort zone. If Tsukishima knew that the King was going to try a move like that, then maybe he would have jumped higher. Maybe he would have more of a running start to jump higher. Or maybe, he would have tried for a more stable, but higher approach if he attempted to.

Or maybe, he should not have jumped at all.

Tsukishima is a person who is always thinking about the problems in front and all around him whether or not it had a positive or a negative effect on him in any way, but he chooses to ignore his constant persistent thoughts in his mind right now since it will not help him in this situation. Kageyama has already done what he did whether or not Tsukishima was ready for it or not. Now, it is time for the middle blocker to deliver.

Thankfully, due to the tall player’s long right arm, he is able to hit the volleyball, get past the blockers, and score the point. Though, while he was up in the air and the moment he landed, which automatically resulted in his teammates congratulating Tsukishima for the play, he realizes something. Whether or not this was Kageyama’s intention, the setter somehow indirectly sent Tsukishima a message.

“Driftin’, I’m in the same boat as you.”

This is exactly how Kageyama and Tsukishima both met. Their first encounter with each other was not pleasant for Kageyama and quite amusing for the other. Even when Tsukishima ended up telling the other volleyball members about the truth about the “King of the Court,” which actually helped convey the setter’s feelings and open up to others about it in the end, Kageyama had struggled and questioned his own abilities at the time back then. If he had made Tsukishima stop him from saying anything at all during that moment, then he probably would have continued to have more problems with both himself and with the rest of the team, which may have led Kageyama’s unwanted nickname to have stuck with him even more.

Sure, Kageyama cannot stand the sight of seeing Tsukishima, but he has to at least tolerate him with being his teammate and all. But Kageyama is able to see and relate how his difficult situation back then can apply to Tsukishima’s circumstances now. This setter attempted to make the middle blocker work harder this time and put in a little more effort to help Tsukishima know that he can try more and to show the others that this middle blocker can handle the tough calls and the rough plays. This setter was not going to make his teammate slip and fade into nothing. He is going to do his best to understand the taller player. And he will make sure Tsukishima will work with his sets for as long as he is his setter.

- - -

That night, Tsukishima starts heading home on that dark empty street and ponders to himself. As Yamaguchi attempts to catch up with his tall friend, Tsukishima reflects back to Kageyama’s talk with him during a game interval.

Somehow, Kageyama knew that Tsukishima had some thoughts about the last set he did to him, and the setter was more than willing to share his own thoughts with the middle blocker. Kageyama just had a feeling that Tsukishima can be better than he is now, which was why he wanted to try, of course, under the right circumstances, to make number 11 of Karasuno achieve such a thing during an official match. He knows that the middle blocker constantly doubts himself, but he would rather solve the problems all by himself than to rely on others to help him through it, even though they are all on the same team.

Kageyama attempts to boost Tsukishima’s morale because someone needs to be there to do it. Otherwise, it will just hurt the team. Negativity can spread like wildfire and affect other people around him. Kageyama knows. He was a firsthand witness to all of this. He does not want anybody to go through what he had been through. He would not wish it even on his greatest enemy.

Even if everybody knew that Kageyama is right about all of this, there is no way Tsukishima is going to admit that in front of the King. He does not want to acknowledge it. How were their situations similar? In what way did Kageyama find himself resembling and relating to Tsukishima? He does not know a single thing about what Tsukishima has gone through!

…

But still, even the middle blocker has his own reason for joining the volleyball club in the first place. He goes to the required practices and learns all the new plays with the team. But why? Why does he make himself do this? He is sinkin’, dreamin’, and screamin’, for some truth to appear before him. But what truth may that be?

- - -

Later on, Karasuno wins another game, which prompts the team to be automatically invited to go to a training camp along with some of the best teams to train with as well. Tsukishima and the others were planning to use the escalator to get to their destination and rejoin the group and talk about the details of the camp, but alas, much to their dismay, it was broken, so they just have to find another way to get up there.

Along the way, Kageyama and Hinata get into some kind of argument, which makes Yachi Hitoka curious and mystified, but Tsukishima is disinterested in what they are currently bickering about. Even though they all were following the tall blonde to guide their way like he was a lighthouse guiding all the sailors at sea towards land, Tsukishima heads on and quietly says, “I’ll take the stairs, I guess,” not really knowing or concerned about whether any of them heard him or not. He is pretty certain that the other three will be able to find their way without his help. He cannot be held accountable or responsible for whatever happens to them though. Plus, Yachi has two members of the team with her for protection if need be and the location of where they all had agree to meet up is not that far ahead. It would be remarkable if they all somehow got lost in such a small venue within a short period of time.

- - -

Karasuno makes it to the training camp, and the matches are quite intense. Not only is everybody working so diligently to win the game, but no one really wants to lose and suffer through the harsh and gruesome penalty treatment: A nice, refreshing uphill dash behind the gyms with the hot summer heat and breeze in the air.

While it sounds pleasant, it really is anything but. The team is running uphill on a very steep incline that threatens to twist anyone’s ankle if they are not careful and make them think about how to run while actually doing it and having the bright yellow sun beat down on the players, which furthers them to be even more exhausted and dehydrated afterwards, as if losing the match was not enough punishment. The forces of gravity, fatigue, and energy and stamina depletion are working together against the team like they are their common enemy. And one member almost just about had it with all of this and just wanted to stop.

Tsukishima Kei has been trying to keep up with his teammates and continues to climb until he is out of breath, which at that point, he ends up questioning his every step. All those questions that he had thought about from time to time again makes him wonder if the answers he is searching for would be worth doing all of this. Tsukishima does not like to quit, but quitting sure seems tempting right now. But he knows that if he ever does quit, then he cannot help but wonder a lot about the what ifs scenarios of having a lot of unanswered questions and what would happen to the team if they suddenly lose one of their key players and starters in these games, so he might as well just stay.

But truth be told, this middle blocker has no idea why he is doing this to himself. When he was younger, Tsukishima had tried volleyball. He was not the best or anything like that, and the coaches like putting him on the team because he is such a tall player. But he admired someone who he looked up to for being great at anything.

His older brother, Tsukishima Akiteru. Kei had thought that he was pretty amazing at everything that he does. He wanted to be like him, and Akiteru was a great volleyball player in his eyes. This is very much the reason why Kei played this sport while he was younger. This is also a way for him to connect with his older brother as well.

…

This is, until he found out the truth about Akiteru. The day Kei found out that his own brother had lied to him, it was heartbreaking and humiliating for him. The person he had trusted the most for all of his whole life became a distant stranger to him. He did not know what to believe and which statements his brother once told him were lies. He had a lot in his mind. His train of thought was leading him to different tracks as he tried to figure out how he was going to go back to the place where he called home, the place where he shared with Akiteru.

…

Tsukishima did not want to remember something like that here while in this training camp, but he is not someone who can easily forget about memories like these so easily. He can usually displace his own feelings aside, but right now with all the practice games and cruel penalties he endures and continues to go on and repeat on an endless cycle, he is frustrated. He knows that he is barely keeping himself as a starter as is. He feels irritated seeing everybody else around him trying to work so hard to be better. He is so vexed that others would even think to ask him for some extra practice. And he is angry for himself for trying to find answers to the questions that he does not fully understand or know what to look for and refuses to comprehend anything that has been given to him. He is probably still mad at his older brother too for putting him into this kind of situation in the first place. Tsukishima feels positive that where he is right now with this sport in this moment is not where he should stay, and that’s…

Why?

…

Tsukishima Kei doubts himself on a daily basis. No one really sees it because this middle blocker is either so good at concealing his real emotions inside of himself, or they do not really care how he is because of his poor attitude. Not that many people know that his is all an act that he has taught himself to do over the years and that this is his defense mechanism. They do not see how much Tsukishima struggles with how he views himself. Worthless. Pathetic. A loner. Different. Weird. Plain. Someone who view the glass half-empty. Sad. Depressed. Frustrated. Angry. Hurt. Unloved. Tsukishima deals with all of this negative and intrusive thoughts all by himself in a way that he knows how, but he does not realize how he may be accidentally affecting others around him as well.

Kei knows he is cold and mean to others, but he does not know how much he is hurting his own self as well. He has told himself many times to look at himself in the mirror and say, “I love you,” but he has convinced himself that no one in the world would ever want to say it back to him and mean it.

How could he? Why would he think anyone would be capable of loving him when he feels pessimistic about himself? What part of him is worth being loved? How can anyone find something good in him if he cannot try and see the qualities that he was born with and he is gifted in? Why would he believe in himself when he knows that without a shadow of doubt in his mind that he truly cannot do this?

Anybody can just look at Tsukishima and probably not give him the time of day, but there are some who are willing to put in the effort to try to get to know him more. Bokuto Kotaro, Kuroo Tetsuro, and Akaashi Keiji have invited Tsukishima Kei to practice with them in more times than one. Tsukishima Akiteru tries to talk to his younger brother every chance he can get whenever he can and see how he is doing and coping with the daily struggles of life. Even Yamaguchi Tadashi is there all the time believing in Tsukki and is willing to be there for his best friend through the thick and thin of it all and whenever he needs him.

Even when he has all these friends and resources available to him at any time, Tsukishima has a hard time finding anything good about himself. He does not ever want to talk about himself to other people. He knows he can handle it. He has been doing this for years.

“Passin’ by the people that have been there to support you.”

Walking away from others is what he does from the get-go when things get too tough. He might be being disrespectful and driving other people and himself mental by doing this. He is also aware of how stressful they can all get when Tsukishima is drifting and making his way throughout his day. This is a normal routine for him and does not think otherwise as he travels through a dark and lonely road. Tsukishima is very good at being alone because he has taught himself how to do it. And he will continue to act in this manner for the rest of his life.

- - -

One night, as Tsukishima heads back from a day of training, practicing, and bearing through the ruthless punishments and looks forward to crawling back into his bed, maybe watch a few videos, listen to a few songs, or read some articles or a book on his phone, he sees both Bokuto and Kuroo in the distance basically just watching him. This is nothing out of the ordinary for them to do. They just like to scour for potential players to have extra practice with. And they always wait in the third gym’s entrance, the one gym that seems to be like the central ecosystem of this entire place. As Fukurodani’s captain stretches and waits alongside his friend, Nekoma’s captain wears a warm sincere smile and calls out to the Karasuno middle blocker, “Hey!”

Tsukishima stares at the two for quite a while and feels quite annoyed at the scene. Maybe he can blame it on the exhaustion he has since he is rarely ever disrespectful towards the upperclassmen, but that does not stop Kuroo from attempting to invite Tsukki to come over and practice with them as if he is trying to recruit him to some boys’ club. Both Bokuto and Kuroo have been keeping an eye on Tsukishima all this time, maybe for his height?

At least, that is what Tsukishima deduces from all of his past experiences as well.

If there is any other way that Tsukishima could have taken another path to avoid this encounter, he probably would not think twice to take it. He likes the long walks at night by himself where he can just be alone with his own thoughts. However, the third gym just happens to be along the only path it would take for Tsukishima to go pass by in order to go into the building where the Karasuno team were staying at to rest and sleep, and avoiding the two captains is just not plausible for this tall blonde to achieve.

After receiving no such reaction from Tsukishima, Kuroo places his arms on his hips as Bokuto questions the younger person, “Why are you so distant?” They both had talked about the middle blocker’s problem at times whenever Tsukishima found an excuse to leave them each time, and it is pretty evident now to the blonde that they do chatter about him.

“You’re convicted,” Akaashi agrees with this teammate. Even he seems to have some solicitude about the middle blocker and can be both understanding and quite blunt in order to prove a point in any given situation, which Tsukishima has nothing but the upmost respect for Akaashi as well as the others.

Tsukishima has no problem with the two captains or Fukurodani’s setter, but the conversation he is in right here just proves to Tsukki the more reason why he should try to avoid them as much as he can. He just does not want to be a part of this at all.

Even earlier before when Hinata tries to talk to Tsukishima about trying to be the best and why the both of them need to work hard too, he wanted nothing more than to just get out of his current predicament. Of course he knows that he has to do exactly that as well, but he would rather not have other people speaking to him about how important doing such an unavoidable task really is. He does not need “the talk” to justify all the reasons of why they all need to try as hard as they all can to be better. It really is just pretty self-explanatory and quite redundant for the middle blocker. It is not like he is planning to not try, but he does not want anybody to tell him to do such a thing.

However, Kei is convinced that he predicts that all his wishes on his wish list won’t be heard ‘cause he is committed to the lie that feeling safe is unrealistic when he’s drifting.

It is true that Tsukishima has trouble trusting other people especially after Akiteru has violated his trust. So even if his feelings are constantly normal for him, that does not mean that he feels safe. He thinks that if he tries to talk about it and someone actually hears them, then it would only make him feel worse, so he keeps it all bottled up inside of himself and locked away as he continues to follow his routine. He does not intend on planning to break this routine anytime soon.

But something catches his attention. He gazes over towards Kageyama and remembers what he had said to him earlier and how he was the first one to say all of that to Tsukishima. This would make the tall player think that some part of him must have slipped out accidentally, but he might have felt a little better just knowing that someone else is looking out for him. Maybe the world is not as lonely and broken as he often thinks it is.

- - -

Tsukishima likes going on long walks with the moon and starry night sky preferably by himself to contemplate and muse on life and other thoughts in his mind.

“Watchin’ the world go round.”

Tsukishima used to be someone who knew how to smile when he was younger. Sure, his brother contributed much to that work, but he was genuinely happy at some point in his life. That innocent boy who thought that the world was much greater than life itself and was such a colorful place.

Where did he go? When did Tsukishima start seeing the world in black and white? Will that side of his ever come back again someday? Feeling like that back then seemed warm and delightful, so Tsukishima would not mind at all if he is able to be like that again.

He puts his headphones on and either listens to music to help with his mood or listens to podcasts to learn something new or hear about what is going on around the world. Being alone with his headphones does provide Tsukki with a little sense of joy since this is something he leisurely enjoys doing from time to time.

Though, on this night, he decides to listen to something different. He tunes into a volleyball podcast and finds some techniques to be quite intriguing. Even if he is just listening, the radio personality is able to vividly describe exactly how to perform and activate such unique gameplay styles for each of the players on the court. Tsukishima can see all of that playing in his head and can picture his volleyball team doing exactly how he perceives it in his mind.

- - -

The next day, he goes to talk to Coach Ukai for some advice on blocking. This is not a talk either of them expected to have or for Tsukishima to even initiate. The middle blocker never asks for help on anything at all. He is able to figure out pretty much everything by himself. That is the beauty of being smart, observant, perceptive, well-educated, and clever about a variety of topics.

