#i had this done yesterday but i forgot to post it hence the 2 days when its now 1

[epipeppi]

Over the weekend, I decided to try out the Cloud Data Center stress test that happened on Final Fantasy XIV this week. I made a little comic about the shitpost character I made on there.

As for my experience on the DC itself, It was certainly... an interesting experience and makes me both want to check out and stay the hell away from the NA Data Centers after what I saw in Limsa in Cloudtest 1.

I'm thinking of making some more doodles of my friends and I fecking around on there along with the shit I've seen on Limsa. Maybe I'll even get around to make one of those sideblog yolks for just FF stuff. (Mostly XIV stuff but also for other FF games I'm playing too)

[justanotherlifeff]

can I ask for famous pro hero! bakugo and todoroki coming home from work to a crying s/o in bed after being harassed by some psychotic fan girls? I’m sry if it’s too detailed🥺

Pointing fingers

Bakugou:

(I took the picture from a tumblr post)

"That bitch is dating THE Ground Zero?"

"God, did she ever look at the mirror before getting out? She looks disgusting..."

"Yeah I know right? She doesn’t even have a sense of fashion... Let's not even talk about her looks..."

"For real, what does someone as hot as Ground Zero see in her? He should be with someone of his status, not a stupid sidekick."

"She totally doesn't deserve him."

These words were being played on a repeat in your head as soon as you reached home from Ground Zero agency. You were a sidekick at your boyfriend's agency, infact that's where you met him and the two of you fell in love. Ground Zero was the number 2 hero and even though most people didn't like him due to his shitty attitude, the fanbase he actually had was very devoted. Most importantly, the fangirls that he had were mostly psychotic. Bakugou went public about your relationship yesterday after dating you for an year and let's just say, while most people were shipping you with him like crazy, the psychotic fangirls were absolutely livid. Which is why, you heard a group of girls saying all that about you when you were done patrolling and on your way home. They stood right next to you in the train (cause Bakugou took the car for a last minute meeting with an investor which meant that the other car was home).

You were always insecured when it came to Bakugou. Sure, he always reassured that he loves you but you just couldn’t help it. He was the number 2 hero and you were just a sidekick. He looked like a damn God and you looked like...well, you. Therefore, to say that these comments broke your heart was an understatement. Hence, you were in your shared bedroom in Bakugou and your huge penthouse, under the bed covers, crying with an entire box of icecream. Well, that's until Bakugou came back home.

Bakugou knew that you’d be in the bedroom. Your lazy ass always took a nap after work. However he definitely didn't expect to find you puffy eyed and with an entire box of icecream. The last time you had an entire box of icecream was when you had a particularly painful period and were crying at everything for a week. This had to be bad. "Babe, what the fuck happened?" Bakugou asked you in a gruff tone, sitting on the bed. In answer, you only whimpered which made Bakugou want to kick himself cause he wasn’t comforting enough and that clearly was a bad move. Which is why, he pulled you into a tight hug and asked as soothingly as his voice would allow him, "Babe, you gotta tell me. Gimme a name and I'll beat that damn extra's ass for making you cry. Just talk to me babe.". Then the dam broke and you cried your heart out holding him as you babbled about everything that happened and how you felt as if they were right. "Dumbass, didn't it occur to you that those extras were jealous? Exactly, look at yourself in the mirror cause I see a badass woman who can order me around when it comes to it in fights. I can see a flawless pro hero who can totally open her own agency but sticks to mine cause we clearly make eachothee better. You clearly make me perform way better. Without you, I'd not be number 2 cause you're the one forcing my ass to be cooperative with others. Honestly, I feel like I don't appreciate you much. You're fucking perfect alright? Now, look at the mirror cause you’ll see me hugging you. Not one of those shitty extras." he told you, bringing a smile to your tear stained face.

Todoroki:

(Took the picture off Google)

You were in your and Shouto's shared bedroom, on the bed, crying silently. The fan meet and greet went absolutely wrong. However, that wasn’t bothering you. What was bothering you were the words from the Shouto fangirls. The words that cut through you like knives.

"YOU BITCH! YOU FUCKING THINK HE DESERVES A LOWLIFE LIKE YOU?"

"I can't believe Shouto actually chose to date you after everything you did with your ex. You don't even deserve to live."

"Shouto deserves so much better than a whore like you!"

You had a rough breakup with your ex, who was a top pro hero. Naturally, the media took his side and not yours. You were still a newbie in the hero industry and you didn't have much influence when it came to the media. Your ex left you cause he fell out of love apparantly and went ahead to date another girl the next day. To retain his popularity (cause literally no one gets out of a relationship and has a girlfriend the next day if he didn't cheat) he went ahead and spreaded rumours about you cheating. Did the media listen to your side of the story? No, it didn’t. The only person who listened and believed you was Shouto when you told him the whole story after befriending him during a joint mission and eventually the two of you fell in love. You made your relationship public this week and honestly, most people were really sweet to you. Then again, Shouto had a huge fanbase thanks to his charming yet cutely oblivious demeanour. That huge fanbase included psychotic fangirls. Your ratings were rising quite fast recently since most people forgot about the issue you had with the media a few years back. Infact, most people believed you when you posted your side of the story on social media. Specially after Shouto supported you because the number 3 hero had quite an effect on people. Anyway, since your rating increased drastically, you decided to do a fan meet and greet. All was going well in the begining till a group of psychotic Shouto fangirls came at you with insults. You had to cut the meet and greet short after that and you came back home to cry.

Shouto took off from work early as he saw the entire thing happen on his phone. After all, his girlfriend was insulted by his own fans over national television (the meet and greet was live on a few TV channels) and he had to be there for you. Many reporters tried to get his statement on the happening as soon as he got out of his agency but he merely told them, "I don't consider anyone who goes out of their way to insult someone I care about as my fan. They are bullies and I am ashamed that they used my name to bully someone. Now if you will excuse me, I'll have to go comfort my girl." before getting into his car. When he reached home, he found you on the bed, crying softly. "Baby... You know they aren’t right... Please don't cry..." he told you in a soothing tone as he pulled you into a hug. "I...I know but... It's just... It wasn’t even my fault... Why do they still hate me? Do I really not deserve you?" you sobbed. "Love, if there's someone who does deserve me, it's you. Do you know what I told the media? Let me show you." Shouto told you in a soothing tone as he pulled out his phone to show you his recent exchange with the reporters. "I don’t consider anyone who says a word against you as my fan. They are horrible people who doesn’t deserve your or my attention. So, please don't be sad. Their words don't mean a thing." Shouto told you with an earnest expression, turning the frown on your face upside down.

[Author's note: I actually was really excited about writing this ask. DON'T APOLOGISE FOR BEING DETAILED! Infact, it's more fun to write when asks are detailed. Besides, the idea was actually fun to write!]

[lockdownuk]

Lockdown Diary Part 6

A personal account during the lockdown in the UK due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

23/03/2020 8:30pm Boris Johnson, UK Prime Minister, gives a live address to the nation to, effectively, put the country on lockdown to stem the spread of the deadly coronavirus strain, Covid-19.

Many of us have been self-isolating for days but this latest development within the UK in reaction to the pandemic feels very serious and very scary. I decided to keep a simple diary and where better but online.

Day 151: Great hour or so last night around Foggy’s. When I got home I watched World War Z and some stand up by Nate Bargatze and drank and smoked loads. Today, I got up just before 2pm and felt soooo unmotivated. I was going to have a day of doing fuck all but had a change of heart around 7pm so did my stair climb then walked for over an hour (7km) and got home at 9:30pm!

Day 152: Typing on day 153. I popped up and saw Foggy last night. One of the reasons was I wanted to take him a beer to say thanks for looking over my mitigation statement for my impending court hearing for speeding. He liked what i wrote but has given me some key amendments. Basically free solictor advice and I am very grateful. While there he hit me with the news that Ham’s sister, Preeya, has died (last Friday 14th August) from Covid 19. To say i was gobsmacked is an understatement. She was 49. The family could only talk to her over a loud speaker and had to say good bye that way as her life support was swithced off. Fucking hell, it’s terrible. And, what makes it worse, is how complacent I have become about the disease while it’s causing so much tragedy. As I said to Foggy, it’s important to renew our efforts in combatting this disease so that Preeya’s death at least means we learn. I also feel guilty for not realising that many people have passed like this - just because I (sort of) knew Preeya doesn’t mean I shouldn’t feel any less sorry for the dozens of people dying and many more affected everyday. My emotions are in turmoil and yet I’m not directly affected.

Day 153: Typing this on day 154. Gone midday before I woke up. Beers in the evening and watched Den of Thieves. Great film.

Day 154: Woke up at 2:37 pm FFS. Just done a walk and I feel like shit (booze induced).

Day 155: Went to bed at about 4am yesterday but was up at 10am today so, usual Monday correction of sleep patterns. Two long walks today plus a little housekeeping on photos, sharing to the Oundle chatter group, so, quite constructive. Hoir chat with dad plus a chat with a recruitment agemt about a helpdesk manager role in Peterborough.

Day 156: Typing on Day 157. I saw Karen sitting with TTP (and two others I couldn’t make out) at the T&K on my second walk. Why does that piss me off so much? I am being like Jack in Midnight Run. I need to let go.

I am also getting wound up with Tumblr - I can only make entries on this diary blog on the PC - when I try on the Android or Apple apps, they pop up with ‘post too long’. Trying getting info from Tumblr’s online help on that though - fucking not happening. I think I might move this to a Google Blog...it’s not like anyone else reads it. I’m not sure I’d want that - it’s far more a private diary now rather than the cute ‘blog’ idea it started out as. It is now a disciplinary exercise more than anything.

Day 158: Feeling less sorry for myself now. It’s 10pm and I am having a midweek beer as I wait for tea to cook.

Day 159: Decided I will split this diary into 30 day sections to appease Tumblr. My second walk today was at 8pm ‘cos it was pissing down from about 4pm ‘til 7:30pm...very dark and so wet. Home by 9.15pm.

Day 160: I went shopping in Corby (Tesco and Asda) - I only really went so I could get blue eggs. £75 on booze! I was going up to Fog’s tonight but at around 6pm it started to piss down. So, I shall drink at home. It’s 9.15pm, I think it’s going to get messy.

Day 161: Not sure when I wnet to bed last night but I didn’t get up until 2pm. Nice long walk (9km) in the rain!

Banners and Sam G went to London to have a few with Andy P. I’m a little flabbergasted, it’s like there’s no Covid19 all a sudden.

Day 162: Bank holiday Sunday so I am having a beer or two. Tea’s cooking, gonna watch The Accountant on BBC1 at 10.30pm. Today I got up at 1.55pm and managed to have a shower and be downstairs to see the start of the Belgian GP. Hamilton won, pretty easily. I then did my stair climb and a 9.8km (6 mile) walk.

Last night I watched a rather quirky, entertaining comic horror film called Ready or Not and then Ricky Gervais - Fame. That’s the tour I saw him live after seeing Henman’s final tennis match at the Davis Cup at Wimbledon. Bloody funny - the recording could even be the show Karen and I were at. Bed at around 5am, hence not egtting up ‘til way past midday!

Day 163: Bank Holiday Monday, just like a Sunday. I am making this entry on my phone as I'm now able to due to breaking up the diary blog into 30 day sections.

Molly's Game, a film I've tried to rewatch several times but it's never been free, is on BBC2 tonight. I'm recording it right now but actually watching Seinfeld from the start on All4. The first couple of episodes are a bit ropey if truth be told. Luckily, I know it improves.

Day 164: Managed to get hold of Michelle via her daughter Daisy to place a nice big order for C. Just as well ‘cos Tim’s ignoring me!

Rang and spoke with Barry Haddon today to check he’s OK.

Day 165: Picked up C from Michelle’s in Yarwell. While there I was mauled by her over friendly Staffordshirebull terrier getting bit on the thigh. Twice in six months I’ve been bitten by dogs.

Karen WhatsApp’d to see if I’d seen Miley Cyrus on the Live Lounge!

Day 166: Forgot to say that yesterday, I also bumped into and chatted with Pete Gilder. We mainly talked about (getting caught) speeding.

Today I did over 22k steps and I am fucked. 

I replied to an email from Shirley at work HR. After the furloughed staff call on Thursday, which I didn’t attend, they want us to cash in some (more) hoilday, which is fine by me, but I have also asked if we are any clearer as to what happens on 1st October, when the rentention scheme ends. I await her reply.

Day 167: Another 20k stpes today. Just 24k needed to have completed 1m steps since the start of July.

It’s Friday, about 9.45pm. I’m going to watch Molly’s Game and have a few beers.

Day 168: Got up at just before 2pm. It’s now 10.15pm and I am just having my first beer, Today was a lazyish day, completed 12k steps.

Day 169: Completed the 1m steps with 24 days to spare. Woohoo. Now, I am unsure whether to reduce the walking I have got so used to doing? I think I might keep up an average of 11k steps a day which is all I would have needed to accomplish to reack 1m in 3 months.

I’m pleased I did it today since I :went to bed a nearly 5am this morning!

Day 170: Actually typing this on day 171. Feels weird having done the 1m steps, almost like I’ve nothing to do. However, I am of course going to keep walking but not quite as hard/much. I did feel liek I was walking myself into the ground all in the name of finishiong the task ASAP. So, today I only had one walk, did 11,5k.

Yesterday’s Italian GP was a cracker. Hamilton had a penalty and ikt ended up with Gasly winning. Full of incident including a red flag so the race ‘restarted’.

I completely forgot ot make this entry on the correct day?

Day 171: I have decided to press on with the walking - not quite so urgently as before - to see what I can achieve steps-wise in 3 months. So, today, an unusually hot day for September, I did 18k steps plus cleaned the bathroom, hoovered my room and stairs and hallway. I am fucked!

Today I have bought a set of smart scales and a new pair of Skechers. The Skechers were almost free (£69 reduced to £30ish which I had in Paypal) and the scales were £20. Still, I shouldn’t. I don’t know what will happen at the end of October when the CJRS ends plus I don’t know what punsihment will be dished out, any day now, for the speeding offence! Fuck it!

Day 172: An eventful day. Boris has restricted gatherings to no more than 6 people and will use ‘Covid Marshalls’ to police this. It’s causing a stir amongst the online community. I have set up accounts with Gurushots and Picfair to showcase my snaps. The latter offers the opportunity to sell them. I watched Anchorman 2. It was pretty good. I also postd on the Oundle chatter group about walking in front of a car the other day - the driver, a yound lady, was enchanting the way she just smiled and let me pass - I used it as an opportunity to ask about George Higgins saving a child from near death at the hands of a lorry, the post about which has disappeared.

Day 173: Lots have seen my post re: my car incident but the bait hasn’t been taken.

Sarah Haines made a nice comment about my photo posts on the Oundle Chatter group also saying that she doesn’t know me but, it turns out she does. She is James Watson’s ex from when I first moved to Oundle so we caught up on Messenger.

