#i tried not to do recent releases you've probably heard of already

[aihoshiino]

Rie Takahashi Interview (Oshi no Ko Anime Guidebook: First Report)

In the recently released First Report guidebook, a number of key staff members from the Oshi no Ko anime project were interviewed about their work on the show - so you can imagine my excitement when I saw that not only was Takahashi one of those interviewed, but that she had a lot to say about her performance as Ai and how she interpreted her character. I just had to translate it!

I will say up front that I have no intention of translating the other interviews in the book - this one took me long enough as it was and I fully admit it was pure blorbo bias that kept me going the whole time lol. Given that an English release of Glare x Sparkle is already in the works at YenPress, I imagine an English version of First Report might not be far behind so be sure to support it when it comes out. I'm just impatient lol.

As usual, this TL is a combo of my own comprehension, various online dictionaries such as Jisho.org, some MTL and me collapsing, weeping into smarter people's DMs to beg for their help. If you catch any mistakes, please let me know!

Anyway, enough rambling. Check out the interview behind the cut!

Please tell us about your favourite scene and line from episode 1.

Since Ai only appears in the first episode, I really wanted to make every moment count, so each and every one of her lines are special in their own way. It's hard to choose just one, but as a fan of the original work, the line "lies are an exceptional form of love" was one I was especially particular about. Since it's the line that truly encapsulates everything about Ai, I wanted to make sure that one stuck in people's minds.

You've said in the past you were an 'Oshi no Ko' fan even before being involved in the project.

While I was reading the original work, I actually admired Akane-chan the most. Obviously, I loved Ai as well, but being a voice actress myself, I was particularly interested in how a genius actress like Akane-chan prepared for her roles and what performances she'd go on to give. The chapters where she rises above all the online harassment especially left a huge impression on me. Anyone who's worked as a creative or even just in the public eye probably knows what a pulse-pounding experience it can be when you see slanderous comments about yourself - feeling like all of society has turned its back on you and you have nowhere to belong, and not being able to talk to your parents about it. It was depicted with such care and detail that I ached with her as I read it. But then, seeing her rise back up and declare "I don't want to quit like this" gave me a lot of strength. I wanted to become an actress like Akane-chan, who could come back to acting no matter what struggles I went through.

Since I loved Akane-chan so much, when I heard there were auditions for 'Oshi no Ko', I thought "I want to play her!". I even had the thought of 'Since the original work touches so deeply on what it means to be an actor, if they don't get a good actor for this, I might end up hating Oshi no Ko!' (laughs)

As a result, when I was cast as Ai, I knew I had to step up my game. I told myself, "If I'm going to play Ai, I need to give it my everything. Anything less won't do." I gave it my all with that in mind.

Did you audition for the role of Ai?

Yes, I did. But I couldn't get Akane-chan out of my mind, so I gave her a shot at the table audition. When I was preparing, I went over the manga at home and tried voicing each character and scene and there's a part in episode seven where Akane-chan mimicks Ai as she says "I sure am sleepy. We record way too early". When I tried that scene, I went "Hold on, maybe I really am the best fit for Ai?"

I guess my hunch was right because I didn't even make it through the first screening for Akane (laughs). Because of that experience, I'm deeply grateful to (Iwami) Manaka-chan for playing my beloved Akane-chan. I love both her work and her approach as an actress, so I'm thrilled to be working alongside her. I started off as a troublesome hardcore fan thinking "If they don't cast good actors for 'Oshi no Ko,' I might end up hating it!" but now I'm just like "thank you, voice actors!!" (laughs)

Were there any scenes you thought would be particularly difficult to perform based on the script or the original work?

