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chryzure-archive · 2 years ago

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whenever you ask for asks my first thought is ALWAYS aus… so which chrysimordred + chrysijacks au is currently taking up the most residence in your brain? >:) also, because i like to imagine chrysi all dressed up… what’s the difference between how jacks would dress her up for a fancy/formal event and how mordred would dress her up? what kind of clothes do they like seeing her wear the most? likewise, what does SHE like to see them wear the most? :3

THIS IS EXCELLENT BC MY BRAIN IS ALSO ALWAYS THINKING ABT AUS.

for chrysimordred, im boring rn… im jst thinking abt their modern au and im fleshing out their canon storyline (where i pay homage to quest for camelot by taking away mordred’s eyesight—to hurt chrysi specifically, because it IS partially her fault 💔💔💔). BUT IN THE MODERN AU, mordred is SOOO flirty and chrysi does NOT know how to deal with it. they’ll show up to the same coffee shop to do hw and when he’s in front of her in line, he’ll say his order, then turn around to her and be like, “and what did you want again?” chrysi is torn because she doesn’t like accepting help much BUT ALSO her drink is expensive and she doesn’t want to pay for it 🤧 the beginning of a meaningful relationship right there! that, and also mordred is chrysi’s model for her art and.. he does model things 🥰 for her! and there’s also ghosts around too + mordred can still speak with animals, so they bond over their crazy wild gifts while also running around the college campus doing random little cases!! also chrysi believes mordred doesn’t ACTUALLY like her because he’s still not over his sorta-ex (keeping the weird age gap between him and his uncle, where he’s a year older than his uncle, because wow… imagine trying to explain that to ur crush. it’s like modern family fjdkcjdksjcjfks). BUT NO, MORDRED IS IN LOVE. fell in love the moment chrysi was like “i love hiking in the woods and trying to find dead bodies” HELLO??? WHAT A BATSHIT THING TO SAY, MORDRED WANTS TO KISS HER DIRECTLY ON THE MOUTH.

chrysijacks au i’m thinking of… oh god, i think of so many at all times of the day, UMMM—CURRENTLY i’ve been thinking abt my hercules au because i’m drawing it!! i’ve been thinking abt the scene where jacks backs up into cupid’s bow and he’s like “… oh god, i am in love with her.” constantly thinking abt his sinking dread whenever he falls in love with chrysi in every single au. he’s so horrified and he’s also so deeply in love that he can’t do anything about it. OH, IVE ALSO BEEN STRONGLY THINKING ABT MY LAST APPRENTICE AU BCUZ JACKS WATCHING CHRYSI DIE AND ALMOST GOING ON A RAMPAGE (almost tries to kill luna rune, but simeon was NOT fucking having that. then jacks tries to kill simeon, but luna rune reminds him that he’s holding chrysi’s dead body in his arms and she doesn’t deserve her lover hurting others in his grief. instead, he stays with chrysi’s body for the next week—since it can’t rot, as she’s not human!). then chrysi coming back, but she’s slightly different… THEN AZURE COMING BACK AND RUINING EVERYTHING MORE!!! always thinking abt that… BUT i’ve also been thinking about the before all that happens—where chrysi and jacks make their home one for the two of them, and where he gets to help her hunt ghouls and monsters and he kisses her and they walk around her garden and ignore the fact that they have buried ghouls alive under all the flowers 🖤🖤🖤 yeah…. i’m incoherent rn because i love chrysijacks and i don’t know what else to say other than they love each other so much.

WAIT. also thinking about chrysijacks vnc au because i canNOT get over the mental image of jacks trying to get advice “for a friend”, only to be told, “sounds like your friend loves this girl” and jacks to go “HUH?????????” also, this is the au where azure’s the one watching chrysi and jacks flirt and he hates it..,,., how the turntables…….. chrysijacks warming up scene lives in my heart rent free at all times, where they’re so vulnerable and naked (hehe) and jacks finally starts letting himself hope that he might have another chance—cause i LOVE my aus where chrysi and jacks are exes that never officially dated, but jacks wants to win chrysi back so badly… it makes my heart happy 🖤🖤🖤

OKAY, so jacks dresses chrysi up in lots of bold and flashy dresses and he doesn’t frequently think very far ahead about how she can fight in dresses (he’s thinking solely about how very pretty she will be and he thinks of nothing else… well, maybe how fun it’ll be for the dress to be taken care of by the end of the ball 🤔 slutty bitch.), whereas mordred likes seeing chrysi in her more comfortable dresses that she can run in!…. if it so happens that she has slits in her skirts so she can run and he happens to see a bit of leg w her dagger strapped to her thigh, then so be it 🤷‍♀️ he isn’t one to complain! but preferably, mordred likes her being dressed up the way she was up in his alcove 😌

basically, jacks thinks solely abt aesthetics, whereas mordred will think abt the logistics of chrysi moving around in her dresses!!

examples for jacks:

he’ll always give her low cut dresses like this, then he’ll couple them with long skirts like this:

somebody steps on that thing and chrysi’s going sailing backwards. or, more frequently, she’ll jst tear the skirt and leave what was stepped on behind. jacks can’t get mad at her because he messes up his own clothing frequently too. but he’s still irritated.

mordred gives chrysi lighter dresses, something easier to move in, and much more of a goddess aesthetic than jacks’s princess one:

OH GOD, hmmmm, chrysi likes seeing mordred in clothes like these!

the hint of collarbone and the poofy sleeves going into tight cuffs??? HIIIII, she’s GONE. esp when he wears green. she doesn’t know how to function. oh my god. oh my god.

chrysi likes seeing jacks in this

#.asks #m.kai💛#s.chrysimordred #s.chrysijacks #i didn’t know if u meant in terms of modern time periods or in their respective fantasy time periods 🤧#BUT I HAD SM FUN W THIS FKSKCJFJSK TY FOR THE ASK!!!

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peaches-writes · 4 years ago

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party night

prompt 2: “But it looks like it’s enjoying itself!”

member: minho / lee know wc: 1.9k genre: fluff, bakeneko au, neighbor au, the crackiest fic you’ll ever read in a while warning: explicit language note: finally it’s done it took a while and it’s not even good it’s so trippy sldjflskdf but i’ve been slumped with work rawr + idk i didnt do my research im so sorry this was quick bc i still hav hw lskdfjsldjk

“Swswswswsws...” You hiss continuously as you point your flashlight into the darkness of the forestry ahead, turning your head to your neighbor after. “Ji, what’s your pet’s name again? It might respond if we called it by its name, you know. It’s been five minutes since we’ve been looking for it.”

“P-Pet? I don’t—”Jisung briefly stops walking and squints his eyes at you, accidentally pointing his own phone’s flashlight to your face when you turn around to face him at immediately noticing his pause. You hold your free hand up to your face in instinctive response to his accidental action, wincing in pain of the bright light to which Jisung guiltily heaves a sigh at. That was close! “A-Ah, I mean!—L-Lee Know! His...yeah, the cat’s name is Lee Know!”

You furrow your eyebrows and bring your hand down once Jisung apologizes and points his flashlight elsewhere, a confused frown settling on your lips. “Lee Know? You named him?”

“Y-Yeah?” He raises his own eyebrows curiously, jogging up the remaining distance to you when you beckon for him to continue walking deeper into the forest with you. It’s time like these when the eco-friendly agenda our village has going on is such a hassle, Jisung groans internally to himself, Minho could be anywhere in this forest...that idiot. “Why’d you ask?”

You shrug, flinching when a distant rustling faintly goes through your ears. When you point your flashlight towards its direction, however, you only see, much to your disappointment, a raccoon scurrying away. “It’s just—and don’t get offended!—Lee Know sounds a bit of a choice for a cat’s name.” You explain sheepishly, looking away in case he does get offended. “I actually thought Minho named him...given his generally weird tendencies. Maybe he got tired of naming pets cutely like Soonie, Doongie, and Dori or something so I thought, you know...”

Jisung snickers under his breath as you explain, frantically shaking his head and waving his hands when you surprisingly hear and ask him about it. Tell that to him when you see him, he so badly wants to tell you but he opts to quietly continue looking for his roommate instead, mirroring you and pointing his flashlight towards every inch of the path.

“It’s that ridiculous, huh?” He jokes, to which your eyes widen at. When he peers over your shoulder and notices this, he immediately lets out a hearty laugh. “Don’t worry, it’s cool. I think it’s ridiculous for a cat too.”

Your shoulders unintentionally relax at this and you muster up a laugh as well. “It sounds like a stage name.”

“It’s swag, apparently.”

After five more minutes of walking (and not much progress in finding clues as to where the cat went but misleading footprints of foxes and more raccoons), you stop right under the warning sign your village’s Homeowners Association, placed right before the forest’s restricted area. “Nothing.” You turn around on your surroundings twice before concluding against the stillness of the night and the distant cricketing, facing Jisung again with a disappointed expression. “We can’t go beyond the subdivision limits, Ji. I’m so sorry.”

Jisung glances between you and the angry ‘No Trespassing’ sign in thought, biting his lip down as he ponders on what to do next. It’s either he risks having you see more than one supernatural creature tonight and drag you with him past village limits or he pretends to go back to the village with you then run all the way back to the other side of the forest and continue looking for his escaped roommate. Then why did I ask Y/N to help me look for Minho in the first place? Jisung asks himself as he scratches his head in the hopes that his last functioning braincell could make a quick decision.

“Ji?” You elbow him gently when he takes too long to think. Only then does he notice that you’ve already taken a step back from the village limits, body twisted and facing the path back. “Let’s go back, maybe it’s better looking for Lee Know in the morning.”

“A-Ah, but—” Jisung raises his free hand, as if reaching out to you and tugging you back. Before he could finish his thought, however, he sees a brilliant white light reflect back in your eyes and when he turns around, his eyes widen at colorful lanterns approaching from the trees. “Oh, shit...”

“What the fuck is that?” You ask in a whisper, instinctively going back to Jisung’s side in fear. When the lanterns draw nearer, you start making out figures of raccoons, foxes, rabbits, and cats dancing on their hind legs. “What the hell?”

Jisung slaps a hand up to his forehead and purses his lips, gritting his teeth hardly in frustration. Too late, he thinks to himself as he turns to you, eyes wide and mouth agape in bewilderment. “Y/N, listen to me—”

But again, he’s cut off by a certain orange and white cat catching your attention, waving at you with its paws. “Hi, Y/N!” Minho waves at you casually in his cat form, his smile peeking out of the rainbow towel on his head. “We’re doing a conga line around the forest if you want to join!”

“I...” You freeze, leaning back in confusion. “T-That’s...Lee Know?”

“Um...” Jisung turns to you, meeting your unreadable expression. You look simultaneously shocked, horrified, and curious but with a small smile threatening to slip into your features. “I can explain!”

“He sounds like—”

“My roommate, Minho. Yeah, um...” Jisung scratches the nape of his neck again, instinctively stepping in front of your view to block the sight of dancing forest animals. “Listen, it’s not what it looks like! Minho, he’s...”

“Jisung—I mean, wilder things have happened in college—”

“Yeah but—” Jisung stops halfway, staring back at you as if you’ve grown a second head. “You’re not—you’re not freaked out?”

“So you are admitting that your roommate is half-cat?”

“He’s a bakeneko...”

“Bakeneko, sure, okay.” You repeat, rolling your eyes. “As I was saying, you dragged me out here at 2 AM to look for ‘your cat,’ knowing there’s a slight risk of me finding out who the cat actually is, then you react like this when it does happen? I’m surprised, of course, but you really should’ve thought about that.”

A part of Jisung heaves a sigh of relief but another part of him panics even further which is only amplified with the music growing louder behind him as more animals pass by. “Yeah, well, I did thought about that but I really needed help looking for Minho because he left without a note and I didn’t expect that he’d be out here partying tonight!”

This time, it’s you slapping a hand to your face. “Jesus Christ, and here I thought you guys were at least sharing one braincell.” You sigh, to which Jisung immediately protests at. You ignore, him, however, and gesture for the growing line of dancing animals. “So, should we stop him? But, then, it looks like it’s enjoying itself! “But it looks like it’s enjoying itself!—I mean, Minho! Minho looks like he’s enjoying himself.”

Jisung opens his mouth to speak but, for the second time tonight, he’s accidentally cut off again by Minho, this time by said roommate suddenly materializing on his shoulders. “Are here to pick me up?” Minho asks him, the way his normal human voice comes out of his cat form momentarily surprising you from the corner of his eyes and catching his attention. “Oh, hi, Y/N! Sorry, I didn’t mean for you to see me like this! Ya, Han Jisung, why did you bring Y/N along?”

“Because you just left the house without telling me where you’re going, dumbass! How would I know if you weren’t suddenly kidnapped or something!” Jisung complains in response, flicking Minho’s forehead. “And get off my shoulder, fatass, you’re so heavy. Have you been eating spirits food again?”

You clear your throat awkwardly, waving at the two boys before they could engage in a full-on argument. “Yeah, I’m still here, guys?”

Minho and Jisung glance back at you then to each other, as if in contemplation. You raise an eyebrow nervously at this.

“Hyung, is it okay that Y/N saw you?” Jisung asks Minho in a hushed whisper.

“Do I really look fat tonight?” Minho frowns, to which Jisung groans at.

“Dude, come on, I’m asking you a matter of your security and you ask me if you’re looking fat.”

“Because Y/N saw me!”

Jisung sighs. “Fine, then, yes you do...you look like a really really fat cat tonight.” He answers reluctantly, to which Minho pouts even deeper at. “It must be those brownies that other cat, Felix, is always baking at these parties.”

Minho then immediately hops off of Jisung, walking over to you and encircling your ankles once. “Alright, then, I guess, Y/N, you should see me like this on another time, when I’m looking cuter! You’ll have to forget everything you saw tonight, okay? I can’t have my crush seeing me as a fat cat!”

“W-What?” You try stepping away from Minho’s circling movements but before you could even get a foot out, you already start feeling lightheaded until your vision’s fully clouded in nothing but white.

“See you tomorrow, Y/N!” Minho’s voice echoes in your ears before you.

Jisung is waiting for you by the fences separating your houses the next day, a seemingly rehearsed smile on his face. From what you can hazily remember of last night (which is oddly few, you’ve noticed), you last saw him banging his head against the pillars of his host family’s front porch at dinner time because the Internet connection at his place won’t let him pass his homework.

“Good morning, Ji?” You greet him as you water the plants in your front garden, unintentionally coming off as questioning. “You look...happy. Did you get to pass that homework of yours?”

The boy nods happily as he organizes the recyclables he’s supposed to take out. “Yep, passed it on time.”

You nod, opening your mouth to speak only to be interrupted by an orange and white cat emerging from your garden’s potted sunflowers. “Oh, hi!” You greet the cat, instinctively crouching down to scratch its ears to which he purrs positively to. You don’t catch it but Jisung heaves a sigh of relief when you don’t seem to recognize Minho or have any recollection of last night. “And who are you supposed to be, hm? You’re so adorable!”

From the corner of your eyes, Jisung frowns at Minho before shaking his head and answering you, “O-Oh, that’s—Lee Know, the new house cat! My host family brought him in just—just last night.”

“Just last night?” You ask, briefly looking up at Jisung and catching his frown turning into a sheepish smile. You try catching his reaction to your question but the cat brings a paw up to your hand and regains your attention again. “Didn’t they come home at like 4 PM yesterday, though? I even greeted Mr. and Mrs. Lee and I don’t remember seeing them with this cat.”

Shit, Jisung curses himself, glaring at Minho again who only sticks his tongue out discreetly at him, I was doing so well! “W-Well, Mr. Lee went out at around 9 PM, I think, when you were already inside, then he came back with the cat. It’s a stray, basically.”

You nod at this, smiling at the cat again. “Aren’t you too cute to be a stray cat, though?” You coo, making Minho smile and nuzzle his whiskers more into your hands. “And you remind me a lot of Ji’s roommate, Minho, too. Have you met him? He’s a bit of a weirdo but he’s...cute too, I guess.”

Minho so badly wants to open his mouth and protest halfway when you called him a weirdo but he puts up the facade anyway and goes around you once again. He’ll have to bring it up to you next time, when he’s human.

“Look, Ji, he likes me!” You point out excitedly to which Jisung only musters up a small smile. You then pet the cat’s head once more before standing up to continue watering your plants. “Speaking of, Minho’s okay with this? And Soonie, Doongie, Dori?”