That is, except for now. This is all uncharted territory for him. These unfamiliar feelings and unknown sounds.

Tsukishima takes heed and mentally notes his coach’s words, which Coach Ukai was able to give some sounding advice and help with him on some ideas on how to be better and execute some plays that the middle blocker had in mind. Tsukishima waits with anticipation and is looking forward to getting started on this.

- - -

Later on, after some time passes, Yamaguchi hangs out with Tsukishima at the park at night as he continues to listen to his headphones about these techniques again. Yamaguchi does not mind since he is able to see his friend and spend some time with him. He is sure that Tsukki will later share his own thoughts with him about whatever he is listening to at the time. They both have their drinks in their hands, and it was really nice out, so everything seems fine for now.

As Tsukishima continues to concentrate to how the radio personality talks about a difficult, but well-put strategy, some thoughts of self-doubt start to cloud his mind again. He starts thinking loudly in his head as the voice of the radio dulls out of his ears, “What is the point? Why am I doing this? This is so stupid! I can’t do any of this! I am not even a decent volleyball player. Why should I even bother trying?” Tsukishima is unaware of his own voice saying those words at all out loud to where anybody close by can hear him. Even his own headphones are drowning out the sounds that his dark and twisted thoughts keep producing as he keeps questioning himself over and over again.

Even if Tsukki intended to just say those things only to himself, which he very much had every intention to, Yamaguchi will not let these notions stand. He rips and yanks out the headphones off Tsukishima’s head, dropping both of their drinks in the process, throws the headphones over toward the grass as to not damage the item, grabs his best friend’s shirt, makes him stand up, and shakes him back and forth while emphasizing these words, “It’s our sense of pride! What more do you need?!”

The pinch server wants to prove a point to the middle blocker that he is not going through this all by himself. He needs Tsukki to know that he has got his back no matter what happens. Whatever has been clawing and gnawing at Tsukishima’s mind, he will go down fighting for him. He knows who Tsukishima is because he grew up with him. And anyone can bet that if Tsukki ever finds himself into trouble, Yamaguchi will be there by his side and protect and vouch for him in any way. He will support his friend, and he will be the one to knock some sense into that middle blocker whenever he needs to, which is exactly what he needs right now.

And, as a good friend, he will bring Tsukki out of those bleak conceptions. He will remind the middle blocker who he is and to never call it quits on anything! He will force his best friend to stand up and fight back against the world, even if he needs to be the one to push him to do better. He will never give up on Tsukki. He will always be loyal to him and bring him back and remind him of the kind of person that he is.

Yamaguchi picks up his friend’s headphones from off the ground and recycles both of their drinks in the appropriate bins before making sure that he walks Tsukishima up to his room. He makes Tsukki promise to not hurt himself, to which he agrees, even if the thought of actually harming himself never really crossed his mind.

At least, not that often. But having people feel pretty worried about him is the last thing that he would ever want anybody to do.

The pinch server repeats and keeps insisting the middle blocker that if he has any kind of anguish, pain, suffering, agony, anxiety, or anything going on in his life, then he needs to call him right away. No matter what time it is, seek help from someone! Tsukishima Kei is worth it! Everybody is!

Tsukishima knows a lot about Yamaguchi, but he has never once recalled him ever doing this before to him. He thought that his best friend was so brave to be able to say something like that to him. And he said, “our” so prominently, as if he was so sure that this also included Tsukishima as well. The middle blocker knows that Yamaguchi is also including the whole team with this statement, but for Tsukishima to realize that he is a part of something greater just amazes the middle blocker.

While he is not totally convinced that this is an answer that he was looking for during all this time, Tsukki is aware that he should not try to beat himself down whenever those invasive ideas plague and ridicule his mind, but he cannot help it sometimes. He is sure that those thoughts were affecting his mental stability and lowering his stamina, which impacts his energy in a distressing way, especially when it comes to volleyball.

So, he decides a to take an unprecedented approach. As he listens to music and gazes at his uniform, he attempts to dismiss and remove any negative thoughts about himself from his head and continues to concentrate on those unknown feelings and unknown sounds.

…

Unknown sounds. Unknown sounds.

Tsukishima is intelligent. He will utilize his available resources to find help to guide his way out of that darkness. He needs to hear it from other people. How are they so positive in their lives, especially with volleyball? Can he apply this sport to his own life in some kind of way?

- - -

He roams over to the third gym and enters through the doors. He faces the three quizzical volleyball players in front of him, two of them wear smiles on their faces and feel such content with seeing the younger volleyball player possibly wanting to know something from them while Akaashi shows his seriousness and concern towards the middle blocker.

As Tsukki approaches them, he reminds himself to try to keep an open mind. He says with a hint of curiosity laced in his words, “There’s something I would like to ask you. What drives you guys to work so hard?” He watches how they would react when he declares with conviction, “Volleyball is only an extracurricular activity.”

“Just an extracurricular activity?” Bokuto snaps at the middle blocker.

Tsukishima is almost taken aback by the captain’s words and thought that maybe he should not have phrased it in such a manner, but he could not help it. He was just stating a fact. This is how he really feels about all sports in general after all. Only a select few get to go pro as they advance towards their careers. Why bother trying? It is not meant to last forever.

Bokuto inquisitively questions the middle blocker, “Is this game fun to you?”

Tsukishima gives it a thought before deciding that he did not really think so. It did not really give him the same joy as some of his other hobbies do, such as listening to music, eating strawberry shortcakes, or learning about dinosaur facts. He thinks that playing a sport, especially with other people, should be fun to say the very least, but volleyball does not seem as fun to him as a lot of people all around him make it out to be.

Tsukishima has heard from other people and a variety of podcasts how some people have this phenomenal experience when it comes to such sports, and volleyball is no exception. These people would talk about how they feel when they have this so-called event happen to them like it is no other. It could happen at practice, training by oneself, just playing around for fun, in an actual game, or even in a final crucial game winning point. Each of them shares this amount of passion that is so hard to just contain it all inside. It gives them meaning. It livens up their spirits. It means everything to them.

Even Bokuto remembers exactly how he felt when he had his game-changing moment and does not give it a moment’s hesitation when he decides to share this personal experience to the younger person. “If that moment ever does come to you,” the Fukurodani captain begins and dramatically pauses to give Tsukki some time to let these words sink in. He enjoys the attention he gets when people are listening or praising him. He really shares a lot of his news with Akaashi, and even Kuroo is also a great companion and rival of his as well. He has no doubt in his mind that he also wants Tsukishima to also excel in what he does as well as someone he wants to be friends with. Even at this point, he views Tsukki as his friend. He believes that this middle blocker has greatness in store for him just waiting to come to the surface and rush out of his body. And when he does achieve that feeling someday, “that’s the moment you’ll fall in love with volleyball,” he answers with savvy confidence.

- - -

Tsukishima is in class and looks out at the window deep in thought. He etches the ace’s words into his brain, but he has yet to fully comprehend what he meant by this. Well, really what everybody means by this.Sure, he could try to broaden his horizons and peer ahead to maybe having some kind of similar experience someday, but his negativistic mind and his perceived notions in his life make him think otherwise. How could he? He has never truly learned how to think of “the bright side” of things. Or if he did, then he had forgotten how that emotion or that idea is really like in the first place.

He knows that he is ignorant to his ignorance and has to continue to learn a lot about many things that he will encounter and is facing every day, but he needs someone to tell him that he is worth it. Something or someone, maybe even someone with higher power and understanding and is hidden among the great beyond can show him or say just how worth it he is in this life. He has to believe that he is; otherwise, these dark thoughts will consume and overtake his body, mind, spirit, and soul.

- - -

Tsukishima Kei represents number 11 of Karasuno Boys Volleyball Club. Because he is the tallest on the team, he is a valuable asset and part of an essential starter in practice and in official games. Tsukishima is also a clever blocker, so he is constantly learning. He uses the information that he has been given and sees what is in front of him to make strategic plans and calculated points to help benefit the team, and he can adjust to the situation as accordingly as he sees fit and still keep his usual calm and cool composure in check. His mind is constantly working on overdrive as his body attempts to keep up.

…

Give me the faith to rise and help me diversify.

…

That moment… The moment where he is finally able to block one of the best spikers in Japan and earn that game-changing point and win that set… The moment where the whole building full of people watching goes silent, profoundly amazed at what this middle blocker has done… That moment that this feeling even exists for Tsukishima…

This. This, right here.

This is his moment.

…

Tsukishima cannot believe that this feeling is real that is almost seems surreal to him. Those words that Bokuto has spoken before and the ones that Yamaguchi had said to him hold true. This is now a verifiable experience for him! This moment gives a whole new meaning to Tsukishima’s view about this game. He has gained this, and there is no one that can take it away from him.

And this feeling he has inside of him. This feeling cannot be contained. He takes a hold of the air, brings his left fist down, and fills the void with his zealous scream. He will never forget this moment. And everybody else in that gym or watching the game on their televisions or mobile devices who had just witnessed this event will remember and talk about this long after the game is over as they all join and rejoice in Tsukishima’s accomplishment.

…

However long a moment may seem like in these times, it is not meant to last forever. Tsukishima knows this game is not over. They are one step away from representing the Miyagi prefecture and heading to Nationals. They just need to win this game first.

So, he takes a step forward, belligerence amplified. Tsukishima has to do everything in his power to help his team advance and play another set. He knows that if they lose one game, then it is all over, and Tsukishima does not like to lose. He is not going to give up, give in, or back down from this any longer. He is going to get up, keep trying, fight, and give it his all in everything that he does.

The feelings and the words collide. This moment is a feeling he would like to relive all over again someday, so he has a goal in mind and will attempt to go for the euphoria again. Now, he has a reason to go through with this game and continue to live his life. He feels intensified by this.

He once thought about this game with cynicism, but he knows now that he was previously living a life deprived and devoid from these emotions. He can now look at this game with optimism. He has to, or else he would rather be burned alive than going back thinking to thinking he is insignificant. (Insignificant.)

Every impotent moment debated can trigger it. Tsukishima has worked way too hard to get to where he is now. If he lets his past enable and destroy his own present, then he would have a very arduous time to find content in his life again.

He needs to forgive his past self and learn from it. He needs to believe in his current self now and think he can do this. And he needs to build and create his future self by moving on and accept who he is. God is his witness. Definitive. Someone is always watching. Even if no one thinks that they are, someone does take notice.

The middle blocker is grateful to everyone who has ever believed in him and who made him question his own well-being. Tsukishima will be holding his head up and looking towards his future. He knows there isn’t an innocent bone in his body and that he has to work for it. There is no room for laziness to be around.

Luckily, this game and this life that he is blessed with is what gives him the energy to keep on going. For the qualities that he lacked, he makes up for it by his sheer willpower and is willing to renovate when necessary. He has to innovate and come up with something new at times to win this game. His past will be intimidating to face at times, but he can’t remain afraid. He has to try everything for his life and make his name be known to others.

This is it.

He is Tsukishima Kei.

- KᴀɪʙᴀSʜᴀᴅᴏᴡ ♥

Have you read part 1 yet? Find it here: Kageyama Tobio - “The Only One”

Edited: April - September 2021 Uploaded: September 27, 2021 Tsukishima Kei - Drifting

#Tsukishima #Tsukki #AMV #short story #haikyuu #Tsukishima Kei #Kageyama #Yamaguchi #Hinata #Bokuto #Kuroo #Akaashi #Akiteru #story #2021 edit #KaibaShadow #Happy Birthday Tsukki

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drake-the-incubus · 4 years ago

Text

This is a gift for @striderhell from the Homestuck Secret Santa 2020 (@homestuckss). I was aiming for 3000 words but uh, Dirk as a muse didn’t want to continue exploring the concept of gender given his rigid but philosophical nature.

I hope this was good, and if not just gimme a shout and I’ll try and come up with something better.

Word Count: 1521 Fandom: Homestuck Characters: Dirk Strider, Roxy Lalonde Relationships: Dirk Strider & Roxy Lalonde (Platonic/Friends)

Additional Notes: Roxy uses He/Him and They/Them, I’ve never finished the epilogues but I love NB Rox. Dirk uses no pronouns in this, as I wanted to try that out.

Please enjoy Dirk exploring his gender.

Sometimes in an effort to define ourselves, we feel trapped to conform to some rigid aspect or label in hopes to reach an understanding of who we are. At times this process can be frustrating and dissatisfying. Other people take weeks or days, and some of them take years or never figure it out.

Perhaps gender, as a construct, can’t be fully understood, but we can understand ourselves as people without it. The tale before you, is only a short of someone who wishes to take a journey many end up doing, and most have never encountered.

Dirk was sitting in a cafe on Earth-C, sipping on a coffee in between tinkering with another pair of shades. The goal was updating and adding a better set of graphics, hoping to add some additional features to make things easier.

It had been a while since the Prince of Heart had seen the rest of the gods. Jake would visit once in a while, and they would have a friendly spar or talk. Roxy would message once in a while, letting Dirk know any spicy news about the rest.

Dave would randomly show up, they would stare each other down before both Striders would give a thumbs up and go their separate ways.

Rose would often come by, trading witty banter and wisdom. Both of them struggled with the massive impact of their god tiers and would often talk about it to one another.

Today though, Dirk decided a change of area would suit this project best, specifically needing to leave the workshop and enjoy some caffeine. Recently a problem developed that would continue to nag at the Prince even through the night. Lack of sleep was the reason why Dirk had picked a coffee shop. It made the most sense.

Gender did not.

Dirk had been going through a lot lately, and when Roxy had come out as trans, it had been taken pretty well by most of them. Not that it would be different if Dirk came out either, but rather that would take knowing what was going on.

This was a laughable moment, since they all had beaten the game, made it out and enjoyed their own little home in the midst of nothing. Creating entire worlds and civilizations with the help of their space and time players, but Dirk was sitting there, in a cafe, trying to figure out what gender even was and how it related to the god’s own identity.

Pronouns were hard, but so was even figuring this shit out. Making a copy of your brain at thirteen was much easier than figuring out if you’re cis or not, and Dirk didn’t know.

The more it was thought about, the more the thought cropped up, what if it turned out the being Cis wasn’t the result. Dirk was absolutely sure about not being a chick, nothing really appealed about that, but then again there was a very similar feeling over the current gender.

Man, agender or woman. Those were the categories that presented themselves currently. Working harder to connect the shades to the newly built chip, Dirk jolted when suddenly Roxy sat down across the table.

“I called out to you, but you didn’t answer.” He said leaning over and looking over the project. “I was wondering what made you change location, you’re pretty adamant to work in your workshop Dirkie.”

“I needed to think, which I was doing when you were calling out to me. Thinking so hard about creating a new line of orange pop with more caffeine than this cup of coffee that the world died out and I was left to only the one set of thoughts for once.”