So, I prepared for the role by going over volume 1 of the manga, the scenes where Akane-chan channels Ai and the short story, but there wasn't much more material at the time (laughs). So just preparing for the role was tough.  During recording, I sometimes checked in with (Akasaka) Aka-sensei about Ai. Now the story has progressed and Ai's character has become more defined, I secretly get a little nervous every time I read a new chapter. "I hope my performance in episode 1 wasn't off... I hope...!" (laughs) Obviously, Aka-sensei and the team were present during recordings, so my portrayal was probably fine but a revelation about her could still catch me out (laughs)

What sort of things did you hear from Akasaka-sensei?

There's a scene where Ai talks to her ex on a public payphone. I had to make sure there was the right amount of distance between them, and whether or not Ai still had any attachment to or fondness for him. I'm the sort of fan who enjoys analyzing the original work so I had mixed feelings about getting told the answer (laughs). But because I knew all the ins and outs of her backstory, I could contextualize her behaviour and the things she says and does.

Another scene was when Ai was scouted off the street and talked about her past, mentioning being abused by her mom. She wasn't saying it with the sense of "it hurts, I can't take it, I want to die" but instead she weaponizes it like "look at what I've been through, poor little me, right?". I tried to make my performance a balance of resilience with her vulnerability.

Also, I was directed to keep the monologue before Ai gets stabbed "emotionless", so I ended up giving a much more detached and matter of fact performance than I'd initially planned.

Were you mindful of the differences between Ai in her private life and Ai on stage when performing?

The tricky part of portraying Idol Ai is that if I make her too distinct, she'll stop being Ai. For example, if I play her as an innocent, optimistic idol, she'd be Ruby, not Ai. I focused less on "what to do as Ai" and more on "what not to do". In "Viewpoint B," Ai says, "The "idol" Ai is pretty much the complete opposite of who I really am, but she's the person I'd like to be." so that was the feeling I used as my reference when portraying Idol Ai. Incidentally, in my work as a performer, I purposely try to avoid drawing a line between my public and private self. So for Ai as well, the switches between the real Ai and the idol Ai feel surprisingly seamless to me. It's not that there are two distinct faces, but that Idol Ai exists inside the real Ai so it's more a question of which side of herself she shows at any given moment.

Ai’s fans in the original story only know the Idol Ai. What do you think draws them to her?

Like in the lyrics of YOASOBI's song "Idol," she's nonchalant, carefree, and easygoing. I could've portrayed Idol Ai as more cutesy, bubbly and flirtatious, but I felt that wouldn't have a convincing appeal to characters in the story like Gorou-sensei and the otaku who support her. I wanted to make sure it was believable that idol otakus in this world end up falling for her. I think it's her more laid back vibe, not the hyper energetic or "look at me!" type, that charms people.

So what would you say is the appeal to fans in the real world who know her full backstory?

Firstly, Ai-chan's overwhelming visual appeal. When you think of shocking pink and purple, you think of Ai! (Yokoyari) Mengo-sensei’s art is so powerful, and the glittering animation is also fantastic. I also find Ai's professionalism in her work really appealing. While she has the cuteness of an idol, she's not just cute—she works with an incredible level of dedication and professionalism. I admire and love her for everything, including her behind-the-scenes efforts. It's impressive, she’s really cool! 

I’ve ended up with a lot more respect for the word ‘idol’ as a result. In the past, when my voice acting involved singing, dancing, and participating in unit activities, being described as an "idol voice actress" didn't quite sit right with me. But now, I realize how honorable and responsible that title is. Idols work hard behind the scenes, constantly smiling while singing and dancing, and performing so brilliantly. If there are moments when I'm called by the same title as those incredible idols, I feel I need to make an effort to match their quality, or it would be disrespectful. It really motivates me to do my best.

There’s a line in Ai's monologue where she says "I wanted to love someone, I wanted someone to love." Why do you think Ai wanted to give love rather than receive it?

It could be that she's looking for somewhere to belong, hoping that "if I can love, I might be loved in return". Ai's history of abuse and mistreatment likely made the love she received feel very different from the love most people experience. I think it all stems from Ai thinking of herself as an abnormal person - she might have believed that to be loved, she needed to become someone who could genuinely love others. It’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation with a lot of complex feelings. That’s just how I interpret it, though.