“Yep.” Jisung reluctantly nods, kicking Minho gently with his foot when he comes back to his side of the fence. “Very much so.”

on a night much like tonight (drabble game)

@skzwriternet

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unproduciblesmackdown · 4 years ago

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even more prompts catchup

April 5th: What was school like for you, or what is it currently like for you if you are still in school? Elementary, high school, post-secondary?

i Hate/d school lmfao......like i do Like To Learn and Know Shit, and of course Sometimes / on some occasions it was like, hey i'm having a good to pretty great time at school, but those were usually Special occasions or teachers going out of their way to give us you know, fun projects / go beyond the Standardized Testing curriculum, which natch they couldn't always do / did require sort of going Above & Beyond, rather than being the constant, guaranteed experience of like hooray for school......it's like, oh hooray re: the Play Scenes my fourth grade english class did that was like, an Extra thing, where we got to audition and i just had a great time like oh right, clearly Theatre in retrospect, or hooray re: the field trips, or projects we did In Class, since i hated homework.......i was always that accursed (i mean, not accursed for Me, but) combination of "really a terrible student but also gets great grades" lmao i forever do things Last Minute but like, when i was At school, in class, i'd just power through whatever work there was then & there usually, and in middle school would sometimes do hw on the bus, as i was the last on the bus route to be picked up in the morning or dropped off in the afternoon, but as soon as i got home i was in Home Mode and yknow. didn't just sit down and continue School Stuff asap. also hardly ever Studying unless it's the night / morning before a test lmfao but i had a great memory for that stuff, so studying that last minute was like "yep, i Do remember this from going over it 2 seconds ago" so yknow, despite hating school / no good Study Habits(tm) or anything, i did fine. i also read a ton, at home or at school and at any other point. so i was also like, quiet and generally ~well behaved~ or whatever lol (the like "how are kids (or anyone) supposed to stay focused and on task for 7+ hours a day..." thing), segue into next paragraph

i also remember like, 3 day a week preschool being the first time i was, you know, in some sort of School and also around other kids that much, i did have this sense that like, somehow there were Rules that i wasn't following, not re: Classroom Rules or something, but wrt socializing with peers, like that everyone else had something going on in how they interacted which i wasn't gonna get right, & i had this sense of like, not really being Allowed to interact lmao, even being 4 years old i have a few distinct memories re: this of like, a) choosing to play by myself in the classroom or when outside, and b) my "best friend" being the one person who just like, chose to hang out with me lmfao, but i was like oh cool Having A Friend lmao, like i didn't Not want to have friends, i was just already aware of like, i don't feel like i can just up and interact w/these people and i don't feel like they want me to, and c) re: that being aware of whatever Rules Of Interaction existing and that i wouldn't meet them / abide by them and thus there'd be some kind of repercussion for not meeting those rules, and not being allowed, i remember that like. there was this other indoor playspace in the lower level and there were toys i wanted to play with but Refrained from, and it was like, why did 4 yr old me get the idea i Wasn't Really Allowed, and most of what i can theorize is that it was like, well other kids might want to play with that, and the Normal / Better kids should get priority lmao, and/or being nervous that it just might otherwise lead to some sort of Interaction i wouldn't feel ready for.....and d) sitting at a table with like whatever 4 or 5 other kids or something and amongst ourselves someone was like "oh put your foot in the middle if you're [x]" and i tried to join in on a technicality lmfao and also just in, you know, active efforts to be Participating with these other kids on their terms, and it did not pay off, something that repeated uhhhhh, forever i guess lol. insert that post like can allistic people be normal for 5 seconds.....

like in elementary school i wasn't really making friends either, incredibly, i was Amicably Tolerated by many people then & like, again also at any point after at least lmao (and it helps that i was generally in teachers' good graces, not that i narced on anyone ever, but i had like, my Niche as the Academically Successful One, and also i was the kid who draws, another shoutout to some post and tweet about how being The Drawing Kid was like, some measure of respect but also disdain lmfao...) and sometimes people would again like. choose to interact with me repeatedly, and i'd sort of be nonplussed at best b/c it's like, okay thanks but in this situation i didn't Choose this any more than i choose [Trying to be in the group but being rejected/excluded], so it's kinda weird, i was friends with someone for a few years in elementary school but we just were Coincidentally in the same class for those years, when we were in different classes in 3rd or 4th grade and just weren't seeing each other it fizzled out, in middle school i made another couple friends where we were all being Funny lmao, but i didn't go to high school, so once again we weren't seeing each other, and [At School] was where i always had most Interactions with people, didn't see people much outside of school even if we were hanging out / being friends During school, for [a whole tangent] reasons, so. guess the good news is i'm still in touch / friendly acquaintances with some people from school from college, but even then, there was Some more social success or whatever, but not all That much, and i was still unhappy like, not having many friends, often being like "i'm going to the cafe a block away b/c i have no social occasions here and i want to get out of the dorm / be around people," that if i was with more than one other person i could end up the third wheel friend lmao or nobody is paying attention when you talk or oh no i put myself out there hanging with a friend group but maybe people thought you were a joke or something, thanks. smh

and that like, speaking of college, i went early but this was, for my part, truly primarily driven like "well i hate school so if i can Not go to high school, okay" and like, while i got in and everything it was still like "tf is college, i've never known what i Want To Do so i wonder if i'll figure this out, but i'm not expecting to last past the first semester / year b/c this is college and i'm a terrible student actually lol" but then turns out i kept doing well enough like A's & B's like oh woops i guess i'm still here, then, hope i can figure out what tf "credit hours" means (finally did lol).....then sophomore year was a bunch of just Agonizing over "what tf do i major in," something i never figured out, wherein i might bring something up & it got parentally shot down like "never heard you talk about that" like what tf Did you hear me talk about? are you thinking i had my life figured out by age 9, b/c i didn't think that, i'm only 15/16 even Now, even being the Regular college age it's like, nobody's figuring their life out then. also i didn't tell my parents things, so. and then i settle on something that sure, Might've been of interest, but also it was like, a) a program that barely existed and req'd taking classes at a like 30 min away campus and also the head of department had Just retired and the most heinous teacher in the related fields was now in charge, brilliant and b) the sort of thing you'd just wanna start taking prerequisites for like as soon as you set foot on campus, like, great. and c) i was like, hardly feeling all the Academic Ambition anyway b/c i never had, b/c i hate/d school, and b/c i still didn't Know what i wanted to major in, and i was stressed n depressed and also realizing oh right, i'm not cishet, and oh right, i'm never going to get along with my family b/c [long tangent] reasons and that's kind of concerning, here i am impending Being 18 and like, how do i get out of this b/c it's becoming clearer that i'm not just gonna start getting along with the 'rents now that i'm not an elementary schooler and also now that i'm realizing the Reasons being at home sucks. guess i learned stuff in college lol but also it was like, the experience of getting to be Away From Home and existing every day without parents literally / figuratively over my shoulder at some point every day, and getting to do shit on my own and figure things out while Not At Home.....i also had a lot of fun taking a couple classes from this one music prof lol. he was this weird really enthusiastic and really knowledgeable guy lmao like great, these evening classes where we go over to the arts building and he plays things on the piano off the cuff and tells a lot of tangential stories while we're learning about like, beethoven technically, or folk music. didn't need those classes but they were great, i've had these teachers who were totally into whatever they were teaching and had a great time with that

also acknowledgment to the fact i was a No Extracurriculars person all through school, k thru 6 and college alike really, although i took dance class for that k thru 6 period, just that was separate from school actually (and another fun "being away from home" thing and Theatresque performance thing i enjoyed) but besides that it was like, how do i figure out what i want to do without committing to joining this whole thing, i don't know How to sign up for stuff really either, and it'd probably entail "asking for stuff" and needing to coordinate more rides and etc and that's just a hassle, and i wanna go home from school asap anyways, and then like, when it came to college, i was again at first thinking like "well idk what i'm doing and i hate homework so i'll probably mess it up in this first year anyways" and figured that doing anything Extra outside classes was just gonna be too much, and also, it's like, i've never been in these kinds of groups before and why am i gonna start in college, where there'll probably be all these people who Have done this stuff before, and are also 18? e.g. even though it was like "hey you're away from home and don't have to ask/tell anyone else anything to do this club stuff or whatever!" supposed ideal environment for trying stuff out, it was like, maybe i'm theoretically interested in auditioning for the fall theatre production, but the last acting experience i had was like, "2 month drama class in middle school" or "that 4th grade [section of a] play" so like, not really Any education or experience or Training re: any of that stuff, and a bunch of 18 yr olds who might've, or [age peers] who were theatre people who had already done stuff so they weren't getting Lead Roles or anything but they were getting cast / taking classes / joining an a capella group while i'm like right on, i'm over here with some sort of Grade Honor Society (??) saying my gpa qualifies me to join and be able to experience some further academic rigor/requirements lmfao and i'm like absolutely not. get away lol. anyways so bit of a chaotique Post K12 Zone Education Experience there lmfao, all kinds of things i'd Like to Learn and even take classes on, but didn't like, right i love learning languages but never took classes, love math and shit but only got to a certain level of calc and even then seemed to miss some Lore, never did anything re: theatre, etc and so on. so you wonder if some advantages re: high school would be like, more chances for those extracurriculars (or regular curriculars) but, as though i wouldn't have the same qualms about getting in on any of it, and as if i wouldn't've still hated school but also still been at home, F. and i think people can be a lot more normal to each other when it's college and you're Not stuck in one building together 8 hours a day lmao, got some gentle "occasional Bullying style attention" in middle school, but had juuust enough like, [that Niche of good grades / kid who draws] and people who Were friendlier to me that it was you know, unpleasant, but didn't have to be that huge a deal, and then i was outta there soon enough. also, in college many people are 18 or older, as opposed to 11 to 13. anyways the rest of my school story was that in the end the problems were "i don't know what i want to major in and also now's a worse time than ever b/c i've realized my existence At Home is untenable, and naturally i am quite depressed & stressed about things, and i gotta say absolutely virtually every adult presence was either totally unhelpful to Counterproductive here lmao, like, not much anyone could do really but it's helpful when someone is like, i'll treat you like a person vs simply just going 'uh why are you not doing the academic stuff good enough'" lmfao like. the whole time Not having friends i'd wanna talk to through class and happening to get good grades in part b/c i somehow Could as easily as i did and also i was afraid of getting C's or worse b/c "tfw i wasn't even yet in a grade that gave you A thru F grades yet but my older sister caught shit for getting a C

like :/" and etc means adults are like My Student Is Fine, and also, what are you gonna do even if they aren't, i guess. i just had to figure out completely for myself Why and How i really wasn't Fine and that was quite difficult and also took a long time. then there was a mutual prank of "i drop out of college at the tail end of things" and "now i have to be at home with parent/s more resentful of your obvious Waywardness (insert: not being cishet, and the fact it occurs to me that my being autistic was always causing 'problem' behavior i was getting shit for like, the whole time lmfao, even if nobody knew / labeled it like oh this is for ND reasons, or if it was both true i tried to come out (smh, thought i Had to b/c that was part of Not Being Cishet) and it was simply ignored / unaddressed and yet it sure fueled further specific resentment of my not Performing Gender properly, or "worse," so that went well, in that i eventually abruptly left and did not maintain contact, in the interest of "the levels to which i was thriving was like, that if i bailed and like died 50 hrs later it'd still be what i want to do," true to that i did not / don't regret it. and what do you know, i was first able to bail to a relatively nearby friend from college's home, whose family also liked me lmao. shoutout to school still being where i made Any friends, except a friend i made who was a coworker of several years. and Online Friends, which, another school connection, that like, i can more readily Connect w/people via talking about interests, something that happened Sometimes at school in person lmao but not much, but also that i Talk About Interests in a way through Drawing, which, well shoutout to doodling in the margins of papers throughout school lmfao, it didn't hurt! that's my saga.

oh and that footnote, i also really enjoyed the "in middle school you either take language classes or 4 Electives you rotate through each year" and those electives sure featured some more varied and hands on activities i had a great time with. shoutout to like, cooking, and to shop class, my Car Designs were great apparently, idk how. shoutout to my Intuition re: engineering or something lmaoo.....very fun to just end the schoolday in that big garage space where you could actually open that garage door right to where all the buses were, beautiful. Oh, and that's another footnote, when my last class of the day in 8th grade was english, i'd sometimes finish work early and my teacher would let me go to our spacious library, with the v nice librarian who'd recommend books to me she thought should be checked out more often b/c she knew i liked to read that much, and also just generally had teachers / other adult staff kinda wandering in at the end of the day, talk about "i don't really relate to other ppl my age" where i did generally prefer to be around adults, so that was fun. oh and also shoutout to hating school lmao wherein during like, middle school when the schoolday started at like 7:30am or smthing disgusting and i just learned to like, view whatever time it was in a "at least it's almost [x]" like well okay, first period is math and that kinda sucks but at least once it's over this hardest part of the day will be over, then next class is kinda more chill at least, and then it'll be the last period before lunch, etc etc etc where i could sort of keep up that stamina like telling myself at any point it was Almost [a more encouraging time of day] lmao like. kinda fucked up to have to be dragging yourself through the weekdays like that, but

Oh! goddamn and i didn't even get into that if i ever got in ~trouble~ in elementary school it was stuff like Not Paying Attention, but where half the time that might be some other kid beside me messing around lmfao and i'm not gonna be like "uhhh follow the rules!!!" (and that even when i was In Trouble like go sit in the chair where you have to be quiet there for like 10 min i might say something to some other kid in that zone and they'd be like "um it's the quiet chair you have to be quiet!!" or "uh we're getting into the next lesson and you have to put that book back asap" like wow these other kids are dweebs about Rules lmfao) and there'd just be times like, it's 1st grade and i know how to read pretty well already but we're going over the alphabet like stoppp i know the Phonics already........or the ways ND people can kind of Intuit some stuff more successfully, like in third grade learning multiplication i neverrrrr studied but just broke it down like, okay i remember the Fives b/c of telling time, i know the 2x table and stuff, i know the commutative property, if we're all the way at the 8x and i haven't Memorized stuff, i can still like, break it down to say, [5 x 8] + [8 x 2] or something when i see 8 x 7, even if it takes a second lmfao.......and stuff like the tragedy of when i Did make a friend in like, 2nd grade, who i think we didn't even talk to each other ever?? i was playing legos or smthing by myself once during Indoor Recess and she just started playing agreeably along with me, aka someone socializing on My Terms apparently as our Introduction, and we just were friends past that but one time, not even during a Lesson Session, we were messing around quietly making each other laugh as the incredibly important process of "put papers in your folders" was going on, and since we were Not Paying Attention for some reason the teacher made a whole example of it where i had to carry my desk across the classroom for the Shaming Element of it and also so that i had to permanently sit way further from that friend, so that was kind of discouragement re: interacting at all. thank you to that teacher, who'd later once Gesticulate to me from across the gym that i should put my arms down at my sides rather than being crossed (we were rehearsing some class performance) & i had no idea what she was trying to convey, so afterwards she told me i had to have Reduced Recess Time or some shit because of Ignoring her instead of putting my arms down lmfao. and i was irritated at having been misinterpreted / my Intentions dictated to me and punished like that, but i was also used to it from adults lmfao and did not bother explaining myself lol like yeah god forbid i left my arms crossed on purpose and now i have to read some more during recess. tl;dr school has so much nonsense & i def had some Times re: being autistic & also just being someone who hated school forever lmao, think it was Also 2nd grade where one arbitrary sunday night i just cried out of frustration at having to go back for another normal school week. classic. oh and that also, while i wasn't like "oooo booksmart people who hate not having a Definitive Correct Answer to things &/or ohhh autistic ppl So Good at math, in a way everyone hates and disrespects, but they suck at Literature/Arts which requires you to reflect on humanity and shit," like, not only was i the drawing kid but i was also apparently ahead of the curve as it were at like, Literary Analysis lmfao where there was a few times in elementary school i'd be the kid providing the Interpretation like "what's this poem about / what's the theme or Symbolism in this story," but from elementary school to college it's like, for god's sake don't ask me to come up with a story / work with some really open ended prompt, i don't Invent in that way, and when i try to draw on Inspiration i'll get stuck on some specific source and be unable to do anything but just rip it off really lmao. but then again i was prolific in "it's 1st grade and you write and illustrate a little short story or smthing in these booklets

that we then have a simple little binding process for" like ohhh fancy, i got a tootsie roll lollipop at Awards Time for writing a shit ton of those lol. but that's like, when you're too young to have that much of a Creative Process anyways lmao. but then, my older sister, whose Thing was writing, has an incredible 2 Volume like, noir mystery saga from those elementary school times, it's a classic lmao. anyways once again so much to say about School lol closing the door after meandering on that one for this long lol

April 6th: Are you able to drive? If so, was it difficult to learn? What was difficult about it? If not, do you use any alternatives?

i did learn to drive, tbh just universally it's like, at any point you're driving there's A Lot to pay attention to at once, even if you think you're Good At That or whatever, which i sure don't think i always am lol, and it's pretty wild we just, you know, let everyone go around as fast as they want in machines that can kill you or someone else, and this is also Unnecessary b/c like, let's have accessible & reliable public transit so that everyone can travel without Needing to have a car / someone else who will drive them. i didn't think i had too much trouble learning to drive, but it had to help that i just took it very seriously from the start lmao like, well, i'm quite aware i could kill someone with this. the driving classes i took were alright, i remember the instructor being pretty chill and friendly lol. rip to the fact i could be tense when driving with parent/s, when driving a manual i'd always like screech the tires when accelerating out of a Stop, until all at once it was like "and i'm driving that manual car alone on a road trip & wouldn't you know it, only literally once did i have that issue of not getting out of a stop smoothly enough" lmao like the Anxiety......really like yeah i had an alright time learning and think i'm solid enough at driving / like doing it, theoretically, but Driving Is Wild just in general and let's have that public transit

April 7th: How are you with sarcasm and/or metaphors/figures of speech? Do you interpret things very literally?

i think i Usually get what people mean with these Devices but i can't really say lol, but anytime you know, someone is being more Implicit in what they say, plenty of times i can infer one implication and only later realize they probably meant a different one, or yknow, i make whatever initial inference i make and can be stuck like "???" and have to like, mentally run diagrams about the interaction lol......meanwhile i'm not always remembering that like, if i'm shifting context mentally that's necessarily able to be inferred by whoever i'm talking to lol, whether it's about getting into some adjacent topic or like, i don't think it tends to be very clear even in person when i've started being sarcastic lmao, like i know that can be true for anyone but it's like well, guess i gotta make it clearer i'm doing a bit......flipside of that or something lmao that people are more Obvious than they think they are sometimes about like, idk, when someone is sort of making some sarcastic remark to you but the sarcasm is also sort of only to themself, aka just like okay i know you mean this more dismissively / disparagingly than re: what you're saying just at face value lol like. just always fun >:/

#30daysofautismacceptance #2021 #you know that Read More means especially a saga even by my standards lmfao

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h-styles-babes · 5 years ago

Text

FIFTEEN

Sia had to nearly drag herself out of bed the next morning.