Rachel Harris posted a meme slating Boris about the fact we were all encouraged to go out and about (inclding the Eat Out to Help Out scheme) and now we are being sent back to ‘our room’. Some of the comments continue to slate the government. I couldn’t resist commenting that, had the royal ‘we’ maintined social distancing and remembered there’s a fucking pandemic, perhaps we might not be under impending severe lockdown, as it now looks like. I also mentioned photos I have seen (one posted by Rach herslf) whereby you could be mistaken for thinking that there isn’t a pandemic. I have finished the comment with a line about we can only blame ourselves, not the hapless government! I wonder what reaction that will get!

Day 174: Scales were delivered today. If they are accurate I am a little over 11 stones, from 12st 7lbs before lockdown. Can’t quite believe it. I have a yearly diabetic review with Lynne in October so i can check then. If the scales are wrong, I’ll be livid on 2 scores!

Friday night beers as I type. Been looking forward to them since last Saturday!

Day 175: I do not trust the new scales. I get a different reading each time I step on them and by 10-12 lbs. Fucking things. Boots arrived today - they’re going back as well. Footy season started today. Posh lost away to Acrrington Stanley. “Who are they?”

Day 176: The GP was reflagged again today (a new track at Tuscany. A red flag two races on the trot is most unusual. Hamilton won.

Day 177: I managed to get the scales working. I’m pretty much the same weight I was prior to ld (about 12.5 st). This leads me to believe that if I wasn’t doing all the walking I am, I would be as fat as a fucking house. On that note, Google Fit is playing up. It loses the step and heart point count for each walk (although the workouts retain the route map info) Wtf?

I think K and TTP might be a thing from a post I saw on FB whereby some chap (who I don’t know) commented on TTP’s post that it was nice to see him and K. Kinda gutted if it is true but I shouldn’t be. That’s all I will say on here.

Day 178: Jim contacted me today to let me know he’s leaving RCI. He was quite secretive about why and what’s going on but, there it is. He went on to say that HR will be contacting me shortly to call me back from furlough. Sueanne is taking over as team leader but that’s temporary. and that they will most likely promote from within. I struggling to think what it would be like if Mark was boss! The way RCI are and how disjointed it is with Jim as boss, I shan’t take it as read until HR do contact me. Also, I dunno how I feel about it...I have got so used to not working. But, and it’s a big but, I doubt I’ll have a job after the retention scheme finishes so, if this does pan out, it’s good. I’ll be back to job hunting while in a job, as per before the pandemic.

Also, I received an email letting me know the punishment for my speeding offence was 6 points and a £233 fine, plus costs (£90) and victim support (£34), £357 in total. More than I expected. But, no ban, so I’ll suck it up. 

Day 179: Having midweek beers. I'm in that sort of mood.

Day 180: I WhatsApp’d Jim to let him know HR haven’t contacted me. His garbled response went from telling to give them a shout and let them know he is leaving, to which I asked ‘don’t they know?’, he then said hold fire (on Sueanne’s instruction) and she has said for me to sit tight and then, finally, that HR will contact me! Fuck knows what’s going on! I had a diabetic review with Lynne today. When you go to the surgery you have to let in, which I was by Keren. It was nice to see and chat with her. She is back with Ronnie which was news to me. Then Lynne came and got me. It was nice to see and chat with her also. She weighed me and I’m 12st 3lb. Apparently in Jan last year I was over 13st!

[emperorsfoot]

So, in case you missed the two tiny ship posts I made about it, my father died yesterday. 

(Thank you for your sympathy. That’s very kind, but I don’t want your condolences.)

My feelings about my father are complicated. 

He was not a bad father. He never mistreated me or my sister. 

But he was also just sort of... not... there...

Back when my parents were married, my father’s job made him travel a lot. So he was rarely almost ever home. When he did come home, he would bring back all kinds of toys, and clothing, and gifts for my sister and I and at the time that was really cool. (Looking back as an adult, I realize this was him trying to buy our love.)

He also used these business trips to cheat on my mom. (I did not find that out until years later.) 

After he left that job he was home a lot more and one would think that’d be great. But now that he was home, all he did was fight with my mom. Loudly. A lot. He never physically hurt her. Once again, my father never actually mistreated any of us. He was just never there during my formative years, then always argued with my mother -very loudly, and with slurs- and didn’t bother with censoring himself around my sister and I. 

I found out he hadn’t “left” his job, but was “fired”. And had not found a new job to replace it. 

I found this out when cops showed up at our house telling us we no longer lived there. Apparently, my father had stopped paying the mortgage and the bank repossessed our house. (I was the one who answered the door, BTW. It was terrifying for an eleven-year-old.)

Needless to say, after that my parents marital problems got worse. 

My sister moved in with her best friend’s family for the latter half of her senior year, then into the dorms at her collage. She was taken care of in terms of housing. 

My parens and I bounced around a couple different hotel rooms before we found an affordable apartment. (Yes, I was homeless for a couple months between 5th grade and 6th grade.) We were in one apartment for three years. It was not rent controlled and when my parents became unable to afford the increased rent costs we were hard pressed to move again. 

By the time we got to the second apartment, my parents were so done with each other that they weren’t even sleeping in the same room together. My father had his own room, and my mother bunked with me. 

This lasted for a few years until one day when I was seventeen, they were having one of their many, many, many fights in the kitchen and I wanted a snack but their argument was in my way. So I just up and snarled at them to get a divorce already! Why were they even staying together? Not “for the children”. My sister had been living on her own for six years now and didn’t need them. I was certainly getting no benefit from them cohabitation with me. So why were they even bothering?

So, they finally got divorced. 

My mother and I kept the apartment and my father moved out. 

I did not see or hear from him for several years. 

He sent me a birthday card once. He got a date right, but forgot my age. After that, I would get random phone calls asking me about my life, or just my day at odd times (usually while I was at work and coulee not answer). He was trying to form a connection of some kind. He was just going about it badly. 

Finally, he decided to transition from “unemployed” to “retired”, and asked me to help him move. 

He had been living somewhere down near San Diego at the time (it’s cheaper than LA, I have lived in LA my whole life) and wanted to move out of state to some place with a lower cost of living. Before contacting me, he sent out to realtors all over the country for listing packets (or whatever) and there was this one realtor who included her photo on her business card. She was in her late thirties, blond, and showing some shoulder. So my father decided she was gonna be his realtor. 

I don’t know why I agreed to go with him, but I did. We piled into his car and went on a road trip to a place called Hickman Country, Tennessee. 

The trip was four days off cheap motels, bad food, and misadventures that eventually became hilarious stories I brought back to my friends. 

Finally, we get to Hickman Country and meet the realtor he thought was pretty enough to drive 2000 mils to meet. 

Turns out, that picture was 20 years old. The realtor was almost sixty, ...and dying of cancer. Joy.

We were instead helped by another realtor who was splitting her commissions with the first one. 

This was also happening either a year after, or only a couple of months after those huge floods that devastated Nashville and the surrounding area back in 2010. (Hickman County is about an hour [depending on speed limits] south of Nashville, and was hit just as hard by the floods.) Every house we were shown was dirt-cheap and super affordable (the same acreage in LA would have been in the billions, these houses barely broke the hundred-thousands), but was also covered in a layer of fresh damp mold. Sometimes the line on the wall was well above my head indicating that this house was almost completely submerged under water. 

I didn’t want my father to buy any of these. 

But, he drove all this way and already liquified all his assets. He was not going back to LA. He was determined to buy a house here. So, we expanded the search area a little and the realtor showed him a little nothing of a town called “Cable Unincorporated” (if you look it up, you will find it on the map, but back then is was not even on the map). Coble was located within the borders of Hickman County, but not legally considered part of it, hence the use of “Unincorporated” into the name. 

The “two square” consisted of a church on one side, and a restaurant/general store/gas station on the other side. If you were on the road just passing through Coble, you wouldn’t even realize it was a town. You’d think it was an abandoned gas station. But, you wouldn’t be passing it on the road anyway because it was so far out of the way, even if you got lost, you wouldn’t even stumble upon it by accident. You had to be looking for Coble in order to find it. 

But, it was above the flood plane, and so all of the houses were dry. 

My father bought 11 acres of land with a 2-bedroom house on it for 35k. Eleven acres and a livable dwelling for $35,000. Do you understand that!?

I’m now gonna skip over a few years to 2018 when he had his stoke.

Remember how I said Coble was “out of the way”? 

Well, in January of 2018, my father had a stroke. His closest neighbor was the one who found him. We don’t know how long after the stoke it was. She just said she saw him laying on the floor and called 911. 

Even with a helicopter, it took 3 hours to get him to anything resembling a hospital. 

Thing about that for a second. 

Air lift helicopter. 

Three hours to get to a hospital. 

That’s how far out of the way, and in the middle of nowhere he chose to live. 

Anyway, after the stroke he could not go back to living alone. So, my sister and I flew out there to try and figure things out. It was too expensive to bring him back to California with us. Even if we pooled our resources we would not have been able to pay for his care. So, he had to stay in Tennessee. We found a home that was affordable and had an opening and we arranged for him to live there. This one was in a real town with a deal hospital. 

He fought us at every step of the way. 

He wanted to go back to his house in the middle of “in the middle of nowhere”, and die there. 

In retrospect, we should have just let him do that. My sister and I spent the net two years slowly being dragged down in debt paying for his care. 

Yeah, I said Tennessee was “more affordable” but being “more affordable” does not mean that it was actually “affordable”. And, because he owned that absurdly large piece of land, it disqualified him for any kind of state assistance. 

We tried to sell the property, but -amazingly- no one wants to buy large tracks of land in an area that’s so out of the way it might as well be a mythical fae land only accessible through a mushroom ring. 

Anyway, that was two years ago. It’s April 2020.

He’s finally dead now. 

My sister and I are both in debt so deep we’ll never be able to pull ourselves out of it. 

And there’s a global pandemic going on so I can’t even collect his ashes. 

So, that’s the deal with me and my father. 

[weiqiankun-blog]

beauty you hold.

female reader x mark lee 

pretty frickin soft 

my first piece of writing so i do hope you enjoy reading it 

3k ish

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You'll admit, working at a coffee shop had it's quirks but there were just sometimes when all you wanted to do was go home and just sleep cause after all you were an exhausted college student and lets just say times were...tough sometimes. You've been working at your local coffee shop for awhile now and youve made friends with the other workers keeping in mind that theyre all quite older than you but atleast you have one close friend who works with you, this of course being one of your bestfriend's yuta. When you first met yuta, you kinda thought he was a pushover and a bit too bossy (or atleats thats what you said to him when you were explaining why you didnt approach him when you guys first met but actually it was only cause you were too scared). But ANYWAY, you were first to start working at the coffee shop, its name being 'Euphoria Cafe' and once you saw the help wanted sign through the window you were probably the first to apply cause you loved that place. Need a place to study? Euphoria, Need a place to relax? Euphoria, Need a place to sometimes see a few cute boys from time to time?... Euphoria (hotel?trivago (sorry i just had to)) so yeah. you got the job obviously and it was difficult at first to get used to how to use all the machines and everything but eventually you got the hang of it. And this is when your (not yet) best friend yuta comes waltzing in as the newly hired worker and you were kinda nervous cause yeah sure you're good with making friends but that doesn’t change that fact that you're terrified of embarrassing yourself especially in front of someone you found intimating.

So your first day together was awkward to say the least, there were many glances on both ends and all you guys said to each other were hi's, sorry's, here ya go's, and bye's when you guys left eventually. The next day it was like something snapped inside of you and you were having a really good day and you were just happy for ledgit no reason but when you're in moods like this, you kind of forget how to act around people or not forget but it's just a lot more free? So when you come into work you see yuta just getting in as well, and out of nowhere you just shouted, " hey yuta!!! how's your day been, excited for work?!" and the shock on his face was priceless and he just turned around and said, "oh, hey y/n, its been good and yeah i guess you could say i am", and to be honest you were kinda surprised he knew your name cause you guys literally never talked before yesterday and today was the first actual conversation you guys were having so naturally you asked, " oh woah, you know my name?", " well yeah, you know my name so...", "good point good point". And that was the start of a beautiful friendship, you guys grew really close and pretty fast and what surprised you the most was how jokingly flirtatious he got and it was definitely a joke cause at this point in your friendship you guys have seen TOO MUCH (dont be weird not like that) of each other to catch any feelings. You guys came to work together almost every day with him basically clinging onto you cause he needs affection and you obviously giving him it cause um who could resist. So yeah life was nice other than the crazy amount of work you had to do for college but OTHER THAN THAT just great :(.