And in the end, she realizes her love for the twins is not a lie.

I think that Ai loved the twins all along, not just in that last moment. But the word “love” was like a curse for her, so she couldn't actually say it. That feeling only intensified after I watched the anime. There's an anime original bit where Ai kisses the twins on the foreheads and says, “I'm off,” when she leaves for work. That's the kind of thing you can only do with love - she was just too scared to actually put it into words. Though she was able to express her love fully in her final moments, it’s still sad it took such an extremely situation for her to be able to say it. If it’d never happened, or if she’d simply put the door chain on, she might never have said it. She might have always struggled to say those words. But it’s thanks to the twins she learned how to love. Even the love she has for her fans, that she derided as a lie, was always true. And when she told Ryosuke-kun, “I want to love you,” I think she was already loving him even then.

In the audio commentary included on the Blu-ray & DVD bonus disc, I was struck by the mention of Ai being so nervous before she says “I love you” to Ruby and Aqua, that she takes a deep breath. What sort of direction were you given for that line?

There wasn’t any direction, actually. During the recording, my focus was entirely on expressing Ai’s breathing after being stabbed, how much blood she was losing, and the urgency of conveying her final words. It was an intense experience. It’s a rare moment as a voice actor to feel like me and the character I'm playing have our hearts beating in sync, but this was one of those times. I think I was genuinely nervous myself as well. I could feel my heart pounding and my chest clenching like when you’re about to make a confession. That feeling still hasn’t left me.

Additionally, in the last monologue of episode 11, where Aqua reflects on Ai's words after she was stabbed, we couldn't use the original recording from the first episode. The recording from the first episode captured a raw and genuine emotion, as Ai was gasping for breath. So we re-recorded it with the intention that the more it resonated warmly within Aqua, the more unforgettable those words would become for him. I wanted to make sure that Ai’s final words would leave a lasting impact, something Aqua would revisit in his mind over and over again. Personally, I approached the recording with a deep sense of love, like passing the baton and saying, “Thank you, everyone, for your hard work in the first season.” There was a lot of warmth during that session, not just towards the twins, but towards the entire cast, staff, and the "Oshi no Ko" project itself.

What were your thoughts upon reading 45510?

I got to the end and I was like “Don’t delete the blog! I want to know more!” (laughs) The entire story felt like a box that really shouldn't be opened. Everything from the meaning behind the password numbers to the fact that Ai left behind a blog wanting to reconcile made it feel like Ai really, truly wanted to love the other girls in B-Komachi even when they were jealous of her.

In the anime, we only get a brief moment of interaction between Ai and the other members - that moment during dance practice, when one of them says, "You look kinda down, Ai-chan" and Ai replies with a smile, "That’s not it. I didn’t get to eat lunch!" So I was careful that Ai’s response didn't feel sour at all. If the sigh she let out before they spoke to her had even a hint of annoyance, it would’ve been a reason the other girls took offense with her. I felt like Ai’s invincibility should’ve been the main factor for their issues with her.

It’s just a brief interaction in the anime, but ‘45510’ really fleshed out that distance between Ai and the B-Komachi members. I based my understanding of these boundaries in her relationships on ‘45510’ and ‘Viewpoint B’ and I also read ‘Oshi no Ko: Spica, the First Star’ to get a fuller picture. The more I read, the more I understood - Kana Arima’s got the right idea!

YOASOBI’s song ‘IDOL’ closes out episode one.

The music itself was impactful, but the music video that was released after the first episode aired was something else altogether. We watched the first episode together with the cast, and then, after seeing the music video, I felt overcome by Ai’s presence all over again - I was left speechless by how powerful the experience was. "Oshi no Ko" really is an immersive experience. I mean, you willingly open YouTube and relive Ai's death yourself. Even after everything was conveyed in the main story, the music video introduced new layers of emotions and concepts. Seeing how YOASOBI's song "Idol," which was about Ai, resonated with so many people really made me realize all over again just how significant Ai's impact was!