After being woken by Harry and inviting him to stay with her to abate the nightmares, they’d stayed up for about an hour, talking about nothing and everything. Sia asked him about hw filming had gone and how he’d liked making his first movie. Harry had been enthusiastic about his experience, but he was appropriately anxious for how it was to be received. There was nearly another year until the movie hit cinemas, so it was still a long time coming, but he was nervous nonetheless. No matter how much Christopher Nolan and all his coworkers had assured him that his performance was great, he was still unsure of how it would really come across. It was his first real acting job after all. He just wanted it to be good.

She’d eventually fallen asleep, tucked up close to Harry’s side. They weren’t cuddling, per se, but they were definitely touching. And Harry must have done as she’d asked and left after she’d gone down, because she woke to an empty bed. However, there was a glass of water and two paracetamol tablets on her bedside table, with a little note that read:

‘Just in case you had a headache from the crying. —H.’

She was a little put off by the lack of X’s after his signature, but she wouldn’t ever admit that to anyone.

True to his prediction, Sia had a headache upon waking, so she quickly took the tablets and finished the entire glass of water before crawling out of bed. She was tired from the restless night of sleep and her body ached like she’d done a hard work out the day before. The relentless night terrors and her body’s violent, physical reaction during them were really wearing away at her body. She was surprised she didn’t find bruises or welts on her body every morning from how violently she knew she thrashed during them. Luckily, after she’d fallen asleep the second time, her sleep had been dreamless, and she was able to get the few hours uninterrupted. It wasn’t enough to make up for all the missed sleep the past week, but it help a bit.

Sia wished she felt better after Harry’s company in the early hours of the morning, but she felt just as downtrodden and worn as she had every other day. She was dreading their work day and having to see him after he witnessed the horror she lived through every night. It was embarrassing, to say the least, and it was indicative of the mental and emotional turmoil she knew he already suspected. She was sure at this point that Harry was starting to realise her upset wasn’t just from their break up. The time to tell him was creeping up on her, and she was dreading it.

Slipping into a pair of linen shorts and a plain tank top, Sia made her way into the kitchen. Luckily, it sounded like the house was mostly empty, or if it wasn’t empty, everyone was having a quiet Saturday morning. She made her way into the kitchen and only encountered Harry and Alex, the latter greeting her with a cheery “good morning,” which caused Harry to look over his shoulder at her from where he was standing in front of the stove. She smiled as best she could and returned Alex’s greeting with a soft one of her own.

Harry handed Sia a mug full of freshly brewed chai tea when she made her way to the fridge to grab some fruit for breakfast. He didn’t let go of it immediately when Sia got her hand on it, using it as a way to draw her closer to him.

“Yeh alright?” Harry murmured to her, not wanting Ben to really hear.

Sia couldn’t meet his eyes, so she nodded and hummed her agreement.

She heard Harry sigh, and she startled when she felt his lips press to her temple, lingering for a full three seconds before he pulled away. It was the first time they’d really had any physical contact outside of shoulders pressed against each other during movie nights and her leg pressed to his in bed the night before. She tried not to outwardly react to it.

Sia fled from the kitchen pretty quickly after that, foregoing the fruit she wanted to get and headed straight to the back patio. Mitch caught her eye from his place in one of the loungers when she walked out, and she could see him carefully appraising her bedraggled appearance. A slight frown titled at his lips and he mouthed, “you good?”

“Later,” she mouthed back when she saw Alex and Harry moving to join them outside. It was both a promise and a plea. She needed someone to talk to about this. Considering she was feeling like she’d pestered her therapist a lot recently, Mitch was her next best choice. He was the only other person on this trip that would be able to comfort her, in his sort of detached, awkward way. She’d call El, but the time difference was weird and hard to navigate. Mitch was here now, and she knew he was always willing to listen.

~*~*~*~*~

“So, are you just gonna avoid him for the rest of forever?” Mitch asked, looking very skeptical.

Him and Sia were sitting outside that cafe Sia had gone to when she was the only one in the house and had a day of exploring. She’d told him just after she’d had her morning tea that she wanted to talk to him at some point, and he’d suggested that they have lunch, just the two of them. So, when they were getting ready to leave, a driver waiting for them out front, Harry had walked into he living room at the same time, asking where they were going. Mitch, not wanting to leave his new friend out of an outing, went to invite him to lunch with them, but Sia had cut him off, telling Harry they were going out and would be back later, nearly pulling Mitch out the front door without waiting for a response.

He’d questioned her on their car ride and guessed correctly that she was avoiding Harry, for whatever reason. It wasn’t until they’d gotten seated at the cafe in town that she explained to him what had happened throughout the night.

“I obviously can’t do that,” Sia huffed with a roll of her eyes. She kept her gaze on her fingers twirling the straw in her glass of water. “I’m just embarrassed. And I know he’s suspicious.”

“You know I’ll never tell you what to do, but…” Mitch trailed off, taking a sip of his iced tea to fill the end of his sentence.

Sia sighed. “I know. I need to tell him. But the mere thought has me riddled with night terrors.”

“Maybe telling him will help ease them,” Mitch suggested.

“My therapist has mentioned that,” Sia admitted. “Something about me needing to push myself to get to the final steps of healing.”

“I never went to college, but she seems like a smart woman.”

Sia groaned as she ran her hands through her hair, a habit she’d picked up after years of being friends with Harry. “I just don’t want it to interfere with the recording.”

“The lingering tension between you is already interfering with the recording. Maybe this will help clear the air.”

Sia hummed to acknowledge that she heard Mitch’s opinion and she was grateful for it, but she was still having a bit of a hard time coming to terms with the fact that it was now imperative that she tell Harry about everything. It had been nearly a year since she’d begun dealing with it, and she was, for the most part, coping with it on her own. She thought she had been doing a good job until she’d been thrust back into Harry’s presence. And then when she finally thought she’d gotten a handle on those resurfaced emotions, a song set her off and brought back her nightmares. She felt like she couldn’t catch a break.

Perhaps finally sharing with Harry would help. Not to the point of recovery, but hopefully it would be the tipping of the domino that would finally set in motion the steps to finally dealing with it properly.

Healing. That was what Sia had to keep reminding herself of: telling Harry was an avenue of healing. Both for herself and for him. And possibly for them both as a past couple.

~*~*~*~*~

Sia, in order to prepare herself for an impending heavy conversation, successfully avoided Harry for the rest of the day.

When her and Mitch got back from lunch and their quick outing around town, she’d snuck into the kitchen to make herself a brew before promptly returning to her bedroom to brood and enjoy the rest of her day in peace. It had been pretty nice, just getting to watch a few films and text back and forth with Ellen. They were trying to pass ideas to each other about what they were going to do when El arrived in Jamaica, and it gave Sia a way to keep her mind off of the impending discussion she would have to have with Harry. It was a nice way to spend a day of her weekend.

She had another nightmare that night. It was becoming the norm more than an occasional occurrence, which was equally annoying as it was concerning.

Sia could feel her heart racing, even in the midst of the dream. She subconsciously knew she was crying, the sobbing in her dream too laboured heart-wrenching for it not to be reflected in her real life. Flashes of lights flickered in her hazy vision, like she was racing down a long hallway. The distant echo of the beeping of medical machines whooshed in and out of her hearing. A phantom pain of her experience ripped across her abdomen. The devastation of the news and her heartbreak settled deep into her chest.

He didn’t intentionally wake her this time, but she stirred out of her unconsciousness when Harry slid next to her in bed. She gasped when she felt like her arms were trapped around her, unable to reach up to wipe the tears from her face. She quickly realised that it was because Harry was laid on top of the covers, keeping them taut around her. It was actually comforting after she realised she wasn’t being physically held down, like she had been after she’d awoken in the hospital the year before. Harry had a hand on her back, softly stroking up and down as her breathing started to settle.

Harry didn’t speak until he felt that Sia had sufficiently calmed.

“You alright?”

Sia sucked in a shuddering breath, trying to shake off the last of her dream that clung to the edges of her consciousness. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

Harry helped her loosen the blankets around her as she tried to shift to face him. He brushed her hair back from her face, that was still slightly sticky with the remnants of her tears and the sweat she had built up in her thrashing.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” he asked. There was a softness in his features that relayed to Sia that he didn’t want to push her, which she greatly appreciated.

“What time is it?” she asked, unable to see the clock over Harry’s figure.

“Just past two.” Harry pressed his lips together to try to keep back the displeased look on his face. As far as he could tell, Sia was trying to avoid the topic again, and it didn’t it well with him. She very obviously had something that was eating away at her and needed to get it off her chest. He didn’t really understand why she was torturing herself by bottling it all up and keeping it away from him. Or anyone, really. He wasn’t privy to the fact that she had unloaded her burden on Mitch already. Not that it seemed to be helping.

“If you don’t mind staying up with me,” she told him, muttering into the cover of her blankets. She couldn’t actually believe that she was proposing they have this conversation now. But she sort of figured that the fact that he was here, in her room at two o’clock in the morning, had to be some sort of sign from some almighty being that wanted her to get her shit together. Divine intervention and all that.

“It’s Sunday and I’ve got no plans. If I want to sleep in until three in the afternoon, I will. If you need to talk, don’t worry about it.”

Sia looked at him for a long moment, giving herself one last chance to back out of this for the night. However, when she took inventory of how she was feeling, she realised that she didn’t want to take another raincheck. Her therapist was right: she needed to do this, not only for herself, but for him, too. It was time to take control of her own mental well-being.

She shuffled to get herself upright in bed. Harry helped her by pulling down the blankets to her waist and fluffing up her pillows to support her. Bless him and his constant attention to other’s needs and comfort. It made Sia’s heart give a little jump with affection and those damn butterflies in her stomach to flutter just a little harder. He made it really hard to not constantly be in love with him.

“Can you hand me the tissues?” she asked, gesturing to her bedside table. If Harry noticed the already-empty on beside it, he didn’t comment. He obviously already knew she’d done her share of crying in the last few days.

Sia gripped the square box in both hands, rubbing her thumbs over the sharp edges. She took a few moments to take in cleansing breaths, staring intently at the swirling patter of the interior of the duvet as it lay at her waist.

“I uh…” she began, clearing her throat when her voice came out with a slight hitch. “I’ve been dealing with some stuff lately that kinda resurfaced when I came on this trip.”

“I’ve noticed,” Harry commented softly.

Sia nodded. “I thought I had gotten past it, at least enough to function like a normal person, but it got bad within the last week or so.”

“I noticed you kinda dropped off after we first started recording ‘Woman.’” Harry paused to let Sia speak, but she only nodded, her eyes trained on the tissue she was now pulling apart between her fingers. “If the end of our relationship is still that awful for you, we don’t have to talk about it. I don’t want to make you—”

Sia shook her head hard, finally looking up at him. “It’s not that. I mean, not really, at least.”

Harry’s brows furrowed together. “Then what is it?”

“I had a miscarriage.”

Sia watched as Harry’s actually choked on his own breath, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed hard. His lower lip wobbled before he drew it between his teeth. He cleared his throat. “I’m so sorry. Do you mind me asking when?”

The first feeling of tears tingling behind her eyes made Sia squint them shut, wanting to keep it together as long as possible in order to get everything out. “December. Just before Christmas.”

A long silence drew out between them, both unsure what else to say. Harry seemed to be really struggling with what she’d told him, understandably. His jaw clenched and his hands were fisted into the hem of his athletic shorts. There was a deep furrow between his brows. He eventually squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, like he did when he was stressed. He sucked his lips into his mouth and rubbed them together a few times before blowing out a long breath. Eventually, he looked to Sia, a mixture of hurt and sadness mixed in his eyes.

“I’m very sorry for your loss, Sia. I can’t imagine losing a baby.”

Sia’s heart thudded in her chest. Was he not getting it?

“Harry…” That uncomfortable feeling settling in her chest made it hard for her to talk. She was going to cry. There was no going back once that sensations filled her lungs. Tears dripped from the corners of each of her eyes, and she used the stripped bits in her fingers to sop up the first few drops before reaching for a full, new tissue.

She couldn’t really make out his face through the tears now swimming in her eyes. She felt her face crumple as a sob tore through her throat. Harry’s arms were around her in an instant, pulling her to his chest, nearly crushing her. He was making shushing sounds to try to calm her. He could only hope that she could hear him over her sobs.

“You’re an i-idiot,” she eventually hiccuped out. Harry was drawn aback by her words, such a turn from the emotions she was displaying. He reared back and looked down at her. Sia scoffed at the exaggerated hurt look on his face.

“I know you’re hurting, but—”

“You’re an idiot, because I was pregnant with your baby.”

Sia heard Harry draw in a quick breath and the hold he had on her slackened. She took a moment to wipe her eyes before looking up at him. His mouth was open in surprise, and she’d never seen his forehead so scrunched or his brows so far down over his eyes.

Some unintelligible sounds came out of his mouth, like he was trying to form words and figure out what to say. Her stomach flipped a little when she saw tears welling in his eyes and slowly drip out. His mouth eventually closed over a small whimper that turned into a suppressed sob.

Sia gave him the time he needed. She’d had over half a year to come to terms with this, so she couldn’t expect Harry to do it in a few minutes. He’d have questions soon, so she would give him his time and be there when he was ready to talk.

Now that she’d gotten it out to him, she had an odd sense of serenity. Her natural care-taking nature seemed to overcome her, and all she wanted to do in that moment was make him comfortable. So, she told Harry softly that she would be back before slipping out of the bed and making her way to the kitchen. She made a brew for both Harry and herself and also popped a bag of popcorn. By the time she brought it back into the bedroom, Harry had tucked himself under the blankets, his eyes still steadily leaking tears, but his gaze was vacant, trained steadfastly on the far wall. If he even knew that Sia had entered the room, he made no indication.

Sia put the bowl of popcorn down on the bed and one of the cups on the bedside table. She sidled up beside Harry, her knees gently resting against the side of the bed to keep her balance. With her free hand, she reached out and ran her fingers through Harry’s hair, trying to draw his attention gently. He eventually turned his head toward her, his eyes seeming to focus.

“I brought you a cuppa,” she murmured. Harry hummed and reached to take it by the handle. His other hand wrapped around her waist, drawing her closer. He took a deep breath and rested his head against her stomach, her fingers drawing slowly through his hair. It was only a few moments before she could feel the wetness seep through her sleep shirt. He was actively crying again.

“Budge over,” she whispered.

Harry sniffled before righting himself and making room for her. She slid into bed beside him.

“Talk to me,” she urged.

Harry took a slow sip of his tea before speaking.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Sia took a deep breath. “I didn’t know I was pregnant until December. And then, three days later, I started bleeding.”

“How did you not—?”

“We’d just broken up, Harry. I was distraught. I was in the midst of my internship. I was doing everything in my power to keep my mind off of you. And I didn’t realise until nearly Christmas that I hadn’t had a period in…longer than I could remember.

“When I finally figured it out, I went and took like three tests. All of ‘em came back positive. Given the last time we had sex, I reckoned I was about fourteen or fifteen weeks. I’d gained a little weight, but nothing I really noticed. Figured I’d make an appointment for just after Christmas, start takin’ vitamins. Figured I’d made it that long, another two weeks wasn’t gonna make a difference.”

Sia paused to take a shaky sip of her tea. This was her least favourite part of this memory.

She cleared her throat. “I went to my parents’ as soon as I was allowed. I was gonna tell them that night at dinner. Except I started bleeding before then. I lost blood so fast that I passed out…. My mum found me in the loo. She called 999 and I was rushed to the hospital. I guess I was able to tell them I was pregnant at some point, because I was sedated. All I remember was lights flashing as I was wheeled to the OR and this awful pain in my stomach and then waking up eight hours later.

“I’d had a placental abruption. The doctors were surprised I’d made it as far along as I had. I was gonna call you as soon as I weaned myself off the meds. Then that shit in St. Barts came out and I…I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t deal with a miscarriage and your bullshit at the same time.”

“It’s been months since, then, though,” Harry argued, staring down into his tea. “You could’ve told me. Should’ve told me. I deserved to know. That was my baby, too.”

“I know. I hate myself for not telling you. I started seeing a therapist in January. I was pretty messed up for awhile. It wasn’t until I moved to America that it started to get a little better.”

“That’s what your nightmares are from, then?” Harry finally looked at her. She was glad to see he wasn’t angry. She was always afraid that he’d hate her for not telling him sooner. He was obviously upset, but she figured he knew there was a bigger picture.