Well anyway (yes this is a mark fluff just waittt) after  few months of working there another employee joined and you recognized him almost instantly, he was in almost all of your classes but you guys barely talked, actually you guys only talked when you were forced to (partnered up and stuff). He wasnt in your shift but you always saw him leaving when you and yuta coming in. Eventually, mid-term break came along and yeah you were excited as hell but yuta was leaving to back to his hometown in japan so you would be pretty lonely. But then... you come into work one day not really being aware of your surroundings because you were too absorbed in your music but then when you walk in you see mark behind the counter not looking ready to leave at all so you said, "oh hi mark" (get the reference?) clear confusion coming out with your words and mark acknowledged it so he replied, " hey y/n, oh i asked if i could change my shift time because this works better for me so youll be seeing me for a while haha", " oh okay then i look forward to working with you", you say while nodding your head slightly. so mark right, you always liked him, not like crush sense but you thought he was cool you guess, and theres no denying that he was pretty cute but you never even had the idea of liking him until one day. So you come into work and suprisingly mark's not there he was usually early but you just thought oh he probably had something to do and didnt really care (#sorrynotsorry) but then in comes an extremely disheveled looking mark with messy hair and ripped jeans and a hoodie on and you were concerned to say the least. Thankfully no customers were in the shop yet and mark just runs to the counter panting and you genuinely think someone's been chasing him but he later explains he woke up like 2 minutes before he came to the coffee shop cause his phone ran out of battery hence alarm=nonexistent basically. That day you had a lot of customers and since you guys had to stay the entire day by the end of the day you were exhausted. When it was about an hour to closing mark just went on his break and it was just you in the shop because he just went for a walk which he regularly does for his break, something you noticed. but there werent many customers so you were okay but when you turned around to the register you saw a pink post-it saying: stay back today for a bit?. you already know mark wanted to just relax after work today and you guys had stayed back after work sometimes and you enjoyed it so you smiled and continued with the order for the customer. eventually he came back and you smiled and nodded and he smiled back and that just made you smile harder. so the day was finally over and you went to sit infront of the counter and took off your apron while mark was busy making something that you figured was his but when he was done you realized he had two drinks in his hand one being your favourite, a hot chocolate and one a berry smoothie. He placed the hot chocolate infront of you and you were like huh? and he said, “you drink this practically whenever you have the chance anyone would know it's your favourite". your heart kinda fluttered but you were like gurl dont be dumb staph but that didnt really stop much. you guys moved to the sofa after grabbing a few snacks (this was the main perk of getting the end shift cause you could stay back). You guys were facing each other and the windows were all still open blowing chilling air in and although you loved it you were cold and being the dumb one you are you forgot to bring a jacket so you shivered but you were fine after you closed the windows or so you thought for like two seconds and then you were like yeah no i be cold. "so care to explain why you came in looking like a wreck today" "so are you implying that i look good every other day" " well im not denying it.." you were always quite flirty with everyone unintentionally (sometimes intentionally) but mark kinda got used to it " i just slept really late yesterday and today wasnt the best" "i can tell but hey whats up?" "eh just stuff" "oh also ive been meaning to ask how long are you going to be working this shift?" "oh you want me to stay i see" "please, if anything the opposite" "mhmmm sure" he says with a smug look on his face, "well until your boyfriend comes back" you spat out your drink," my boyfriend?!" confusion was plastered on marks face and he said" yeah the guy you were working with before i came, yuta i think his name was?" you genuinely couldnt stop laughing until you eventually explained that he was just a bestfriend and you noticed a look of relief on his face? but pushed it aside. suddenly mark just got up and went to the back where you heard rummaging. after a few minutes mark came back with a t-shirt on and his hoodie in his hand. He threw over to you "stop shivering and wear this" he says he sat next to you this time causing you heart to basically jump out of your chest he wasnt that close or anything just him being kind. you mumbled a thanks. after a few moments of silence mark asked " so do you have a boyfriend?" "no you?" "nah. hey wanna lock up and just walk" you were actually glad he asked cause you were kinda tired of being in the cafe for this long and you thankfully nodded ---- you guys walked to a nearby park just talking about literally anything that came to your mind at this point you guys were pretty close and both of you guys knew things about each other that a lot of people dont, irrelevant and meaningful, like he knows that you only like the ends of those soda gummies cause apparently then have the most taste, but he argues that it all tastes the same, that doesnt stop him from eating the other end when you dont want it though, and you know that whenever hes stressed the only thing he wants to do is talk to someone he trusts and you were the same that way. as you were walking you werent really focusing on anything cause your heart was kinda all over the place cause youve officially developed a big fat crush on this idiot and you knew he didnt feel the same but then you being so absent minded caused you to trip and almost instantly mark grabbed your hand to stop you from falling over and you just started laughing while mark asked you if you were okay. you guys continued to walk in silence with the howling wind filling the air, although you guys were nothing you couldnt ask for more in this moment. you were reaching for your phone when you realized mark was still holding your hand you just stopped walking and froze staring at your hands clasped together (they werent intertwined but just holding ya get?) and obviously every force has an equal and opposite Reaction (its SciEnTifiC oKaY) so since you stopped walking and you were connected to mark he kinda was pulled back and this is when you noticed how red his face was and that surprised you but at the same time youre sure you were too (but like im brown so you wouldnt even be able to tell ay ay) "you only noticed i was holding your hand this entire time now?" "uh.. well.. ummm-" "sorry do you want me t-" he said as he started letting go "no no its fine i was just surprised thats all" and you guys continue walking except now your fingers are intertwined and your heart beating double time. you truly liked mark for his personality, for the way he made you laugh, the way he made you feel, the way he treated you, you really liked him. you guys found a a green patch that was pretty empty and decided to sit. mark was pretty sleepy so he asked if he could put his head on your lap and you said sure. it was pretty late at night but you werent scared if anything you felt safe and happy. mark did that to you and as you looked down at his face you truly realized how beautiful he was. his skin was so smooth and the fluorescent lights along the park were reflecting on his round glasses that shaped his face perfectly. you then hesitated before taking his glasses off cause you noticed he takes them off whenever hes tired so you just wanted him to feel comfortable. he opened his eyes at that and looked straight into your eyes, his eyes truly glimmered in the light as if they were shining stars of their own but what you didnt know is that those same eyes have been staring at you all night admiring your beauty and presence. you give him a slight smile and he does the same before shutting his eyes once again. you kinda wished he didnt because you wanted to stare into his eyes for more but atleast he was getting rest. this is when you decided to play some music. it was calm and relaxing and always helped when you were feeling stressed and you could tell mark was for whatever reason cause he refuses to tell you and since music was such a huge part of your life you hoped it would help him too. you started singing along lowly and not to brag or anything but your voice wasnt half bad, after all you were a music major and one of the instruments you play was your throat so you sounded pretty nice and mark seemed to agree with this cause he then reached for your phone and paused the music to say, " i like your voice better" and you being way too scared to sing infront of him refused but eventually he convinced you by saying he would sing as well which he did and you guys sounded nice.

after staying for a bit longer you decided it was time to go home so you told mark to get up and he obliged. he held his hand out for you and even after helping you up he continued to hold it. he insisted on dropping you off to your dorm which hes visited before to watch a movie or two but thats all. on your way back you asked him, "mark are you sure you dont want to talk about whats stressing you out?" "no its okay really, thanks for caring" he replied "anytime and if you change your mind just call me okay?" he nodded you guys reached your house by now and mark with such sincerity in his voice said" thanks for today, really" "we do this almost every week what are you talking about" " i know but just thank you for being you" he says while staring admirably at your face "look mark, well first you know im always here even if we arent working the same shift anymore im glad we became as close as we are now cause i truly cant imagine my life without you and yeah i know its really cheesy but its true but most importantly you need to stop beating yourself up whenever you mess up. youre human and we tend to make mistakes sometimes and thats fine because i know you mark and i know at the end of the day you’re going to be an amazing dancer and youll be great at whatever you want to do so i dont know whats bothering you but whatever it is i know you can overcome it so just keep your head up high and be strong but dont be afraid to talk to people about it. and mark, im just saying all this cause i care abo-" interrupting what you were saying mark comes closer and kisses you. His lips were warm contradicting the the cold weather and one of his hands was around your waist ever so gently pulling you closer to him while the other was on your neck gently caressing it. his lips were so gentle yet so passionate as if you could feel all of his emotions, your eyes were closed and your hands were around his neck and then your fingers ran through his hair. you dont even know how long the kiss went on but you had to pull away cause you were out of breath. Your foreheads were against each other and noses almost touching his eyes were closed and he mumbled under his breath " thank you, thank you so much. thank you for being the person you are and for making me feel the way i feel. every time i see you im so mesmerized by the amount of beauty you can hold. everything you do makes my heart beat faster and im just so glad that youre in my life and im really sorry if you dont feel the same ill act like this never happened if you want me to but i really like you and i have for a long while and i just want to compliment you everytime i see you and hold your hand and kiss you to show you how much i appreciate you and god y/n you make me feel things i dont think ive ever felt befo-" "mark..." you say moving your head to look a him, he hesitantly opens his eyes expecting a rejection "i like you too" you say before giving him a deep but quick kiss and after that he lift you up and hugs you and start cheering almost about how happy he is. And that was the start of your relationship with mark lee <3

3:00 AM 1/24/2019 (this is when I wrote this can you frickin believe wow welp.. that was it)

[strad-214]

Ocarina of Time Fan Fiction: Chapter 6: Fort Ordona

BOOM! Told ya it would be up in a few seconds! The continuation of our journey to Fort Ordona, it’s been a rough road getting here, but the adventure is only just begining! Again, no need to post the warning here for dark and dreary thoughts, so read on without concern on that! I will assure everyone, however, that a moment that seems like it’s going to become intimate IS NOT GOING TO GO DOWN THAT ROAD. I do NOT support explicit content that includes children. That is nasty and you should be ashamed of yourself if you do support it!!! For context, Malon has hurt her foot during the fight at the end of the previous chapter, Link is going to make sure it isn’t too badly injured, she gets very embarrassed, she falls asleep, they both wake up and continue their adventure, that’s it. I just felt like they needed an awkward moment that they can later remember and laugh about.

Alright, that’s all you need to know to carry on. I’ve already began work on chapter 7, might post it today if I finish it. Be sure to check out @linkeduniverse and @jojo56830, they’re the inspiration for this fan fiction! Enjoy!

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NIGHT: DAY 1 ON THE ROAD

The fire Link had made was finally coming to life and its warmth and light filled the cave. Epona stood watch at the mouth of the cave, occasionally kicking the translucent crystal with her hoof, still testing to see if she could leave. No one would leave until Link broke the spell; it was just too dangerous out there.

Link had since bandaged his bleeding arm and drank a potion to ensure the spell would hold strong all night long. He had set a Cucoo carcass on the flame to cook with a little salt and pepper. It was all he had. He and Malon sat in silence. She was glaring at him, not that he noticed. Finally, she decided to make him notice.

“Ow! What was that for?” Link yelped after being punched hard in the arm.

“Those where skeleton men, Link! SKELETONS! Why didn’t you tell me that the undead haunt Hyrule’s great, wide open fields?!” Malon scolded harshly.

“I told you it would be dangerous, didn’t I?”

“Yea, you said ‘dangerous’, not ‘life threatening’!”

“That’s exactly what dangerous means!” Link over shouted and Epona began to get anxious. Link began to try and hush the pony when Malon stood suddenly.

“Why would you bring me out here if you knew it was going to be this bad?!—ow…” Malon jerked her left foot off the ground and fell against the wall. Link slowly stood and steadied her. “I’m fine! Don’t touch me!” She threw his hands off of her.

“Fine.” Link huffed and sat back down. “I only saved your life, you know. Things wouldn’t have gotten so out of hand if you hadn’t ran off.” He went back to tending the fire and the to-be feast. “Besides… coming out here was your idea, wasn’t it?” He added to his argument without looking back up at Malon.

“Okay, but you could’ve tried to talk me down, you could’ve told me just how bad it was, given me a weapon, something!” She stomped her foot. “AAGHHH!!! CALAMITY BE DAMNED!!!” Malon immediately crumpled and Link leapt up to catch her. This time she didn’t resist. Hot tears ran down her face and her hands were reaching for her left foot. Link sat her down next to the fire.

“Where does it hurt?” He asked her calmly.

“My foot you idiot!” She screamed loudly.

“Okay, okay, calm down. Just breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth.” Link instructed “You may have twisted your ankle while running…” Hylia, I hope not… she’ll never make it to the fort if she did and I’ll have failed my first mission for the King… Link worried.

Now that Malon was calmed down, Link tugged her boot off. Her ankle looked fine, but the arch of her foot had swollen to the point that it looked like she was flat footed… Or maybe she is? Link asked her and her she shook her head no.

“Okay… well, somehow, your foot has swollen to the point where your arch is practically gone… Maybe it’s from all the walking—let me see your other foot.”

“What is this going to accomplish Link?” Malon asked through clenched teeth.

“By comparison, I’ll see whether or not you need medical attention and how much.” Link stated flatly as he took her other boot off. Her right foot looked fine, like a normal foot and he informed her of such. Confused, Link wondered how this could’ve happened. He played back the fight through his head and… the head. Link realized.

“Did you kick the skull into the air or throw it?” He asked Malon. Her face suddenly drooped.

“… oh…” Was her only response.

“Mhmm… well, there it is.” Link took the injured foot and began to massage the swollen area.

“Ahh! AAHH!! WOAH! What are you doing?!” Malon pulled away very quickly.

“Trying to see if your foot is broken. If it’s not, I’m trying to get the swelling down.” Link answered, trying to go back to work.

“No no, that’s okay.” Malon insisted as she tried to pull away, her face as red as her hair. Link grabbed her ankle and held her still.

“Do you want to be able to walk tomorrow? Or shall I just leave you here?” He challenged her. She immediately stopped fighting and just stared at him. Here, she almost lost her life. So, she yells at her only reason for still being alive and he still insisted on massaging her sore foot. Link was a true friend, through and through. He’s so… sweet. She thought to herself as her face began to flush again.

Link began to massage the sore area on her foot. She winced as the pain was released and crawled up her leg through the rest of her body… but it was very relieving. She laid down and stared at the crystal Link had made to protect them. She could just make out the eyes of a Stalchild still watching them from beyond the crystal. But even with that danger looming just outside, she felt so calm, so safe… so happy. Then, she thought of this boy, her friend, touching her foot. She was so embarrassed, so ashamed for some reason. What is this? She asked herself. ... why would he do this for me? What have I done for him?... She closed her eyes as exhaustion began to overtake her. … nothing.

 DAWN: DAY 2 ON THE ROAD

 Malon woke up to a dimly lit cave and a blanket covering her body. The small amount of sunlight creeping over the horizon was washing through the cave, whose crystal barrier had disappeared sometime in the night. She sat up and stretched, her body was sore and her legs felt stiff. She looked around the cave and discovered that she was alone. Yet, panic did not overtake her, she knew her hero wasn’t far from here… my “hero”? Malon almost laughed to herself. Such strange thoughts, it’s been a wild adventure so far.

She threw off the blanket and looked down at her injured foot. It seemed much better and it didn’t hurt all that much anymore. She slowly got to her feet and walked to the mouth of the cave. She could see Epona running freely around in the field outside and she could make out the silhouette of Link picking things up out of the grass. She smiled to herself, cleared her throat, and began to sing. Both her companions out in the field stopped what they were doing and turned towards the sound of her voice. Epona began to gallop towards her and Link stood up and walked in her direction.

Epona reached her first and began nuzzling her before she could finish singing. She couldn’t help but laugh out loud and nuzzle the pony back. Link came next, he wasn’t wearing his hat and he only had his sword equipped.

“Good morning.” He greeted Malon with a smile.

“Good morning” She smiled back. A cool, refreshing breeze wafted between them. …I could get used to this. She thought to herself as she turned back into the cave to get ready to leave. She grabbed her boots and slid them on. She jogged in place a bit and danced a little. Satisfied with her test, she decided that she was alright to proceed for the day.

“Glad to see you’re feeling better.” Link said as he put on his hat and gathered the rest of his things.

“Yes, much better… thank you.” Malon said as she packed the rest of her things.

“Don’t mention it—“ Link began to answer.

“No, really, thank you, Link… you saved my life, you tended to my wound, you made sure we were going to survive and we did… thank you. You’re a really great friend.” She smiled at him and her cheeks lit up like pink star light. Link’s cheeks did the same.

“… you’re welcome, Malon. That’s what friends are for.” He assured her. “Um…” He began to stutter, like he did when he wasn’t sure what to say. He never was good with words. “Here…” Link reached out with his hands. In them rested a slingshot and a bag of tiny Deku Nuts.

“… what’s this?” Malon asked.

“Well… you said you needed to be armed so… I know it doesn’t look like much, but those seeds will crack rocks when hurled hard enough… Hence the slingshot.” His face got redder as Malon’s smile widened.

“Thank you Link, it’s awesome!... Did you make this for me?” She asked.

“No um… I’ve had that for awhile; I just don’t use it really….” Link answered bashfully. “Oh, and here, you’re father gave this to me before we left.” Link reached into his spare pouch and pulled out the knife Talon had threatened him with. “I meant to give it to you yesterday, but, we got angry at each other and I forgot really…”

Malon took the knife from him with wonder in her eyes. The pommel of the knife had the same Lion Head sculpture as was on her broche. “This… belonged to my mother…” She said dreamily. She looked up at Link and then wrapped him in a huge hug.

They stood there for a moment and hugged tightly. They were both so happy, happy to be together, happy to be alive… happy to be together… They left each other’s arms and Malon began to lead Epona off towards the road from which they deviated last night. Link watched her walk away and thought to himself: ... I could get used to this.

EVENING: DAY 2 ON THE ROAD

“—and even so, just because there are plants everywhere doesn’t mean we eat every plant we see.” Link was describing the diets of Gorons to Malon. She had met Gorons before and never understood how they eat rocks.

“So… do they have… rock farms then?” She asked.