And then you yourself sang IDOL at the Strawberry Productions☆Fan Thanksgiving Festival 2023 (FanFest).

For me, "Idol" is a challenging song to sing even at karaoke. So, when they asked me to sing it at the FanFest my initial reaction was, "Oh, that might be too much!" (laughs). It’s not a song that you can easily perform live (laughs). It's a song that only an incredible artist can pull off, so when I thought about singing it live on stage, I was like, "Really? Me?" But when I saw the setlist for the live part of the FanFest, I started feeling like, "Actually, I think I should give it a shot." As a performer, I had some reservations about whether I could deliver the quality it deserved, but the "Oshi no Ko" fan in me couldn't resist. I was like, "Everyone wants to see Ai's voice actress sing 'Idol'" (laughs). After a lot of back-and-forth, I decided to go for it. I understood how Kana Arima felt when she joined the new B-Komachi. The joy of being relied upon by the team and the desire to meet the expectations of the work won out in the end.

Between “Our Sign is B”, “HEART's♡KISS” and “STAR☆T☆RAIN”, which is your favourite B-Komachi song?

That’s a tough one since they’re all A-side quality! (laughs) It was like, "Wow, B-Komachi is seriously awesome!" You can really feel the passion from the music team, like they were determined to bring the world of "Oshi no Ko" to life through these songs. It was also surprising to see how the series expanded from the manga into this whole new realm of music.

Was there anything specific you focused on while recording the project’s songs?

I tried not to change my tone just because it was a song. My focus was on making sure that when people listened, they could immediately recognize it as Ai's voice. At first, it was really hard to come up with a solid idea of what "Ai singing” sounded like. Usually, she's a pretty laid back and carefree, but she can’t exactly sing like that during a live performance. Ai’s a pro when it comes to entertaining the audience and enjoying the moment with them so I was constantly trying to find the right balance between Ai’s characteristic nonchalance and the high energy of a live idol performance. The first recording I did was for "HEART's♡KISS," and honestly, I ended up putting too much force into the opening line, "I'll send you a cheer." Since the song's theme is about sending everyone good vibes, I got too intense with my delivery. I got an ‘OK’ on that take but when I listened back to it, I felt that it wasn’t quite right, so I asked to redo just that part. If people didn’t immediately sense Ai at the very start, I worried that they wouldn't feel her presence throughout the entire song.

If you were to send a message to Ai, what would you say?

There’s so much I’d love to say to her, it’s hard to pick just one thing. Still, I think Ai was really happy in her life because she got to say "I love you" in the end. Even though her life might seem tragic to others, the feeling that stuck with me from playing her was a sense of incredible contentment. So, I’d probably just want to have a casual chat with her and watch over everyone together. Oh, but I’d definitely tell her to keep that door chain locked!

[klerothesnowman]

Why You Should Play A Different TTRPG, but without treating you like an idiot this time

As the anti WotC discourse continues to intensify I am once again reminded that nerds are famously really, really bad at selling people on things.

I don't blame us for it, we're all neurodivergent here, it's a safe space. But now that D&D is becoming a little "Ethically Challenging" to continue to engage with and let's be completely honest here guys, isn't inspiring much hope with its recent releases it's becoming increasingly pertinent to encourage people to reach out to other RPG games.