Sia nodded. “Yeah. Once I left the hospital, I started havin’ them.” Sia paused, taking a moment to catch her breath. All that happened was her throat tightening with a fresh rush of tears. “I’d only known I was pregnant for a few days, but I already loved that baby so much. Losing the pregnancy wrecked me.”

“How far along were you?”

“Doctors said about seventeen weeks,” Sia sighed. “It was a boy.”

Harry let his head drop back against the headboard. His face crumpled and new tears streamed down his cheeks. “We’d have a little boy right now.”

Sia mirrored his posture after putting her tea on the little table. She cleared her throat. “Yeah. He’d be about four months old now.”

Harry sniffled and wiped at his nose with the back of his hand. “Did you name him?”

Her heart thudded in her chest and her skin flushed. She wasn’t ashamed or embarrassed by the name she’d given her unborn son, but she didn’t think she’d admit it to anyone. Only her parents knew his name. She hadn’t even told Ellen. The hospital had asked her if she wanted to name him and she hadn’t hesitated. He wouldn’t have an official death certificate, considering he hadn’t been far enough along in gestation to be considered a person, but it was something the nurses were going to do for her, just to honour him. She hadn’t hesitated in telling them the name she wanted in her records. It was the same name that was etched into the front panel of the wood urn she’d put his ashes in. The same urn that was sat on her dresser at home.

“Harry. I named him Harry.”

#Harry Styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles one shot #harry styles oneshot #harry styles fanfic #harry styles angst #harry styles fic #harry styles writing #the long road home #TLRH

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djgamek1ng · 5 years ago

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Shadowbringers Tank Thoughts! [FFXIV]

Well, with patch 5.2 out with a singular change to any of the tanks (WAR’s shield on Shake it Off went up to 12% of Maximum HP to 15% of Maximum HP at base), it is as good a time as any to make this post. I’ll go over all 4 tanks and describe how I’m feeling about them, maybe with some initial impressions mixed in there as well. Let’s start with the ARR jobs and work towards the ShB tank with GNB. First up, the angriest job: WAR!

Warrior (WAR):

FELL CLEAVE! FELL CLEAVE! FELL CLEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVE! The one button that changed tanking forever. Seriously, every tanking job has their Fell Cleave button. For PLD it is Holy Spirit, for DRK it is Bloodspiller and for GNB it is Burst Strike. So, what did WAR get with Shadowbringers? Not too much, but what it got was quite nice.

It got a combo skill from Overpower called Mythril Tempest and unlike Overpower it is a circle around you instead of a cone ahead of you, more on that later

Mythril Tempest also extends the Storm’s Eye buff and it gives 20 Beast Gauge

It got Nascent Flash, which is a buff you put on someone and for 6 seconds (roughly 3 GCDs if done well) you give them 10% mitigation and heal them based on the damage you do. You also get healed for 200% of the same amount you heal them (or they get healed for 50% of the same amount you heal yourself)

It also got Chaotic Cyclone and Inner Chaos, essentially roided up versions of Decimate and Fell Cleave that always direct crit and they look like Steel Cyclone and Inner Beast

So WAR didn’t change much from SB to ShB and honestly, there is nothing wrong with that. Do I wish it got a few more things to play around with? Absolutely. Do I think WAR is in a bad spot? Hell no. It is amazing on the self mitigation side and its damage, while definitely lower than GNB/PLD and while arguably (depends on what level you are preforming) DRK, is still quite good. Overal, if I had to give an arbitrary number to rate WAR with, I’d give WAR a solid 8/10. Also, as a quick aside, it feels weird to have a cone AoE combo into a player based circle AoE. I’d personally like it if WAR got 2 cone AoEs, though they would’ve had to extend the range of each a bit (around 10 yalms instead of the current 8).

Paladin (PLD): HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! IT IS FINALLY TIME THAT WE’VE BEEN LEGITIMATELY BETTER THAN WAR FOR A COUPLE OF PATCHES! MWAHAHAH- ahem I mean... the shield of the party is up next. PLD, with it being my main in the short while I played HW and the entirety of SB (I’ll get to ShB main at the end), definitely has a soft spot in my heart. But what did PLD actually get?

Well, it got a combo skill from Total Eclipse called Prominence. Prominence also gives MP back when used (only in the combo)

It got an AoE version of Holy Spirit called Holy Circle

It got a gap closer called Intervene, which has 2 charges

It got a system called Sword Oath, which gives you a use of a skill called Atonement. At the moment, the only way to get Sword Oath stacks is to do a full Royal Authority combo and you get 3 stacks of it. Each Atonement hits as hard as the final part of a RA combo (so the actual RA attack)

It also got a fix 2 years in the making in the form of the Enhanced Requiescat passive: when you are under the Requiescat buff, your spell casts are instant. THANK THE LORD!

And last, but certainly not least, it got Confiteor which is an AoE finisher to your Requiescat window

So... let’s talk about PLD. I listed everything that it got from Stormblood to Shadowbringers. While all of this is great, especially the Enhanced Requiescat passive, it also lost pretty heavily. Its personal mitigation feels kind of crappy. Sheltron is great, but unlike the other short cooldown tank cooldowns, it is tied to the Oath Gauge... something that is still tied to auto attacks. Even if it wasn’t tied to auto attacks, the only benefit that it has is that you can use 2 Sheltrons back to back and then you are stuck trying to get it back. Doesn’t help that blocking’s power has been nerfed into the ground, with the highest blocking power still mitigating only 20%. “Only 20%? That’s still a lot!” Yeah, but it just doesn’t feel great. Also, I don’t know who made this decision but I just wanna talk: WHO RENAMED SHIELD OATH TO IRON WILL? I JUST WANNA TALK I PROMISE *prepares to Fell Cleave whoever made that decision*

Anyway, lame jokes aside, overal I’d give PLD around an 9/10 as well with a small note: in its highest highs it is a solid 9.5/10, sometimes even going to a 10/10. In its lowest lows, it is still a 7/10.

Dark Knight (DRK): THE EDGE IS CALLING TONIGHT! DRK is back with a vengeance after what happened to it in SB. The black sheep no more, DRK took a page out of WAR’s book and decided that Delirium needed to be diet Inner Release. So, for the changes/additions to DRKs kit (warning: there is a lot):

firstly, it got Edge of Darkness/Shadow. It is an oGCD single target attack that gives the DRK 30 seconds of Darkside

Darkside is now a buff activated by Edge of Darkness/Shadow and Flood of Darkness/Shadow (which I’ll get to next) that increases the DRKs damage by 10%. It also doesn’t halt MP regeneration anymore, so that’s neat

Flood of Darkness/Shadow is a line AoE oGCD skill that gives the DRK 30 seconds of Darkside

Abyssal Drain is an oGCD skill now that heals the DRK a bit per enemy hit, so the more enemies hit the bigger the heal

Delirium is now a 10 second window where Bloodspiller and Quietus don’t cost any resource. Sound familiar? Yeah, it is basically WAR’s Inner Release

They also get a combo move off Unleash called Stalwart Soul, which gives 20 Blood Gauge and some MP back when combo-ed

Next they get Dark Missionary, an AoE buff that makes the DRK and everyone one arounds the DRK take 10% less magic damage

Last, but certainly not least, they get the coolest skill in the game: Living Shadow. The summon a dark shadow in the shape of our all to familiar DRK quest giver from levels 30 to 50, Fray. It does 7 attacks across the span of 20ish seconds, but a mix of AoE and single target attacks

Also Plunge gets 2 charges, matching it to PLD’s Intervene

Plus, Blood Weapon now no longer increases attack speed (or well, it decreased the GCD so you were attacking quicker)

HOT DAMN DRK! You got a lot of good stuff and I’d probably say that DRK had the biggest upswing out of all the tanks from Stormblood to Shadowbringers. Makes sense since DRK is the poster boy of this expansion. So if I had to rate DRK, I’d say a 8.5/10. The only thing I think is halting DRK is that it doesn’t get Stalwart Soul until 72 and that the Blackest Night is still its level 70 capstone, making synced stuff be kind of painful from time to time. Not as bad as PLD though, which in my opinion might as well be unplayable from levels 68 to 78 because of Requiescat not giving the instant casts yet :(

Gunbreaker (GNB): KABOOM! Squall Leonhart has arrived in XIV and he has come in the form of a tanking job. Funny, both of the popular FF mainline protagonists, Cloud and Squall, are referenced in tanking jobs. Squall more so in GNB than Cloud in DRK, but still. Oh boy, let’s start this. This is gonna be a while and I’ll do it in bullet points since this is an entirely new job instead of changes to an existing job:

GNB has its Solid Barrel combo, which gives a small heal and small shield equal to the heal on the 2nd hit of the combo and it gives 1 cartridge to the GNB on the last hit

Cartridges are used to power 3 abilities: Burst Strike, their version of Fell Cleave, Fated Circle (can you tell this job is inspired by Squall yet), their version of Decimate/Steel Cyclone, and their Gnashing Fang combo

The Gnashing Fang combo is a high powered combo of skills that is on a 30ish seconds cooldown (it goes lower with skill speed). You can use another skill, called Continuation, in between each of the hits of the combo. They are oGCDs that add more damage to the combo

No Mercy is their damage buff. For 20 seconds you get 20% more damage. Simple enough!

Demon Slice is their AoE combo starter, with Demon Slaughter being the skill that combos from it. It also gives a cartridge when properly combo-ed!

Danger Zone is an oGCD that does ST damage. Eventually it gets upgraded into Blasting Zone (CAN YOU TELL THAT THIS JOB IS INSPIRED BY SQUALL) and does more damage

Camouflage is a oGCD skill that gives the GNB 10% mitigation and increases your parry change by 50%

Bow Shock is similar to Circle of Scorn, an oGCD that does AoE damage and gives AoE a damage over time effect

Aurora is a heal over time skill that the GNB can use on themselves or a party member. Has the same eventual potency as Equilibrium from WAR

Superbolide is their invuln skill... with a twist. It gives the GNB 8 seconds of total invulnerability... but puts their HP to 1 first

Sonic Break is a GCD skill that applies a damage over time effect on a 60ish second recast (goes down with skill speed)

Rough Divide is their gap closer and it has 2 charges

Heart of Light is Dark Missionary. Exact same skill

Heart of Stone is an oGCD skill that gives the GNB or one of their party members 15% mitigation. It is on a very short cooldown

Last but not least, it gets Bloodfest (its animation is Squall’s Draw animation from FF8. So again, CAN YOU TELL THAT THIS JOB IS INSPIRED BY SQUALL). Bloodfest gives the GNB 2 cartridges

That... that was a lot, but that was expected since I was describing a completely new job. The next time a tank releases, if it does, I’ll have to do this again... oh boy. Anyway, Squa- I mean GNB is a very interesting tanking job. It has kind of taking DRK’s spot as the fastest tank. Makes sense, since a Gunblade is not nearly as big and heavy as a Greatsword. In reality, GNB is a very fast and fun tank. It is arguably the best designed tank at the moment, though I think something can be said of PLD (though that is strictly speaking on the offense side). Overal, I’d give GNB a 9/10 rating. “WHAT?! AS HIGH AS PLD?!” Ye. It is a really good and fun tank!

Overal: So, in the end, what do we have? Well, the short of it, we got 4 very fun tanks for their own reasons. Even the meh-est of the tanks, WAR, is in my opinion still quite fun to play. So I said I was going to talk about what my main is. Well... I’m still trying the tanks and see what I like the most, but I do still consider myself a PLD main. Kind of doesn’t help that Square gave me almost everything I needed to keep maining PLD. A gap closer, instant cast spells (only during Requiescat but still), a way to reduce the monotony of the 1-2-3 combos, a finisher on the Requiescat window. I’m... in love once more.

The only thing I don’t like about PLD at the moment is how it very much lost its impenetrable wall fantasy. Blocking is now only 20%, still hasn’t scaled and at this point I doubt it will. Sentinel is now the same as Shadow Wall, Vengeance and Nebula: 2 minutes cooldown and 30% mitigation. It feels very weird that the shield tank has the least personal mitigation out of the tanks, plus its utility abilities are... weird. Divine Veil needs to be proc’d via a healing spell and Passage of Arms needs to be actually aimed and either be done somewhat last second or be held, which then makes it a damage loss. Every other tank’s utilities are instantly applied. Also an issue is that the Oath Gauge still doesn’t have a reason to freaking exist. You don’t use it often enough and for enough skills to have it visible. The only reason why I still have it is because it feels weird to not have a job gauge on my HUD for only PLD. I can go on about this stuff for a while, but I still love PLD. I’ll go over a “things I want to see changed for the tanks in the next expansion” thing later. PLD will definitely be the biggest section of that. Anyway, these were my tank impressions for Shadowbringers. Overal, very good expansion for tanking c:

#ffxiv #ffxiv tanking #pld #war #gnb #drk #shadowbringers #ffxiv shadowbringers

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thesportssoundoff · 6 years ago

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“A bunch of great fights, two titles on the line and tough questions need answering” UFC 238 Preview

Joey

June 3rd

The UFC is back on PPV (I guess we're still calling it that) with what is genuinely a pretty great card with some serious long term ramifications across every level of the show. It's also a tough sell seemingly which is frustrating and disheartening. The headline acts are really a trio of fights; a main event to crown a new bantamweight champion with Flyweight champ Henry Cejudo vs Marlon Moraes, the women's flyweight title is defended in the co-main event with Jessica Eye trying to pretty much salvage this division with an upset over the dominant yet insanely dull Valentina Shevchenko and then the unofficial main event between Donald Cerrone and Tony Ferguson that was thrown together to "bulk up" the show. It's a great trio of fights backed by some damn good shit at bantamweight plus some women's fights that sorta fill in the blanks AND one big boy fight with Tai Tuivasa trying to get his career back on track vs Blagoy Ivanov. I'm excited for it. Not sure how many other folks are but hey, if yer reading then let's go on this fight journey together!

Fights: 13

Debuts: Grigory Pipov

Fight Changes/Injury Cancellations: 1 (Felice Herrig OUT, Angela Hill IN vs Yan Xioanan)

Headliners (fighters who have either main evented or co-main evented shows in the UFC): 15 (Marlon Moraes, Valentina Shevchenko, Henry Cejudo, Jessica Eye, Tony Ferguson, Donald Cerrone, Jimmie Rivera, Tai Tuavasa, Blagoy Ivanov, Tatiana Suarez, Karolina Kowalkiewicz, Alexa Grasso, Ricardo Lamas, Joanne Calderwood, Eddie Wineland)

Fighters On Losing Streaks in the UFC: 2 (Karolina Kowalkiewicz, Eddie Wineland)

Fighters On Winning Streaks in the UFC: 12 (Marlon Moraes, Valentina Shevchenko, Henry Cejudo, Jessica Eye, Tony Ferguson, Donald Cerrone, Tatiana Suarez, Joanne Calderwood, Petr Yan, Kaitlyn Chookagian, Joanne Calderwood, Xiaonan Yan)

Main Card Record Since Jan 1st 2017 (in the UFC): 32-10

Henry Cejudo- 4-0 Marlon Moraes- 4-1 Valentina Shevchenko- 3-1 Jessica Eye- 3-0 Donald Cerrone- 4-4 Tony Ferguson- 2-0 Jimmie Rivera- 2-2 Petr Yan- 4-0 Tai Tuivasa- 3-1 Blagoy Ivanov- 3-1

Fights By Weight Class (yearly number here):

Bantamweight- 4 (28) Women’s Strawweight- 3 (15) Women’s Flyweight- 2 (16) Lightweight- 1 (38) Featherweight- 1 (26) Middleweight- 1 (18)

Light Heavyweight- (22) Women’s Bantamweight- (8) Women’s Featherweight- (6) Welterweight- (33) Heavyweight- (15) Flyweight- (7)

Debuting Fighters (15-36)- Grigory Pipov

Short Notice Fighters (15-19)- Angela Hill

Second Fight (36-8)- Bevon Lewis

Cage Corrosion (Fighters who have not fought within a year of the date of the fight) (12-22)-

Undefeated Fighters (20-25)- Tatiana Suarez

Fighters with at least four fights in the UFC with 0 wins over competition still in the organization (8-8)-

Weight Class Jumpers (Fighters competing outside of the weight class of their last fight even if they’re returning BACK to their “normal weight class”) (15-13)- Henry Cejudo

Twelve Precarious Ponderings

1- What's it say about Cejudo and Moraes that the UFC went to great lengths to put together a last second fight with two big names (relatively speaking) to try and get a few extra eyeballs? Draws are always about the top two fights (and really about the #1 fight at the top of the bill) but this feels like when McGregor snuck onto the UFC 128 card to try and lend his name to Mighty Mouse's title run. It's....a weird booking. It's an acknowledgment that your title fight isn't working but what's truly strange is there's no reason a fight like this shouldn't work. Marlon Moraes has been a dominant bantamweight who just avenged his only UFC loss in dramatic fashion. Henry Cejudo upset the GOAT and then upset the bantamweight champion who came down to his division to take his title. How is that fight not attractive or appealing? The bantamweight division was rolled into the UFC at the end of 2011. Are you TRULY meaning to tell me that eight years into this and a great bantamweight fight still can't carry the marque on its own? It's strange. Perplexing even. I can get that Shevchenko vs Eye is a dud of sorts but that title fight on its own should carry. It's a bummer it isn't. This isn't even the first fight the UFC tried to put together in Chicago to help this card either; Lawler/Askren 2 and Masvidal/Askren were both considered to be options until they fell apart. They even thought about McGregor and apparently were trying to put together Gaethje vs Ferguson before Justin Gaethje turned it down ultimately turning into Cerrone vs Ferguson.