“A mine in the side of Death Mountain.” Link informed her. “There was a huge, fire-breathing Lizard in it in the other reality that I had to kill.” Malon’s eyes widened at this. “The beast ate Gorons, so they couldn’t mine the rocks they ate since it took up residence. I’m sure it ate Hylians too, but, what’s one Hylian boy to them as opposed to another Goron?” Link finished.

“Such adventures… is Hyrule really so dangerous?” Malon asked

“Apparently, otherwise I wouldn’t be sent on these missions to—” Link paused in his response as they reached another crossroad. Malon wrapped her arms around Epona’s snout as memories of last night came to mind.

“Um… shouldn’t we find more shelter tonight?” She urged Link, panic appearing in her voice. Epona nickered a little as if to agree.

“There shouldn’t be any Stal-hauntings in the area, other than non-supernatural threats, we should be fine.” Link answered calmly without looking up from his map.

“… Like what?” She pressed.

“I dunno, bandits, outlaws… that sort of thing.” Link rolled up his map and turned down the south bound road. “Come on, we’re nearly there. We’ll actually get there by sunrise if we don’t stop.”

“Oh…” Malon answered reluctantly. She didn’t want to keep going, she was sore and tired and worried about an attack. She took out her sling shot and held it in her lead hand, just in case.

As they ebbed on through the night, the sheer adrenalin rush of the silvery moonlight casting long shadows kept Malon going. It was so beautiful… and so very frightening.

“…. SKREEE!!!” Something dove at Malon who shrieked and loosed a nut from her slingshot. Link was suddenly upon her and Epona who whinnied out of fright.

“… hey, you got it! Good shot!” Malon opened her eyes to see the body of a bat lying on the ground with a hole punched right through it. Panic turned to remorse. This was no monster, it was an animal.

“Aww… look what I’ve done… poor bat…” Malon mourned.

“That’s no bat, look closer, it’s a Keese.” Link pointed his sword at the body. Upon closer inspection, Malon could see what almost looked like tattoos on its chest and the creature only had one eye. “Also, a bat wouldn’t attack you for no reason, a Keese would.” Link finished as he sheathed his sword.

The trio continued their trek through the night, which only grew darker despite the moon’s bright light… too dark. Link drew his sword and looked around. Out in the darkness he could see little lights doting the surrounding plains.

“Link…” Malon’s voice shook, it was almost a shout. “What are those?”

“Poes, spirits of the dead.” Link answered calmly. He slowed down to intersect Malon around whom he put his arm while they walked together. “Try not to look at them, they know we’re here. They don’t want trouble, but… well, they’re undead, who knows what motivates them.”

Malon couldn’t help it, they were everywhere but on the path they walked on, it was as if the night sky and the land had become one and stars surrounded them. It was breathtakingly beautiful. “Heh… it’s… amazing.” She said with wonder in her voice. Link almost shot her a look. His experiences with Poes were anything but beautiful.

Suddenly, the lights all started to flicker out in a wave of blackness that started to blanket the field. Link stopped and stood ready for attack. A single, floating lantern remained that slowly floated towards them. Malon whimpered and hugged Epona tightly, who was staring to spook. The lantern stopped before Link and a disembodied spirit materialized before them, holding the lantern from a decrepit, transparent hand.

“… good evening.” It said, its voice was as cold as ice and its eyes were as piercing as blades. Malon whimpered louder and hugged Epona tighter.

“Good evening.” Link answered cordially.

“What brings two young and vital souls such as yourselves this way this time of night?” The Poe asked.

“We are heading to the Keep, I’m expected there.” Link answered, unshaken.

“Do you mean to attack it? Or is it customary amongst the living these days to arrive as a friend with a blade drawn?” The Poe’s free hand gestured to the sword in Link’s hand.

“It’s dark out, I was weary of bandits.” Link answered, not moving to put his sword away.

“You don’t fool me, Hero of Time.” The Poe hissed as it began to circle around the trio. Link relaxed his body and watched the spirit’s movements. “You carry a scent of Golden Power about you that is… unmistakable to ones as dark as I.”

“I’m not here to attack you, we just want to reach our destination.” Link responded calmly.

“Alive, I assume.” The Poe sounded bored with them.

“Well… yes.” The Poe laughed out loud at this. Even Link couldn’t stop a shiver from running down his spine as the laughter echoed across the plain. Epona reared and whinnied loudly. Malon shut her eyes tight and did everything she could to not scream.

“And what would you do if you got to the fort alive, hmm? No doubt help them with their insurrection against us?” The Poe gestured out at the field and all the lights flickered back on, this time, with Poes attached to them.

Link’s hand tightened around his sword. “Run.” He swung at the Poe who vanished before their eyes. Its lantern, the only thing that remained visible, floated out of reach and all the other lights began to move towards them.

Epona dashed off down the road and Link grabbed Malon’s hand and began to run at a break neck speed. The lights began to close in on them as if Malon and Link weren’t even moving. A ringing began in Link’s ears that grew louder as the lights grew nearer. Link and Malon did everything they could to speed up. The ringing got so loud that it began to hurt his ears, then his head, then his whole body. He didn’t stop, he wasn’t sure if Malon was still running, but he was, and he was holding her hand. He would drag her there if he had to, they had to get there. They had to live. Malon shouted his name into the void and Link screamed, neither of them could hear the other. The ringing… it was so loud. In the darkness, through the lights, Link could see a pair of giant, orange eyes.

“A TERRIBLE FATE AWAITS YOU” Raw fear ripped through Link’s soul and in that moment, he wasn’t sure if he was glad or sad that he was about to die, for the agony was too much to keep going, but if he died, then he had failed… again…

SLAM!!! Link and Malon slammed into a pair of giant wooden doors. Two hands grabbed Link and stopped him from fighting and screaming.

“Kid, KID!! Stop! It’s alright! You made it!” Link opened his eyes. A man in a suit of armor held onto his wrists. “It’s alright kid, you’re safe now.”

Link looked around incredulously, out in the field were scattered Poe lanterns, wavering about as if they were caught in the breeze. “… we… made it.” Link stammered. He felt the guard turn Link’s left hand.

“… by the Gods… you’re…” The guard let go of Link. “You’re the Hero of Time! You’re here to help us win this war!” Link grabbed the guard.

“Where’s the girl I was with? Where’s my horse?” As the words left Link’s mouth, he saw Malon leaning against the other door, staring at him with wide, yet tired eyes. He pushed passed the guard and hugged Malon tightly.

“Your horse is inside, thank Din she arrived here before you or we wouldn’t have known to come out and save you.” The guard reported to Link.

“… inside?” Link stammered as he and Malon looked up at the guard.

“Indeed. Welcome to Fort Ordona, Hero of Time.”

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What have we gotten ourselves in to? A war with ghosts... I honest to God didn’t expect to take this turn myself when I was writing, but I liked it, so I kept it! This will be interesting! Look out for Chapter 7, hopefully soon!

[kitschcats]

I Don’t Know How to Title My Posts

You know, the thing about writing is that you’re never quite sure where to begin. You can have all these pent-up ideas buzzing around the inside of your head, banging at the walls and demanding to be let out. But you can just as easily be at a loss for how.

Luckily, through the power of word vomit and occasional use of the backspace key, I managed to get that last paragraph down and into words. And hopefully that’s what I will continue to be doing for the entirety of the rest of this post.

As of writing this it is 2:27 PM. I had a breakfast of 6 slices of buttered toast (if you can do it with pancakes, then why not toast?) earlier, accompanied by the same book I’ve been reading for the last month. I know, a month? Younger me would have been horrified. She could bulldoze through all seven books of Harry Potter within a week--Order of the Phoenix included. My mum chides me for it too, but she knows that I am, at the very least, reading again. And no matter how long you take, you’re still reading. (I think she’s guilty of the same, too.)

I used to tell her I didn’t have time to read (yes, I know) and she told me off for it. At the time I felt that was unnecessary, but looking back I now agree with her wholeheartedly. You make time to read, and even if you try your damnedest and just can’t seem to squeeze a minute of reading in between the blocks of class and work and sleep in your daily schedule, there’s still a few golden minutes of the day left you can cram a few pages of a book into--over a meal. (On the train, too, of course. It’s why I don’t dread my daily commute as much anymore--it’s precious reading time. Bright side of things, right?) It’s what I do every day. Granted, not every meal, but every day at least, whenever I’m staying in to eat. I grab my copy of Tom Robbins from its permanent spot on the dining table (where it’s also most convenient, because I wouldn’t be reaching for it any other time nor anywhere else), and read, the book wide-open and its spine stretched, standing up balanced against the edge of my plate. French music plays in the background.

(I should really remember to take pictures of these. In my next entry, I hope.)

One of these days, I hope to be implementing a lot of the books I’m reading and plan to read into this blog in some way--reviews of each one after I’m finished, maybe, and maybe I’ll compile them all into one big masterlist to which I regularly update. That would be nice. A little hint on what I’m reading: immortality, time-shifting, and perfume.

My to-do list:

write this post

update my theme (finally something I’m happy with)

do some studying (history/geo, because their papers are closest lol)

past years (if only I could strike this through)

brush up on my Japanese today, do a little more katakana practice (and try out Memrise, because Duolingo sucks)

refresh emails religiously (AFS will be the death of me)

Speaking of AFS--yeah. This all-expenses-covered 6 month exchange to Japan that I applied for sometime ago, back in September. I think about it when I first wake up and rush to my inbox, when I’m in the shower, when I’m lying in bed at night and can’t sleep--needless to say, I really want to go. I have been wanting to, for the longest time. Results are finally on their way now, but they’re announcing shortlisted candidates for the interviews state-by-state and they are taking an excruciatingly conveniently long time to get to mine, being Damansara (they split KL/Selangor into four chapters, can you imagine the sort of competition?).  They’ve been at it since yesterday, and I, like everyone else, thought they’d have been done with it yesterday, but it looks like they’re continuing it well into the next day (being today). And they were doing it with regular intervals of about a couple minutes in-between up until midway through, alright, and they were going in geographic order until they decided to stop the pattern ////right//// before my state was due, and now I have no idea whether I should be looking out for the next post, or the one after, or the one after. Nor do I know when.

Not to be dramatic, but this could very well be one of the most torturous experiences I have ever had the misfortune to be put through. But hey, it’ll all have been worth it if I see my name on the list, wouldn’t it? 

(If.)

On a happier note, I may be heading out later tonight am heading out later tonight to catch a free screening of The Killing of a Sacred Deer--Lanthimos movie. I’ve been meaning to see The Lobster for a while--a moment of silence for all the poor, unwatched movies on my watchlist on Letterboxd, all steadily collecting metaphysical dust--but I’ve just never gotten around to it. Shame, too, it was showing last night, but I only found out about this place this very afternoon. (Thank you, Facebook.)

So a lot has happened since I saved this as a draft and got up to once again face the real world, interrupting my train of thought mid-blog against my will--some errands were run, dinner was made (bolognese, and over some 10 pages of my book, of course), and very spontaneous plans were agreed to (hence the strikethrough of the maybe earlier). I met with an old friend for some catch-up over the movie. (The power of Instagram stories and a simple-but-effective ‘someone teman pls’, right?)

I'm writing this now from a front-row sofa in a quaint little top-floor bar, projector ahead of me and warm bowl of popcorn ready, a hidden gem among shoplots in the midst of Taman Desa, and it is 8:47 PM. Free screenings every Friday and Saturday? Needless to say, I'm certainly coming back. In time as a regular, I hope. (They even played Kubrick the other night--The Shining!)

The movie starts in 4 minutes. Expect a review soon.

What I'm listening to (courtesy of the bar's playlist): okay, no song today. I tried to get Adam to Shazam what was playing, but no luck--nothing came up. (And I forgot to ask about a playlist on spotify on my way out I am a FOOL next show!)

[livingthroughliteracy]

My...Lady? - 4

Part 4

Part 1, 2, 3

Ao3

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug

Pairing: Ladynoir, Adrinette

Words: 4,802

Description: Adrien is struggling with his feelings for Marinette and how to understand them. Then, he is introduced to a scary new concept. Sexuality.

This chapter would not have been made possible without the help and collaboration of Naminamae, a writer on Ao3 who is lurking in the comments and in this story. Thank you so much, hun!

Notes: *nervous laughter* H-hi guys. It's been a while with this one.

Ok, not gonna lie, I wrote myself into a rut on this one and then kinda didn't know how to get out then forgot about it cause omg I love Just Like Clockwork and everyone and their fucking cat wants Scrawl Mates but I'm really hoping I'm gonna be able to just keep on rolling with this one.

Here's to hoping I'm not a total failure at posting. jk i totally am

Adrien swore if they were doing a shoot based on animals he’d be the perfect candidate to play a dog or cat with how much he was groaning and growling.

He sat forward in his makeup chair, his fingers coming to press into his temples as he contemplated his chances of breaking an ankle while falling off the stage and being kept from ever having to face Marinette. The large light-bulbs bombarding his eyes with their glow weren’t much help for his headache either.

He rubbed circles into the sides of his head to try and relieve his pounding mind and it worked...until his makeup artist nearly keeled over before imitating a pterodactyl running at him with makeup sponges outstretched in claw like nails.

“Don’t ruin my contour!” They (he couldn’t tell their gender) screeched before huffing and knocking his hands forcefully away. His temporary relief was once again robbed from him as they passive-aggressively pounded their blending tools into his face. In their attempt to make him look like anything but himself they only managed to worsen his headache.

As he put his face at the mercy of the professionals around him he couldn’t stop the memories of how he had handled things from going through his head. He watched as they crafted him a new face with nothing more than pigments and brushes.

If only they do could the same with his brain.

”A-Are we friends, Adrien?” Bounced around his head like a released piece of flubber.

He ground his teeth as he remembered his response of a dumbstruck, ”I don’t know what you mean. I thought we always were.”

Marinette’s face had grown red then, and she’d gone silent. Saying that she should get home before it started raining.

He remembered the moment he helped her lift her boxes of clothing into the cars and closed the door behind her, offering a small and sad wave as a goodbye.

A wave. A WAVE?

That was honestly the best he had been able to muster after being slapped in the face by the question and then pummeled by her sudden departure.

He guessed that she didn’t really understand just how much she meant to him since she didn’t know that she was indeed his Lady. But he still didn’t have to make her feel like she might have been the stupid one for not having realized they were friends before.

He sat forward after the eccentric face-paint wielding goonies of the shoot had left, resting his elbows on the vanity before him and his hands on his head; this time in his hair to avoid another makeup mishap. The hairdresser hadn’t been to him so they wouldn’t have him scalped just yet.

All around him he heard the chatter of the models and their artists and how they got along, but he had never really found that kind of a connection in this industry. There wasn’t anyone here to talk to him, to keep him company. Even Plagg had been left in his bag for safety reasons; leaving Adrien completely and utterly alone.

Well, he would have been alone if not for the thoughts that were bombarding him nonstop like the flashing bulbs behind the curtain he would be waving aside in just a moment.

How was he supposed to think with these kinds of stupid scenes bouncing around his head?

Her eyes looking ever so slightly sad and regretful for asking.

The sight of her hands shaking as she had packed up the last of her new outfits, having opted to stay in the band T and jeans.

The way she had blatantly opted to look at her folded hands in her lap as she had stepped into the car instead of at him.

The softly whispered appreciation for the clothes, nothing more.