He raised an eyebrow at that, and crossed his arms. “Really now? You think that I can’t tell something bigger is going on in that Strider head of yours? You’ve come up with projects while having a philosophical discussion with Rose and texting Dave a rap battle. You’re the king of multi-tasking, which also means your attention is usually divided more, and you’re attempting to put a wire on the wrong side of that.”

Dirk frowned and sighed, putting the project down. “Well, I can’t get nothing past you I suppose. I guess one thing that’s on my mind is how much I miss AR, since he was a good source of introspection, then again I have no idea if that would have helped in the first place.” Tapping fingers filled the space between them as the Prince looked outside at the billions of humans and trolls walking over the streets.

“I’ve been contemplating what gender is and how I relate to it since you came out as nonbinary. It’s been making me think about what is my gender, and I’ve come to the conclusion none of them really fit, but that’s also something to worry about since that means I don’t relate to any of the options-“

“Before you go on a long tangent, I want to ask, what are the options?” He interrupted Dirk while cocking his head.

“Agender, man and woman.” Dirk said bluntly, staring at Roxy. The laughter that resulted made the god tip the iconic shades down to stare at Roxy with deadpan orange eyes.

“I get greeted by your eye colour, score! But no, you got it all wrong, gender isn’t rigid categories, it’s a spectrum. You can’t define it by strict labels and there’s too many to count. So you don’t fit in three, there’s millions of genders. Some might not have a word for it right now. I’m nonbinary, but that’s because I’m not a man or a woman completely, I’m somewhere in the middle, closer to a man if I were to describe it as like, a sliding scale. So don’t be in a hurry, and don’t worry if you don’t figure it out.”

“I need to. Not knowing makes things difficult. I know it might be unhealthy to obsess over, but ever since I made Auto Responder, I had the need to understand myself fully and everything about myself.” With an elbow on the table, Dirk took a hand and raked it through the mess of hair. Having done so more than a hundred times earlier, the Prince was sure it was a complete and utter mess at this point, and would need to be taken care of at home.

“Well, I have a list of some of the other more known ones, maybe one of them check out for you?” He offered a tablet.

Dirk took it, and looked over the list of options and each description of it, mumbling under breath before placing the tablet back down with a definite, “I’m going to use Genderless for now and see what happens.�� It looked interesting, the excerpt specifically outlined not having a gender at all due to neurodivergence, rather than lacking a gender or having no gender, different from agender. It didn’t feel much different from everything else, but nothing did. Having several of the entries be defined by one’s neurodivergence was weird, but the more thought placed into the concept, the more it felt real to Dirk. Rather it meant that the Prince would have to take Rose up on her offer to get a fully evaluation soon, even if both of them came to the conclusion Dirk was probably neurodivergent and that it wasn’t impactful with how the god had lived life before the game.

“Are there any pronouns I should use for you?”

Pursing lips, Dirk gave a shake of the head. “None preferably. I think I need more time to actually think everything over. I have no positive or negative feelings for anything on there, and so I’m debating on if I’m everything or not. I can figure out how to make an exact replica of my own brain as a teenager, create robots, plot out the exact way I can kiss Jake and even save everyone's lives getting into the game. I’ve designed complex interactions to lead to the outcome I desire, and I can’t even pick a gender. This is quite frankly, ridiculous.”

“You don’t gotta. Dirk, it’s not about just picking a gender, it’s about figuring out a big part of yourself, and something most people don’t do for yours. You figured out you’re gay, now you’re figuring out what else you could be.” He placed a hand on Dirk’s and gave him a smile. “Whatever your result, I’m here for you. Even if you later think you’re a Cis man I’ll still be here for you. We might be siblings but we were friends first and that matters the most to me.”

Dirk gave a snort. “This is so fucking corny, but thanks Rox. I appreciate the love and support. Maybe I can treat you to another coffee since I feel like if I don’t buy one soon I’m going to be kicked out for making a mess of a window table.” Motioning towards the table, and standing up, the god stretched out. “What are you in the mood for?”

“Caramel Macchiato please.”

“Gotcha.”

#homestuck secret santa 2020 #striderhell #I fucking was gonna make this christmas eve but I got busy the past two days #Glad I waited because this Idea was much better #trans nonbinary characters #dirk is amab

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ladypogue · 4 years ago

Text

Used to This

Summary: JJ Maybank has had his fair share of one-night stands and random hookups. He never considered himself a relationship kind of guy. He wasn’t sure if it was his fear of commitment or the years of being told he wasn’t good enough, but he was content with his current situation. So, what happens when JJ, the troublemaker of Kildare, finds himself face to face with a girl that could change his whole outlook on love and relationships. Will sparks fly, or will the two crash and burn?

Warnings: None :)

word count: 2.4k

A/N: Hello to any readers, as always, thank you for reading, it means a lot to me. I am terribly sorry for the late update if you’ve been waiting for it. I was away on vacation and had no service so I couldn’t post and then when I got home i rewrote a bunch.. I’m still not fully happy but it will do. As always feedback (both positive and negative) are welcome. Enjoy! :))

Part 2

JJ stood in his place, staring after the girl who just whizzed past him. Not even catching her name, JJ shook it off and made his way back to his friends who were standing around the keg, jumping back into conversation with them like nothing happened. However, even upon rejoining his friends, he couldn’t help but scan the crowded beach for the girl. Spotting her standing with her friends, he let his eyes trail over her figure from afar. She was wearing a red tube top that complimented her skin tone nicely with a pair high waisted jean shorts. Her long hair was blowing in the wind, the light of fire radiating off her features, she appeared to glow in the dim light; JJ couldn’t deny she was beautiful. Noticing he wasn’t paying attention to the group anymore, Kie tried to follow his gaze.

“What are you looking at JJ?” she asked, figuring it was a girl and ready to tease him about it.

“It’s nothing” JJ mumbled under his breath, not wanting to admit he was staring at the girl and endure the remarks Kiara was likely to throw his way.

“Uh huh, sure” she rolled her eyes but dropped the subject, turning back to the other two boys; John B and Pope oblivious to the exchange. When he looked back up, he was surprised to already be met by her gaze. He blushed and looked away, for whatever reason this girl made him nervous. This was new to JJ, but he just chalked it up to him not having hooked up in a while, so he was off his game.

“Seriously dude, what is up with you?” Kie prodded, noticing his blushing, which was very un-JJ like in her mind. It was weird to see the most confident person she knew blushing like a schoolgirl.

“Kie, do you know that girl over there by the fire? In the red top.” He asked glancing at the girl once more, Kie following his line of sight nodding her head.

“Yeah, that’s Ella. Ella Thomas. We were friends growing up. She’s a little quiet but a sweet girl. Wouldn’t hurt a fly.” Kie explained, giving what little knowledge she had about the girl to JJ. He just nodded his head taking in this information, having an internal debate on whether he should go talk to her or not.

Finally spotting her friends after what seemed like an hour of searching, Ella ran up to them excitedly, ready to share her experience with the tall blonde she bumped into, knowing her friends were always ready to talk boys.

“Oh my god, there you are Ella! We were worried when we got back, and you weren’t where we left you!” Grace exclaimed as she pulled Ella into a hug, relieved to see her friend hadn’t been kidnapped by some stranger. Sophia and Ella chuckled; their friend being known for her dramatics as it’s not like Ella was gone for more than 15 minutes.

“Here I am, some guy was flirting with me but I wasn’t interested so I got up to find you guys so I could shake him.” Ella explained gingerly. She did feel a little bad that she didn’t shoot them a text saying that she got up but figured they wouldn’t care about that as she continued her story.

“Ella, it’s summer, you officially have little to no responsibilities. Would it kill you to give into a little flirting every once in a while?” Sophia groaned hearing that her best friend turned away yet another potential boyfriend.

“So, I guess you don’t want to hear about the guy I bumped into on my escape route then.” Ella smirked taking a sip of her drink, watching her friends’ eyes light up at this.

“Boy?? There was a boy? And you didn’t hiss at him?” Sophia asked, joking, but only in the slightest.

“Ha. Ha. Very funny. But yes, there was a boy. He was so cute, but not in a boyish way. He had the most beautiful blue eyes, oh and he was so strong. When I bumped into him, he caught me and held me steady. I never wanted him to let go. And when he smiled at me, it felt like time stood still. I don’t know how to explain it, but I’ve never experienced this before.” Ella gushed to her two friends, who held onto her every word.

“Ella, babes, it sounds like you have a crush.” Grace smirked, but secretly cheering on the inside, rooting for her bestie.

“How can I have a crush on him? I don’t even know his name.” She sighed, realizing she never caught the strangers name and the likely hood of her seeing him again after their encounter would be slim.

“You didn’t get his name?!” Sophia yelled, “that’s the most important part when meeting someone, is getting their name. You know what, it’s okay, could you point him out if you saw him? Maybe we know him.”

Ella nodded fervently, “There’s no way I wouldn’t be able to recognize him.”

“Well then start scanning the beach! We don’t have all night” Grace pushed, equally excited to find this mystery boy. Ella started looking around, trying not to be too obvious or weird, hoping to see those ocean blue eyes once again. She felt as if someone staring at her once again. Turning to meet the gaze of her onlooker, ready to brush them off no longer interested in anyone else, she was pleasantly surprised to make eye contact with the boy she’s had been searching for. He was standing around the keg with his friends, seeming to be paying more attention to her than them. Blushing and dropping her gaze with a smile, Ella turned back to her friends.

“He’s the blonde standing by the keg. But do not make it obvious that you’re looking at him.” Following her instructions, Grace and Sophia glance towards the keg, eyes almost popping out of their heads once they realized who Ella was referring to.

“Elle, sweetie, that’s JJ Maybank.” Sophia said, coming out of her shock. He didn’t seem like her type. She always imagined Ella with someone who was well off, probably a kook of sorts or maybe a touron who was visiting for the summer, but definitely not the troublemaker of the island.

“Who?”

“You know, resident player of OBX. Known to have his way girls and then leave them. He’s not a relationship kind of guy, really only wants one thing.” Grace explained.

“Definitely not a good idea. He’s bad news.” Sophia added on.

“But he seems to be friends with Kiara, and she doesn’t seem like the type to be friends with a terrible person.” Ella looked like a deer caught in the headlights, not wanting to be judged by her friends for her choice of attraction, even if she couldn’t help it.

“Don’t get your hopes up and do not get hung up on him”

“Yeah we want you fall in love, not get your heart broken by some douchebag.”

Ella took in her friends’ warnings and couldn’t help but be hurt, yet still endeared, by their words. How could they say such things about JJ when they didn’t see how he was her? Maybe they knew him better than her, but she couldn’t help but feel that they were wrong. But then again maybe they were right, they were more in the social loop and definitely talked to other girls about boys, so they had to have heard stories from them. And they did want what’s best for her. Plus, they only had a brief interaction so what did she really know about the boy, nothing. Looking back up to see if he was still looking at her, she noticed he was gone. He probably went to find another girl; she shook her head. Stupid of her to think he could possibly be thinking of her too. Noticing her change in demeanor, Sophia wrapped her arm around Ella’s shoulders, pulling her in close.

“Aw Elle, we didn’t mean to ruin your first crush, but there’s no way we could stand to see you get hurt. Especially by someone like him.”

She just nodded her head, tipping her drink back, finishing it. “I’m going to get another drink.” She stated, walking away not giving her friends a chance to reply. She wanted to take a walk and think about what they had told her. So, his name was JJ, she wondered what it was short for. She thought about his reputation and how many girls he had to have been with and mistreated for him to get it, but it didn’t seem to add up to their interaction. Granted their interaction was brief, and he could’ve just been being nice, but her gut told her otherwise, that he was actually a good guy. She was still nervous though, as he appeared to have quite the body count, while hers was still at zero. Not wanting to overthink she quickened her pace and made her way towards the keg that JJ’s friends were still standing at, ready to get drunk and block the blonde boy from her mind.

She was looking down at her feet, trying to not to think of JJ with another girl. She had no right to be jealous, as far as she knew, he had no idea who she was besides the girl who ran into him. Pushing the thought from her head she looked up just in time to smack into the chest of someone. Getting a strong sense of déjà vu, she felt their hands grab onto her arms and she looked up only to be met with a smirk from the boy she was trying so hard not to think about.

“We’ve gotta stop meeting like this.” He chuckled as he made sure she was steady before removing his hands from her arms and backing up ever so slightly.

“I’m so sorry! I guess I better start watching where I’m going, or this may end up being a regular thing.” She laughed along with him, less nervous this time but her heart still racing.

“I wouldn’t mind that.” He smirked slightly, “just maybe less crashing into me, I’m nervous you’ll break your nose. I’m JJ by the way.” He stuck his hand out for hers. Placing her hand gently in his she introduced herself. When JJ felt the pressure of her hand in his, he brought it up to kiss the back of her knuckles, leaving her staring at him in awe, as no one had done that before.

“What?” he smiled down at her.

Snapping out of her haze, she shook her head and smiled to herself, mumbling a ‘nothing’ before looking back up at him with a slight blush on her cheeks. Laughing at her shock, JJ inquired “So Ella, where were you off in such a rush?”

“Which time?” She laughed back at him, realizing now how cliché their meetings have been.

“Both.” He smiled.

“Well the first time, I was avoiding this guy who had been attempting to flirt with me.” JJ felt a twinge of jealousy build in his stomach. Obviously someone was hitting on her, she was beautiful, of course JJ wasn’t the only one who could see that. “I was kind of into it but then I realized that it’s the same guy my best friend has been crushing on so I couldn’t do that to her. So, I got up to leave but he tried to follow me, so I was looking for my friends.” Relief washed through him and he admired her for the way she cared more about her friends’ feelings than her own. “And this time I was going to get a drink, just a little distracted by my thoughts so I wasn’t paying attention. What about you? Where were going?”

“Our first meeting I was going back to my friends after wringing it out” he chuckled as Ella made a face, “and this time I was looking for you.”

Her facial expression changed from that of minor disgust to shock, “you were looking for me?”

“Why wouldn’t I? A pretty girl literally runs into me but rushes off before I get her name. Of course, I’m going to look for her.” He told her as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Ella couldn’t help but blush at his words, not sure how to handle that fact that he seemed to be flirting with her.

They stood there talking for a few more moments, her next drink completely forgotten and the ones she had previously consumed calming her nerves. Eventually the pair parted ways, returning to their friends, yet they continued to steal secret glances, each flushing pink when their eyes would meet those of the others already awaiting stare.