2- We're all prone to hyperbole and I'm no different, often going above and beyond the call of duty in the heat of the moment. WITH THAT SAID, where does Henry Cejudo rank all time among combat sports athletes if he is able to add the bantamweight title to his Olympic gold medal and his flyweight belt?

3- Given that Cerrone is fighting less than a month after a crazy five round fight and given that Ferguson has fought once since October of 2017 and had a very publicized personal issue all over the news, what can we realistically draw from this fight no matter what happens in it?

4- If we give up the ghost on Conor ever coming back, the winner of this fight HAS to be the #1 contender right? Ferguson hasn't lost since 2012 and Cerrone would have three high profile wins in a row at 155 lbs.

5- Shevchenko headlines in August if she wins, right? Like they can pull that off in Russia I'm guessing.

6- Is Jessica Eye the most underwhelming title challenger of 2019?

7- I know it's not everybody's cup of tea BUT Blagoy Ivanov vs Tai Tuivasa is a really cool HW fight for me. Tuivasa is coming off his first pro loss and it wasn't the worst L ever; a second round KO loss to JDS where he had his moments early but just got too excited and/or realized his best chance to win was in making it a wild dirty brawl as opposed to a patient back and forth kickboxing match. He gets a step back in competition but it's not a super big step back since Blagoy Ivanov is a pretty good HW in his own right. I thought Ivanov lost to Rothwell but I'm not a judge and so it goes. Ivanov is just a big gnarly dude who will provide a step up from the Arlovski's and the Akser's of the world but a step backwards from JDS. A good solid HW fight.

8- So who gets next at bantamweight? Is the winner of Sterling vs Munhoz getting the shot?

9- Tatiana Suarez vs Nina Ansaroff is a great fight on paper that I imagine nobody is excited to actually see happen which feels like a fitting aside for Tatiana Suarez as a whole. You can't be Khabib minus the built in Khabib fanbase.

10- Really excited to see Bevon Lewis' return after his first loss. Lewis was beating up on Uriah Hall before Uriah Hall had one of those Uriah Hall-esque moments. Now Lewis is on the comeback trail and hopefully he's sharpened up some of the holes in his game. Darren Stewart is a great test for that and I think Stewart should be riding into this one on a three fight winning streak although again, not a judge and so it goes.

11- Joanne Caldwerood vs Kaitlyn Chookagian going from potential main card fight to Fight Pass prelims (those still exist somehow) says a lot about how the UFC feels about one of them (likely Chookagian).

12- When will Alexa Grasso closely represent the beat she was in Invicta?

#MMA #UFC

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working-on-becoming-a-better-me · 4 years ago

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Day 253—Mar. 23, 2021

Okay, so the numbers for my previous consecutive posts were off by a day (like a day ahead) and February 7′s math was way off, but I googled this! so from here on out, we will be accurate! let’s go bois!

BIG UPDATE BOIS! Essentially? I’VE GOTTEN BETTER! Mental health is better, habits are better, outlook on life is better, productivity... isn’t as high as it was when I first started the blog, but it’s doing MUCH better than November and even January.

coping with minecraft:

So, I’m still addicted to the dream smp minecraft fandom. my friend got me a dream hoodie, bucket hat, and a georgenotfound hoodie for my birthday. but! I’m coping better. I’m behind on streams, and am now catching up during Spring Break. For a while, I was pushing back school work to watch and catch up on streams. I promised myself that during free periods I would work since I was catching up on streams at home, and then... yeah. ANYWAY! I’ve gotten a lot better at that recently by noticing that even fanart accounts (accounts dedicated to mcyt-ers) were talking about how they didn’t watch a phasmaphobia stream because they weren’t interested in it, or talking about how they were behind on streams... it really helped me accept the fact that I can be a real fan and not watch every single stream.

cultural convention:

My international school does events with other international schools but because of covid, we can’t travel. I act and made varsity drama (we call it a different name, but yeah!) and we had virtual conferences. I was incredibly friendly and loud and there were tons of zoom calls. Our schools kinda known for being... uh, stuck up? and kinda elitist. Not like I was being fake, but I was making an effort to talk during calls and be active on group chats made. I joke-flirt a lot and focused my attention on one person. A whole thing ensued, but some of the other actors in my school (there were only 11 of us) were joking abut sending me to “horny jail” and one girl kept apologizing for me. During “lounge sessions” I would interject with what I thought were funny comments and she’d say “again, I’d like to apologize for her behavior” and... uh... I cried at school. Cuz I’ve heard way too many times from too many different people about how I’m embarrassing... BUT.

What really helped was the fact that there were late night zoom calls and I was one of only three kids from my school the first night on a call with around 25 people. Other people said I helped give them a really good first impression of our school, especially considering all the things they’d heard previously. The guy I joke-flirted with (I previously dmed him asking if he was okay with it and he said he was) said on a call that I was one of the funniest people he’d met in a while. It was a huge confidence booster in knowing that the efforts I was making were paying off :)

confidence:

Since starting this blog, I’ve been trying to be nicer to myself. I’ve been practicing more positive self speak and have recently realized the difference between the way I speak about and to myself and how some other people do. Being nicer to myself out loud has helped a lot in feeling better and more comfortable.

I wanted to try wearing black masks, but my mom bought the wrong kind. They had patterns and I was really nervous because I didn’t really want to stand out. I used to not care, but... I dunno. Teenagehood and whatnot. We wear uniforms too, so the only differences are in accessories, hair, etc. I’m not sure why, but I was really nervous to wear the new mask patterns to school. But I told myself it was an experiment, to force me to be more confident. I actually forgot I was wearing it until I saw myself. And since I’d posted on my private story saying I was doing this to try and be more comfortable, some of my friends came up to me and told me it was actually cute. Shows that I really had nothing to stress for. Not that it was really self-expression, but for me, and anyone else who needs to hear this, no one cares. Maybe they even wish they had the courage to wear different things as well.

mcyt mantra:

I have a mantra now! adapted from something drunk Wilbur Soot said during Quackity’s livestream, I think. I repeat it when I’m happy and when I’m nervous or scared and I guess... I dunno, I’m like classically conditioning myself? Except not really since I’m doing it out of order. But yeah! get yourself a mantra!!!

character day:

more with confidence! spirit week is just an excuse for kids to not wear their uniforms, but I put a lot of effort into an Ace Ventura outfit I put together. I only saw around two or three other people actually dressed up as characters, but I had so much fun and thought I looked amazing. I was proud that I wasn’t a normie ;]

Also... it’s so humid in this country and the rubber bottoms of my boots actually stuck to the pavement and fell off. I spent the day without the bottoms of my shoes and it was so funny. Even my mom laughed after (she laughed for so long, it was adorable) and she said only I could pull it off and that the friend I walk to school with everyday is lucky to have me as a friend. My mom was telling me about how she never had a friend like me growing up, just so weird and goofy. And it made me happy to think that I can bring so much... zaniness to people’s lives

ao3:

been writing a lot more recently! haven’t been posting on my writing blog since it’s all fanfiction, but it’s helping me write! I update one of my stories every two weeks. When I feel like I’m not doing enough, it’s a nice reminder that I actually can be consistent. I may be getting better... who knows :)

nehs:

been editing lots of papers even though I don’t need to anymore since I made vp of my school’s nehs chapter. but it’s helping me learn too! I’m very instinctual when writing, but obviously when I’m editing I can’t just ask them to change something because “it doesn’t sound right”. So I google explanations and then tell the people who’s papers I’m editing. It helps both them and me!

ipad/drawing:

got a new ipad for my birthday. been messing around with procreate. been doodling in class (only dream team characters so far lol). might be getting better... hopefully I am!

also have a sticky notes app on my ipad and been creating to-do lists! yay!

teaching:

been teaching students in cambodia! last year I had a teaching partner who guided lessons mostly. this year I’m the leading teacher. It’s helping with my fear of leadership and responsibility.

social:

still not the most social, but more active on snapchat now with keeping in contact with some of the cultural convention kids. covids made it harder to keep in contact, and I’ve been trying to reach out more to my closest friend who I’ve not hung out with in a while. not that we don’t see each other at lunch every other day, but I walk to school with, share a class and after school study hall with another friend. so comparably, I’ve spent less time with my closest friend.

recently had a spa day with my small neighborhood gang! my friend painted my other guy friend’s nails! yes! we used face masks as well :)

general update:

- went to the pool the other day and now I’m hecka burnt

- yesterday I wrote letters for honor society points, caught up on math hw, wrote a reflection and plan for a class, reviewed chinese with my mom, met up with my “mentor” for a class

- have been helping a lot of people! am currently a part of two people’s pieces for their theater class and I have a rehearsal later today!

- was doing a lot of work as an officer of thespian honor society—I’m likely going to be on the officer team again next year and, until a few weeks ago, I hadn’t felt like I’d been doing much and was feeling unworthy. but then I was proactive about something and updated our sponser (school’s drama director) on what we as officers decided. felt... prettyyy goooodddd :)

- !!! yesterday I went on a walk and brought money and my student ID, ready to buy bubble tea, but then... I mustered up what little willpower I had and then didn’t buy it. Instead, I bought surprise lilies for my mom (and some groceries she asked me to get) - been trying to cut out unnecessary sugars and foods. if I’m not hungry, I shouldn’t eat, but also... I listen to my body and if I’m feeling really snacky, I’ll indulge - recently been craving ice cream, but not the flavors in my fridge so instead I’m just not eating ice cream at all and ate an apple once as a substitute :D

- not sure if I’ve been sleeping more, but it kinda feels like I have been?

- started taking pictures of the world when I think it’s pretty one sunny afternoon when I was laughing lots with a friend... especially right after cul con, I was taking a lot more pictures...

- just been more active (not physically... though occasionally, when bored, I’ll stretch some... but I should try and get more active (I mean... the walk yesterday?))... creatively speaking (ao3, with art), socially online (cul con kids), in person (making plans over spring break!)...

- I just feel like I’ve been putting more effort into life

of course, there are the down bits, like for one project based class where the end product is due in May-ish and it focuses on the “process”... I’m just... not... process-ing. I chose a writing project (why). I’m focusing a lot on my side projects, but not my class writing one :/ as well as that, when assignments pick up, I do too, but when I get down time I feel like I deserve it (which I do!) but I don’t work ahead. I’ve been really busy though. Teaching got cancelled because the school in Cambodia shut down unfortunately due to covid. But before spring break, I was teaching, editing papers, writing my own for lang, doing cul con and then catching up on work I missed because of cul con, studying for tests, attending rehearsals... there’s a lot going on and I need to recognize that I am doing so well, especially compared with a few months prior when I was in a much darker place.

mostly stress has been my plague, but yeah! also in the span of one week, two classes bumped up a grade (or half a grade... we have letters and + system (no -)) so my previously low gpa became slightly less low! It gave me confidence that I can end the semester strong!

procrastination: another plague. I keep delaying setting up college counseling meetings and have delayed this update for a while now... and the project-class...

also have babysitting jobs again so we gon get some monnaayyyyy! (job is not from people we met at the pool, but we did meet people at the pool and their kids liked me so much they asked me mom to get me to babysit them... another boost to confidence! yay :) I’m a likeable person :] )

thanks for sticking around! I’m glad I’m getting this update in because I’m doing... really well :D hope you guys are also doing well or that it gets better!

0 notes

ask-svt-hearteu · 7 years ago

Text

Hogwarts! S. Coups

Anon requested: "Omfg, i LOVE your writtings! Can you do a Seungcheol hogwarts!au? I'm dying for one" and "can you do the hogwarts au for scoups?" and "Hello!! can you do a Hogwarts Scoups????? Thank you so much and your blog is wonderful💕"

Genre: fluff

Word Count: 3007

Fifth year gryffindor

Also a prefect and the quidditch team captain

Seungcheol is liked by all the teachers too

He just naturally has that “I’m a leader” vibe

Which makes sense since he literally shouts sometimes on the quidditch field

“I’M THE CAPTAIN SO YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO ME”

Honestly a dork and a sweetheart though

Even all the girls swoon when he walks by

He doesn’t really notice how his uhhh

Lip bites and winking and beautiful smile

Just gets all the girls to have heart eyes

the most reliable prefect ever

he's known to give quite a few detentions out for those who are out past curfew

and likes teasing Joshua about just letting people go

and likes joking around with Jeonghan about prefect powers

he doesn't mess around that one lol

There was a rumor

That he once broke up an underground duel between the houses

Some stupid sixth years and some younger kids were hexing each other or something

And he stopped them by challenging the kids there to duel him

even though he was younger than a few

And they were like pssssshhhh we can take this old man prefect

Oh boy was that stupid and wrong

They all ended up sore from being hexed like crazy

some of them had to go to the infirmary

And with detention

Cleaning up the bathrooms no magic

and taking care of the magical creatures

especially their ahem excrement

And even the teachers couldn’t stop laughing and didn’t punish Cheol for the usage of his prefect powers

But that’s just a rumor

Probably

you don't mess with Seungcheol

Obviously his best class is charms and defense against the dark arts

He wants to be an auror when he graduates from hogwarts

And he probably will be too

everyone can see it

since he protects younger students from being bullied

and he's really good at hexing people

He’s also sort of the unofficial dad / leader of his friend group

you know the one everyone knows

Which is really entertaining

bc have you seen Cheol trying to keep those 12 boys in check?

It’s hilarious tbh

all the kids screaming and joking and messing around

and Seungcheol just shaking his head and trying to calm all of them down at one time

But he does a pretty decent job

When food isn’t flying through the air and stuff isn't exploding

Can be heard yelling across the dining room by all four houses

“If you throw the shepard’s pie one more time Seungkwan….”

“Soonyoung! Stop! Hexing! The! Peas! To! Dance!”

“Minghao stop pulling on Jun’s robes, NO ONE NEEDS THIS AT 7AM IN THE MORNING”

Joshua and Jeonghan just casually sipping their pumpkin juice

Like yea we’re prefects too and should probably help

But Seungcheol’s got this

But no haha

Those three fifth years baby their friends so much

always nagging to do their hw and eat and take care of themselves

It’s hella endearing

because you'd think they were actually all brothers or a family

The way they talk together, you’d really think those three are actually parenting ten children together

“I just helped Chan finish his potions paper, I'm exhausted what a day.”

“Don’t you mean Chan helped you with your potions paper Jeonghan?”

“SHHHHH Shua!!!”

“I just put Vernon back in his dormitory for like the fifth time, he and Seungkwan were planning something”

“Seungcheol, Seungkwan is back in his bed in the hufflepuff dormitory now too don’t worry”

“Last thing we need is another exploding pumpkins accident”

“Jeonghan, we said we’d never talk about that incident ever again.”

Seungcheol is always scheming game plans for quidditch in some empty classroom

drawing diagrams of the field on chalkboards and discussing stuff with the others

Or doing hw in the library with Jeonghan napping next to him and Joshua sitting on his other side discussing classwork or the upcoming quidditch game

And although Josh is on an opposing team

Tbh they have so much fun playing around and challenging each other

even when they play against each other

they've been seen to high five each other when the opposite team scores

and throw combined victory parties

just because they're those kind of friends

supportive to the end

it's not all about winning but having fun playing the game

though winner gets bragging rights and then it's a full-on roast session between their teams lol

These three friends man

So surprised when they were all selected to be prefects

Like who’s genius idea was it to put all of us together

But tbh they work really well together

Because they’re caring parents lololol

using their prefect powers to keep all the younger kids in check

it's tiring but worth it in their opinion

Seungcheol doesn’t really get that much sleep sometimes

Always trying to keep up with schoolwork and quidditch practice and prefect business

But he works his hardest

And Josh offers to help him too

Even though Joshua has even more crap to do than Seungcheol

The 95 line are always seen staying up pretty late to do stuff together in the library

And while the younger kids in their frien group go out and about on weekends

The three of them study

When Jeonghan isn’t napping that is

and Josh isn't off doing frog chorus or tutoring other kids with the help of a time-turner

And tbh Seungcheol should get more sleep

or at least

that was your initial thought when he caught you out past curfew one night

“Y/n?”

You were a fifth year gryffindor too

And you had all your classes with him

But imagine your surprise when you found out he knew your name

Crazy really

Again everyone in school knows the 13 boys in that friend group

And honestly who wouldn’t notice 13 guys who happened to be the best of friends and also really good-looking

But them knowing your name? Surprise indeed

But you had fallen asleep doing your transfiguration paper in an empty classroom

you had been planning on going back before curfew but

It really hadn’t been your evening

You had dropped your charms paper in the toilet

And you had fallen asleep in countless classes

Much to the annoyance of your friends when you asked them for notes

And you had skipped dinner to study for the history of magic exam

and Seungcheol was known as one of the prefects that doled out detention bc he was supposed to

bc he didn't want to break the rules

and you knew this

yet

As crappy as you felt

One look at Seungcheol and you could see the dark circles under his eyes

He was probably just as exhausted as you were

And you felt kinda bad because you relate to the struggle

But at the same time you don’t want detention

“Seungcheol! Heeeeeyyyy uhhhh! So I know I’m out past curfew, but I was doing my transfiguration paper and I didn’t understand anything and I was ready to have a mental breakdown and sooooo…”

You closed your eyes slightly anticipating the huge detention Seungcheol was about to serve up when

“If you need help, I'll see if I can help you.”