You've no doubt heard the refrain before, someone tries to do a political Game of Thrones-esque campaign in 5e and someone chimes up and says "5e isn't designed for this you should play a DIFFERENT game." It's a conversation we've been circling the drain around for so long. And the thing is, these people are kind of right, but with enough wrong in their argument that makes it unhelpful. Because look, you've been running your political 5e game for a while, or you've been watching a Crown of Candy, you have SEEN it work, you KNOW it can work. So when people come at you with the absolutist argument of "A campaign like this can't work in 5e" they've already lost the discussion. A campaign like that CAN work in 5e. But. It will work in 5e despite 5e. It will work, but only after the DM has invented reasons you can't use magic to solve the problem, either by preventing you from doing it in the first place or by introducing magical counters to that magic. And if it's the latter, that tilts the board a little further, because now the setting is one that has high powered mages deeply involved with the political game. Great if that's what you're angling for, but a bit of a problem if you're not.

The gameplay of a game informs how the game feels to play. D&D has a lot of mechanics for combat, and not a lot of mechanics for political RP. To bring up A Crown of Candy again, everyone playing that game is a skilled improv actor, they can rock the Political RP. But how often does things turn into a big fight? That's the game of D&D rearing itself again.

But look, you've probably heard this before right? Even this isn't a new argument. But here's what I think people miss out on. Showing examples from the other side of the fence.

This whole post has actually been an excuse to talk about Wildsea

The Wildsea is a cool indie RPG that my group has been playing recently. It's a post apocalyptic game where flora grew at an absurdly accelerated rate, covering the entire world in rapidly growing trees and vines. Now, people live on the top of mountains or bits of earth pulled up by the trees, and sail across The Wildsea on big ships with chainsaws on the front that cut their way through the treetops. It's weird and mysterious, with a lot of character options to make weird and mysterious characters. But also, crucially, the various aspects of its design from how it handles travel, character building and conflicts reward creativity and narrative focused play in a way that 5e just doesn't. And it all comes together to invoke a very specific vibe.

In Wildsea your character is built from three options, your Bloodline, your Origin and your Post. All three of these options give you access to an equal number of potential "Aspects" for your character. As an example, one character could have the Bloodline of an Ektus, tall cactus people, the Origin of Anchored, the ghost of a deceased Wildsailor and have the Post of a Char, the ship's Cook.

These three options are all really whacky in of themselves, but what's cool is that how important they are depends on how much you invest into them. If you primarily want to play a Cactus Person, who defends themselves with their spines and filters water through their flesh, you can take more Aspects from your Bloodline. If you want to play a Ghost, floating through walls and throwing around objects like a poltergeist you take more Aspects from your Origin. If you want to be Sanji from One Piece, constantly on the look out for cool ingrediants to cook with, you take more Aspects from your Post. All options are equally viable, and available to you.

Compare that to 5e. In 5e (specifically 5e, I haven't messed with the new stuff) your character is built from three point five options (Plus Feats, but I'll get to them). Your Race, your Background, your Class and your Subclass. Your race gives you extra bonuses to your stats and some flavour abilities. Your Background gives you extra skill proficiencies and a flavour ability. Your class and subclass meanwhile give you your entire suite of gameplay options.

As an example, one character could have the Race of Dhampir, a half vampire, the Background of Noble and the Class of.... Let's say, Rogue with the Subclass Swashbuckler. I'm trying to make something like Alucard here, from Castlevania. The son of Dracula, using his vampiric powers for the good of humanity.

Baseline, this is pretty good. But... What if I wanted to lean into the Vampire aspect really hard? As a Dhampir I gain access to the ability to walk on walls and a bite that deals 1d4 damage and restores health/boosts my next roll. And that's kind of it. It's not something I can build my entire character around, that 1d4 damage gets out classed very quickly. What if I wanted to go all in on being a noble? Well my options are even bleaker there, as your Background only gives you a single hyper specific ability that wont be applicable to anything else.

My character is my Class, and my Class is a linear path that's decided for me in the first three levels. I've chosen Swashbuckler, but what if the reason I wanted to play a Swashbuckler was so that I could use my charms and Panache to bedazzle and beguile my opponents? Well... Panache is a skill that you don't get access to until level 9. If I chose this class for this character fantasy, I'm not going to be able to achieve it until half way into my character build, meaning a very large chunk of the campaign is going to involve me not doing what I wanted this character to do.