The way her shoulders had shifted to dig out her phone as the car had started rolling down the street.

Oh, god, how was he supposed to do this?

The worst part was, that he wasn’t being messed up this much due to it being her. No, he was having his mind utterly destroyed by the fact that whenever Marinette had done this as a girl he had just felt sad, but now? He felt his soul being torn from his body and thrown to the seventh circle of hell for offending the young woman.

She was different now. There was no mistaking it. While her outer appearance was only a temporary change, the inner parts--the built up and renewed confidence--was something that he had longed to see in her. And yet, it felt as if he might have ruined that.

Yesterday was the first time in years she had been really able to look him in the eye and was able to really have a conversation with him. Now, he had gone and made her feel different again. Made her feel like she had inadequately judged their relationship for god knows how long

Call time was in ten minutes, but he couldn’t get the thought of her, him, out of his head.

The only thing all day that roused him from his dreary thoughts was a rucas being stirred up a few mirrors down.

One of the older models--still in his early twenties, mind you--was being torn to shreds and accused by a young woman who was pretty enough, but honestly nothing special.

Adrien knew the young man in question by name and nothing more. He didn’t make friends with the other models, he found them too absorbed with their carriers to really be of any good conversation while at a shoot. And he never got a chance to talk to them outside of work so the opportunity for friendships was lost to the work ethic and lack of motivation.

What was this young man’s name? Jaalab or something. He knew that everyone called him JB for short because no one could ever pronounce his name right.

It saddened him for a moment that he didn’t even know his own co workers’ names.

It wasn’t anything new for an old flame to show up to give their ex a piece of their mind. Hence why none of the other models batted an eye as the young woman wrestled her way through security and he allowed her to stay to hear her out.

Adrien was about to throw on his headset that Nino had given him to tune out the noise but was drawn into the conversation not by how everything was being discussed, but by what was being shouted.

“You left me with nothing.” The young woman squawked as JB waved off the last of the security officers.

He looked surprisingly calm for being screamed at by a young woman who looked like she might erupt.

“I didn’t leave you with nothing. You ruined your own career after you tried to use your position at the publishing house to ruin my reputation,” JB said calmly as he touched up his own hair in the mirror before him, his slight accent slipping out. Persian by chance?

The girl looked fit to burst as he went on ignoring her. “What the hell do you expect me to do?! You left me for my ex-boyfriend!”

Adrien went stock still, his eyes shooting sideways to watch JB.

He’d left a girl for a guy?

JB cracked a smile and looked at her through the mirror. “Tessa, darling,”--so that was her name--”you were finished with him obviously. I just took advantage of the situation and got into a better relationship. What’s one woman’s trash is another man’s pleasure.”

He’d purred out the last word, making Adrien shiver as he was forced to remember his own persona saying something similar to Ladybug on one regrettable late night.

Tessa faked a gag as tears of anger welled up in her eyes. “You could have at least left me for a girl instead of turning around and becoming a cock-sucker.”

JB merely winked. “Darling, I’ve told you before. I pitch and catch for both teams. Now, if you don’t have anything of substance to say to me beyond your belligerent babbling I will have you escorted from the premises and I’ll be sure to get a restraining order filed at my next convenience. Alright? Okay, buh-bye now.”

He waved her off and she was grabbed by two security guards before she could launch herself at the cool young man. He easily slid from his chair and strode down the aisle towards the clothing portion of the stage.

Profanity followed him as JB made his way towards the catwalk, Adrien’s stare of amazement apparently catching his eye.

When the model stopped before him Adrien sucked in a breath, realizing he had been caught eavesdropping.

He smiled bitterly at the young blond. “Enjoying the show?”

Adrien choked on his own tongue as he tried to form a sentence, or even just a thought in response.

JB waited a moment longer before scoffing and heading towards the stage.

Adrien seemed to regain his wits just as the other model was about to step into wardrobe. “Wait!”

JB stopped in his tracks, spinning on his heels like he was expecting a fight, but seemed surprised to find Adrien stumbling from his chair to catch up with him.

“What?” He asked, his voice just hinting at demanding, but more so curious than anything.

Adrien seemed out of breath, or was it just because his heart was racing?

Why was he nervous to try and talk to this man anyway?

Besides, what was he going to say?

“Did you say earlier that you were dating a guy?” Adrien found himself stuttering out.

What.

The.

Hell.

Alright then, that’s what he was going to say.

Where did that even come from? He didn’t know. But now it was out in the air and by the look on JB’s face, it wasn’t much appreciated just hanging there, waiting to be acknowledged.

Just as Adrien was beginning to fear that he himself would be escorted from the shoot JB sighed and seemed to look very very annoyed.

“What are you gonna call me a name now too?” He asked nearly dejectedly as he pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration.

Shoot, Adrien thought as his hands burst out into a sweating fit. His mouth going dry from anxiety he couldn’t express. I may have overdone it. Abort. Abort. Mission failed.

Adrien quickly tried to stutter out an apology. “What? N-no! I didn’t--I mean--that’s not what--”

He didn’t see as JB’s hand came up to rest weightily on his shoulder, suddenly ceasing his ramblings. “What do you want?” His voice was smooth and his words as articulate as a human could possibly manage.

Adrien found his throat ceasing to work, but his mouth was still working. His voice sounded hoarse and breathy even to himself and his ears didn’t quite process it as the next question formed itself on his tongue; rolling out of the guard of his teeth only half finished into an amalgamation of possibly offensive ideas.

“Wh-what are you? What’s that called? Liking both genders?”

JB looked like he had been punched in the face, honest surprise leaking through the tough demeanor. He studied Adrien for a moment before realization seemed to hit him just as suddenly as the inquisitions had.

“Wait, you’re that Agreste kid, right?”

A nod.

JB brought his hand up to run through his hair as a low whistle escaped his lips. “So, I guess the rumors about your dad being strict are true. And I’m guessing not even close to the real deal?”

Another nod.

Another low whistle and a small laugh this time.

“Do you know what sexuality is?” JB asked after a moment of clearing his throat.

Adrien was a little shocked by the question. He knew it probably wasn’t vulgar in nature, but the matter of “sex” and anything to do with it was always treated as taboo in the Agreste household. So, whenever the word, or anything that sounded like it had come up, he had tried to avoid or even change the subject. Thus, was his upbringing and it was too drilled into his head for him to not follow.

Getting to know what a sextant was an interesting experience, to say the least.

“N-no. Is that something profane?” He nearly squeaked, his voice pitching higher and sounding more innocent than he already felt.

He coughed and attempted to restate the question but his voice just cracked again. He gave up when JB cracked a small smirk at the young man’s struggles

JB looked like had just discovered a newfound gem, or a new joke. He let out a small laugh and shook his head.

“It’s only profane if you think it is. Look, the show is about to start. We can sneak out of the after party tonight to find somewhere else to talk. Okay?”

Adrien nodded, his jaw locking. JB gave him a devilish grin and a wink as he chuckled, turning around and heading over to the costume designers.

Adrien ran his hand through his hair, his head feeling light and buzzing and his lungs seeming to work again as he took a deep breath. At least the headache had ceased for a little while.

What was he doing? He was talking to a model he had never spoken to before, about personal information and an apparently possibly vulgar topic that he shouldn’t even know about.

Sexuality. He tossed the term around his head and shuddered. Even the word itself sounded disgusting to his mind.

And yet...intriguing.

Adrien followed the young man with his eyes, watching how he moved and acted so fluid and comfortable in his own skin, even as he stripped just to boxers and was dressed in an outfit by lingering hands.

If he was this comfortable with himself, even after being shouted at about dating a guy…

Maybe...maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

This was a terrible idea.

Adrien found himself suddenly being torn from a conversation with a designer from Mullan by a firm hand encompassing his elbow. He turned on his heels and let his legs pinwheel under him to keep his balance as he was jerked inconsistently through the crowd.

He looked to find the person apparently taking him hostage to be none other than JB. The jerking motion of his tugging being caused by parting people in the crowd and slipping through before they had a chance to seal back together like a bleeding wound.

Adrien was vaguely aware they were being led by a half empty bottle of Rosé but was more worried about the pressure the model was putting on his arm. His grip was intense with his fingers mindlessly digging into Adrien’s bicep and elbow crook to the point of making the bones grind as it bent.

Adrien didn’t see anyone open the venue’s front doors but soon they were stepping through out onto the front balcony overlooking the garden and front drive.

JB didn’t seem as spatially aware as he might have thought as he spun on Adrien, suddenly having the blond press into him as the closing doors at his back forced the two together.

There was a moment of hot breaths mixing and Adrien being tempted to try and toss the man aside Chat-style and make a break for it.

The time for his cat-like strength never came, however. He was saved by JB drunkenly falling forward, laughing, before he backed away in a stumble towards a metal deck chair and table.

Adrien stood horrified as JB craned his neck back over his shoulder. “Don’t worry. I don’t make passes at people more than two years younger than me.”

Adrien grimaced at the thought of being hit on by this man and decided to move away from the door but stay a respectful distance away from the drunk before him.

Well, this wasn’t going as planned, but Adrien could already tell why things had been so rushed.

The half empty bottle of wine was slapped down on the table that JB slumped at, his hand coming to comb through his thick dark locks as he rubbed his temple with the heel of his palm. JB shot Adrien a toothy grin when he noticed the blond’s stare and took another swig of wine, downing at least another eight of the bottle in one go.

Adrien shuddered at the thought of this being the man that was about to give him advice or teach him anything that had to do with humans, let alone attractions or anything to do with sex. Still, as the inebriated model pointed to the chair next to him Adrien found himself cautiously moving to sit beside the now sprawling and laughing man.

JB took a moment, wiping tears from his eyes at some unspoken joke that caused him such joy. He sniffed and looked out over the lit up garden that surrounded the drive and Adrien followed his eyes.

The lighting was perfect, cascading over bushes and trees perfectly to set fire to their leaves in the hues of pink and purple. He wondered absently if any of the flowers he saw actually were that color or if it were just the brilliant setting. The gravel drive that dug a rut through the bushes looked almost like something from a fairytale.

A pathway to a new world.

Adrien sat a little more easily in his chair and folded his arms over his chest as he looked up at the night sky, then back down to the garden.

Thinking about the flowers calmed him a bit, actually. Thoughts of fauna distracting him from the clenching in his gut.

Was he going to enjoy what he was about to hear? Or was he even going to understand what this man had to say?

He wasn’t sure, but if it meant finding out what was wrong with him, then it was worth it.

Maybe after this he could finally condemn his feelings for the new Marinette as just being a result of shock due to finding out she was Ladybug.

“Have you ever been in love?” JB cut into his thoughts after a moment.

Adrien was shocked, not by the question, but by the sobriety that gripped his companion’s voice. “Yeah...yeah, I have.”

JB hummed thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair with the bottle of wine propped on his knee thoughtfully. His feet found themselves on top of the table comfortably, as if they were a centerpiece that had always been there.

If Adrien had any skill with a camera he would have liked to photograph the young man.

Moonlight mixed with the pink and purple of the garden to bounce off his silver suit and into his bright blue eyes. His darkened olive skin and nearly raven locks making him seem even more elegant than he already did in the sunlight. He was nearly silhouetted by the moon and lights, the whites of his eyes shining like pearls in his shadowed skull.

Adrien had to give him credit: JB was a gorgeous man. Now if only what he had to say was worth the bottle of Rosé he had nearly drained.

“I’ve been in love many a time,” he admitted after a thoughtful pause, nodding as if he was pleased with the confession. “It’s hard to tell where one started and ended, really. They just seemed to keep on going till they didn’t anymore.”

Adrien nodded, already regretting his choice of coming out here.

What did this have to do with anything?

Was he just drug here to listen to and confirm another drunken rambling session of a co worker?

If so, you could count him out. He had better things to do than listening to this guy’s problems.

Maybe he could sneak away still if he was fast enough.

“Have you ever loved a man?”

Had he been stabbed?

Had a spear been run through Adrien’s chest?

The question ran through him like a bullet through his lungs, seizing their succession of rapid panting.

He wished he had Plagg with him to double check if he was still alive or not, but he was on his own and based on the rapid pace of his fluttering heart, he was still alive.

Barely.

“W-what?”

JB looked him dead in the eye then, turning those blazing pearls on Adrien.

Adrien felt like JB could dig a hole through his soul and find the answer himself with those eyes. “Have you ever loved a man? I don’t know if it can get any more simple than that.”

Adrien must have swallowed his tongue because suddenly he was choking and sputtering on it.

After watching him flounder like a fish out of water JB laughed a let out a chuckle that echoed around the entire building.

“I’m guessing that’s a yes then,” JB relinquished as he wiped away his tears with the neck of his bottle. “Or perhaps an, ‘I don’t know yet’. It’s alright. I won’t remember any of this tomorrow. Trust me. So, just know that your secret is safe with me.”

That didn’t do much for helping Adrien’s panicking nerves. He was stock still, every nerve in his body alight as he sat with his hands clenching the arms of the chair.

This was a bad idea.

This was a really bad idea.

He felt like he was going to break; like a wound up spring being held together by a single ribbon that was about to slip free.

And yet, he didn’t move to free himself.

He stayed and waited even longer for JB to continue.

The drunken model finally sighed, looking up at the moon. “I don’t understand why society does it. But, they feel the need to label people like you and me. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of any. But, then again, I’m also not.”

There was a pause as a took another drink and set down the empty bottle at last. “Sexuality, unlike what I’m guessing you thought earlier, is not about sex. Or, at least, not entirely. It’s about the people you are attracted to and what about them you like. Kind of like a bakery. You like certain things and you really hate others.”

The model scrunched up his nose. “Like in America how everything there is made with Nutella or ‘unicorn’ colored. Blah, all idiotic ideas. But people still like them.”

Adrien couldn’t have been any more lost.

Even if he had a map of what was going on in JB’s mind he was sure it would have been scribbled out in crayon and had wine stains smearing the wax to illegibility.

He didn’t know if it was because JB was drunk or because he was so tired and his nerves and mind were so worn down by him stressing over Marinette and the Akuma for the past few days, but nothing coming from the model was making sense.

“I’m sorry, but you’ve lost me,” Adrien admitted, his hands sweating a little at the realization that he was admitting to not understanding something even a drunk person did.

Wait, if he’s drunk doesn’t that make it harder to understand?

“Love!”

Nope, definitely understood that.

“Love, attraction, want, desire, passion! They are all linked to your sexuality,” the model sang out with a burst of joyful infatuation. “Want something different than the Éclair you have? Go find someone with a Croissant that would like a taste of you. Want something similar? Find someone with a cone or a Dacquoise and spend a little time taste testing them. Want both? Go for it! Try everything out.”

Why...why was this making sense?

And why did this man have to choose pastries that were oddly shaped like what Adrien suspected JB to be hinting towards.

He felt his stomach groaning at the thought of knowing these things, and if his father would find out that he did. But still, he needed to know more. He needed to know if something was wrong or if this was normal.

JB seemed to think about his own bakery analogy, rolling it over in his mind before nodding to confirm that he liked it.

“That’s how the attraction works. Does that make sense?” JB asked as he sat forward and rested his head on his tented hands, his eyes sliding sideways to the blond beside him.