And you opened your eyes to see a smiley Seungcheol

And honestly it was as if the moonlight hit the spot where he was standing just right bc damn was he cute //COUGH COUGH// I MEANT HURRAY FOR SAVING YOUR TRANSFIGURATION GRADE

you thought it'd be detention for sure, and you didn't have the time for detention

but he sat on the desk next to you and proofread your paper

“It sounds right except you could elaborate more on the proper wand techniques for this spell which will help you reach the page length requirement

And at some point he pulled out a paper he still had to finish for history of magic

and you both kind of just naturally fell into doing your work together

And you both started quizzing each other

passing notes and books back and forth easily

And the scratching of quills on paper sounded throughout the classroom

It was productive and a lot of trying to get everything done but peaceful

The both of you just getting work done

“You’re really going to let me off without detention?” you asked him again pushing it a bit

“I’ll let you go this one time.” he chuckled not looking up from his paper

“That’s a relief, I’ll work in the common room from now on promise.”

“I’ll hold you to it y/n.”

And you both could have returned to the common room then

and you probably would have

but the two of you were just so tired

and had not been sleeping well because of upcoming exams

of course you should have returned to the dormitory when Seungcheol found you

But uhhh

That’s not exactly what happened

You fell asleep

The both of you did

Next to each other

Heads on the desk

really close, inches apart really

Arms grazing each others and the shuffling of the papers as your heads laid on top of the books

And when you woke up……

Seungcheol was still sleeping next to you

You might or might not have jumped fifty feet in the air while biting your lips to stop screaming

As you gathered your stuff and looked at the time

Breakfast

you couldn't be late!!!! and neither could a prefect

but you felt weird

do you wake him up?!?!?!

“Seungcheol!!! Get up classes start soon!!!!!”

And the rest of that day was hella awkward

With Seungcheol and you catching each other’s eyes every three minutes or so

And blushing

And looking away immediately

him sort of having his eyes widen in a really cute way

With Jeonghan and Joshua eyeing the two of you suspiciously

and you just turning away and talking to a friend

or inserting yourself into a convo to avoid staring at Seungcheol

and banging your head on the table when his sleeping face came up in your thoughts

get a grip you yell at yourself

And from that little

Ahem "study session"

Fate made it really easy for yours and Seungcheol’s paths to cross

You’d be sitting with a friend from ravenclaw and Wonwoo shows up out of nowhere with Seungcheol and Jun behind him

And before you know what you’re doing, you’re running down the hall and out the door to avoid him

EVEN THOUGH YOU’RE SCREAMING IN YOUR HEAD NOTHING HAPPENED SO WHY AM I AVOIDING HIM

And it’s not like he cared right?

or you'd be sitting outside doing hw

and he'd walk past with a couple of his friends

and you'd hide your face behind a book to avoid staring at him

and then you wouldn't see the little smile he had on his face as he looked back at you hiding

and the small chuckle he'd have

"What's funny hyung?"

"Nothing just,,, thought I saw someone"

or he'd sit by you in the library

and you'd have to control the urge to get up and just run away

and he'd just smile and stare dead ahead not meeting your eyes

and the both of you would wave to each other and then continue studying

Well anyway

You go up to the astronomy tower one evening

Because you needed a break from the cramped common room where everyone was studying for end of december exams

and low key trying to avoid Seungcheol too

it was weird

you couldn't help staring at him

the way his hair would lightly brush across his forehead

and the way he'd smile at you

GOSH DARN IT FOCUS Y/N

And you sat at the edge of the balcony and just laid your forehead against the cold railing

And took a deep breath

Exams were coming up

And you weren’t ready

But for now you wanted to forget the stress and just stare out at the sky

the sky was beautiful

the glow of the sunlight slowly giving way to the stars' glowing

And as you were slowly drifting into sleep

You hear a quiet voice

Someone was singing

And you peeped open an eye right in time

to see Seungcheol walking up the stairs

So naturally you do the one thing that all your years of being socially competent has taught you

And hid behind a telescope

Because reasons

And Seungcehol walked past you still quietly singing and sat down with a book and his paper

He looked tired

But he worked on his homework

And you sat admiring his voice

it was so nice and soothing

But uhhh you can’t just sit there forever right?

So you quietly clear your throat

Which makes Seungcheol jump like five feet in the air and instinctively yell

“PROFESSOR I SWEAR I ONLY CAME HERE TO AVOID WHATEVER IT IS JIHOON IS PLOTTING TO DO TO MINGYU RIGHT NOW.”

When he notices it’s just you and he sighs in relief

“Hey y/n”

And you awkwardly stand there like what

But he looks really tired

Like this is not ok

And you watch as he sort of falls

And you catch his head right as he falls asleep in your arms

DON'T PANIC

You sort of half drag him down the tower to the infirmary

“I HAVE A PERSON HERE”

And the nurse just stares at you like fam I don't endorse killing people

But she helps Serungcheol into a bed and tells you he’s just tired and needs sleep

But you’re hella worried and you find Joshua and Jeonghan

And drag them to the infirmary

And you kind of just motion like WHAT DO I DO

And they just shake their heads

“He does this once every year around exam time, he's just tired, he’ll be ok”

Them trying to reassure you even though of course they’re worried too

but they also have been plotting things

But you stay by his bed with Joshua and Jeonghan just staring at you before leaving to get Seungcheol's pajamas and stuff for him to stay overnight in the infirmary

And you fall asleep again

Next to Seungcheol

And you don’t wake up until you hear him say

“Here we are sleeping together again”

And you look up to see him smiling and looking well-rested and HEYO NO DARK CIRCLES

“CHOI SEUNGCHEOL I WAS WORRIED OUT OF MY MIND!” you scream

ligtly smacking his arm bc he worried you

But you smile bc gosh darn it he’s ok!!!!

And as you’re about to scold him again

He hugs you

Without any warning

And you freeze up blushing

Until you just sort of hug him back

and it's just you in his arms for a few seconds

“Thanks for taking me to the infirmary.” he laughs

“UH yea no problem, you would have done the same for me, bud.”

Did you just call Seungcheol bud

What

Was

Wrong

With

You

He laughed and let go

“You’re cute y/n.”

You looked up in surprise at his comment

“Hmmm?”

Seungcheol blushed and scratched the back of his head

“I dunno you just are.”

“Super specific thanks, Cheol.” you giggle

“Heh, idk just you sleeping in classes and still trying to work your butt off for exams, it’s cute.” he smiled at you

Your heart raced a bit faster

“You’re cute too.”

LMAO YOU NEED A SPELL TO STOP YOURSELF FROM SAYING EMBARRASSING THINGS

But Seungcheol just gave you a wide grin

“Do you wanna get a butterbeer or something?” he laughed blushing

“We don’t have time… but I’d love to get a pumpkin juice or something and study for that charms exam if you want to hang out…” you said blushing right back

“Sounds perfect.”

And you both talked together more and hung out a lot more too

And as you got to know him more

And as he got to know you more

The both of you started liking each other more

It was really cute and innocent and just everything

A lot of light flirting

A wink or blowing kisses lol

But even Joshua was low key impatient

“Just ask her to be your gf if you guys are a thing”

“Shua what the heck”

Jeonghan butting in

“JUST TELL HER TO BE YOUR LADY SO I CAN STOP CLAWING MY EYES OUT EVERY TIME YOU WAVE AT HER”

“DIDN’T I TECHNICALLY ALREADY ASK HER OUT?”

“NO CHEOL NOT EXACTLY.”

And so they pushed him to get you flowers

And then it was official official

No more of this flirty and playful nonsense

Instead it was full on holding hands

And sometimes he’d give you a piggy-back ride across the school grounds

Just cuz

everyone is like finally our dad has someone

even if you aren't ready to mom twelve other kids LOL

Jeonghan low key trying to sit between you and Seungcheol just so he can tease him

and Joshua just dying at the cuteness of you two

WHICH IS DESERVED BC HIM AND HIS GF ARE TOO DAMN CUTE TOO

and the two of you always are studying together

or eating meals together

or sitting together during classes

those prefect powers sometimes has perks

all the kids begging you to convince Seungcheol to turn the other way and not give them detention

but he doesn't budge an inch

"I could still give you detention for being out past curfew that night a long time ago, are you really asking me to lift the punishment of others?"

"AHh that's not fair!"

"It's not fair they're tring to use my girlfriend against me."

"Got me there, Cheol"

and just everyone thinks the two of you act like an old married couple

bickering together

but also eating the same meals

And when the two of you would fall asleep on the couch together in the common room after a late night study

No one could ever say anything

Bc too cute

Plus it wouldn't be the first time the two of you fell asleep together

The Seventeen Hogwarts AU Series:

MASTERLIST

677 notes · View notes

sky-girls · 7 years ago

Note

lutteo prompt: The skin is a map to your soulmate. Whatever you do to your skin appears into your soulmates skin. (Matteo discovers Luna is his soulmate and he is unsure if he should tell her or not.)

This is a mess and I apologize in advance for it. That being said I hope you still like it.

Matteo pouts, there’s another one, another drawing appearing on his arms, he doesn’t like those drawing, and he doesn’t like the flowers and the hearts, he doesn’t like how they appear randomly in places he doesn’t want ugly messy drawings and he doesn’t like this girl, ‘cause of course it’s a girl they are using pink, he hates pink. He hates soulmates, he hates not having control of things, he hates that there’s some random person out there that can write into his skin. And they can’t even write, they try, messy hi’s have appeared on his hand many times, but he always needs to time to figure out what it says. He never answers, why would he, he doesn’t like them, he never will.

He’s looking at her, he can’t not look at her, her presence pulls him,she’s magnetic hypnotizing, he didn’t know it was possible to like someone so much, he didn’t know it was possible for him to like someone like this but Luna just turned his world upside down completely, every aspect of it. And he has zero problems with it, he gets Luna Valente on his life what else can he ask for.

He looks down at the ink splashes on his hands, these dots and stains that are not his fault but live permanently in his hands, his soulmate hasn’t tried to talk to him in a very long time and he’s grateful he doesn’t want Luna to think anything of it. Even if she probably doesn’t care much it could be dangerous, it could get ridiculous ideas on her head, he only needs her to know how much he cares about her nothing more. And he hasn’t even gotten to this yet.

She looks up and their eyes meet, just like every time a pleasant, warm feeling spreads over his chest as the corners of his lips lift up without him being able to control it, he doesn’t care though, he gives her his best grin and she smiles back, bright and beautiful, making his heart speed up in ways that make him happy and scared at the same time. Matteo winks at Luna and she looks down with a blush and a soft smile he always feels proud bringing to light. Even when Simón comes and sits in front of her the blush stays and when he’s trying to focus on his homework he catches her looking at him out of the corner of his eye. A new mark appears on the palm of his hand, uneven and messy like everything else, he ignores it. Not long ago every new line, every new word, every new doodle would make something crawl under his skin, make a heavy feeling settle on his limbs and on his chest making it hard to breath, hard to think, now he couldn’t care less, he doesn’t care about his soulmate anymore, about what he’s supposed to do or be with her. He has Luna, he wants Luna, this is his choice, his decision and the stupid universe can’t do anything about it.

Sometimes random things show up in more than just his arms and hands, sometimes he wakes to find himself with stains on his thighs, on his lips, on his cheeks. Sometime he wakes up to reminders too, small things, she writes about her homework, to not forget work, or to tidy up her room, she writes once about her father’s birthday and how she needs to get a gift for her best friend. Until just few months he used to wake up with small little messages,telling him to have a great day, a great christmas, to enjoy the sun if there was any and every time he would roll his eyes as Ámbar scrunched up her nose and Gastón insisted that it was sweet. He never answered of course he never answered, his skin kept as a blank canvas, nothing ever tainting it.

These things are gone now, he is almost happy about that.

Almost because for all he can gather she is actually a sweet girl, kind and open and always willing to try to talk with him. It’s almost sad that such a nice person ended up with him as a soulmate, someone who will hate her just for the principle of it. It’s nothing against her, really. He just hates soulmates, all his life has been planned out and thought of extensively by people that are not him, he doesn’t need the universe adding to this shit.

He hopes that this sudden silence means she gave up. Or maybe that she found someone else, someone that makes her heart race, makes her smile without being able to help her, someone that makes her feel at peace, that makes her feel like everything is okay. Just like he found Luna. He hopes both of them get to make their decisions, choose who they want to be with, fight for it. He hopes they get to be happy, because a part of him still wants her to be happy.

Today two notes appear again. On the palm of his left hand.

“Ask Nina for the hw”

“Clean my skates”

He makes a mental not of them, like he usually does with these things, not really paying attention but not caring that much either. It’s interesting that this girl has a friend named Nina, surely a coincidence, it still stays on the back of his mind, nagging at him for some reason.

It’s not actually important though and his phone buzzes, showing Luna’s nickname on the screen, she is asking about physics, then another texts comes asking if he will go to the roller tomorrow, then another one asking if he can help her then, then another one saying that could skate afterwards. His grin grows bigger each time a notification lights up his screen, he waits a few seconds to see if she is done and when she doesn’t text anymore he says that he would be happy to do all of this. She sends a thanks and lots of hearts, she is left smiling like a fool at his phone for almost 10 minutes. He doesn’t even try to stop himself.

When he sees it he almost drops her.

They are skating, trying new tricks and as always he is enjoying it, enjoying having her close, having her small, warm body pressed against his, enjoying her laughter, such a sweet, carefree sound. He is enjoying getting to spend time with her at her happiest and then he sees the formula written in the inside of his wrist.

He doesn’t fall, no, because he is the king of the rink and such things could never happen to him, he stumbles, and his arms go tighter arounds Luna’s body, pulling her closer by her waist to stop her from hitting the floor because of him. She giggles a soft, breathless sound and her eyes search for his, he must looked rattled because she frowns in worry.

“Hey, are you okay?” She asks softly but he can’t answer, Luna’s messy handwritten on his skin is still burned in his eyes, he can’t forget it, he can’t focus on anything else. “Or is the king of the rink so not used to failing that his brain broke the one time he did?”

Her attempted at joking brings him back, some sort of auto pilot takes over his body, one that it’s only goal is to not worry Luna to take that frown away from her face.

“Of course not, delivery girl.”He feels his lips form a smirk. “I just had one small moment of surprise and I can’t say that I care much about the outcome.”

She looks at him confused and when he raises an eyebrow she finally realises how close they are, she blushes softly, prettily, before she starts stuttering and pulls away from him. He laughs, the sound its hollow to him like he is is far far away, like he is not really hearing his laugh, like someone is inside his body, acting like him but it’s not him at all.

Matteo has only one thought on his mind. Only one thing is clear between the mess that everything has become in the last 5 seconds or less.

Luna Valente could be his soulmate, Luna Valente is probably his soulmate.

How the fuck is he supposed to deal with this?

She skates away calling him and he goes after her, there’s no situation in this whole universe where he wouldn’t go after her.

It feels different now, heavy, it feels like he is doing exactly what he didn’t want for the last 17 years of his life and it weighs on his body.

But damn this is Luna, there’s no way he wouldn’t want Luna. He is head over heels for her, he fell hard and fast and doesn’t even care anymore, so he goes after her and pretends he is not having an internal break down, tries to figure out how to work this out.

He doesn’t look at her wrist, he doesn’t look at his either.

The first thing he decides to do after his mind clears up a little, once he is at home, laying on his bed and staring at the ceiling, is that he should make sure. Maybe he is panicking over nothing, maybe this is just a very weird, very specific coincidence.

Maybe Luna is not his soulmate, maybe she is his decision entirely and completely. Maybe there’s no reason that he cares so much about her besides the fact that she is Luna.

He needs to make sure.

The thing is that he has never actually seen Luna’s handwriting, he has seen plenty of her numbers, plenty of her doodles, but for some weird reason, he has never seen her write anything that’s not her name. He has helped her with math, physics, walked her through countless exercises but he has never sat next to her and see her write.

He has never actually seen her notes either, just small colorful flashes of messy text and margin annotations and way too many highlighters. So now when he wonder is Luna makes the g longer than usual, or if he curls the s the same way his soulmate does he has no point of comparison. He tries to work with what he remembers, how her six and her zero often confuse with each other because he always writes them to quickly, with the way her hearts are always misshaped and uneven or with the way her tiny little flowers always look more like blobs made of weirdly shaped circles than actual flower.

And his heart stops every time he realises he had seen all of those thing son his skin before yet he never realised. He can’t believe he never realised.

Still he needs to make sure, this is not really conclusive, maybe he is just seeing what he wants to see, because he would be lying if he said that a part of him is not jumping with excitement to the idea of Luna being made just for him, of him made just for her. Maybe his brain is avoiding to see anything he doesn’t want to see because he would be lying if he said that a part of him is not terrified at the idea of Luna being his soulmate, of Luna being the person the universe has picked for him.

He needs more evidence, something that he can use to reach an unbiased, objective conclusion if that’s possible. He finds excuses to look at her notebooks pretty quick, offering her help with history, biology. Ane every time he feels like he is lying to her. Like he should just go ahead and ask her to show him, to ask her to please write something on her skin and see if it appears in hers, but he doesn’t dare, the words get caught on his throat so he is left staring at the way she writes, tries to compare it to the many times random messages have appeared on his skin, every time, he is more sure. Luna is his soulmate.