As the night dwindled down and people started to leave, in a bout of courage, JJ jogged up to Ella and her friends when he noticed they were heading out. He grabbed Ella’s hand, turning her around, making the trio stop and stare at him, all three shocked he was standing before them. Looking directly at Ella, and avoiding the harsh stares of her friends, JJ took a deep breath.

“I know we just met tonight but I couldn’t let you leave without asking for your number. So, can I have it?” JJ inquired, fidgeting with his hands trying to calm his nerves, preparing for a rejection. Giddy on the inside, Ella nodded her head and held her hand out for his phone. Relieved JJ took his phone out for her to put her contact information in. Smiling when she gave it back, JJ glanced down making sure everything was there, adding an emoji to her name without her noticing. Both of them smiling wide, he started to turn to head back to his friends. Before he could get too far, he heard her call out, “You better use that number Maybank!”

Telling her he would text her later he waved goodbye as she and her friends turned back around and started their walk home.

Both returned to back to their beds, having endured grilling from their friends. Grace and Sophia continuing to warn Ella of the possible mistake she was making and the Pogues just confused on why JJ didn’t try to bring her home. Both of them shrugging of their friends and falling asleep with smiles on their faces.

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zuzuslastbraincell · 4 years ago

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Katara!

KATARA KATARA KATARA

why I like them

oh god where do i even start. katara just contains so many multitudes - she's sweet and feminine and caring and attentive but she's never reduced to just that, she's never just 'the girl', she's also allowed to get mad, to be petty, to laugh at her brother, to be headstrong and stubborn, to express vulnerability, to cry and to laugh, to make ridiculous facial expressions and *be* very expressive. she's dealing with a lot of trauma not simply from the loss of her mother but that loss represents also how her tribe have been decimated by the fire nation, how she's the last waterbender, how all this pressure exists on her shoulders (but also pride, but also determination, to bring it back) and that is expressed subtly throughout the series with the same depth and love that male characters are afforded with regard to their respective traumatic experiences. and despite all this she never tries to stop making the world good? She's always pushing for change, she's always wanting to make things better, she's relentless and doesn't give up when it comes to her vision for a better world... she has such a big heart. and that coexists with a deep anger in her, and deep hurt. Not to make an ocean metaphor so early on but she's as deadly and deep as the ocean but she chooses to be kind and warm and that's so powerful.

why i don't

honnestly while katara's instincts to mother people are a sad symptom of how she was forced to grow up to soon and automaically asigns herself a role of emotional responsibility she has mixed feelings about, i know that if katara tried to mother me, i would be annoyed. but that sounds more like a me problem.

favourite episode

oh it's either the episode where she beats the fucking shit out of pakku or it's the southern raiders. the first one because it's so gratifying to see how she's grown and developed as a bender and really come into her own. the second because... god i love how *messy* the southern raiders is, and it really taps into what i love about katara - she's flawed, she runs off on an ill-thought out revenge mission with zuko, she's got a great capability for darkness as she quite seriously considers murdering a man she has every right to loathe and to kill - but she chooses against it, in the end. it would not be right for her, if not him. she chooses what's right for her in the end.

favourite season

I'm gonna be a wee bit controversial and say book 1 had the best conception of katara's arc from student to master and really saw her grow and flourish, from someone yelling at her brother' oafish prejudice to a real master, that really solidified her as an idealist and presented that as the strength that is, that showed her struggling with petty jealousy of aang's progress and had her stumble in ways that made her character comeplling and interesting - like what an introduction to her character! book 2 had some fantastic moments but i can't think of anything particularly remarkable about hee character arc - largely because it tied into aang's romantic arc i think at this point. book 3 had some absolutely fantastic moments (scam queens katara and toph!! painted lady!! southern raiders!! the final agni kai) that really shone but also book 3 lays a lot of groundwork for fanon i hate (e.g. katara as the mom friend - wish that headcanon would die tbh)

favourite line

fuck there's a lot of good ones but my underrated fave is when sokka says he's kissed a girl before but she's never met her and katara says 'Who? Gran-gran? I've met gran-gran' and it's bruuutaaall

but my favourite serious line is 'I will never ever give up on people who need me'. powerful.

favourite outfit

water tribe anything!! and i actually think her book one/book two braids are her best hair. underrated katara hair. personally she looks just adorable in her parka in the flashback to when she was like. eight.

OTP

katara/personal fulfilment

katara/happiness

katara/fulfilling her goals and dreams

katara/loving minor background character who is never named

there's some ships i like in AU situations - yuetara is actually one i lov, especially with waterbender yue, i just love the whole sea/moon thing as well as katara and yue rebelling in loud/quiet ways, being girlfriends who refuse to have their lives defined by the expectations of older men, who have a great sense of duty towards their nations and won’t let gendered expectations stop them.

and most of you know i like the messy drama of katara/azula in a lighter AU situation where they're like, school or academic rivals, and the legacy of imperialism isn’t quite so personal (and azula makes better choices, obviously), but it’s not as much as i “ship” them as i just find the potential dynamic interesting, they’re both driven by a sense of duty for their home, it’s just that means *very* different things depending if you’re SWT or FN.

none of them are OTPs though - they’re more just fun thought experiments

brotp

katara & sokka - absolutely love their sibling dynamic its amazing. both have been impacted negatively by the shit in their lives and are not always dealing with it in functional ways but theyre there for each other, through thick and thin, always have each other's backs, they roast each other and bicker and sometimes make stupid decisions and sometimes lash out but at the end of the day their love pulls through, they’re able to work past those conflicts.

katara & aang - honestly while i feel kataang was just so poorly executed in the show (listen guys I just can’t after ember island players, i know that was a bad episode, but i can’t) & i cant imagine katara wanting to leave the south pole after the war for long spells (it would have to be long distance love, lots of profound and heartfelt letters and occasional visits, if anything, but i dont know if that’s what katara wants or needs? so maybe it wouldn’t pan out?), but regardless, i really do think these two had a life-changing friendship where each really represented hope for each other, that's at the core of it, they both truly believe in each other, and inspired each other. katara & aang good.

a headcanon

chief katara anyone?? chief katara?!?!

oh oh OH i also think that katara, while primarily a combat bender during the war, actually takes to healing a lot more after the show and gets proper healing training at some point with the help of a trained medical expert and maybe yugoda. tbh i feel like the show was a bit dismissive of healing as an ability - i feel like having that is *extremely* useful in any combat situation, you always have a medic on hand - but i understand why katara, who wanted to be recognised as powerful regardless of her gender, and wanted to hold herself in a fight alongside sokka & aang, pushed for combat waterbending training because that is what 'powerful' looks like to her in the moment. obviously katara is capable of incredible healing feats (see: saving aang) but i think given we see her as a healer in lok (not a decision i necessarily disagree with) would mean a shift in focus. i think katara actually comes to realise she likes healing a great deal, but really she excels in all aspects of waterbending and is the south’s most respected master who helped rejuvenate southern style waterbending

unpopular opinion

the main reason people think katara is straight is because we see her have very few meaningful interactions with other girls outside of toph. ATLA as a show is a bit romance obsessed, and very heteronormative in that regard, and so interactions with minor characters almost always line up with a potential crush for sokka or katara, and later, zuko (suki, haru, jet, yue, song, jin....). we rarely see katara build friendships with other girls and it’s such a damn shame.

(anyway bi katara for life)

a wish

the version of the puppetmaster we saw was actually fire nation propaganda, i feel like katara would have felt deep compassion for a prisoner of war and after maybe some clashes, would have agreed to help smuggle her out of the fire nation and secure passage home for hama, and tried to assure her that she still has a place there. the treatment of hama in that episode was awful (but also hama was written to be almost cartoonishly evil, very much an evil witch in her cottage in the spooky woods? like the whole horror movie / spooky story opening was such a big tell) and tbh i reject the thesis that we saw ‘katara’s dark potential’ in that episode completely, or that bloodbending as a power is inherently dark, or katara’s use of it to stop hama ‘corrupted’ her. I feel like katara might feel this way as a teenager perhaps but with time (she can be a little black and white at times), and especially with more training as a healer, i think she might realise that’s not the case, she’ll realise that she was right to try and oppose hama, her elder (she was lashing out rather than really trying to oppose the fire nation), and it wasn’t a betrayal of her or her beliefs, but also her use of bloodbending wasn’t wrong or evil inherently at all? and maybe she’d find ways to use it for healing purposes? anyway my wish is that, i like the idea that they meet again, speak about their differences, reconcile a little / come to an understanding, and katara learns more from hama again

an oh-god-please-don't-ever-happen

anything where katara’s character is reduced to a comforter or a healing device for a man and his trauma. particularly zuko. (they don’t have that dynamic in canon thankfully, zuko would never, zuko respects her too much)

5 words to describe them:

idealistic, hard-working, powerful, headstrong, kind

my nickname for them:

chief. or comrade. :^)

#katara

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sephythespooky · 4 years ago

Text

reader insert: back in black mesa

PART 2

Passport acquired, but what now?

words under cut

“Here,” Tommy gently pressed the document into your hand. “Show this to Benrey. I’ll handle e-everything else.” Seeing how pale your lips were, he frowned, then hugged you tight. “It’ll be o-okay, friend. W-we’re the science team! We can do any-anything!”

Reluctant, you stepped out of the hug when Tommy released you and held out your passport at Benrey, whose bright eyes hadn’t left you since you picked it up. “yo, man....that seriously you? you look, uh....look a bit shit in that photo, not gonna lie.”

You look at the photo and snort. It’s your school photo from years ago, the one you hated most. “Yeah, yeah I do.”

Agreement, that was something you knew Benrey didn’t get a lot of from Gordon. But he seemed to like it, grinning with his razors before gently shaking Dr. Coomer out of the repetition of what you now realize was the Wikipedia article for lockers. “old man, like, i get it, but we gotta, uh, gotta do stuff now.”

The white haired scientist shook his head, turning to you and lighting up, “HELLO PLAYER!” He called, then seemed confused. “I should know your name. Why don’t I? Hm...”

Tommy interjected as Benrey began circling you, tilting his helmet this way and that as he analyzed your form, “Dr. Coomer, w-we don’t know them yet. We’re supposed to be waiting for Mr. Freeman!”

“yo, feetman? where’d he go?” Benrey asked, suddenly more interested in what Tommy had to say than in you.

You watched as Dr. Coomer looked between them, then snapped his fingers, “Oh! that’s what I’ve been wanting to say! HELLO GORDON!” He grins, then slumps a bit, “Oh...but he’s not here. I still have to give him his interest playcoins.”

“Dr. Coomer?” you ask softly, almost afraid to speak up, “How did I end up here? Gordon finished the game. You guys should still be with him, but now you’re with me?”

The older gentleman chuckled, “Not to worry, Not-Gordon, we will figure this out. I do love a good puzzle! Let’s get Bubby and have a good ol’ chat about it.”

“least i don’t have to watch you. like i did him. you’ve got your passport,” Benrey still pushes you ahead of him and you squeak, rushing forward to hold onto Tommy’s sleeve.

Tommy moves so you can hold hands, and he swings his arm a bit, sunny smile in place, “We’ll be careful with you, I-I promise! Nobody will be doing any OSHA violations with me on the-the case!”

His presence was comforting, even if you were more than aware of his lack of gun-safety training. But there weren’t guns right now. At least besides the ones you could access.

The closer you get to the test chamber, the more tense you get, so you yelp when Benrey TELEPORTS in front of you and stands in the doorway, “dudes...these are the guys. i told you about them. not thinking about....about anything besides froot loops.”

The basic guards are unaffected, and the door opens behind Benrey with no other fanfare. Dr. Coomer laughs, “Well, I do love sugary cereal with colorful mascots. I prefer Frosted Flakes, though.”

“you would, old, old grampa man.” and then he’s gone, running ahead of you with that cackle that shook a nervous laugh out of you when it used to make you happy.

“Um...would...would petting Sunkist help you? He’s a good boy, and I-I always feel better when I pet him,” Tommy offers and you nod before he can even finish. Sunkist is immortal, and well trained. You’d pet the dang JPEG but you have a feeling things will be different for you in here.

“Okay. I’ll call for him once we find Bubby,” you’re getting close to his room, you think, but being so very near the test chamber is enough to make you jitter.

Your group enters the room with many scientists and you hear Bubby, “GOOD GRIEF! Not only are you late, but you brought an entourage. What kind of bastard are you?”

The yelling makes you flinch, and Dr. Coomer says helpfully as he takes hold of Bubby around the waist, pinning his arms, “Hello! We’re here to fetch you for a confab. We have to figure out how we help our new friend here and then get back to Gordon.”

“Gordon?” Bubby questions, his struggles against Coomer slowing until he’s finally released. “Wait. That’s right! Then why are you wandering around with that fucking idiot Benrey?!”

“bro, not cool.” Benrey hides behind you and blows a raspberry at Bubby. “came here tryin’ to be a great cool and you’re being mean. dr. mean man.”

“I live mean, and you tried to kill me! And everyone else!” Bubby huffs, waving his arms around and fire glinting off the tips of his fingers. “Someone explain this to me!”

Tommy takes a deep breath before he speaks, “Bubby, I know it was scary, but Benrey’s our friend. He only acted weird on Xen because it amplifies negative emotions. That’s why we felt so afraid and hopeless, otherwise it’d be pretty funny for Benrey to be so big, right? And, and fun to jump around like Moonshoes!”

“He has a point, Bubby.” Coomer takes a seat, and you follow suit, even if Benrey does leave and go sit on top of one of the other scientists who, for some reason, are not paying attention to your group. “I would have loved to see how my Power Legs did with the low gravity.”

“Well...I guess a little murder between friends isn’t that big a deal. And we didn’t die so we’re good for now. Maybe,” Bubby makes the hand sign for ‘i’m watching you’ toward Benrey, who is too busy tea bagging the scientist in mid-air to notice.

“Have,” Tommy looks at you hopefully, “Have you seen Mr. Freeman since my birthday party? Dr. Coomer tried to send him a message, but we’re not sure if he received it.”

“I have,” you say, closing your eyes to try and relax yourself, “Gordon Freeman is a streamer on Justin TV, like I am. I actually was...streaming myself doing this!”

“Good for him, he lived his dumb dream,” says Bubby.

“you’re streaming this, friend?” Benrey hops off the scientist and shuffles over, “you ever stream heavenly sword?”

“I haven’t yet,” you admit, “but I only heard of it through you talking about it to Gordon, so it took me a while to get hold of the game. I was planning on doing that next week.”

“nice,” the guard flops on the ground, just spread out all over. “m’gonna take a nap now. it’s boring without feetman here to bug. no offence, bro, but you’re too nice.”

“None taken,” you huff, very cautiously giving a pat to his helmet. You get a chuckle out of it.