Adrien mulled it over. “Okay, maybe this is a lot more complicated than I thought it was. But it does make sense. Kind of.”

JB smiled, his ravid ador for the subject only growing till he suddenly bounced from his seat, swinging his bottle in hand.

“LGBT, my friend. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and sexualities galore beyond the front label. Pick what you want to try out being until you find what you are looking for,”--he pointed his bottle at Adrien like a carnie’s cane--”what you are.”

He sat back and for once Adrien noticed that he was calmer. His ravings seeming to take the drunken and childish energy from him.

Adrien still couldn’t help himself from trying to discover what one of those words meant. He knew what it meant to be gay. One of those terms, however, had started turning in his mind, and he found himself repeating it.

Bisexual.

“So, what does that make you?” Adrien asked after a moment.

Suddenly, JB’s grin of self-satisfaction faded, changing into something more sad and tired, aging him in a mere number of seconds.

“I’ve spent so long asking myself the same thing,” he muttered after a moment, standing up to weigh his wine bottle in hand.

Adrien tried to speak again but without a word or warning he cocked back his shoulder and threw the bottle as hard as he could down the drive, missing and having it land in the grass next to the gravel. Adrien couldn’t tell if it had broken or not, but he had a feeling the ground’s keeper had their work cut out for them.

He finally unglued his eyes from where the glass had landed to slide onto the man that stood next to him. Framed in the purple and pink and haloed by the moon he looked almost heavenly, if not for the stiffness in his shoulders and jaw.

Then he sighed, and the tension was gone from his body, replaced by a reserved regal posture.

“The thing is, this community, the LGBT+ people, can’t always give you what you want. Sure, you can get a label and prance around with a button and go by their standards, but what does that really do for you? I mean, it may help you, my friend, but for me, it was just something else for them to call me. To label me.”

He sighed, seeming to steel himself for what he was going to admit next. “I tried going by bisexual, but that never properly fit. Then pan, still not a match. Hell, someone even said I was ace since I had only slept with one person.”

Adrien went stock still. He shouldn’t be hearing this. It was too personal and even JB seemed to realize it.

There was a long pause, and not one that Adrien distested. He found himself sliding forward to come closer to the tipsy model who seemed everything short of insightful.

Finally, he spoke, and Adrien would never forget his next words.

“I don't need a label because I am what I am. I am who I am. I am me, and that is enough.”

He sighed, a deep and aged sound. “Or at least it should be.”

He turned then, stopping to ruffle Adrien’s hair and offer him a hand up from his seat.

Adrien gladly took it, standing to offer JB a grateful nod and embrace. “You’d best be running back to daddy before he gets too pissed about me stealing you.”

Adrien nodded. “I think I’ll be another minute. I--I wanna have some time to think about what you said.”

JB nodded, his drunken smile replacing his sober look. “I’ll stall for you.”

His parting gift was a wink and a pat on the shoulder. Or at least that’s what Adrien thought it was, until he heard the door crack maybe an inch, then pause.

“I don’t know if this will help at all, but, ignoring or denying your feelings will only bring you grief. Trust me. And, by the way, whoever he is...he’s a lucky son-of-a-bitch to have someone like you chasing him.”

And with that he was gone, leaving Adrien with nothing but his thoughts, the moon, and the smell of wine drifting through the air.     

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

Where Have I Been? | Doing the Write Thing #24

***TRIGGER WARNING: there’s mention of suicide/being suicidal in this post. If you’re sensitive to that, I’d advise you to skip this post!***

Well hellooooo, it’s been a while.

And by a while I mean 6 days, and for a series that’s supposed to be updated daily, that means something...

Where the actual heck have I been?

First, I gotta preface...

I LOVE writing these updates. I can’t express to you guys how important these updates are to my writing process and to keeping me motivated. The support I’ve gotten for this series means so much to me, so when I’m away from Tumblr for a while, trust me, I am still thinking about you guys and about these updates.

To be honest I don’t know why I’ve been gone this long... I have nothing to excuse this absence/mini hiatus. I’m sorry I fell off the face of the earth, especially since I’ve been posting frequently for the past month. Even though I haven’t been updating you, doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing. Sorry I’ve been away, but I’m back to writing these updates as much as I can.

Thank you guys for understanding... Seriously, it means the world to me.

Yesterday was such a day.

I kid you not, I spent my entire day watching 13 Reasons Why on Netflix.

I’ve expressed that I don’t actually support the book before on this blog. Not hating, or anything, but in my personal experience with being suicidal a suicidal human, I wasn’t a fan of how suicide was portrayed in the actual book. Suicide’s a huge part of my life (and I know that may come as a shock, but honestly, I don’t want to hold the truth back from you). (But also, I appreciate that the book still exists and helps raise awareness for others. I still really appreciate the effort.)

I’ve been suicidal since I was a child... It’s a weird thing to express. If you’re suicidal, you’d get what I mean. And also: just because I’m suicidal, doesn’t mean I’ve got a plan, or am going to actually do it. It’s just a part of my personality, and is a part of how I was programmed. This isn’t a new thing for me, and frankly, doesn’t interfere with my life. There’s no need to be concerned (just in case anyone else finds this alarming) about this, just to clear that up. (And I’m getting help, no worries, just sharing my story over here!)

I wrote a journal entry two days ago that might help people who aren’t suicidal understand what it’s like. Obviously, I need to put it out there: this is my personal experience. Not every person experiences this in the way I do and it’s very important to understand that.

Alright this is the journal entry:

It’s hard when I’m so willing to die and yet so motivated to live. That’s the thing about being suicidal. It’s the worst trap a person can fall victim to because for me, I feel great a lot of the times. I love small, irrelevant things in life like how it feels to watch the steam clear from the mirror after a long hot shower, or how at 6PM in the summer, this warm glow touches every corner of every object in every room. Or the way it feels to run my fingers through my hair and feel physical curls. Or the split second in which you finally take down a large ice cold glass of water after being parched for hours. Small things like that I appreciate. And I appreciate life so much. It’s not like I’m ungrateful for what I have, or I’m not happy with what I have because that’s not true at all. Being suicidal is loving everything but still having this deep pull inside of you yearn for death. And sometimes in not death, it’s silence that just cannot be recreated on this earth.

(btw, the hair bit is because I bleach my hair frequently, hence my natural curly hair has been destroyed because the lack of moisture, so seeing it curly [which is often now] is just a little small thing that makes me happy!)

(And if anyone wants to talk to me about this because they’re feeling similarly or would like some personal experience to help with research, feel free to message me! :))

Does that make sense? I know when I tell people this they become super concerned which I understand. This is a scary thing for me to admit on here, but honesty is very important to me. A lot of people don’t get what it’s like to be suicidal which I think is actually a very good thing. I don’t think anyone WANTS to feel like this.

So back to what I was saying about the show... I think the show depicted an AMAZING job at showing what being suicidal/coping with suicide is really like. Because it’s not pretty but also, goes unnoticed a lot of the time. I LOVED that they didn’t hide behind the ‘suicide is not the answer’ mantra and actually became ACTIVE in showing how harmful not paying attention is. I loved that Clay was angry about the school’s putting up of posters after the suicide of his friends because posters don’t help AFTER there’s been a tragedy as the one in the show and book. I love that it’s spreading awareness, especially to high schools. (The poster thing is personally a huge problem I have at my school. Crapton of posters, and zero actual active helping. Gah)

So while I don’t like how the book depicted a struggle I face, the show is so beautiful and honest and amazing. I highly recommend watching the show. It’s a work of art, and honestly, is something I’m so proud of. To get an accurate depiction of what being suicidal is like/suicide in the media is just... amazing. I’m so happy about this show. It’s wonderful.

(BUT of course, not everyone who is suicidal/has attempted suicide/is coping with suicide won’t feel this way. This is just my experience.)

So that’s what I did all of yesterday. And honestly, I can’t regret that. I feel so heard because of this show, and it means a lot.

And for those who are wondering: Dylan did an amazing job. I’m so happy he was cast for Clay. (Dylan’s from my favourite band, lol, check out The Narwhals small bands 4 lyfe, he was amazing.)

If you’ve got a solid 13 hours to kill, I’d highly recommend spending them on watching this important show.

My day didn’t really start until around midnight... Which means it didn’t really start at all... (Zero regrets though.)

BUT I DID A THING while I was watching the show!

I did my first digital painting! Yay!

My sister got a drawing tablet for Christmas, so I decided to pick it up yesterday and finished my first real piece of digital art.

I can’t really draw. I’m such a noob at drawing, and am really only trying to develop my skills since drawing isn’t my strongest point. (I’m more of a graphic design gal.) BUT you know what I can do? Use Photoshop.

I wish I had the original sketch to show you, but guys, I got the proportions all wrong. The eyes were huge and a completely different shape, the nose was way too big, the head was huge, the mouth was way too wide...

But I fixed it with Photoshop. ;’)

I drew my MC from FOSTERED’s spinoff duology, ALANNIS.

SO STOKED STOKED STOKED STOKED.

GUYS YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN THE BEFORE SKETCH. I’m kicking myself for not saving it, but it was so funny, LOL. I literally had to readjust the size of everything.

So in terms of software, I sketched everything on my drawing tablet in Photoshop, and painted it in there as well. I’m not an artist, but I’m pretty proud of this, considering it was my first time using the tablet! It’s not perfect but I love it a lot... Really proud of that nose. lol.

And more news!

@sarahkelsiwrites drew Colton from SIXTEEN CENTS for me, and AHHHH I’M SO EXCITED!

She’s also going to draw Andy and Jayesh which oh my I’m super stoked for. I love these three a lot.

Colton has the best hair. Like, my hair is blue, and he still wins at hair.

This just made me want to write the entire book right now. lol.

Okay onto the actual writing update...

Daily word count goal: 250

Words written: 1367

Total word count: 42 830

Total page count: 82

Songs played: No music

Things to know: I was pretty tired. But also, was SO excited. Fun times. I listened to the scenes before this and loved ‘em so much so I was just so stoked to write the next one.

How I felt: Stoked af. It was a little hard to get into at first, but holy stoked.

Bad haiku to describe writing session: 2 AM is a / Perfect time to write my book / I got a lot done

Rating of writing session out of 10 and why: Solid 8.75 because I was a little tired, but also very excited

On a scale from 1-10 my level of stoked-ness is: SO BLOODY STOKED 10/10

Lyrics to describe writing session: And strange as it seems / She’s endless to me / She’s just like paperwork / But harder to read

- Ed Sheeran, She (Song I Wrote With Amy EP)

BUT OHHHH SHE, KNOWS ME SOOOO WELLLLLL.

GIF to describe writing session:

WE WERE YOUUUUUUNG DARLIN WE DON’T HAVE NO CONTROL, WE’RE OUT OF CONTROLLLLL

(Also, does anyone else here like The Strokes? I’d be interested to know...)

Excerpt:

(I forgot the excerpt in the last writing update like a dunce)

“My mother always told me to get rid of the toxic people in my life. To only surround myself with positive relationships, and positive people. But maybe I’m just a toxic person, and there’s no getting rid of myself.”

(This might sound really bad, but I actually wrote this down in a journal entry as kind of a personal thought and immediately thought to add it into the book because TEENAGE ANGST COME ALL AGES.)

(You know, dude that said this isn't even a teenager. I’ve been writing these books for so long that if I go on for another year, the book would most likely move into adult.)

(Lonan’s my angsty ball of angst.)

(Join the club.)

(Currently, this club of angst is being populated by Cliff, Lone and I. Looking for new members.)

Okay, so that’s it. This post was different and really honest... I hope that you guys enjoyed it, honestly. Thank you for reading as always, and I’ll see you in the next one. :) 

--Rachel

[lonelybob]

My path from Apple Watch to Ōura

I have been using the Apple Watch consistently for 1 1/2 years, constantly wearing it everyday with few exceptions when I traveled and forgot to bring the Watch's charging cable. Overall I am happy with what the Watch has done for me, but I feel it's time I move onto a different approach to health tracking.

I originally bought the Apple Watch for 3 main reasons:

Health tracking

Notifications available at a glance

To use my iPhone less

The Apple Watch has succeeded in many ways in motivating me to get more in shape. I starting off with light short jogs and walks to fill the Watch activity rings, and over a year have built up my muscles and jogging stamina so much that I ran a half marathon distance on a weekend morning in November.

Health & Workout Tracking

The apps I use for keeping track of my runs are: Zombies Run, Runkeeper, Nike+ (Now renamed Nike NRC), SportsTracker, and Charity Miles.

Zombies Run is the best immersive jogging experience. You are a survivor of a zombie apocalypse and are sent of jogging missions to get supplies and save other people you find along your way.

Runkeeper & Nike NRC are pretty similar in terms of features, the difference is their users. If you want to compete against others for how many mikes you've run in a week or a month, both apps offer this. So ask your friends who jog, if they're using one, probably you'll want to use the same app so that you can see each other's runs. Regarding the Apple Watch, both have apps but I've noticed in my experience the Nike NRC Watch app tends to be less stable and more unreliable. Worse case scenario the Nike Watch app would crash and no log of your run is recorded at all, hence I prefer to use Runkeeper's Watch app. But I still use Nike NRC on iPhone to see how jogging friends are doing each month.

Sports Tracker is one of the older workout tracking apps, and has roots from being born & spun out from Nokia. (I used to work for Nokia in the booming Symbian days.)  I find other users of SportsTracker to be more communal and supportive rather than competitive. Sports Tracker has a feature where after logging a run you can share the route as a jogging path publicly with other users. Using this along with SportsTracker's photo sharing support you can find new and interesting jogging routes.

Charity Miles is a different type of app than the others above, what it does is allow you to jog or cycle and use the distance you ran to donate to a charity of your choice. It's less of a fitness tracking app, and more of a community of joggers and cyclers who want to utilize their workout to help others.

But after a few months of filling the activity rings mostly by just jogging, I began to realize that my other muscle groups weren't being worked on by just jogging. My legs were in great shape but my other muscles were pretty much the same as before I started jogging.

So on days when it was raining or cold out I started doing other workouts using FitStar and Sworkit to help work on my arms, back, chest, abs, etc. By alternating from just running all the time my other muscles started to become more tone overall.

Nutrition & Food logging

Another aspect of health & fitness that I started exploring is food logging. I started out using MyFitnessPal. I have never tracked how many calories I ate before. When I started using it I did not plan to eat a certain amount of calories per meal nor did I plan to cook certain dishes, I simply started entering what I ate each meal. What makes food logging easier is you can search for the name of a food, or even easier if you buy prepared food from the store and there's a barcode you can scan it and if it's in the database the food is automatically added. Often the barcodes are recognized recognized by MyFitnessPal.

What did logging my food do for me? It made me better understood how many calories were in different foods, and what type of nutrition they provide. With this knowledge I could be better informed when I picked something to eat. I could see if I had a big meal with lots of carbs, I should try to balance it out by having more protein and fat other meals. If I ate a dessert that ended up having a lot of calories, I could choose to eat a smaller portion the next meal to balance out total calories eaten. In addition to this, I could exercise more, by jogging further or other exercises and burn off the calories I ate so the total calories eaten didn't jump suddenly after eating high calorie foods.