He just needs one more thing to be sure and that might be very difficult.

In a word where whatever you out on your skin appears somewhere else, in someone else, people don't tend to let others write on their skins,it looks bad, letting someone who is not your soulmate mark you in any way, especially when the person you are meant to be with will know it.

No one goes around doodling or writing on someone else’s skin, even if you are in a relationship, even if you and your soulmate are platonic,there’s this quiet agreement in all parts of the world: Your skin is for you and your soulmate only.

But he needs Luna to let him write something on her skin, he needs her to give him permission and he needs to see if his own handwriting appears on his skin. This is the only way to be completely sure.

He doesn’t really know how to do it wastes days on figuring out the perfect pan, days on looking for the perfect chance, he could just go ahead and doodle something on her skin quickly when she is distracted but this feels oddly intimate and he doesn’t dare.

Opportunity comes when they are studying one day, sitting across each other in table at the Jam&Roller, she is trying to learn a formula but doesn’t seem to manage so he takes her left hand softly, carefully hiding the place it should appear on his own skin.

“Can I?” He asks softly, moving the pen on his right hand so she can know what he means. She looks at him confused for a few seconds before blushing softly.

He almost feels like he is doing something forbidden, especially since Luna doesn’t know what he knows but after a few seconds she nods and he carefully writes the technique he used to learn this on inside of her palm, quickly he takes his hand away, hiding it and Luna doesn’t seem to notice too caught staring at his handwriting on his skin.

For the fraction of a second he stupidly worries she might recognize it but of course that’s impossible, in the last seventeen years he has made sure that it would never happen.

He clears his throat and they go back to studying.

Matteo steals a glance at his own hand, he can see the dark, black lines out of the corner of his eyes, he pretends like he doesn’t for his own sanity.

He doesn’t know what to do. Luna is his soulmate. The girl he is completely and utterly in love with is his soulmate, the same girl he has hated since he has memory.

He doesn’t really know what to make of that, how to make her the same person in his mind, how to untangle these feelings inside of him.

He always hated the universe for assigning him someone he is supposed to spend the rest of his life with but all that it took was for this person to appear on his life and he couldn’t stop thinking about her for a second.

Maybe he has been wrong all of his life about this. Maybe it’s not something that terrible. Maybe if he gets Luna he can live with this.

But does he get Luna? What will she think of this once she knows? Will she ever know? Will he ever have the guts to tell her? Will he ever be able to explain that the fact that they met so many months ago in cancun wasn’t a coincidence? That all of this was meant to happen?

Will she believe it? Will she want it?

What if he is not who she expected?

What if she only wants him as a friend? He thinks he could live with this, as long as he keeps her close, could live through the constant pain of seeing her happy with someone else in a near future as long as she keeps smiling at him in this special way.

Even if he is a selfish person by nature he could be good for her, he could be better for her.

If he ever actually tells her.

Truth be told Matteo is scared, he is so scared of everything that might happen now, everything that will happen if he tells her. He hates being scared, he hates being uncertain.

He is supposed to be confident, sure of himself, has spent all of his life learning how to do this.

He need to tell her, he knows he needs to tell her.

He will tell her.

Making the resolution to do something and actually doing it are very different things. He finds himself trying many times, calling her name completely willing to tell him everything but every time her green eyes meet his he loses all courage he had and the words catch in his throat making it impossible for him to say anything, every time his brain hurries to come up with a excuse and he tells himself that it’s not the right moment just yet, he is starting to wonder if it will ever be.

He knows himself, he knows he will come up with excuse after excuse or come up with a way that Luna can find out without him telling her. He doesn’t want this. He wants to do things properly. He wants to tell her himself, he wants to hope this is the start of something new for them, the start of a shift of their relationship. He wants to start this new part of their lives properly and lies and deceit is not the way to do it.

He should tell her.

He doesn’t want to tell her, really. But he wants her in his life.

He needs to tell her.

He needs to be brave enough, for her, for them, if there will ever be a them he needs to be brave enough.

And Matteo feels like today is the day it will finally happen.

He is set on doing it, he is completely done with making excuses, with running away from this. Whatever happens happens, he has no control over her emotion, no control over how she will react and he likes it this way, he likes that he can’t never quite completely figure her out yet understands her completely in some way, he likes that she makes her choices with her heart not with her brain. He loves her. He will tell her that she is is his soulmate. That he is her soulmate and just hope for the best.

He catches her in school, purposefully bumping against her, making it look like an accident like he always does. When he is about to fall he stabilizes, keeps her close as he asks her if she can meet him in the park close to the blake after school, Luna seems confused by the request but accepts. He is a fucking mess the rest of the school day.

When the bells rings he flees out of the classroom not really wanting to risk running into Luna before the arranged time, he spent all morning rehearsing his speech but he already feels the word fading, leaving place for the anxiety to fill his brain.

He is about to take his phone and text Luna that it’s not important any more when she appears. She is walking slowly with a lazy half smile on her face that grows as soon as she sees him.

“Hi, chico fresa.” She exclaims happily. “How are you?”

“I’m your soulmate.” He just...He just spews it, he has no idea how it happens or why it happens but his mouth worked without any input of his brain to say the words. She frowns confused and takes a step away.

This is not the carefully planned, written and rewritten speech he had meant to say.He fucked up.

She is not saying anything, just looking at him in shock and confusion so he does the best next thing, he takes his back and quickly looks for a pencil on it before throwing it to the floor. He quickly writes his name on the back of his hand, messy and hurried, Luna is still looking at him confused so he points at her hand. She lifts it slowly, too slowly, or maybe nothing could ever be fast enough for him in this moment.

She gasps when she sees it and then silence falls over them. He doesn’t dare to speak, she is still staring at her hand, her eyes fixed on his name, the name that suddenly appeared just after he wrote it on himself.

Birds and wind and laughter fills the silence, Matteo is growing tired of it but he doesn’t really know what to say.

Luna seems frozen in confusion, maybe in horror, maybe he is not what she expected, maybe it was a mistake to tell her.

“I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have told you.”Again the words bubble out of his lips without him being able to control them. “I’m going now, I’m sorry.”

“No!” She stops him loud enough that some people turn to look at them but he doesn’t care, he stays in his place not really looking at her. He doesn’t remember when was the last time he didn’t dare to look at someone in the eyes and now this tiny girl has him turned into a ball of nerves and he can’t handle it at all. “I..”

Her words fade and he takes a deep breath looking at her face.

“I’m happy you told me.” She says slowly, almost like she is thinking every word, assessing every possible reaction for it. It’s a weird, worrying thing coming from Luna. “I just need to process it.”

“Okay.” He nods, there’s nothing else he can say, nothing else he can think of saying and right as he is about to say he will leave again, she speaks again.

“I mean this is such a big thing and you just went ahead and said” She starts in this rambly tone of her and he immediately feels like he can breath easier. “Not that you shouldn’t have told me or anything but right now I’m very confused and have many questions but I don’t really know how to make them or if I should and honestly I’m just very confused, I know I already said that but it’s true, I didn’t expect it and it’s not like it’s a bad thing, I’m actually very happy, this is is just a little bit overwhelming and-”

“Hey.” He says softly, resting his hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, take a deep breath, there’s no hurry here, you can take all the time you want to process or whatever.”

“Are you sure?” She asks blinking slowly, for some reason now he is completely calm. He finally said it and she is understandably rattled by it but she said she is happy. She said she is very happy about him being her soulmate. She can take all the time she needs to think about this as long as this feeling remains.

“Don’t worry.” He says. “Take all the time you need, I will be here waiting for you.”

She bites her lower lip looking like she wants to say something but she just looks down as a soft blush fills her cheeks.

He lets himself kiss her forehead and she doesn’t stop him.

“I think I should be going.” He tells her and she nods but she tangles their free hands together keeping him there.

“One thing first.” Luna says.

And just like that she kisses him, she kisses him slow and sweet and deep, she kisses him making every inch of his skin feel like it’s electrified, like he could combust in any second. His brain can’t comprehend the intensity of this feeling, so he pulls her closer, it doesn’t help at all but now there’s no part of his brain trying to understand it. He can only focus on Luna, all he cares about are his lips moving against his, her small hand playing with the hair of his nape.

She pulls away and he immediately feels like he has lost all of oxygen but he stops himself from following her lips.

“I still…”She clears her throat, her lips are a little swollen and her cheeks are red, she looks beautiful. “I still need to process this but I’ve always lowkey wanted to do this.”

He nods there’s nothing else he can do, once she turns around he calls her name.

“See you tomorrow?” He asks and she smiles softly at him, in this way that always makes him feel like he could melt in any second.

“Of course.” She nods, eyes impossibly sweet.

“I can’t wait.” He says and she giggles turning around with a wave.

Matteo watches her leave, walk away from him but even then he has this feeling that everything will turn out well for them in the end. Perfect even.

#soy luna #lutteo #luna valente #matteo balsano #mine #my writing #this is such a mess really I am very sorry about that #but I think it's still mostly decent #Anon

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fourteen--steps · 7 years ago

Photo

Thank you so much @headbuttingunicorn :D :D :D

I’m not 100% sure where my little guys originally came from but odds are good it was a feeder tank. The LFS if I’m being optimistic but probably like Petsmart. I rescued them from a bowl after about a week and a half dying in the lobby of my apartment building, they were definitely pretty sorry looking then :/

For the last year and a half or so the three survivors lived in this 50 g

Which technically could have sustained them for most of their lives (I think even by bare minimum standards a 65 would probably be necessary eventually for three fish), but it has weird dimensions (15x36x20″) and honestly?? They were just outgrowing it. They’re over 6 inches now at just a little over two years old. But I’ll talk about their care in here anyway because that’s where they’ve done most of their growing and living the majority of their life.

LOTS of filtration. I've had two Aquaclear 70s on this tank the whole time it’s been up, and for the last 4 months or so, a SunSun HW-304B canister as well. The AC’s are 300 gph (gallons per hour) each, and the SunSun is hOLY SHIT 525 gph oh my god how have I not noticed that.

(Weird story with that one??? I thought I ordered the 265 gph model, found I’d accidentally ordered the 370 gph model, and when the box arrived they had sent me this one which is oh my gooooodddddd 525 wat)

So I had around 600 (and then 1100 whooopps that’s maybe a little too much) total turnover per hour, or about 12x the volume of the tank. With goldfish I always recommend at least 10x, minimum. It really makes such a difference. Even if your water tests come up clear on water change day, the quicker you’re getting the ammonia and nitrite processed out of the water, the less stress the fish’s systems are under in the long run.

They're not expensive either! The Aquaclears are about $45 each online, and the canister is similar. Although sunsun being an Asian company their prices fluctuate a bit.

I have a shit ton of pothos on my tank too, for nitrate munching purposes since my water comes out of the tap already at 10-20 ppm. I.... think it’s going to eat me someday o_O this is it with like four feet of trimming at least.

And even with all that, water changes! I’ll admit I wasn’t always solid on my w/c schedule, my health is iffy at best and running on a 10 day schedule happened fairly often, although I DO NOT recommend that. To make up for it, I almost always do 60-90% changes. Contrary to popular belief, large water changes are not harmful to your fish or your cycle as long as you match the pH and temperature of the fresh water going in. I refill in chunks over the course of an hour or so to avoid shocking them, they pout during the process but as soon as I restart the filters they’re back to normal.

I recently, and I mean recently, as in last week, upgraded to a FRICKIN’ ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY GALLON TANK??? OMFUCKINGFUCK LOOK

I LOVE IT SO MUCH AND SO DO THEY :D

Holy shit I’ve been fighting with the manufacturers over this thing for wEEKS IT’S FINALLY HERE. 72″x24″x20″ which is such a good shape for goldfish, much better than the standard 150 which is taller and thinner. Ahhh they’re so happy they just go nyoooooom nyooom from one end to the other, and I can add more friends!! Right now I have Remy, Lilac, Ludi, and little Ametrine in there. Plus Sumi in quarantine, but she’s really sick all of a sudden which is why this post took longer than I meant it too, sorry :( I don’t know what happened she just dropsied out of nowhere the other night. She was due to join the others in a week or two, but if she pulls through she’s getting an extended QT now to be sure she’s really healthy

And a skinny lil blind dude I picked up not long ago who may or may not live by himself depending on if I think he can hold his own with the others or not? He’s a spunky cutie but Very Tiny.

Anyway the tank is kind of a mess cause I just chucked every piece of spare decor I have in there to give them something to do, but I have some nice driftwood and just bought a ton of anubias and I’m gonna try actual planted this time!!!

Food food yum yum :) Variety is the spice of life. This pic is from a while ago, I’ve added more to this now probably

I use the Omega One and Thera A as daily staples, rotated with smatterings of the other pellets, as well as Repashy Soilent Green and some of my own homemade gel foods. I really wanna try Northfin pellets too, or AAP Paradigm when I get around to it. I do veggies a few times a week, I’ll buy a bunch of stuff fresh and then blanch and freeze it in baggies to feed over the next couple months. Zucchini, peas, bok choy, cauliflower, kale, spinach, collard greens, broccoli, watercress, etc etc. I usually have four or five at any given time. The frozen proteins I do once every week or two. I’m super allergic to bloodworms so those are a special treat I only feed with gloves :P but they get mysis or brine shrimp usually.

It looks intimidating, but it’s not that difficult. I acquired this stuff bit by bit over the course of a year so you don’t have to go spend a ton of money at once. If I ever just happen to see something that looks fairly good quality for an okay price I’ll grab a small container to try out. Some I end up liking, some I don’t, but even the mediocre stuff I sometimes use as a junk treat, or as snail food. Like I wouldn’t use any of the foods here besides the Repashy, Omega One, Northfin, or NLS as staples. The Aqueon is okay-ish if you have no other option, but the Cobalt is too high in protein for daily feeding, and Hikari has gone so downhill in the last few years. I honestly wouldn’t even buy it, I just feel obligated to use up the bag I already have. Pick maybe two of those staple foods to keep on hand, rotate in veggies a few times a week, some frozen protein here and there and you’re set, don’t absolutely need anything else. Of course more is always better, if you can.

And yes, sigh, dumb as bricks aren’t they? Picky too sometimes. Try a bunch of different vegetables, leafy greens are a good place to start, or zucchini. Boil them soft (you can just chuck it in a glass of conditioned water in the microwave for 2-5 minutes) and cut it into little bite sized pieces. If they don’t go for it right away, keep trying for a couple of days in a row. Eventually they’ll get hungry and warm up to it. Keep your plec occupied with something of his own to eat and feed the goldies at the other end of the tank to try and get them all a bit of something green to eat.

Veggies high in carotenes are really good for enhancing color. So besides your obvious ones like carrot and sweet potato, that’s also going to be your dark leafy greens! If you can get your lil guys onto stuff like collard, spinach, chard, etc, that’ll definitely make a difference in their coloration :)

Gel foods are also a really good option for picky eaters. I’ve never heard of a goldfish that doesn’t like gel, seriously, they adore that shit. You can get premade mixes like Repashy, which you just mix up with some hot water and set in the fridge or freezer. Or you can make your own! Here’s some recipe ideas, or just google “goldfish gel food,” you can scale them waaaaay down if you want. I make pretty small batches that last a long time. And feel free to swap out ingredients too and experiment, or make up your own completely. Just stick to lean, low mercury seafood, and produce without too much sugar and you can mix and match as you please. The one in my freezer right now is mostly watercress and bok choy, a couple spoonfuls of NLS, some cloves of fresh garlic, spirulina, a few baby carrots, a bunch of gross string algae I scooped out of the snail tank, and a dash of paprika. The kids adore it.

Uhhhh let’s see, anything else? I treat with prazi once a year or so, preventative maintenance, like deworming your dog. Besides that I keep medicating to a minimum unless it’s really dire. Minor scrapes and bumps I leave be. Have pretty hard high pH water, usually around 8-8.2. No heater or chiller but the water temp stays low-mid 70s most of the time

I dunno, just plenty of love and attention! I redecorate their tank and make them little toys (try some sturdy nontoxic plastic beads threaded on fishing line, especially if you can find somewhere to wedge food in, enjoy the ensuing adorable) talk to them, draw on the glass...

I love them!!! So much!!!! I owe them my life many times over, that’s not an exaggeration at all. Seeing them in their new tank has really reminded me of how far they’ve come and how much they mean to me. I’m not always a perfect owner and there are times I fall down on their care, but they’re still fat and happy and I’m always trying to do better

#fishblr #goldfish #goldfish care #My Children yes good #fishies

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thesportssoundoff · 6 years ago

Text

“I suppose not every show is going to be UFC 231, right?” UFC Fight Night In Canada Preview

Joey

April 28th, 2019

The UFC returns to Canada for its standard run of 3-4 shows in the market and our first show is....something. In many ways I actually think it looks like your standard non-PPV Canada card; there's no Canadian worthy of headlining so you roll out a few relevant names at the top of the bill, try to protect a few Canadian fighters you like on the undercard and then roll through the roster, see who has the flag next to their name and then give them a guy and see what happens. The main card is fine enough; a great main event, a great featherweight fight, a heavyweight fight, arguably the "best" Canadian they have in Elias Thorodoru and then two intriguing Canadian born prospects trying to make good at home vs two proven UFC fighters. The undercard is a pretty bland mixture of debuting Canadians on short notice vs other Canadians and the occasional prospect vs proven name fight. It's not a great card but ESPN+ seems to have a good idea of how to give us these shows in formats that don't make us mad we watched them from start to finish. I guess what I'm saying is this show isn't good on paper but it'll probably be quick, violent and inoffensive. There are worse ways to spend a Saturday, am I right?