What's more, if someone else is playing a Swashbuckler our characters are effectively going to be played exactly the same. The Vampiric Noble Swashbuckler will be indistinguishable from the Renegade Drow Street Urchin Swashbuckler during play.

The image of a party of adventurers sitting around the campfire is pretty iconic to D&D. The downtime is very important to players roleplaying, it gives everyone a moment to stop, have their character relax, and provide an environment to discuss things with other players. There's a reason there are so many commissioned art pieces of PCs interacting around a fire. There's a reason Baldur's Gate 3 made it the place you primarily interact with your party members.

The thing is though... Are you actually encouraged to? Mechanically, this is a Long Rest. It's how the majority of classes restore their abilities and that's basically it. The opportunity is there to do more through RP, but the encouragement and reward to do so is entirely on the player. How many times has your D&D party gone. "Okay we camp and do a long rest"? Be honest with me here. You're not thinking too deep about it. It's a moment to stop because you need to stop for the next combat encounter. There is nothing encouraging you to do more than that than your own desire for it. For some groups that's enough, but not every group can do that, sometimes a group really needs a little push in the right direction.

It's the same with traveling. The D&D party traveling from location to location is equally as iconic. But in practice what does that actually look like? Same with when I asked how often your D&D party brushed over the rest, how often do they brush over the travel? How often do you just have one or two "Who goes on watch tonight?" rolls and call it a day?

In Wildsea, traveling across the treetops on your chainsaw boat is the game. It's what it's all about. There's a whole ass character sheet for your vehicle for when you need to get gnitty gritty with it, but typically your travel journey will be handled by a montage of actions. Instead of just having a single PC making an obligatory "On Watch" roll, characters can take a variety of tasks like watching the weather, tending the engines, cartographizing, working the helm. Your characters are encouraged, required, to take a position on the ship and work.

What's more, "resting" isn't really a thing like in D&D. Much of the itemization of Wildsea revolves around managing specific resources, Salvage, Specimens and Whispers (which is magic stuff that I wont really be touching on.). Instead of health points your skills and equipment can take damage, which you can recover during these montages. You can use Specimens to cook meals which heal your wounds, you can use Salvage to repair your broken equipment or make new things. Specimens and Salvage can also come with extra tags, providing bonus effects when used. You can also gain Aspects for yourself and your ship that provide recurring access to these resources, or ways to improve them and add tags.

What this translates to in gameplay is that traveling in Wildsea becomes a combination of doing your job on the ship, your chores and your personal projects. You might find it weird that I'm describing a task as a "Chore" positively, but I think it's the perfect description because it sells an aspect of the game world, and the game itself.

The Wildsea is a post apocalypse setting. A major aspect of this game's world is all the different ways that people have adjusted to living in this environment. Having a series of menial tasks like tending to your night garden and hauling up the fishing trawlers that attract bugs to eat puts you, the player, in this environment. By making meals your method for healing it puts you, the player, into a position where a well cooked meal is something immediately desirable from a practical position. It makes getting your group together for a big dinner impactful, not just from a roleplay position but from a mechanical one too. It makes roleplaying a person just trying to get by in this world the gameplay. It encourages you to care about meals and salvage.

There's no guidance for this stuff in 5e. In fact, 5e discourages it. If you want your character to be a chef in 5e there are two options to you. Proficiency with Cook's Utensils and the Chef feat. The Cook's Utensils provide you with the ability to cook meals. If you roll above a 15 the meal is "Gourmet". This doesn't really mean anything. It also allows you to "Prepare Meals" that give a whole single hitpoint more when you rest. It's not very impactful. Meanwhile the Chef Feat allows you to also cook meals, "provided you have ingredients". There's no reason to seek certain ingredients of a higher grade or anything, and in my experience it's more likely for the DM to turn around and say you don't have access to ingredients to try and make narrative tension rather than reward the player for keeping track of them. These meals you can cook restore a little bit more HP, and can provide temporary HP too.