MyFitnessPal was a good starter app, but I ended up switching to Lifesum for nutrition & food logging. The thing I like better about Lifesum is it shows you a rating of the food you ate based on its nutritional contents. Recently the Lifesum Rating has switched from an A - F scale to a Smiley scale. A big grinning smile means the food you ate is good for you, a non-smiling face means it has too much sugar or salt or fat, etc. and it tells you the reason why the food earned that rating.

Both Lifesum and MyFitnessPal can write your nutrition data in HealthKit in case you want make your nutritional data available to other apps that read from the iOS Health app.

The only downside to Lifesum is their database of food barcodes is smaller, this means sometimes when I scan a prepared food from the grocery store Lifesum doesn't know about it. For this reason I keep MyFitnessPal installed, I scan the food with MyFitnessPal then Add the barcode & nutrition info to Lifesum. After I add the food once, Lifesum has the barcode and the next time I buy the same food from the store I can scan it with Lifesum.

Sleep

The last category of health and fitness that I started trying out was sleep tracking. Sleep is an often overlooked aspect of health but is actually very important and impacts your life more than you might think.

Simple question: Do you know how many hours you've slept in a given night? Unless you've actually tracked it, including when you get up and go to the bathroom, or a noise wakes you up during the night, etc. the answer is probably not.

You may know approximately when you got into bed and when your alarm went off but if you don't log it you don't know how much you've slept.

I started off using Sleep++, then used Pillow, then Sleep Pulse 2, and many others I tried out inbetween. The thing that wasn't great about these is you must remember to Start them when you're going to sleep and then Stop them when you wake up. Only recently has this been improved greatly with AutoSleep that doesn't require Starting & Stopping the app but estimates your sleep from your Apple Watch movement & heart beat during the night, and it ends up working quite well.

What has always been missing about sleep tracking is a lack of analysis, even with months of data logged. Sure I could manually look at how long you slept yourself and compare it to yesterday or the previous week but this gets old. The app that did the best job of presenting the sleep logs is Jawbone Up's purple app, that reads Sleep entries saved in HealthKit and displays it in daily graphs. I wrote about this is another blog post.

However there's a bug in Jawbone's Up app, for a sleep session with more than one Asleep entries, each additional Asleep entry is read & duplicate entries to display on Jawbone Up. You can simply delete the duplicates, but that can get annoying that the issue hasn't been fixed. But considering Jawbone's financial status the bug may never be fixed.

Now that I've gone over much of my experiences of using the Apple Watch let's move on to the other reasons I got the Watch, for app notifications and to use my iPhone less.

Here's the kicker though, these 2 goals end up conflicting with each other.

Notifications and Watch apps in practice are literally an extension of the iPhone. So when I choose to allow notifications on my Watch, this leads me to checking or fiddling to reply with my Watch, and when I want to take an action from the notification message received it often leads me back to picking up my iPhone.

Jumping back to Health tracking, the problem with health tracking with the Watch is it's all very manually. Remember to Start a workout, Remember to Start Sleep logging, remember to Stop the workout. Simpler and cheaper devices from Jawbone, Withings, & Fitbit do these things automatically by analysis of the data. This is a clear weak point of the Apple Watch to me.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to bash the Apple Watch. I'm glad I bought one, it motivated me to be more active and healthy, I'm probably in the best shape I've been in a long while. I plan to continue to use Zombies Run, FitStar, Runkeeper, Lifesum, etc. but I'll be using them on my iPhone not on the Watch. I feel that I'm ready to try a different approach.

What is Ōura?

Ōura is a ring that can track your Sleep, heart rate, temperature, steps & activity with a battery that lasts 2-3 days.

Why Ōura?

Not only is the design different than others (a ring instead of a bracelet or Watch) but also it's approach is fundamentally different than other health trackers, Ōura focuses on Sleep as THE primary measurement, then calculates a Readiness score and adjusts your activity goals for the day and expectations for your energy levels. The Ōura app actually analyzes your data and provides tips or helpful suggestions to support you along the way. Instead of keeping the same Activity goal every day of the week, or telling you to take 10,000 steps despite having not slept well Ōura adjusts your goals.

For those of you that enjoy & use the "It's time to stand up" feature on Apple Watch, the Ōura app on iPhone has this, but it's improved because it sends you a notification at different times to remind you to stand up and move around during the hour not 10 minutes before each hour at x:50 like Apple Watch.

How good is Ōura's analysis & suggestions?

I've been using it for 3 weeks and Ōura actually warned me that I might be getting a cold based on a night's heart rate, temperature, and Sleep pattern being different. You know what, it was right! I did catch a cold and the next couple days after that I was recovering from it, and that is pretty amazing & awesome analysis.

Switching from an Apple Watch, What is Ōura not good at?

Currently Ōura has HealthKit support but is mainly used for logging Sleep sessions. It doesn't log (at least not consistently) other HealthKit measurements, such as Steps, heart rate, Active Energy, etc. though the ring tracks these. I've asked Ōura about this and they have said they plan to work on improving HealthKit logging in the future.

Ōura tracks Steps & activity but doesn't log Heart rate during workouts. Ōura uses heart rate tracking while you sleep. Does it matter though if I don't have heart rate logged during a workout? The answer is it depends if you use the data or not. It doesn't prevent or stop me from working out as I'll be using run tracking apps when jogging or FitStar/Sworkit when doing an indoor workout anyhow. So for me, the lack of Heart rate tracking during a workout is not a deal breaker for me.

Overall the Ōura so far is an improvement in the area I want to focus on, Sleep tracking, being rested, & prepared for the day.

[mariaaamaaarquez]

151

okay HI EVERYONE nice to see ya nice to see ya.

okay total side note before we begin; I got a new set of nails and I haven't had them since I came back from camp and the sound of my nails clicking on the keyboard rn is sooo damn satisfying I MISSED MY CLAWS.

anyways hi um so todays post is gonna be partially sentimental and partially just me snapping tf off about what happened to me last Wednesday. 

so lets begin.

as I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, I have a brother. His name’s Daniel, he's 11 years old, and on Wednesday, he started his first year at the LOVELY Nelsen Middle School.

sixth mf grade and I still have no clue where time went because it seems like last week I was saying “when I graduate high school you’ll be getting ready to go to sixth grade!” 

like excuse me tf stop growing.

anyways.

his first day was wednesday, but on tuesday we were trying to figure out what bus route he was on because we knew where the stop was, just not what the number was. 

SURPRISINGLY enough (that was total sarcasm btw) the district office wasn't helpful at ALL and so he was instructed to go to the office in the morning and ask what bus he was supposed to be on. since we had moved my eighth grade year, we didnt change the address in the system for him because if we did then he would've gotten moved and he didnt wanna leave the elementary school he was at, SO the bus stop that was assigned to him in the system was the stop by our old house that I used to take. we forgot to change the address hence the fact that we had to figure out his route.

so wednesday morning as im at the nail salon I get a call from my mom who was at work and she sends me a picture that my brother sent her from school with the bus route on it. it was a bus permit he had been given so he knew which one to get on. 

2:35 hits and so I call my brother.

“hey you getting on the bus?”

“no I dont know which one to get on.”

“wtf Daniel its literally on the paper they gave you.”

“ohh THATS the bus number?”

“WHAT ELSE WOULD IT BE. 151 find bus number 151 and get on that one.”

“okokok” I hang up and then immediately text him afterwards to let him know to text me when he's close to our apartments.

no response.

I text him again- no response, again.

I kinda just let it go and then at 2:45 I go to the stop to wait for him, and of course theres other parents and siblings there, and then it hits 2:55 and the bus pulls up. 

(mind you I had called and texted more times and no response to any of those)

im standing there waiting- and nothing. 

he doesn't get off the bus.

so obviously me being me I started freaking out and so I start BLOWING UP his phone- FaceTime, snapchat, calls, messages, I EVEN DM’D HIM ON INSTA AND

nothing. 

I call my dad freaking out and so then he tried and same thing no response.

at 3:11 I get a text from my brother.

“by the way I'm here.”

EXXXXXXCUUUUUSSSEEEE YOU?!

“Daniel Alejandro Flores Marquez call me right fucking now.”

*phone rings*

“hello?!” “hi im here”

“what the actual fuck is wrong with you do you understand all the shit you just put me through? do you understand what mom and dad would've done to me if something ever happened to you?! why the hell do you have a phone if you aren't gonna answer! 

so to bore you from me just being angry with him afterwards, he basically decided to leave his phone on silent even while on the bus because he didn't wanna get in trouble.

ok lol.

so you obviously might be wondering if this was one of those in the moment situations and now looking back at it wondering too if it was just not as big of a deal as I made it BUT there was a good though or series of thoughts that came out of one of the most stressful situations ive been in ever. and its this:

being the oldest sibling is so so so hard. 

(shoutout to all of you oldest siblings bc we deserve some mf respect)

being an oldest sibling is all fun in games until you genuinely realize that you have a little mini version of you that will watch your every move and follow in your footsteps. you suddenly have to watch your decisions because you have a little ones or more than one little person just looking up to you watching what they’ll do next. what happened with my brother I can look back on and laugh about now, but I genuinely saw myself in him. I saw myself and how I would react every time I made a stupid decision at his age. I also saw how sorry he was by the look in his eyes

its a specific look.

I used to wear it on my face all of the time

not anymore- because im... not.. a... kid.. anymore... (?)

it was so crazy to me because after it happened and after I let out all of my anger and rage- I was like

holy shit

i literally just sounded

like

my MOTHER.

like tf typa shit is that? 

it genuinely made me begin to think deeper and deeper into something that was sooo small- but Maria being Maria turned it into something huge that made me realize how much ive matured and how much ive grown.

my brother started middle school.

I’m starting college.

I turn eighteen in twenty days-

time is going by faster than ever and im starting to have those “I feel so so old” moments more frequently now and its insane.

more adventures await, 

but for now, I guess I just have to focus on not losing my little brother when im held responsible for him. 

[ that wasn't funny before- but its funny now(; ]

aaaand thats all! so so insane this post was supposed to go up like 4 days ago but life has been hectic as fuck and im just now at the airport in san diego getting ready to go back home- but dont worryyyy I got some juicy ass shit coming this week, since its the most amount of time ive been out of the house since camp and im genuinely a bed potato. 

new post up tomorrow! 

love you guys

besitos,

ria.

[anahanash-blog]

One-Week Leave: Forgot to write Day 2

This was supposed to be written yesterday but I was too tired to even write so I just decided to write it this morning so here it goes.

Unplanned Dalagang PIlipina haircut

So I’ve been wanting to cut my hair since last week due to its length and I actually hate having long hair already. 

So I had my haircut in Lucena since it’s a lot cheaper and as long as my blisters are covered, my mom said it won’t be that contagious anymore. Before grocery shopping, we went to a salon inside the mall and went to the ones with no people so that we won’t wait in line. (Okay, from there I should’ve sensed that there’s a reason for that.)

Mom had a manicure and I had a haircut. I showed him a picture of what I would want my hair to look like and I made it clear that it should be a straight cut. So to make it a bit lighter, I started some small talk whether my hair is too dry and I told him that I want to cut my hair to get rid of the dry parts. (Again, girl. Wrong move!) 

At first, I try to keep my smiling face (even though his hands are too heavy that I say ouch occasionally). But as he cuts my hair, I could feel like he honestly doesn’t know what he’s doing. 

You know how it’s like in the salon? Where they would organize your hair into sections and then cut it and then trim those into sections? He didn’t do it. Thus, he trimmed the sections by cutting most on the end and less on the other end, making the hair on back shorter than the front. 

It would’ve been okay if he was vying for the bob cut, but no. It honestly looked like a plain mess and he instantly saw how my smiling face turned into a cold one and how I inspected my hair. So he immediately offered a solution to make it shorter, and so I gave him instructions. I repeated that he should just make a straight cut because hello, that’s what I asked you in the first place. 

Mom just finished her manicure and she looked quite happy with her work and was asking me to just pay for the both of us so that she could go shopping while I get finished with my hair. But since I was too pissed with that evil gay, I asked her to stay so that she could look at the hair and maybe scare him a bit that there’s a parent with me.

Mom gave a few instructions too but in the end, it still doesn’t look good. 

I told him off after that but he defended that he only did that because he wanted to get rid of the dry parts. Ugh, the dry parts!!! 

I mean, yeah, it’s okay for you to do that but if your customer told you a hundred times on what to do, plus having a picture to show on how she wants it done, then you should’ve done it!

I was so pissed off that I just didn’t say a word and just paid with a very frowning face. I was planning to fix it the next day (which is now) but I realized I just wanted to make it longer for a bit and then I would have it fixed by a professional this time. It is then that I have realized why I pay hundreds of pesos for more expensive hair salons: because some could ruin your hair.

But I guess I just have to live with it now for a while and enjoy having that dalagang pilipina just like Mimi. 

Also, I’m kinda hoping he gets my virus too because as he blow-dries my hair using a comb, he would also comb and blow-dry his hair like an unprofessional biatch. It’s unfortunate for him because most of my marks are on the left side of my head so yeah, I hope you’d get my chickenpox!

1/10 movie review done

Since I went out yesterday, I was only able to watch one movie and that is The Other Boleyn Girl. I made a review about it (please check out my previous post). It was actually a good film and kind of reminded me of some of the things that have been happening with my personal life right now.

In my interpretation, the movie revolves around manipulation, betrayal and treachery from both the Boleyn girls. This made me realize that these words aren’t exactly new to this world and that I must not be so surprised.

The world would always include plot twists and turns that would never allow one’s life to be boring hence I should always be prepared on what’s in store for me. Not just physically or mentally, but also emotionally. 

So the biggest words for me that I should embrace at this point is let it go. 

Let go of everything that’s bothering you and use them as a fuel to become more alive than ever. 

Maybe that was the biggest lesson I had that day.

[lettersforyoulettersforme]

I had a dream last night.

I dreamt that I was pregnant but that I forgot that I was pregnant. I remembered just as I was falling asleep and I had been drinking wine and smoking weed all day. I remember feeling so disappointed in myself, like I had done something egregious. I guess binge drinking and doing drugs when you’re pregnant- even dream pregnant- are bad. 

It was weird though because it made me feel like I’m forgetting something. LIke there’s this undeniable truth about myself that I’m forgetting. And, if we’re following the metaphor of the dream, a truth about myself that I’m doing everything to destroy (hence the heavy drinking and the pregnancy-- you get it you get it). 

I don’t know what that truth is. Sometimes I wonder if it’s my creative spirit. Or, even more simply, the part of me that loves to socialize and have fun. I did so much of that yesterday. Brunch with Charlotte and then dinner with Stephen. Little Pearl’s “Godfather Menu” was what we ordered and Jesus Christ.. 10 courses with wine pairings. I felt so full. Like post- Thanksgiving dinner stuffed. But everything was delicious and I was so happy that Stephen was enjoying himself! He really works way too hard and we spent the majority of the meal talking about his dreams and his aspirations for Glen’s and himself and what could keep Glen’s from becoming bigger and better (turns out DC just isn’t the city that cares as much about local produce as say California- shocker!). I found out that being aesthetically pleasing is really important to Stephen. Which was such a fucking surprise to me. He said “I want the store to have beautiful lights hanging over tables and plants in every corner and bookshelves that hold the produce instead of the metal shelves that we have now.” Turns out he really cares what it looks like. It’s almost like he dreamed up some Instagrammable store without ever having gone on Instagram.  I didn’t realize that the outward appearance, which is already a great one, matters so much to him. But hey, I can be surprised. 