“I hate to admit it,” Bubby isn’t looking at any of you, picking at the sole of his shoe, “but Gordon’s at least somewhat competent a leader.”

Tommy raised his hand, and Coomer gave him a nod to continue, “Mister....Mister Freeman might know what to do so we can get our friend out of here. But how do we tell him we-we need help? Oh,” he remembered something, then called out “SUNKIST!!!”

A woofing came, and you were suddenly bowled over by a large golden retriever.

“Good dog! Sunkist, you should let our friend up and sit with them. They’re, they’re very nervous.” Tommy giggled sweetly as Sunkist backed up and let you right yourself before laying his big head in your lap. You gently rub your hand down from his head to his shoulders, finally glad for your ability to touch things here. Even through your gloves, you felt how soft Sunkist’s fur was, how warm and strong the body beneath. Tommy had been more than right that Sunkist would make you feel better, and you murmur soft nonsense to the sweet pup.

“Can,” you’re nervous as you begin, “Can I ask why the other scientists don’t seem to notice us? They didn’t seem to really interact with Gordon, or you guys either.”

“I don’t know,” Bubby says as he waves a hand at the folks near the computer in the corner, “Somehow we’ve woken up and have some personality. These goons are dull as dishwater and twice as boring.”

“guuuuuuuuys,” Benrey whines loudly, “unless you know something about games or how to talk to freeman, i don’t caaaaare.” You pat his helmet again, getting a grumpy hurmph and a heavy hand falling on your knee.

“Why are you asking me? I don’t know! It’s not like I have his phone number!” Bubby snaps in response.

Dr. Coomer said with a perk of his head, “Our friend is a streamer, though. Does that mean you and Gordon work in the same department?”

“N-no,” you giggle a bit at the idea. “We all work in our own homes, or in office spaces we rent with others in small groups. Gordon has no idea I exist. He’s far too popular to bother with me.” But an idea comes as you speak and feel the steady, gentle weight of Sunkist on your lap, “But maybe my chat could go raid him? He might be streaming now and if they would go talk to him about this....maybe he’d listen?”

The team nods, and Tommy questions, “Didn’t you say you were streaming before you came here? M-maybe they’re still listening!”

“Might as well try,” you take a deep breath, “Guys in the chat, if you can hear me, go find Gordon Freeman on here. Message him, donate, do anything you can to get his attention on this stream! We need his help or....or I might never get out of here.”

You could only hope that your words got through...and that Gordon was in a mood to listen.

#hlvrai #reader insert #tommy coolatta #benrey #dr. coomer #bubby #sunkist

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madfictionland · 6 years ago

Text

KHIII - Strengths and Weaknesses of Nomura’s Insanity

1. Xehanort Saga’s Closure

Great:

- Axel vs Xemnas sequence and that entire battle alongside Xion and Roxas, with Shimomura’s orchestrated music - Sea Salt Ice Cream Rules!

youtube

it was just golden and weighted heavily on me! Lots of emotions and great closure there

- Xemnas and Ansem... being awkward... it was extremely weird at first, seeing them on strange errands, behaving the way they did, no Darkness lines for Ansem, and overall the two of them kind of less important than Xigbar, for example.

But it was actually perfect and then it all came full closure with their defeats! They were taken from their own timelines (in which they were soon to be defeated or right before the final blow?), briefed on the current situation and assigned tasks under MX. And Ansem being the most awkward because...

no madness, no darkness showdown! Being approached by some children! it’s just aren’t his thing, clearly... Oh, and Xemnas handling the “benched” Norts as if they were his students, something that he does proudly. Pretty much the only thing that gives them both purpose after that time travel ordeal is the sense of companionship and MX’s goal which they feel obliged to pursue “because they are him” - only not really, actually. Because as it turns out... they found they did not really care, in the end.

So yeah, in the end it’s actually pretty sad... and they fade away to be ultimately defeated in their own timelines!

- Young Xehanort being an utter dickhead of darkness (although the bad thing is... no more backstory, explanation and only minimal amount of screen time for him, damn)

I mean, seriously, I enjoy the fact he turns out to be one of the most engaging KH3 villains, so focused and bitter. When you think about it, then it makes sense since he was given great power early on and explored through time... obtaining even more power. He never met Eraqus, he never created his bizarre self-rightous grand goals to begin with... He was just... alone, traveling through time, and exploring the outside world through darkness and his dark future selfs, the future that he embraces fully. He is the embodiment of everything what’s dark about Xehanort, in some aspects perhaps even more souless than the old man himself, and we even have him take on Ansem’s role... lol

I like his interactions with Sora, especially here.

- Goofy being smart in the Xehanort’s plot business, lol and they’re always debriefing Sora on Mickey’s encounters from BBS. Nice!

- Finally we know how Axel and Saix got turned into Nobodies - we really needed that backstory...

- The replica research plays a big part here and it serves to create vessels for hearts... with data!memories... and we even get glimpses of artificial hearts being researched now... nice, it REALLY does bring into closure all this data madness that Nomura had started

- Vanitas regenerated through negative emotions of children’s screams in the Monster world + his entire ending with Sora/Ven which was amazing - Vanitas was darkness and it was his own choice because his very nature was darkness... he wouldn’t have it any other way! but despite this, he appears to be actually humanized in the end, at least as much as a rebelious pure darkness plucked from someone’s heart can be

- Terra reveal and him being Ansem SoD/Terranort’s sidekick pet all this damn time... like, I never thought that’s a possibility... even though it does make sense...

Now that’s the kind of crazy Nomura reveal that I like!

- Yen Sid finally takes action! WOOOOW

- final battle with 3 main Norts, and Master Xehanort doing a fingers thingy!

youtube

With a glorious MAD score and mix of all three bosses themes! YESSS

Bad:

- Kairi situation... although to be honest it was expected so it doesn’t weight on me too heavily, personally

- very few cutscenes/very few long dialogues and NO backstory cutscenes... now that’s a BIG flaw

- none of the time travelling stuff from DDD gets explained... we don’t know why Young Xehanort is still here despite (apparently) dispersing at the end of DDD... and we don’t even know which Norts are time travelers... and we don’t know their backstories either... how they got Norted? When? How many are there??? It’s not even clear if all of them (those that we meet in game and cutscenes) are present at the final battle because 13 figures showcased with MX prior to battle... all of them with hoods! And we know Demyx is not one for fight so maybe he bailed? Plus Vexen betrayed them? Also, Marluxia, Larxene, Demyx and Luxord were all secondary vessels... kept only due to their Keyblade War connection... so I would assume they had other more serious Norts in store? So who exactly was fighting and who wasn’t? Who was a time traveler and who wasn’t? Who was in a replica body and who wasn’t? Also, is Xigbar a Nobody or somebody Braig with Xigbar’s features? Just FUCK IT. I really like all these convoluted little details but none of this was discussed... which is so unlike Nomura...

- very little presence for MX, no backstory explored and... overall VERY anticlimatic final boss fight and weak ultimate resolution to his “big” saga

- Vexen is just too good at pretending... he really does seem like a bad guy again, who just wants to do research, I don’t buy his sudden redemption and I actually thought he was going to double cross Ansem and use him as his puppet! How can Vexen even feel anything, especially redemption desire, as a freshly cooked Nobody? lol

- Big big flaw is that many Norts were... not really Norts. What’s the point of them getting Norted if they don’t get a slight change in personality and aren’t driven by Xehanort’s purpose? It worked so well with Saix... only think what kind of Demyx or Larxene we could get if they were actually Norts. Seriously, that was disappointing. Frankly enough, we even have Demyx say this line...

which is EXACTLY the case, he would make an interesting vessel, and I assume one capable of good fighting skills or intimidation... if only they were influenced by the entire process and written as actual Norts - important to the plot - not just some toys and Keyblade War Legacy research project for Xemnas...

2. Union X / more...

Good:

- Ephemer and all the Keyblade wielders coming to help! With players’ names shown! Just wow, this was super powerful, and great soundtrack for it too. Also, it kind of confirms my suspicion there were two Keyblade Wars? The “Lost Masters” one and “Union Leaders” (the one in which Ephemer fell, thus he is there with the “spirits” of the wielders).

- Ven’s Chirithy, such a cute little detail :)

- The Final World - atmoshere, music and design... all of them GREAT. It makes sense in the lore + some of its design/animation reminds me of data worlds... Hmmm, could it be... some kind of bin folder on the MoM desktop?

In any case, the future of Nomura Mindfuck seems bright

- the ending with Sora vanishing (to another plane/world?) and Secret Movie with MoM fucking conceptualizing Kingdom Hearts under the normal’s moon light, all of it in a remake of the newest FF title......

I mean, we are one step closer to ultimate shit, right? Which would be Nomura self-inserting himself into the game as Master of Masters... and I’m all for it! XD

- seems like the time travelling Ven + other guys from Union Cross will be progressing places... diferent worlds, planes, realities? And I like it, this seems more interesting and like a fresh surge of madness from Nomura that he kind of wanted to do with Xehanort (hence time travel) but wasn’t really able... in the end. So maybe, just maybe... MoM will get a better conclusion?

- Xigbar makes it to another game. What can I say? I like him, he’s entertaining, that’s all

Bad:

- Xigbar being Luxu seems to be poorly explained, like... he ONLY pretends? Even in those Braig scenes from BBS? And when talking with YX? Really? Even though his BBS scenes were short and we knew nothing about him... it could have been done better, like maybe Luxu planted a piece of himself into Braig and pointed him towards Xehanort, but he wasn’t actually Braig? Hence the guy who gets Norted - Braig - isn’t Luxu? At least not yet? But then Luxu can take over? Well, I think that would be much better... unless there is more to it that we don’t know but i really doubt

- Maleficent, the Box, Xigbar searching for the Box... (wtf even? what MX has to say about this? what’s that box Xigbar? and how dare you hide shit from me?)

All of this... is quite different than earlier KH hints or reveals. It’s just extremely CRYPTIC. It leaves you with nothingness because the characters themselves feel like nothingness when they are forced to speak about this. I could understand it if it contributed to KH3 plot in any major way, like the box being a catalyst in MX’s plans maybe, but it wasn’t - it was pointless, so the attention it got, and they always speak about it in such vague terms... what’s the point? because that’s hardly a surprise and we knew about the box...

- Maleficent and Pete are pointless, especially pointless because the only way for Maleficent to be interesting was to explore some of her hidden (?) memories regarding her time travel experience (which she does not remember, I assume?). Instead, something was “etched”... and a black coat told them about the box... and replica Riku has an akward encounter with them... but nothing is explained or actually said in clear terms. OK, so it sucks, why don’t you skip their cutscenes then - it does NOT create a *Nomura mystery*, it just says “here is some random gibberish that won’t be ever explained because it doesn’t mean anything and doesn’t introduce anything new” A Nomura mystery would be to explain to us whether Maleficent actually remembers the box from her time travel experiences and THEN introduce a new solid mystery, like: she doesn’t remember, but there was a mysterious black coat guy who said there was a box (and there would be a flashback of this past encounter!). But at this point it seems like Nomura just completely doesn’t care, at least not in KH3

The Final Judgment: KH3 was quite a letdown (as the Xehanort’s saga conclusion) but still enjoyable and with grand potential for better mad shit in the future.

PS: Also, it delivered the greatest score in the history of KH... so that’s a win!

#kingdom hearts iii #kh3 spoilers #kh3 opinion #xehanort saga #tetsuya nomura

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gapimnydiaries · 7 years ago

Text

Diary Entry #17

Dear Diary,

I have a story to tell you –

“Where do you see yourself in 10 years?” I asked him.

He thought about it for a while and responded.

“Um, I want to have a house, and I want to have a job. On the weekends I want to go to the movies, and I want to have a group of friends to go with.”

“That sounds pretty good! How can you get there?”

Another pause.

“Well, I have to quit meth…”

It was a warm, sunny afternoon. I sat across from a friend on a balcony looking down on a calm street. We got into a conversation about his struggles with methamphetamine addiction, and I wanted to understand where he was coming from. I thought it would be a good idea to talk first about his aspirations rather than the gritty details of how he became addicted. I was shocked by how simple and “normal” his dreams were for the future. I had always taken shelter, school and friends for granted, but my friend didn’t have those things. He grew up in an impoverished neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York where drugs and violence were rampant. He joined the military, which was his ticket out of that environment. He finished his service only to fall back into a life of drugs and destitution. All of these complicated social issues were also intertwined with his sexuality. In our conversation, he told me he just wanted to be normal – a place to live, a job and friends. What was noticeably missing in his vision was a family.

◆◆◆

I recently read an article in the Huffington Post called “The Epidemic of Gay Loneliness” by Michael Hobbes that I thought captured very well some of the psychological problems that plague the modern gay man, and it has become one of my most referenced articles. One concept that stood out to me was minority stress that describes the constant psychological strain associated with being a stigmatized minority. In the case of being a minority in sexuality, relatively minor stresses dealing with perceived or actual social rejection and prejudice accumulate over time and lead to prolonged psychological trauma. It also talked about the sadness of not being able to have a traditional family. That was definitely an "aha!" moment for me because up to that point, I had not realized that a significant portion of my own depression could be attributed to my sexuality.

In junior year of college, I was going to a weekend retreat with the board of one of my college organizations. It was one of those bonding opportunities that gets the board closer to each other so we can work better together. The retreat would start with talks of organizational agenda setting and annual planning and eventually progress into secret sharing after a few rounds of drinks. When everyone was having a good time playing “Fuck, Marry, Kill”, I had already retreated into the corner anxiously like I always did in similar situations. I had to mentally prepare all kinds of reasons why I didn’t have an extensive dating history by college and came up with stories of attractions to various imaginary people. I would be mentally exhausted by the end of the night trying my hardest to provide unsatisfactory answers. To everyone else, it made me seem secretive and unwilling to share, defeating the point of a bonding night. It took me a while to process how those experiences shaped my interactions with others and my own psyche. I now realized how much my sexuality contributed to my social anxiety and unwillingness to get emotionally close to others. I felt like I had something to hide and was afraid I would be “discovered”. It was difficult to develop the kind of close friendship I saw in others because I couldn’t let my guards down.

I am much more comfortable with my sexuality today, but unfortunately the stress persists. When I visited relatives in China this past summer, I had an earful of questions about why I didn’t get a girlfriend in medical school or when I would get one. My family members were making all kinds of commitments to attend my wedding, including my 80 year old grandmother. When this came up, and it did a lot, I simply smiled and nodded. To them, I was an exemplar child -- well educated and professionally accomplished. To me, I just felt like a fraud – I likely would never be able to deliver the kind of “normal” marriage and family they expected. I was going to be a disappointment to people who loved me the most. I believe that the closer one is to family, the worse the feeling. It only took me half a week before I couldn’t take it anymore and wanted to take the next flight back to the U.S….