Fights: 12

Debuts: Kyle Prepolec, Cole Smith, Marc-André Barriault, Sergey Spivak

Fight Changes/Injury Cancellations: 4 (Leah Letson OUT, Macy Chiasson IN vs Sarah Moras/Brian Kelleher OUT, Cole Smith IN vs Mitch Gagnon/Alexey Olynek OUT, Sergey Spivak IN vs Walt Harris/Siyar Bahadurzada OUT, Kyle Prepolec IN vs Nordine Taleb)

Headliners (fighters who have either main evented or co-main evented shows in the UFC): 6 (Donald Cerrone, Al Iaquinta, Derek Brunson, Cub Swanson, Macy Chiasson, Mitch Gagnon)

Fighters On Losing Streaks in the UFC: 6 (Elias Theodorou, Sarah Moras, Nordine Taleb, Mitch Gagnon, Cub Swanson, Derek Brunson)

Fighters On Winning Streaks in the UFC: 5 (Brad Katona, Walt Harris, Donald Cerrone, Elias Theodoru, Macy Chiasson)

Main Card Record Since Jan 1st 2017 (in the UFC): 25-19

Al Iaquinta- 2-1 Donald Cerrone- 3-4 Derek Brunson- 2-3 Elias Theodorou- 4-1 Cub Swanson- 1-3 Shane Burgos- 3-1 Brad Katona- 2-0 Merab Dvalishvili- 1-2 Walt Harris- 4-2 Sergey Spivek- 0-0 Andrew Sanchez- 1-2 Marc Andre-Berriault- 0-0

Fights By Weight Class (yearly number here):

Bantamweight- 3 (23) Featherweight- 2(20) Heavyweight- 2 (15) Middleweight- 2 (14) Lightweight- 1 (27) Women’s Bantamweight- 1 (3) Welterweight- 1 (27)

Women’s Strawweight- (11) Light Heavyweight- (16) Women’s Flyweight- (13) Flyweight- (7)

2019’s Records We Keepin’ Track Of:

Debuting Fighters (10-27): Kyle Prepolec, Cole Smith, Marc-André Barriault, Sergey Spivak

Short Notice Fighters (11-13): Sergey Spivak, Macy Chiasson, Cole Smith, Kyle Prepolec

Second Fight (29-6): Juan Adams, Vince Morales, Matt Sayles, Kyle Nelson

Cage Corrosion (Fighters who have not fought within a year of the date of the fight) (10-16): Mitch Gagnon, Aiemann Zahabi

Undefeated Fighters (14-19): Juan Adams, Cole Smith, Macy Chiasson, Sergey Spivak, Brad Katona

Fighters with at least four fights in the UFC with 0 wins over competition still in the organization (6-5): Mitch Gagnon

Weight Class Jumpers (Fighters competing outside of the weight class of their last fight even if they’re returning BACK to their “normal weight class”) (14-8): Kyle Nelson

Twelve Precarious Ponderings

1- Two distinctly different main events in back to back weeks with similar-ish undercurrents at play. Jacare vs Jack Hermansson was a case where one guy was trying to help out the organization, risking it all in the process to be the company guy of sorts. It backfired and now Jacare may retire as one of the greatest fighters to never get a UFC title fight. Donald Cerrone looked to be on the verge of getting a fight ABOVE a title fight; the one on one clash with Conor McGregor that would've/could've created generational wealth for the new dad. It seemed like that was the plan before McGregor decided to get in more trouble and sideswipe Cerrone entirely. As such instead of making sitting out and staying busy while waiting for Conor McGregor, Cerrone is back at it with a fight that he doesn't have to take against Al Iaquinta. Why? Well perhaps he figures the McGregor fight is gone or perhaps he's just the company guy who remains a company guy. Even so you'd assume there were more entertaining names and fights out there for him above Iaquinta. Maybe that's just me overvaluing the risk and undervaluing whatever sort of name/hype Iaquinta has now.

2- Cerrone in the past has struggled with guys like Iaquinta; the sort of guys who can box him up straight down the pike with uppercuts to be mixed it at will. Cerrone has the ability to beat Iaquinta up from distance but if they get into boxing range and if Al is able to keep his punches down the center of Cerrone, I think there's a great chance that he can hurt Donald. I know we're all in love with this new Dad Cerrone mythos we have and how he might be mentally locked in BUT styles exist and history matters. We're talking about years worth of both about how to beat a guy like Cerrone. Iaquinta has more than enough of those to be a realistic threat.

3- Why is Elias Theodorou vs Derek Brunson a co-main event? Over Shane Burgos vs Cub Swanson especially?

4- Cub Swanson is riding a pretty gnarly losing streak right now but let's be fair here; we're talking losses to Frankie Edgar, Brian Ortega and Renato Moicano. It's fair to say that Shane Burgos does not exist in that same vein of those guys as of right now. The last time Cub was tasked with taking on a tremendous yet unproven prospect (Not counting Moicano because I think we all knew he was the goods by that fight); he dispatched Doo Ho Choi in one of the wildest fights in UFC history. These are the sort of fights Swanson more often than not gets up for, the kind of "tests" he finds a way to rise up to the occasion for. At the same time, you get the feeling Cub is almost aware of his own fighting mortality now. He's almost become more and more of a guy who seems to do his fighting outside of the cage with/against the UFC if that makes any sense. He's also the sort of guy who seems to ride between that perilous line of "too durable for his own good" and "simply not durable enough anymore" on a fight to fight basis. Burgos is in a weird space having gotten finished by Calvin Kattar to start 2018 before ending 2018 by finishing Kurt Holobaugh after getting dropped early on in the first round. This feels like a pick 'em primarily because I have no idea which version of each guy I'm getting.

5- At the risk of being a flim flam man, I have to admit I'm turning the corner on Brad Katona. He's fighting in MMA's deepest weight class at a seemingly imploding SBG but he's starting to look more and more like a solid bantamweight. His hands are coming together, he can grapple really well (although I think the more he tries to do this as he goes up the ranks, the less likely it is that'll be the case) and he's one of these guys who fights with great composure. I struggle to grasp whether or not he has one defining trait I'd feel comfortable betting on and I don't know how he'll take to pressure fighters BUT we're going to get a GREAT shot of that come Saturday! Merab Dvalishvili does nothing but come forward, throw with power and force clinches. He'll be outathlete'd by some guys and his love of rock 'em sock 'em robots will lead to some bad decisions and some close fights. This is a good fair test for Katona.

6- I wonder if Cerrone breaks out more BJJ with Iaquinta who can get reckless and has a few sub losses on his resume basically due to how excited he can get in those wild scramble exchanges.

7- Walt Harris went from Oleksiy Olenik in Russia to Olenik in Ottawa to fighting an undefeated HW making his debut on short notice in Ottawa named Sergey Spivak. Rough go of it.

8- The undercard is pretty much carried by a trio of prospect vs proven veteran type fights. Macy Chiasson fighting at 135 lbs still has me VERY nervous but good lord she ran through Gina Mazany in her debut at the weight class. I'm pretty curious to see how she handles a) the short notice call and b) Moras' weird Maia' esque ability to throw fists early on to get people snookered into her grappling exchanges. This might be a bit much too soon. Aiemann Zahabi had a GREAT fight with Ricardo Ramos and then disappeared off the face of the Earth after a spinning back fist loss in the third round. He's back and he draws a solid lower level 135 lb-er in Vince Morales who has losses to Domingo Pilarte and Song Yadong. Lastly you have big and athletic but raw Juan Adams on the prelims drawing Arjan Bhullar in a fight that almost feels like a fight designed to expose/really test Juan Adams. Bhullar can wrestle and smother dudes, creating the kinda boring snoozy fights you regret seeing live and forget immediately after.

9- Marc-Andre Barriault is a really interesting middleweight prospect who has been cutting his teeth at TKO in Montreal. He's been basically beating up on local dudes although he handled former UFC signee Adam Hunter. He gets Andrew Sanchez who is basically a big slow grinder type who has some success when he does decide to let his hands go.

10- Mitch Gagnon has fought seven times in the UFC dating back to 2012. Thiago Santos fought EIGHT times just in 2017 and 2018 alone.

11- It's a shame it won't count on the second fight stats but Matt Sayles' return bout against Kyle Nelson is a really intriguing one. Sayles had a rough go of it vs Sheymon Moraes (harmed in part by some wild eye pokes) but he's a really solid meat and potatoes style fighter who should be able to carve out a nice niche at 145 lbs.

12- Did I mention Elias Theodorou vs Derek Brunson is the co-main?

#MMA #UFC #Canada #Brad Katona #Elias Theodorou #cowboy cerro #Al Iaquinta

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thesportssoundoff · 8 years ago

Text

Fight Night: Rodriguez vs Penn Preview Stuffs

Joey

Jan 9th, 2017

I’m trying something new here. Let’s see how it goes!

The UFC kicks off 2017, likely to be a year of change and transition, with a show in Phoenix that will likely pull a number way higher than it has any right to pull. It's got a live Cowboys game on Fox to act as its lead in which is a MASSIVE drawing stick, especially if it's Packers vs Cowboys. As for the fight night itself? It's kind of not half bad. When compared to previous year opening shows, it's relatively dour. Compare it to 2015's first FS1 show: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFC_Fight_Night:_McGregor_vs._Siver) or 2016's first FS1 show (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFC_Fight_Night:_Dillashaw_vs._Cruz) and it's fair to view it as the least watch worthy of the three. Compare it to 2014's first FS1 show (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFC_Fight_Night:_Rockhold_vs._Philippou) and I think it wins out on main event alone. Whatever the case, be that as it may or not be, the show isn't half bad. It's got some undercard fluff and filler but the main card is pretty solid for a Fight Night plus I can probably point you to three or four fights on the prelims worth getting excited over. Stick with me, we'll make it through this alright.

First a link to the card: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFC_Fight_Night:_Rodr%C3%ADguez_vs._Penn) OR if you prefer an MMA source; (http://mmajunkie.com/events/ufc-fight-night-phoenix).

Now Numbers!

Fights: 12

Debuts: 2 (Devin Powell, Drakkar Klose)

Fight Changes/injury cancellations: 5 (Rivera vs Caraway cancelled via Caraway injury/Damian Grabowski out, Oleksiy Oliynyk in/Erik Koch out, Alex White in/Jordan Rinaldi out, Drakkar Klose in/Jussier Formiga out, John Moraga in)

Headliners (fighters who have either main evented or co-main evented shows in the UFC): 6 (BJ Penn, Yair Rodriguez, Joe Lauzon, Marcin Held, Court McGee and John Moraga)

Fighters On Losing Streaks: 6 (Nina Ansaroff, Jocelyn Jones Lybarger, BJ Penn, Frankie Saenz, John Moraga, Viktor Pesta)

Fighters On Winning Streaks: 4 (Yair Rodriguez, Drakkar Klose, Devin Powell and Sergio Pettis)

Stat Monitor for 2017:

Debuting Fighters- Drakkar Klose, Devin Powell

Short Notice Fighters- Drakkar Klose, Oleksiy Olenik, John Moraga, Alex White

Second Fight- Cyril Asker, Dimitri Smoliakov, Chase Sherman, Augusto Mendes, Joachim Christenson, Bojan Mihajlovic

Twelve Precarious Ponderings!

-First let's begin on somebody who is NOT here. Jimmie Rivera made the decision to turn down a short notice fight with Marlon "Chito" Vera. I've been playfully joking around with a certain Jimmie Rivera fan that he's ducking Chito Vera but obviously that's not the case. What's more likely is that Jimmie Rivera knows where he's at in the division, knows where he stands as a fighter and saw what happened to Luis Smolka where Smolka got upset by an unranked unknown from Latin America. It's a high risk/low reward fight for him and from a ratings and rankings standpoint, it's not his fight to take. Now having said that, allow me to make a different argument.

This show is going to get the Dallas Cowboys game as a lead in. There's no game that's as valuable as a lead in outside of the Super Bowl. This show is going to be advertised non-stop during Cowboys/Packers or Giants. It's huge to be on this card AND Rivera was going to be on the opening fight, quite likely a massive lead in opportunity to be seen in front of a massive audience. I understand the why and the how he decided to pass on a short notice fight but I can almost guarantee in hindsight he's going to regret it. The majority of the audience watching this show isn't going to know that Chito Vera is a mid level bantamweight.

-So speaking of which, let's talk about this main event! This is one of those rare "win-win" main events over the short term. If Yair Rodriguez wins on a massive show, he gets a massive win over a guy who will always be a hall of famer and an ATG. If BJ Penn wins? Short term you get to milk his value for a little while longer plus it'd be a hell of a story. It'd be disaster over the long term though.

-This fight is really important because you'd assume that the future of the UFC relies in its ability to turn guys like Max Holloway and Yair Rodriguez into a star.

-Is this fight a bust if Yair Rodriguez doesn't finish BJ Penn within the first three rounds?

-The first round of Joe Lauzon vs Marcin Held is going to feature some really great grappling but it could get damn ugly in the final two rounds. Lauzon is not a guy who finishes with strikes late (although his striking is galaxies above Held) and Marcin Held tends to turn into a flail and bail leg lock dude after round one.

-Ben Saunders vs Court McGee is a weird fight in so many ways. It's the sort of fight that Court McGee on paper should lose because he has no single path to victory. On the other hand, it's the sort of fight that McGee can somehow steal despite his physical disadvantages while Saunders is the sort of dude who gets so lax from time to time that he could absolutely drop a 29-28 type of decision where Court's ability to stay alive for fifteen minutes earns him something fluky in nature.

-Is it time for Sergio Pettis to officially like shit or get off the pot? Like at this point, he's not the new kid on the block at 125 lbs anymore. When he got signed to the UFC, he was clearly an unfinished but athletic product who was getting on the job training in the toughest league in the world. At this point after so many fights at 125 and 135 lbs and training with a respected gym, there has to be some kind of serious progress beyond just being good enough to squeak by with 29-28 decisions. John Moraga challenged for a title once and while the division has grown, he's not a guy to be taken lightly. Whether he can pull the trigger is something else entirely.

-Is Augusto Mendes still a top prospect at 135 lbs?

-Lookin' For A Fight's 2016 run was rather up and down to say the least. It turned out Cody East which I think we can all agree was a pretty big negative---but also Randy Brown (3-1 on the year), Mickey Gall (3-0 plus big ratings mover) and a potential player at 135 lbs in Matthew Lopez. Its first signee of 2017 is Devin Powell, a Maine native with a so-so record. He draws Drakkar Klose who is a short notice replacement.

-Are we still holding out hope for Walt Harris? Through two runs with the UFC, he's 1-4 with 2 finishes against him. He's 1-2 on this most recent run BUT I think we can all agree that if the judging was better, he'd be 2-1. At this point though is it fair to just say that he is what he is?

-Speaking of HWs with declining chances at an impact, Viktor Pesta continues to be one of "those guys". At 1-3 in the UFC, he's losing time to grab a hold in the division somewhere. Made worse is the fact tha Pesta is one of the younger HWs on the roster at just 26. You'd hate to throw in the towel on a guy but 1-4 with three straight finishes would be it, right?

-This is kind of a sad-ish way to view things but there's a halfway chance that by the end of 2017, nobody from either the Fight Pass or FS1 prelims will still be with the org. On the other hand, here's definitely some fighters with deceptive records who are capable of making me look stupid on that prediction.

Must Wins:

Every HW on this card

There's six HWs on the show and all four are coming off of losses. All but two of them are over 30 (Chase Sherman and Viktor Pesta). This is a division which will likely go through some heavy turmoil and for a lot of these guys, there aren't going to be second chances with a loss.

Yair Rodriguez

Duh. Yair losing to BJ Penn would be catastrophic for him and I suppose the UFC as well. At least over the long term.

Sergio Pettis

The time for his career to get going beyond JUST being the scrappy doo-esque brother of Anthony Pettis is now. By the end of this year, we're going to know whether Sergio Pettis will or won't be a guy to keep an eye on going forward.

Five Underlying Themes:

1- Whether or not Yair Rodriguez, backed with a fat lead in and a soft touch legend opponent, can take the next step in his UFC career.

2- The logjam of nothingness at the bottom of the HW division and the determination to find somebody who can knife through the garbage ranks.

3- Whether Joe Lauzon can add to his bonus bounties.

4- If Sergio Pettis is ever going to figure out the next part of his career.

5- Monitoring any sudden changes to the UFC's production.

Picking (Bonus) Winners

Yair Rodriguez Joe Lauzon Ben Saunders Augusto Mendes John Moraga Viktor Pesta Tony Martin Walt Harris Nina Ansaroff Devin Powell Joachim Christenson Cyril Asker

FOTN: Joe Lauzon vs Marcin Held POTN: Yair Rodriguez, Ben Saunders

#MMA #UFC #Penn #Rodriguez #Fox sports 1

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