But in the midst of our talking about his dreams, I said-- and not in a bitchy way, just a genuinely curious one-- I said “I wonder what it would be like if we talked about my dreams the way we talk about yours.” To which Stephen said “I really look forward to that. What do you envision after you graduate?” *To be fair, we definitely talk about my dreams, but we do talk about Stephen’s more because he seems to be in the midst of living them or trying to mold them. I don’t mind talking about his aspirations and I feel like I have good insight, a vantage point that he doesn’t have. So inherently, I feel valued and valuable in those conversations.* 

I said “Ideally, I’ll graduate in May and have taken my Generalist test and then start working at an agency that can provide me with clinical supervision so that I can start getting that experience and those hours (You need 3,000 hours of supervision over at least 2 years). And then take the Clinical test. And then be able to practice independently. And be a therapist on my own by the time I’m 30.”

I want to say this now: I know set backs will come. It’s inevitable. And I don’t want to peak professionally by age 30, that’s not exciting to me. I won’t beat myself up if I don’t accomplish those things by 30. 30 is an arbitrary number but it does hold weight simultaneously. I’m just eager to see what happens in the future. And it’s the same theme that I’ve been experiencing with this engagement idea. I want to challenge myself to feel present in the PRESENT moment. Sometimes I feel like the future is what keeps me chained down and sucks away my present oriented joy. It’s a seemingly impossible task, but I know that I can challenge myself to stay here and now. 

[monwinzz]

Forgot to post this yesterday as i had been too tired after spending the day with friends. But! I finally done the swatches for @thecreativekinds calligraphy metallic watercolor! This will be my review on it. Bought myself 2 sets, Under The Sea & Spring Garden & single pan Prosecco. Meanwhile, i got very lucky to be gifted single pan Sunset by Nana & Bas. Love u guys~ 🙏🏻♥️😍 —- First initial thought when i see it, yeasss! BLINGS! MORE BLINGS! GORG BLINGS! The colors are so vibrant, even more than finetec i say. It pops on black & white paper. You can look the swatches on white in my IGTV. My fave so far is Prosecco, Fern, Marina(yeah, i write it wrong, and i just realize it now 😞), Cocoa, Mermaid’s Green, Marigold. I also love how they activate quickly, with little water you can swipe with such deep color on paper. —- Although, if you’re trying to fill the nib, with bit more water, i suggest to transfer the ink & water to seperate pallette. Some of them are very creamy, hence it’s a bit hard to mix on the pan. Also, it has the tendency to blob hard on paper. Like the ink runs down too fast from nibs to paper. That’s probably because it’s not properly mixed with water (i think, or some just have so much mica in it, if i remember correctly). So, putting it in seperate pallette first then fill in the nibs is easier for me. —- Overall, i love this metallic watercolor. Bas & Nana did an amazing job with these colors. Usually i had a hard time capturing any metallic inks on black paper, since i only use iPhone camera, but these colors stood out in every shot. Highly recommend it for those who love metallic colors for calligraphy. Or for ur watercolor artworks too. ♥️ . . #moderncalligraphy #typographyinspired #calligraphy #pointedpencalligraphy #handmade #instatypography #dailytype #typespire #typegang #typematters #kaligrafina #typism #goodtype #belmenid #handletteredabcs #handcalligraphy #tyxca #typehand #100daysofcalligraphy #thedailycalligraphy #calligraphymasters #thecreativekinds #metallic #watercolor #ink #review https://www.instagram.com/p/Bl1v-VaAkXl/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1k3mt20hz4tw2

[johnchiarello]

Monday

MONDAY 5-15-17

James 4:1 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?

James 4:2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.

James 4:3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

11 And she vowed a vow, and said, O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head. Samuel [Past links- verses below]

CCCF- https://youtu.be/MEBISFL6pRg

.Good coffee

.Vatican City

.Switzerland trip

.Prophetic word

.Why did James only write one letter?

.Trinity

.Proclaim the Son

 2 Corinthians 1:20

For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.

In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations

 Travel ban n more- https://youtu.be/UrW4m_b35UY

.Sologamy?

.SNL- news?

.Nick Jimenez editorial

.SB- 4

.Kids in N.J.

.Pastor Don’s message

.9th circuit

.Out of control courts?

.Sanctuary cities

 Isaiah 9:6

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations

  [Note- I made this post today- one of my ‘roll-outs’ - but I did add some past teachings and verses below]

 NEW- Talked some about the travel ban that is being argued before the 9th circuit court today- and how the courts have become politicized.

A few years ago Austin [Texas] brought Rico charges against a Republican- and found him guilty!

Yes- for money laundering.

 I remember at the time- the same thing was being done on a regular basis by many Democrats- it simply was a way to get campaign funds- by ‘going around the loopholes’.

 Lots of people did it- but because Austin is a liberal city- they managed to get a Republican on charges that were intended to go after the Mafia.

 So today the 9th circuit court is grilling the justice department lawyers on whether Trump has made any comments to them in the past- about Muslims.

The judges are going back to campaign statements Trump made- all of this is ridiculous.

 Whether you are for the ban or not- this should have never been in the courts.

 I also shared some from the sermon Pastor Don preached Sunday.

How Hannah asked God for a son [Samuel] and when she had a son- she ‘lent him to the Lord’.

It was a good message- a Mothers day theme.

 Often times we ‘have not- because we ask not’.

I covered some of the local news as well- the caller times had a good editorial by Nick Jimenez on why SB 4 is not good.

 And Chief Markle also spoke well about how he will handle the new law.

He shed light on the law that hopefully will put our immigrant community at ease.

 If you are breaking the law- of course the cops will do their job- but the chief explained that local law enforcement always had the right to ask someone their immigration status.

 And the passage of SB 4 does not mandate cops to ask.

So our local cops more than likely will continue to do policing the way they have always done it.

 He tried to put the immigrants- who are not out committing crimes- at ease.

I agree with his approach.

 As of now I made 2 videos- that might be it for today- I’ll try and add some pertinent news links- and a few verses below.

 God bless you all.

 NOTE- I forgot to mention this on video- and I wanted to.

My friend Mike [artist] came by Saturday and gave me a beautiful Cross he bought at the flea market. It has Firefighter stuff on it- and he gave it to me as a gift of appreciation for ‘all that you do’. I thanked Mike- and spent about 3 hours just hanging out- this time at my house. If I remember I’ll post a picture of it on Facebook.

 24 The Lord bless thee, and keep thee:

25 The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:

26 The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.

Num. 6

 PAST POSTS- [ Past teaching I did that relates to today’s post-verses below]

https://ccoutreach87.com/1st-2nd-samuel-links-updated-3-17/

https://ccoutreach87.com/james-2015/

https://ccoutreach87.com/house-of-prayer-or-den-of-thieves/

 (882)1ST SAMUEL; INTRO, CHAPTER 1- Originally the books of 1st and 2nd Samuel were one volume. When the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament was made [the Septuagint] they were added with 1st and 2nd Kings and were called ‘The books of the kingdoms’. In order to keep this volume from becoming too big, they were divided into the present divisions. In chapter one we see the family of Elkanah and Hannah [and wife #2 Pininnah!]. They go up to the Tabernacle of the Lord in Shiloh to worship the true God. Hannah has no children while wife # 2 does. This becomes a point of contention and jealousy between the two wives. Hannah pours her heart out to the Lord and makes a vow. She tells the Lord if he gives her a son that she will dedicate him to the Lord. Eli the priest sees Hannah praying silently [her lips moving but hearing no voice] and he assumes she’s drunk! Why? Was she stumbling and acting drunk? No. It was because he thought she was mumbling [speech] like a drunk. In Acts chapter 2 the same thing is assumed. Those who received the outpouring of the Spirit were thought to be drunk. Why? Were they stumbling and falling? No, once again it was a speech thing. They were speaking all types of unknown languages [known to the various groups there that day] and people thought they were acting like drunks when they can’t talk clearly. I emphasized this because it’s common today for renewal movements to associate the Spirit with people actually stumbling and driving in a drunken type state. While I don’t want to be dogmatic and say this can never be of God, yet many of these believers will use the Acts chapter 2 example to justify their belief. Act’s 2 does not teach ‘being drunk in the Spirit’ in this manner. Now the Lord hears Hannah’s request and she gives birth to Samuel. She keeps him until he is weaned [2 or 3 years old] and then she honors her vow and dedicates him to the Lord. She actually gave him up to become a full servant of God at Shiloh. It was not an easy vow to keep. As we go thru this book we will cover lots of interesting history. Samuel will become a mighty prophetic leader in Israel. He will be the one to introduce king Saul as Israel’s first king. The last verse in Judges says ‘there was no king in the land in those days, every man did what he thought was right in his own eyes’. It’s common to think this means God punished Israel for not having a human king. In actuality God will tell Israel that they were rejecting his kingship over them by wanting a ‘king like the other nations’. We will learn that God did not originally intend for Israel to have a singular human king. The description from judges simply shows us that sinful people, who reject God’s law, will go astray. In these instances a king can bring some sort of stability and government. The kings of Israel will serve in this capacity.

 (884)SAMUEL 2- Hannah gives great praise to God for Samuel. This prophetic utterance is a lot like Mary’s ‘Magnificat’ in Luke chapter one. She says ‘God brings low the rich and helps the poor’. This week we had one of the worst financial disasters in U.S. history [9-2008]. It could have been worse, the government took over some major financial [and insurance] institutions. One of them was A.I.G., a major insurer. A day or so before they were taken over I asked my wife ‘did you take out the girls trust money’. We had a lot of money for our girls in the company [lets say between 50 and 100 thousand dollars]. My wife says ‘no, not yet’. I was a little perturbed to say the least. My wife is the trustee for the girl’s accounts, and I have been telling her for about a year to take the money out. So the day she makes the request all the talk on the financial shows is ‘will A.I.G. declare bankruptcy today’? I was upset. Another day went by and they said ‘overnight they will declare’. And we still didn’t get the money. Well the government stepped and basically took the company over and we got our checks. I was talking to my homeless buddies and they were somewhat aware of the crisis, but they could care less. Their lives were not tied up in these systems. They were still going to live the way they were living for most of their lives. Trusting God daily to meet their needs. It made me think of Hannah’s prayer. Also we see the first use of the word ‘Messiah’ [anointed] in the bible. ‘God will strengthen his king and exalt the horn of his anointed’. I read this yesterday and was quoting it all day. It’s appropriate that Mary uses this prophetic utterance while speaking of Jesus, the Messiah. The sons of Eli the priest are wicked. They are robbing the people and sleeping with the women at the tabernacle gate. Scripture says ‘the people abhorred the offering of the Lord’ because of their abuse. For many years I heard ‘if people are offended because the church emphasizes money so much, well let them be offended’. I never really questioned this reasoning. Then I began to see how the majority offence to unbelieving friends and family was the money issue. While most of the pastors were well meaning, they seemed to not realize that we do have a responsibility to not offend in the area of offerings. The apostle Paul adjusted his ministry in such a way that he would not allow the churches to support him while he was with them. [Not just Corinth either, but Thessalonica and Ephesus! Read Thessalonians and the chapter in Acts that deals with the Ephesian elders- 22?] The point being the church bears much responsibility to how the world views us in the area of offerings to God. Eli's sons abused the system to their own benefit and the people began to despise the whole concept of ‘church and money’. A prophet will pronounce judgment on Eli’s household and Samuel will ‘grow in favor with God and men’. Just like Jesus. Samuel is a type of Christ who knew his prophetic/priestly destiny from a young age. Jesus was in the Temple questioning the leaders at the age of 12, Samuel was serving the Lord at an even younger age.

  VERSES-

1 Now there was a certain man of Ramathaimzophim, of mount Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephrathite:

2 And he had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah: and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.

3 And this man went up out of his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice unto the Lord of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the priests of the Lord, were there.

4 And when the time was that Elkanah offered, he gave to Peninnah his wife, and to all her sons and her daughters, portions:

5 But unto Hannah he gave a worthy portion; for he loved Hannah: but the Lord had shut up her womb.

6 And her adversary also provoked her sore, for to make her fret, because the Lord had shut up her womb.

7 And as he did so year by year, when she went up to the house of the Lord, so she provoked her; therefore she wept, and did not eat.

8 Then said Elkanah her husband to her, Hannah, why weepest thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy heart grieved? am not I better to thee than ten sons?

9 So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh, and after they had drunk. Now Eli the priest sat upon a seat by a post of the temple of the Lord.

10 And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the Lord, and wept sore.

11 And she vowed a vow, and said, O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.

12 And it came to pass, as she continued praying before the Lord, that Eli marked her mouth.

13 Now Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard: therefore Eli thought she had been drunken.

14 And Eli said unto her, How long wilt thou be drunken? put away thy wine from thee.

15 And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord.

16 Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial: for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto.

17 Then Eli answered and said, Go in peace: and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him.

18 And she said, Let thine handmaid find grace in thy sight. So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad.

19 And they rose up in the morning early, and worshipped before the Lord, and returned, and came to their house to Ramah: and Elkanah knew Hannah his wife; and the Lord remembered her.

20 Wherefore it came to pass, when the time was come about after Hannah had conceived, that she bare a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, Because I have asked him of the Lord.

21 And the man Elkanah, and all his house, went up to offer unto the Lord the yearly sacrifice, and his vow.

22 But Hannah went not up; for she said unto her husband, I will not go up until the child be weaned, and then I will bring him, that he may appear before the Lord, and there abide for ever.

23 And Elkanah her husband said unto her, Do what seemeth thee good; tarry until thou have weaned him; only the Lord establish his word. So the woman abode, and gave her son suck until she weaned him.

24 And when she had weaned him, she took him up with her, with three bullocks, and one ephah of flour, and a bottle of wine, and brought him unto the house of the Lord in Shiloh: and the child was young.

25 And they slew a bullock, and brought the child to Eli.

26 And she said, Oh my lord, as thy soul liveth, my lord, I am the woman that stood by thee here, praying unto the Lord.

27 For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of him:

28 Therefore also I have lent him to the Lord; as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the Lord. And he worshipped the Lord there.

 NEWS-

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-live-updates-9th-circuit-arguments-9th-circuit-court-of-appeals-says-a-1486678883-htmlstory.html

http://www.charismanews.com/opinion/54869-sologamy-rises-as-the-latest-marriage-perversion-trend

  www.corpuschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com

https://www.facebook.com/john.chiarello.5?ref=bookmarks

https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ4GsqTEVWRm0HxQTLsifvg

https://twitter.com/ccoutreach87

https://plus.google.com/108013627259688810902/posts

https://vimeo.com/user37400385

https://www.pinterest.com/ccoutreach87/

https://www.linkedin.com/home?trk=hb_logo

http://johnchiarello.tumblr.com/

https://medium.com/@johnchiarello

http://ccoutreach.over-blog.com/

 Note- Please do me a favor, those who read/like the posts- re-post them on other sites as well as the site you read them on- Thanks- John.#