◆◆◆

When I asked my friend why he kept using meth despite all its negative consequences on his life, he said he felt powerful and sexy with it. It’s boring to meet guys without it because he didn’t feel attractive and confident. He had been struggling with depression and loneliness, and taking drugs was his way to have a moment of feeling like normal, no matter how temporary. He actively looked for people who party and play (hook up while on drugs) on Grindr. He just wanted to feel good about himself, and drugs were his gateway to that feeling. I nodded with an implicit understanding – I knew that feeling too well.

Perhaps you have read my last year’s diary entry on my entrance into the gay world, and it wasn’t full of rainbows and unicorns, so to speak. When I first came into contact with the gay world, a series of painful rejections quickly crushed my naive idealism and simple desires for acceptance. My self-esteem was at an all-time low, and what came with it was depression and a sense of self-hatred. There must’ve been something wrong with me if none of the pretty profiles on dating apps wanted me, right? In Hobbes’ article, he describes a process of being “re-traumatized” as one enters the gay world, a community where we are waiting to be accepted for who we are, only to be ruthlessly rejected for our ethnicity, appearance, income or demeanor. A quote that stood out to me was that “every gay man I know carries around a mental portfolio of all the shitty things other gay men have said and done to him.” In an age of anonymous, headless profiles on dating apps, it’s easy to forget all social etiquette, and we end up with a collective toxic culture that makes everyone miserable.

I have been ghosted or blocked on datings apps more times than I can keep track in the past years, but I do remember a few notable ones. One time I talked to a guy for several weeks and made plans to get boba. I was blocked right after finally sending him a picture. Another time I went rock climbing with a guy and never received a reply to my text after. There was a time that I traveled all the way from Boston to Hartford for a second meeting with a guy who said “you are a great person with a great personality and career, but not exactly my type physically.” Over the years I have struggled with deleting the apps but only to go back on a few days later. I think using dating apps is like gambling. We are on it to hit whatever jackpot that we imagine for ourselves, whether it’s the perfect boyfriend or the hot-boy-next-door hookup. But just like the casino, the player never wins. We end up creating an environment where guys with the best profile pictures get all the attention and can therefore pick and choose and leave the rest of us miserable and desperate from the trail of rejections.

The rejections, especially in the form of ignoring, ghosting and blocking, left me confused and depressed. At times it seemed like I was bracing myself for the eventual rejection in all my interaction with guys. I was defensive and quick to jump to conclusions whenever there was even a lag in response. Many of my friends have told me that I just needed more confidence, but it was very hard to find confidence when I had just received so many rejections. It was especially bad when this was compounded by being Asian and getting racist responses from apps. A friend once commented to me, when you have low self-esteem, you become desperate. And when you are desperate, you do the most irrational things. People engage in risky hook ups and drugs in an attempt to fill this painful void, but it’s like scratching an itch; they offer ephemeral relief but only to make the problem worse long term.

◆◆◆

“Sometimes, I only eat a little bit of my food, like a quarter of a sandwich, and it would make me feel really fat, so I just threw the rest into the toilet.”

A while into the conversation, my friend admitted that he had been struggling with bulimia. Even though he had a normal Body Mass Index, which is how weight is measured to determine if someone is in a healthy range, he had an altered view of his body and believed he was overweight. He mentioned to me how there are so many fit and muscular guys and Grindr, and it made him feel unattractive.

A few years ago, I met up with a guy in Downtown LA. I was surprised that he even responded to me because he had what looked like a modeling picture on his Jack’d profile with the most amazing tan and ripped muscles. Fortunately for my anxiety, he looked a lot more normal in person, and we had a discussion about what he believed to be an inevitable progression for many guys in gay life. He said that when someone first enters the gay world, the person has this vision of finding and settling down with a normal looking, nice guy. Then he gets into the partying culture and starts to work out and look better. All of a sudden the nice guys are not fun and attractive enough. At the time, I was quite surprised and told myself “no, that’s not going to be me, I will always want the nice guy”.

In my exploration of the gay world, I have discovered more and more a whole lifestyle centered on partying. I started in West Hollywood and made my way around some of the gay centers in the country like the Castro and Hell’s Kitchen. I have been to clubs in LA, NYC, San Francisco, Boston, Miami, San Diego and even some international spots like Valparaíso, Mexico City and Bangkok. I started learning about the various colors of circuit parties in the U.S., Europe and Asia. Interestingly, the attendants are typically young professionals who can afford the ticket and travel expenses to attend these parties, and I have gotten a glimpse of the scale of the drug culture in these events.

I went to Songkran in Thailand during April, and I think I finally understood what that guy meant with the progression of gay life. What I saw were professionally successful gaysians with model-like bodies from around the world descend upon the city overnight, filling up all the hotels in the well-known Silom district and meandering around in the busy streets of Bangkok. I was told by an acquaintance that the parties served as body building check-points for these guys who planned their travels around Songkran in April, White Party in May and EDC in June, etc. and that the most muscular guys are the ones who are perhaps most insecure about their bodies. Perhaps these guys are the ones who have “succeeded” to reach the body image zenith that gay guys strive for and are now enjoying the partying life, but then what?

We live in the era of social media and are under the constant bombardment of impossibly muscular guys from around the world who fill up our Instagram feed. These guys put Adam West’s Batman and George Reeve’s Superman to shame. The western standard of beauty for men has changed over the years to “more muscle and less body fat the better”, and the world is catching up. It takes an incredible amount of training and dieting, as well as good genetics, to reach that level. Most of us with normal lives busy with school and work will find it hard to pursue that lifestyle, but our Instagram and Facebook give the illusion that it’s ubiquitous and anything less is unattractive. We could blame professional makeup and Photoshop for the guys in magazines, but Instagram is real people! We forget that people take painstaking effort to curate their social media profiles by picking one out of hundreds of pictures with the best lighting, angle and shading. We are now all looking for someone who looks like that and feel bad that people don’t like us for not looking that way.

That day, I tried to offer as many words of encouragement and comfort to my friend as he shared his struggles with mental health, substance abuse and body image. I tried to tell him that it’s possible to be gay and to have a normal and perhaps even “successful” life. I wished to give him more hope for the future so he could heal from his past traumas and end his drug addition. But deep down, I don’t feel so different from him. I struggle with my own insecurities and psychological void. I have a hard time defining my own vision of “success” in life in the context of the gay world. Just like my friend, I need to figure out where my own path leads to and define a vision that is worth striving for.

I would like to suggest that one way to counter the toxic culture in the gay community is to create supportive, friendly and less-sexualized spaces both in person and online. I admire the work done by organizations such as GAPIMNY in NYC and AQUA in DC that offer in-person communities and safe spaces for gaysians to explore their identities and connect with others in a more meaningful way. However, not everyone lives in a big city with a large enough gaysian population, so online communities become extremely important. I want to put in a pitch for G3S where we offer an opportunity to discuss gaysian related issues and offer a supportive online space for those who might not have any organizations locally. We also have a mentorship program that connects people in a more personal setting where someone new to the gay world can be paired up with a mentor who have more experiences with coming to terms with their identities. Additionally, we are working to expand our model to more in-person groups by developing local chapters in cities like LA, SF and Toronto in an effort to create a more affirming gaysian culture.

I think we all have an individual responsibility to improve our collective culture. For me, I think it’s about treating myself and others well and with respect. I want to keep a realistic perspective of how many of the above mentioned issues affect me personally and take myself out of a loop of negative thoughts. I want to have goals for myself, whether it’s body image or professionally, but I want to keep them realistic and measured against my own growth. I am also making an effort to treat my online interactions with the same courtesy I would with my in-person interactions. I do my best to clearly communicate my intentions and only make promises I can keep. I think my life would improve significantly if I surround myself with kind and supportive people who are invested in my success. I want to thank all my friends in G3S and GAPIMNY who have supported me and encouraged me to write this follow up entry!

Fish

#gay #asian #gaysian #drug addiction #lgbtq #queer #gapimny #gaysiandiaries

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pass-the-bechdel · 7 years ago

Text

Leverage full series review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

75.32% (fifty-eight of seventy-seven).

What is the average percentage of female characters with names and lines for the full series?

34.48%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Twenty-six.

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 50% female?

Four.

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Four.

Positive Content Status:

Rarely of much note, but in overall context it is more of a positive experience than not (average rating of 3.02).

Which season had the best representation statistics overall?

Seasons four and five come in about even. Despite doing worse on the Bechdel than any of the first three seasons, they win the day on the strength of their content ratings and the percentage of female characters who exist. Worthy.

Which season had the worst representation statistics overall?

Season three drops the ball the most by turning in the lowest percentage of female characters; it is a close race though, and none of the five seasons are especially far ahead or behind the rest.

Overall Series Quality:

Wild - one of the weaker beginnings that I’ve seen, and one of the stronger endings. They take longer to learn from their mistakes than most shows do, but it’s an incredibly charming product once they finally find their way, and not awful before that, either. I’m glad I stuck with it.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

Truth: I put off writing this final piece for Leverage for a looong time, still kinda struggling for what to say even after deferring commentary somewhat excessively toward the end there. It really, truly shocked me, how well this show came together by the end compared to the laborious troubles of its beginning. It’s doubly shocking because the list of things which changed significantly over the course of the show is so short: Nate stopped dominating the story as much, and mellowed concurrently. And the writers finally figured out how to fully embrace the found-family team dynamic, most critically allowing it to form the backbone of the show and be the underpinning thread from one episode to the next, rather than just trimming. At the end of the day, that’s really all it took. Stop trying so damn hard to make your shitty leading man the centre of attention, and start showcasing the vital trust and companionship which springs from a well-functioning working unit. I mean, put that way, it’s really only one thing that changed. But damn, it’s a whopper.

As much fun as it is to watch evil corporations and such topple, and as fulfilling as a good con story can be, at the end of the day the thing that your audience keeps coming back for is character engagement, and the same as one bad apple can spoil the bunch, it’s hard to nourish the attentions of your audience if they don’t feel the sense of continuity which accompanies developing character relationship dynamics. You can’t background that stuff - it’s what gives your story a sense of chronology even without constant references to past events to keep things in order. This effect can be noted in the first season, which evidently was aired all sorts of out-of-order and which I watched and reviewed that way unknowingly: looking at the intended episode order instead of the broadcast, I honestly don’t think it would have helped much, if any, in improving the viewing experience. After all, there was never a moment when I suspected the order of my viewing was incorrect, and that was because - as I loudly complained at the time - I had almost no sense of who these characters actually were outside of the immediate present of a given episode, and even when an episode offered backstory I didn’t feel like they were really revealing much about how it impacted the character as a person. Moments such as Hardison consoling Parker about her difficult foster-care upbringing were shining lights in the dark, because it wasn’t just the show telling us something outright about a character - the sharing of the moment between the two was what gave it emotional resonance by using it as a relationship-building opportunity. Continuity of character experience reinforced via developing dynamics. Can’t do without it.

One could try to argue that of course the show got better at this as it went on; the characters have more history to build on, the more time they spend together. But good development doesn’t just come from time spent; as a storyteller you have to be aware that relationships begin at first contact. There’s no minimum period of time people have to spend together in order to start developing a dynamic, it’s automatic. Exchanged pleasantries with your waiter? Dynamic begun. Pizza delivery person is the same as several months ago, and you both recognise that, thereby recollecting the previous meeting and building upon it with this second encounter, even if all it is is a comment? Dynamic development. In a tv show where characters are interacting meaningfully and extensively episode after episode, the dynamics should be stark and rapidly changing right there in those first several episodes as the characters get to know one another. They have opinions, personality conflicts, they’re establishing trust (or distrust), they’re overcoming negative first impressions or being disappointed when their positive first impressions fall through, or maybe their first impressions prove correct and so they spend those early episodes having their feelings vindicated. Whatever the case, they’re processing the change to their life which is this new person, and there is no such thing as not creating a relationship. Keep everyone at arm’s length, be icy and difficult to connect with, make no friends? That’s a dynamic, yo. And in Leverage’s case, it seemed to take the writers an awful long time to realise that presenting the characters and saying ‘they’re like this’ and then doing nothing to explore the changes inherent in entering a new context with a team of new people is not really good enough. The team dynamics were there, the actors knew it, but it took the showrunners the better part of half the series to start actively working with it.

Which, y’know, all of the above is still fucking baffling to me. How do you forget to write team dynamics? How does that happen? Then again, they also forgot to give Sophie her own personal story arc to play out onscreen until she started theatre-directing on the side in season five, so. Credit where it’s due, and I’m placing all of it squarely on the shoulders of the actors because I’m still not convinced the showrunners knew what they were doing at all and if I heard that the actors had to really push for their personal stories and relationship building, I would not be even a little surprised. Nate may become more bearable as the show stops focusing on him so intensely, but he doesn’t actually become a good or intriguing character, and Sophie’s theatre is honest-to-goodness the most compelling thing about her as a character for the simple fact that it’s something of her, her as a person, not as the grifter skillset that wins her a place on the show, and not as Nate’s emotional crutch or the ‘team mom’. Something just for Sophie, a passion just for her that isn’t about how she relates to any of the other major players. I like Sophie, but especially when viewed through the lens of this blog, she’s not a strong effort and I am entirely unsurprised by the fact that my encounters with the Leverage fandom prior to watching the show did not feature her (or Nate) at all.

It seems to be a truth universally acknowledged that Leverage’s superpower was always the OT3 of Parker, Hardison, and Eliot, even in the early days when they were only intermittently given something to do. Parker was achieving interest factor from the get-go, though it took a while for her to overcome the writers’ insistence on framing her personality like a gimmick instead of, y’know, a personality. Christian Kane has got a charm to which I am deathly susceptible, and he made Eliot fun to watch even when he was given next to nothing to work with, and Aldis Hodge is the real MVP in my eyes for instilling such an unwavering personality in Hardison that no amount of poor writing could whittle him away. The three of them together had a delightful chemistry that shone instantly whenever they were allowed to work together (and again, I wonder at why the fuck it took the Powers That Be half a series to figure that out), and they squeezed every last drop they could out of that chemistry in order to craft a team dynamic despite the apparent indifference of the writing staff. Cons are fun. Taking down evil bigwigs is satisfying. But you don’t watch five season of a show for that; you do it because you love watching the team work. The teamwork. Not just the people, not just the job; the dynamic of functional interplay between the two. In this regard the show ends in exactly the right place, because Nate and Sophie - though no doubt loved in their own spheres of fandom - were not the primary team drawcard. The OT3 was where the party was at, and they’re the only reason I’d recommend the show to others, or rewatch it myself. From the perspective of representation, I can’t pretend that this is a show that is likely to be fulfilling - just not grossly offensive - but I can say that, despite my griping, from an entertainment perspective Leverage is worthy of your time. Or at least 3/5ths of it is.

#Leverage #full series review #Bechdel Test #female representation

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roseate7 · 6 years ago

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oh thank god you turned anon back on! thank you for listening to that dumb podcast but do you think Geno will look at all of this and decide he’s done with Pittsburgh? I don’t trust GMJR not to think about it and if Geno just decides it’s too much will he just take a good offer?

(Yeah, that previous topic was just too triggering for me and there was an apologist going around who I think finally gave up. So it’s back on!)

I’ve honestly never paid attention to trade rumours and theories before getting on tumblr, so I can’t tell you if this summer is vastly different in reaction to Geno than all the other non-Cup years he’s been used as trade rumour bait by the media. I can’t say if his clashes with coaching and management this season are as bad as they have been in times past. On one hand I’m seeing people say this is run of the mill for seasons where the Pens fared relatively poorly, on the other I’m seeing people say that this is all building to him leaving. Is it common for guys like Caulfield and Rupp to be asked about this stuff? I don’t know. I do know that the media have nothing to talk about with regards to the Pens because nothing official has come out of that head office since clean out day and a couple of brief soundbites, none of which say they’re definitely thinking of trading anyone specifically. So there’s everything to suggest that the media have seen how many interactions and excitement Geno trade talks are and they’re going to pump out as many stories as possible to keep revenue up over the long summer.

Because yeah unless someone has a source I haven’t seen, the only thing GMJR has said is he won’t talk about trades yet and that he’s keeping his options open about the core (which could mean almost anyone and anything, not just trades). But I also haven’t personally seen an actual quote from him to say that Sid is the only protected player now. (again, link me if there is one!) I’ve only seen journalists who say they think that he considers Sid the only protected player. Yes, GMJR said the jab about Geno needing to come back a more mature player or whatever but he’s also repeatedly said that he considers Geno elite and that he sees many more years of high performance from him. He also shot down criticism of Geno during his slump. The sum total of anti-Geno from management that we legitimately have is that they criticise his relationship with Sully. Would that be enough to trade Geno to another team?

The balance Geno would be weighing, if he were contemplating leaving, is if his chances of being happier and getting another Cup are stronger elsewhere than if he were to stay in Pittsburgh. I’ve said before that Flower isn’t a good comparison because for goalies, there’s only one net to be occupied at a time - he was already unhappy in Pitt and had no hope of changing it.

But for Geno, it would only be if he felt GMJR and Sully are squeezing him out of his own position on his own team. In that instance, considering the only actual direct source we have from Mario says that he will *not* allow Geno to be traded, that trumps anything that management or coaching is scheming to do. Management and coaching has changed many times with the Pens. So the facts we have suggest that if such a coup were raised against Geno to push him out, that ownership would oppose it. Mario and his word are the alpha and omega to this team and he personally fought to get Geno onto this team at all.

People understandably focus on Sid and Mario’s relationship a lot, but when you turn your attention to Geno and Mario it’s hardly less intimate. He viewed acquiring Geno with the same burden of hope in 2004 as he had been allowing himself to do hope for Sid. Geno was the original powerhouse forward to accompany Tanger and Flower in rebuilding the team, and these plans were happening at minimum a year before Sid’s draft. Mario has seen a lot of himself in Geno and he sees a way to heal the old wound of losing Jagr in him. That doesn’t count for peanuts when it comes to a coach not liking Geno or a GM who likes to dangle trades in front of players as bait.

Ultimately the media have nothing official to say that trading Geno is being talked about at Pens HQ. Even good articles like this one are mostly interested in keeping the clickbait going by saying “where there’s smoke!” - why kill off your only and biggest story? They all say that they “might” or “should” or “why not?” or “they could see it happening” and they grab anyone vaguely connected to the Pens to repeat the mantra of “they could” or “it’s possible” to make it seem more legitimate. The only thing GMJR said when asked about breaking up the core is that he won’t discuss it right now. All I’m seeing from wiser journalists is yawning over this as being a repeat of long summers past. And trust me, if a news outlet gets a legitimate quote directly from the Pens that say they’ve got Geno on the table? Then there will be no subtlety - they’ll print that before the words are halfway out. But we don’t have that yet. The media are carefully wording things so that they don’t perjure themselves and can backtrack on all of it by saying “we didn’t say we knew for sure! it was just fair speculation!” “don’t blame me, blame my friend of a friend who just said he thought he heard something!”

As far as if Geno feels like he no longer feels that there is a welcome place for him in Pittsburgh, only he knows that. He isn’t happy with himself this past season and he isn’t happy with Sully’s coaching style that favours coddling weaker players making poor decisions and then shutting down communication with stronger players who contradict him. (Sully truly is slipping into the old traps of former Pens coaches who think that the Pens core “need” a coach’s interference. Hint: they don’t.) Does that combined with the media and fan pressure and negativity add up to wondering if he might fare better somewhere else in his latter years? Only he knows.

(lmao sorry for the random British autocorrect throughout this - I’m on a coworker’s computer while mine is being fixed and I didn’t notice until I was rereading this before posting)

#trade talk for bl #long post

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twinflameshardcore · 8 years ago

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Not feeling the twin? Here’s why.

Since the beginning of 2017 it feels like the speed of life was halted. It pretty much reminds me of driving a car and slowing down before taking a turn, since the car didn’t stop completely. There are many planets which are turning direct from a retrograde move, to start with Mercury today, January 8th. This may also influence the way how we feel.

Furthermore, some of us have done our purging related to love, emotional dependency, and control/ego issues so we do not resonate with negative energies anymore. It may be a reason for why some of us feel totally behind the fence, detached, a bit numbed, not worried about or reactive to painful events happening around the world, as if living on a cloud, not in touch with the rest of the population. We may feel like we’re finally for ourselves, not for others, that we don’t serve anymore yet we don’t feel guilty about it. We enjoy our state of being much more than doing anything at the time. We may feel peaceful, satisfied with ourselves, spiritually fulfilled, mentally resting. The entire ‘research’ is ending for those spiritually upgraded because we’ve discovered and then detached from our past. We are no more bothered by some old gods, religions, laws, rules, people, places, conspiracy theories, threats, galactic races etc. whether from this lifetime or others, before Earth. We have trusted our hearts, to feel how they resonate with things around, then we know what feels fishy, and we detach from it immidiately :)

This mental purity may also result in not feeling the twin’s presence in our thoughts and minds unlike previously. If our TFs still prefer to live in the negative 3D energy while we’d ‘leveled up’ and waiting for them on the New Earth, in 5D dimension (which is of course still here but in a different, nicer energy grid) then twins might have been ‘removed’ from heads so they wouldn’t drag us down into the 3D distortions. Instead we could balance that negativity by feeling healed thus positive on our own to pull them up to where we are now, in a better place. It’s always about managing the right balance between TFs therefore, don’t feel guilty if they’re suffering while you’re feeling good, or vice versa. You’re helping them leave a negative vibration by being authentically positive, or at least neutral. There’s no need to worry about this ‘twin’s absence’ in the head because we already have them inside our bodies. We’re merging, uniting, and so the wall between/separation is being removed. Initially, when we mutually recognize our twins, the connection of the two makes a buzz in heads. Two streams of thoughts are running instead of one, and even though you can only read yours, you know there’s the other one stealing your focus. This interference can be max distracting. I was living in such a state of mind for 3 years and only lately, in December 2016 and now I literately haven’t sensed the twin in my head. I literately retrieved my head for myself again ;) I think that once the emotional body is purged, our twins’ emotions don’t interact with ours and so we’re not triggered by their behaviors anymore, especially when we finally believe that they love us, belong to us and we’re only waiting for the next to develop in its own timing.

Emotional dependencies were also purged for many of us who feared of losing the twin. This was related to not enough of self-love and being rejected by our ex-partners in the past, which emotions collected deep in the emotional body. Once we felt more independent, a pleasant space had appeared between us which I think is the space for the 3rd energy, the one we’re generating, to let it reside there.

Staying in 5D energy means also clearing addictions, anything ‘too much/too often’ such as smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, playing video games, spending too much money, spending too much time on social networks etc. - basically doing things which take you away from yourself. The Universe desires us to be in touch with ourselves so that not only can we align/unite with our Higher Selves and TFs, but also discover what we came here (on the Earth) for, that individual purpose. I’m not really buying that spiritual talk that we are here to be ‘of service’ to others because it feels like one more slavery issue, inspired by religion. As if we had to feel guilty (again!) if we don’t serve. We are here to be and enjoy ourselves, finally, first and foremost. To feel we are: authentic, natural, complete, liberated. No more role playing and negative ego. It’s like if they asked you: ‘So who would you like to be in the future? A soldier, an engineer, musician, gangster?’ Your answer: ‘None of these. I want to be myself (or my-Self)’ :) You may already find all these addictions of your old-self non-attractive, boring so much that they are easy to be ditched. A bigger picture will be revealed along the way, though I believe, most of us have already tapped into this ‘purpose’ when we were children. It was coming back to us from time to time but we were rejecting such ‘ideas’ because we thought (brain’s limiting beliefs) they were silly, unworthy, waste of time, not paid enough etc. We were simply preventing ourselves from fulfilling our purpose, discouraged by many people, events, experiences etc.

Now, if you’re trying to mentally scan/search for your TF out there, in their apartment, country etc, and can’t find them unlike usually, do something else instead. Feel & think that you’re united, that you are One in a body (from your perspective it’ll be you two in your body), like two souls, spirits glued together, wanting to be One, with no resistance but a pure surrender. Then warm up your heart with a favorite personal visualization, open it like a flower, and hug your twin inside of you, call his/her name in spirit, say ‘I love you’, kiss. Wait a moment to experience if you could feel your twin in response (spiritually) and if you do, your lips will automatically smile, your heart’s chakra vibration will rise higher, and your body will relax through taking a deep breath. Personally, I find it the easiest to do just after waking up when I’m still hugging a pillow and feeling relaxed or when I wake up at night, usually between 3-4 am. These re-connections are difficult to do when you’re active during the day due to many environmental interferences, including a wifi, routers, computers, mobile tower stations, people talking, TV, street noise etc etc.

Finally I’ve made a discovery, or assumption about the recent ‘flu’ outbreak in Europe. Most of Europeans are dealing with a strange ‘sickness’ which results in heavy, fat cough but no fever or other flu symptoms are experienced. Doctors have no cure, antibiotics don’t help, the body’s self-healing lasts up to 3-4 weeks. From a personal experience I can only compare it to a major Ascension symptom - the throat chakra’s clean-up, preparing people for the greater Awakening, followed by the heart’s purge next. For most of people, the throat chakra has been ‘infected’ with negative energy created by speaking nasty things about others, gossiping, making unfair judgment, or judgment at all, arguing, swearing etc. Once we’re affected by 5D energy, this old negative energy is forced to go. I used to be a very judgmental person (a perfectionist) and I had such a mysterious lung sickness in 2014, when I was coughing day and night with no other symptoms. I felt as if I was to spit my lungs out. It was a year after I met my twin, and 2 years after we came across each other online. Then when this undiagnosed sickness passed, my higher heart chakra began receiving those heavy beams of energy from outside, felt like a pressure, followed by episodes of crying whether from strange sadness or excitement. I also felt bliss and amazing closeness with the twin, in spirit (we were ‘separated’ then). I’ve 3 family members in the same house suffering from such a cough now, but I’m not infected, though I obviously took logical precautions to avoid being infected (covering my nose, not touching the face, washing hands very often, isolating in my room). My family was always verbally toxic, always focused on others, calling others (like baseball players on the TV) nasty names, always ready to judge other people’s lives rather than taking a good look at themselves. Most of the people (not Starseeds, we’ve done the healing) are being awakened now, so thus my guess is that because the Light & Love have been pouring onto the Earth strongly since 11/11/2016, it might have forced human chakras to release that bad load of energy in a form of a heavy cough. When throat chakras are cleaned, people will start talking truth from their hearts, not minds unlike before. This is a very good thing because human minds/brains are strongly infected by ‘etheric implants’, toxic whispers etc. People either lie, make unfair assumptions, or withhold the truth thus, they create misconceptions, misunderstandings or, fake news trending lately ;). This is one of attributes of the Game of Duality, to have 2 opponents so the separation, polarization and battle could continue. Therefore, if you feel like you’ve been judgmental (towards others and/or self), monitor your thoughts, and remind yourself to stop judging right away.

Pay attention to January 11th (and November 1st) as these dates sum up to 11/11 (2017=1). When I read all sorts of articles lately, it seems that nobody really knows what's coming. Some bloggers keep repeating the same channelings about incoming and active waves of energy, others are focused on an alien disclosure, but overall, there’s a general feel of waiting for a bell to toll, especially amongst those of us who sacrificed ourselves, dedicated to a cause, did their healing job and been waiting for a ‘pay day’ ;)

Have a good week everybody!

This post is copyrighted by the author of this blog who prefers to remain anonymous. My posts must not be used for commercial purposes of any kind. Respect my work - ask first before you copy, always include a link back to my site when you quote a part of my writing!

#twin flames 11:11 #January 11 2017 #11:11 #flu europe #chakras #throat chakra #Negative Energy #Judgement #self-judgment #detachment #5d earth #new earth #november 1 2017

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donald-clemons · 4 years ago

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Top Lessons Businesses Must Learn from COVID-19 to Grow in the New Post-pandemic Reality

None of us imagined a year ago what we would have to face in just a few months (maybe just Bill Gates). None of us imagined our everyday work to be done mostly or completely online, from home. None of us imagined that we would exclusively have online meetings, online calls, online events, online trainings, online campaigns and so on. None of us imagined we could do business without traveling.

Even so, we’ve learned we have to adapt.

The adjustments any online and brick-and-mortar business had to make to this pandemic have been rough, but ultimately all of them help optimize our work flows and help businesses be more human-centric in their market approach: be more efficient, know your customers better, care more for your customers, always listen to their needs, deal with a crisis. For some of us, this may be the first crisis we’ve faced—and every business had to confront it. The impact was immediate for some companies, slower for others, but none of us can say that COVID-19 did not have an impact at all.

Let’s do a rundown of what businesses have learned from the recent pandemic.

See the situation for what it is. Be flexible and act fast.

Let’s turn back in time to somewhere around January or February. A new coronavirus hit China and the country decided to lock down the Wuhan region. It seemed like a faraway, isolated situation. In just a few months, however, the virus spread all over the world. Europe and the U.S. were down on their knees by the start of the next quarter.

Businesses from various areas were terribly damaged. Like after a hurricane. The lockdowns shut down the entire hospitality industry. Traveling outside the country was forbidden. Airports were empty. Everything happened almost overnight. A large part of every economy stopped.

Given all these factors, most companies had to make decisions quickly: employee safety was first on the list, so most of them had to act fast regarding remote working programs. Software companies and those selling digital goods were among the luckiest ones. Most of them already had programs for remote work, but had to quickly extend them to all their employees for a longer period of time.

Secondly, the business should go on. Companies needed to assure themselves that revenues wouldn’t plummet. So, they had to assess their strengths and weaknesses in this totally new situation, change procedures, processes, create new products or even reinvent themselves—and do all of this as fast as possible.

As 2Checkout found out, in our most recent survey, only a small number of merchants (12%) expect to benefit from the current situation. 28% of companies are expecting the worst, while about a third of merchants (32%) expect the current pandemic to have a significant negative impact on their business but hope to mitigate it with a well-executed crisis response plan.

In a post-COVID world, companies have therefore learned that it always helps to be prepared for the unexpected. If not all of us were working with contingency or crisis plans prior to 2020, businesses now understand they have to have these flows ready, for when situations of force majeure occur.

At 2Checkout, for example, the pandemic forced us to promptly digitize all aspects that were still taking place on premise. In just under two weeks, we succeeded in moving all our hiring and onboarding processes online, in a whole team show of skills. Like other companies, we had not foreseen that a pandemic of this magnitude could occur but, when the worst unfolded, it was our fast reaction and overall flexibility that allowed us to overcome market hardships and further innovate in the field.

Focus on top priorities.

First priority is to ensure employees’ and customers’ safety. This is fairly easy to manage if you follow relevant sanitation guidelines, and online businesses can consider themselves lucky. But, even so, all the measures you have to take can put some pressure on your company’s financials. Finding a way to get most of your employees to work from home, in a safe way, might mean that you have to instantly spend thousands of dollars on acquiring laptops, webcams and headphones, or pay a larger subscription to a good videoconferencing solution.

The second priority, during such a crisis, is survival of the business. As most businesses were impacted by the new coronavirus crisis, they had to quickly readjust and find out what products or services are more profitable, what channels get more customers, what campaigns are able to get more leads and so on. The activity, product or service that delivers less profit should be put on hold for the moment.

The priority is to get your business in a better shape day by day. Make a quick assessment of development plans, too. Focus on those that can offer your company a quick advantage over your competitors. Now, more than ever, businesses understand that not all directions they’re pursuing are priorities, and many are deciding to shift focus and resources to those areas with the most resilience and revenue potential.

Reinvent yourself. Be creative!

Lot of companies have had to reinvent themselves in various ways: find new channels to interact with the customers, find new market opportunities, create new products to address new needs, modify their manufacturing facilities, find new selling channels or imagine new campaigns and promotions to cope with declining sales. The pandemic was the trigger that got entrepreneurs understanding that they have to employ creativity and differentiation in everything they do, forcing businesses to get out of their comfort zone.

If you are a company selling cleaning services, let’s say, logically no property management company needs you until the people are getting back to their offices. Worse, people may not accept you in their homes anymore until this pandemic is over. So, you have to reinvent your entire business. One option is to turn from cleaning to sanitizing and try to find clients in retail and healthcare.

If you produce cosmetics, you can produce hand sanitizers. If you are in the fashion business, maybe you should focus on manufacturing facemasks with style and sell them online. There are many ways for businesses to reinvent themselves.

A good example of reinventing oneself comes from the event industry.

Live entertainment took a hit like few other industries when the pandemic started, social distancing forcing organizers to cancel upcoming concerts, theatre shows, on-premise workshops, weddings, networking sessions, you name it. Some players in this industry, however, were quicker to jump out of their comfort zone. By adapting their portfolios and focusing on building online experiences and events, they were able to retain parts of their markets. Instead of inviting audiences to an indoor or outdoor venue, they started working with online conference rooms or digital hangouts. These companies understood that the market context offered the opportunity to address new needs so they reinvented themselves to stay relevant to their audiences.

If you haven’t yet, make digital transformation a priority.

The COVID-19 crisis not only impacted specific industries, we could say it brought permanent changes to how all of us do business nowadays. For example, think back to how a B2B sales process would occur in the past. Now consider today’s context – are those flows still applicable? The pandemic arrived and re-shaped the selling process in all industries and markets. Physical touchpoints had to be adapted and automated, and entrepreneurs large and small had to digitize and optimize their selling flows.

So, a crisis lesson many us had to learn the hard way is that an online presence and point of sale are mandatory for any commerce provider today.

Customers are online nearly 100% of the time now, even in emerging markets. If you are in the services business and you used to interact with your customers mostly on-premises, at your office or at your branch, rethink your strategy and open your online channels. More channels opened means that more clients hear your voice. Offer your customers an integrated experience, be accessible and listen. Your customers need you to be by their side now more than ever before.

And again, be creative in marketing your products and services. Consider offering an extended free trial of any software you offer that could be useful for working from home. For example, several collaboration or workflow management software companies have offered their products for free.

Keep in mind that whatever you do now will define the future of your business. Don’t wait for things to get better. Act proactively.

Look for more value from modern technological solutions

The onset of the pandemic also made businesses reconsider how efficient they were in utilizing tech solutions. As more and more of our interactions started depending on the tools employed – from peer interactions, to touchpoints with prospects, to hiring and training flows – companies started paying more attention to their technological stack. A Cisco study found that as many as 58% of companies interviewed started using technology that had been previously available to them but was ignored in the past, while almost 70% accelerated their adoption of cloud based tools since spring.

Your company may be digitized, but are you making the most of the tech solutions available? In today’s new market rules, your choice and usage of technological platforms and programs are good predictors of whether your business will be successful or whether it will just stay afloat. The current context offers the right nudge to re-evaluate and audit your tech stack and see where your company could be improving. From hosting solution to payment provider to collaborative tools – find the areas where you’re programs could be getting you more, and optimize or change them accordingly.

The future is here and the past will never be back. Find allies!

During rough times, uniting forces can be a good idea. And many companies have learnt in these months that cooperation goes a long way in keeping a business afloat. If you are an independent software business, try to team up with a partner that can share the costs for human resources, for example. Collaboration and creativity are preferable to reducing a workforce that you took the time to hire and will probably need again after these harsh times pass.

You can also look to join an industry association where businesses in your domain can benefit from various synergies.

Communication and cooperation are key.

If your customers haven’t heard from you in a while, then you should fix that. Call your most important customers, email others and bring them all some news about your business. Make proposals, ask your clients what they need and how you can help.

Be proactive. Even though your customers may not buy something from you right now, prove that you are available for them anytime.

Constantly communicate news about your company, update your website, update your social media pages, create content and show that your business is safe and sound.

If you are aware of all these tactics, if you are open to following advice and ask for help from various specialists, if you are open to making a change, then your business has a great chance to smoothly pass through this COVID-19 crisis, with less damages than other competitors.

Many industries have even managed to thrive and bank in this period so not all the possible outcomes have to be gloomy. In pandemic times, achieving growth is most often a matter of seeing how your products could best be adapted or marketed to address today’s needs. Multimedia software producers, entertainment providers, middleware companies and others have witnessed growth by being timely and relevant with their products and how they frame their offering. Success for these has been attainable with more focus added to their priorities.

What could your business do to generate revenue uplift?

Are you maximizing your usage of promotions to tackle slowdown in sales?

Are you expanding to new markets to find new business more efficiently?

As long as your company is aware of its capabilities and you follow common sense advice like the directions recommended here, adapting to new scenarios is within your reach.

How is your company navigating these times? Any other lessons that the pandemic has taught you? Share it with us in the comments.

The post Top Lessons Businesses Must Learn from COVID-19 to Grow in the New Post-pandemic Reality appeared first on The 2Checkout Blog| Articles on eCommerce, Payments, CRO and more.

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websharkwebservices · 5 years ago

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HOW CAN DIGITAL MARKETING HELP YOU TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS?

No matter one likes it or not, it is a fact that the internet has taken over the globe. Be it a pandemic or any other world crisis, as long as the internet is existent, we will continue to get updated on what is happening around the globe. In such a scenario, digital marketing should be an essential part of your business marketing strategy. Here are some reasons how digital marketing or Digital Marketing Agency in Bangalore can help grow your business and why it is a must inclusive agenda in all your plans.

Low cost, more reach

Digital marketing can be free or paid. Even when they are priced, the cost is affordable and will not burn a hole in your wallet. This means that the price you pay is far less compared to what you have to pay for other forms of marketing like print or television media. The money that is usually wasted on advertising can be cut short and invested in other departments which naturally leads to better growth for your business.

Everyone’s media

Digital marketing reaches out to people in their personal spaces. Be it through advertisements through social media applications like Facebook or advertisements on sites, it reaches out to people as a part of their daily life. Catching them off-guard, in such a personal space, means that the influence is easier. Rather than seeing as one amongst the many advertisements during the break of a cinema played on the television, a person is much more likely to pay attention to something that comes in their feed, between the photos of their loved ones. Digital marketing, thus, reaches out to people using everyone’s media making it much more effectively receptive, leading to better growth for your company.

Know your analytics

Investing in marketing can be tricky. One does not know which one is bringing in the most audience. However, with digital marketing, one can get the exact details of how effective marketing is being. With the help of Best Digital Marketing Service Providing Company in Bangalore, you can measure every click generated from which portal, helping you decide on where to invest in your future marketing endeavours. It also helps to give you an idea about what your target audience wants to make the content tailor-made according to their requirements. This gives you a direct form of interaction with your clients making the entire process of marketing more meaningful and fruitful.

Your service, their needs

For an effective business deal, be it any industry, knowing your customers is absolutely essential. Digital marketing does exactly this. As already discussed, it gives you an insight into what the audience expects of you so that you can provide satisfactory service to suit their needs. Often, what the audience expects of the service providers become misinterpreted when advertisement agencies and other people work in between this communication. Digital marketing does away with all these mediators, giving you direct contact to your customers to communicate with them your service.

Not just traffic, but quality traffic

Having a lot of views on your website means little if none of those is helping you grow. With a targeted audience, digital marketing brings quality traffic that will give you fruitful outcomes. It helps you in engaging with the audience who will increase your revenue rather than concentrating on the ones who are here only for curiosity’s sake. Marketing is all about reaching out to the right people with the right message and the Best Digital Marketing agency in Bangalore does exactly this.

Increased revenue

As per the results shown in studies, digital marketing is shown to bring in more revenue to your company than the traditional marketing services. Start-ups and medium-scale enterprises are seen to have better growth when advertised through digital platforms than overused methods of advertising. This is probably because of the better outreach and communication that these platforms offer and more awareness created amongst the target audience.

Staying updated

A business that goes with the times gains more attention. Digital marketing is today’s medium and not using it could mean a negative mark on your company for a new customer. Having a good presence in social media and other online portals makes your business look updated and going with the times, rather than relying on traditional methods. Further, the generation that is just stepping into the customer sector – recent college graduated and freshers at jobs – relate more with digital marketing and will find your business more appealing when digitally marketed.

Interactive medium

There are limits to what a print advertisement in the newspaper can do compared to a digital marketing piece. While people may look at the catchy slogan and the colourful picture in the newspaper and forget it as soon as they see a bigger picture of some other company in the next one, digital marketing has more engaging ways of interacting with the customers. In the form of puzzles and interactive videos, they are able to better reach out to the customers and make them an active participant of the entire process. When you enrol in a contest for the business and put in the effort to win it, the chances of you forgetting the name of the company become much lesser.

Easier, more practical

A digital marketing campaign can be organised sitting in your homes. There is no need for printing, writing or managing the hustle of huge gatherings. Digital marketing campaigns can be effectively organised with lesser effort than what it would take for a physical marketing campaign, over a group chat or online conference making it neater, much simpler and less cumbersome. No unnecessary efforts go in vain and your employees can better utilise this saved time on other business projects. The goal is still yours to win.

Environment friendly

Today’s is a more environment-friendly world. We are all aware of the deteriorating conditions and, what is more, wants to make a change. In such a scenario, digital marketing helps you go one step forward in your goal. With digital posters, there is no paper wasted. In support of a greener tomorrow, digital marketing seems much the way to follow.

Creativity in crisis

If the pandemic spread across the world right now has anything to show us, it is that a world crisis does not come with a warning. Given this, it becomes more of a reason to go digital. Going online is the need of the hour and digital marketing has made itself felt as essential. A crisis doesn’t hamper creativity and this has been the perfect example for it. Further, there are more creative and new ways for you to market your product with digital marketing than the ones already used up by traditional methods. Contact the Top digital marketing agency in Bangalore to double the revenue.

Customer rules

Digital marketing is a medium that offers more customer satisfaction. Working on the age-old belief that our customer comes before us, digital marketing helps customers receive personalised offers through emails or chats making them feel recognised and their needs met. This way, customer satisfaction ranks highest in digital marketing and there can be more loyalty expected from them. Keep your customer happy and your business grows invariably.

A fair field for all

Having lesser money to invest in marketing can often give established companies an upper hand. In such a situation, digital marketing makes the field fair for all. A digital marketing company with a prestigious history of decades has as many chances of being viewed by customers as a new business just established. It is fair for all and quality service becomes the hero that determines what customers choose.

You can collaborate with the best Digital marketing and lead generation company in Bangalore and Defeat your competitor to win the race of marketing and lead generation.

However much we may want to deny its impact, the internet and the digital world is here to stay. Digital marketing is an opportunity for business to grow and reach out to the right audience. It helps you know if you are investing in the right portals and medium for advertising and reaches out to your customers in the platforms they use on an everyday basis and prefer, making your business look up to the date and going with the times. Easier to organise, and unleashing more creativity, it gives an interactive experience for your customers which enables your business to be better remembered. It gives the customer his or her place in the throne and levels up the field for all the business players, giving your business an equal opportunity at growth as any other rival out there in the market since years. Keeping the environment in mind and connecting the world together, digital marketing is the way for the businesses today to give them the right outreach to their target audience. It has gone far beyond being essential to being a necessity if you want your business to thrive and outlive the competition. Digital marketing is marketing for all and can function with the least effort, world crisis or not. It helps increase your revenue and give you quality, loyal customers who are here to stay. From being more cost-effective to attracting the right target audience, the digital marketing platform or the best digital marketing agency in Bangalore gives your business what traditional marketing never can.

#DigitalMarketing #best digital marketing company in bangalore #best Digital Marketing company in jayanagar

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