The thing is, Feats in D&D are something you have a very limited amount of, and they're not created equally. Chef is more useful than some, but taking Chef still means your combat ability is diminished. Taking Chef means you can't take feats that are more versatile and impactful.

This is why people encourage you to play games tailor made to deliver on certain vibes and themes rather than playing everything in 5e. Because they can more effectively deliver the experience that you're looking for, without needing to struggle against the system in the first place. It guides people toward certain behaviors and rewards choices that suit the vibe. Even the best roleplayers can do even better with a bit of guidance.

[polkadotsunshine]

how i pirate music

i'm seeing old posts hating on spotify circulating again, so i'll describe how i listen to music without paying for streaming

discovery through cracked spotify

i discover a lot of music through cracked versions of spotify. i'm in a number of circles that do music shares and i stream recommendations a few times before i decide to download anything

windows

i use the spot x modified client on my desktop: https://github.com/amd64fox/SpotX/. be sure to cancel your spotify subscription and remove your payment information before logging into any cracked version of spotify

android

these websites come and go, but you should be able to look up "spotify apk" and find a one button installation. you can get an up-to-date safe link by visiting the database in this reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/ApksApps/comments/pcy1io/apksapps_official_megathread_apksme/

mac

i don't want to put anything weird on my work computer, which uses mac os, but if i control the music through my phone, then select my mac as the audio output device via spotify, i can listen ad free. here's the feature if you've not used it before: https://support.spotify.com/us/article/spotify-connect/

downloading music

file share

i download almost everything with soulseek, a p2p file sharing program: http://www.soulseekqt.net/. first you'll make a directory of music that you already have (say, from bandcamp) and soulseek will broadcast that to the world. you can then search other people's files for music you want and download it there

torrenting

i use the torrent client deluge: https://deluge-torrent.org/ and get my links from https://www.1377x.to/. you should use a vpn when torrenting; i happen to use surfshark because it's cheap. it is not perfect and if you want to torrent stuff there's better guides out there explaining how to do it safely

paying, but sticking it to the man

i buy more music now than i ever did when paying for streaming. i personally just use bandcamp, but i know people who use/rip CDs and other physical media. it's nice to support small artists and to upload big artists onto soulseek so other people can find it

audio quality

downloaded music is likely going to be higher quality than streamed music. if you don't know anything about audio quality i'd recommend downloading 320kps mp3 files. you can add a minbitrate filter at the bottom of your soulseek window. you've probably heard of FLAC before, but if you want to see how deep it goes, look up DSD or SACD

listening to downloaded music

windows

i use foobar2000: https://www.foobar2000.org/. it's designed to be modular and customizable, so it takes a little fiddling to get running. to start using it, i recommend: making a playlist and adding a file location of all your music (which should be your soulseek up and down directories). you can later make playlists of specific albums and tracks. then, look online for components like a theme or last.fm scrobbles if you want that kind of thing. last.fm scrobbles can be a great way to discover new music

android

foobar2000 recently released a mobile version but i haven't tried that yet. i use vinyl music player for no reason in particular: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.poupa.vinylmusicplayer

final notes

this isn't about doing music better; i just happen to like doing things this way. i still hang out and listen to my friends' cytube on loop. i blast nightcore on youtube. the goal is to listen to music and have a good time so do whatever is best for you

[callforspiderboy]

Sokovia Treaty|| Tony Stark × No reader gender

Summary: Your marriage is shaken by your indecision on the Treaty of Sokovia.

Warnings: Anguish, English is not my native language

Your footsteps were silent as you walked across the room, you watched Tony's back as he sat slouched in his office chair, that posture was not his usual one. Your hands slid around his shoulders, announcing your arrival. You expect Tony to tell you why you've been called, but you're greeted by an almost noisy silence.

"You've already made your decision, so why are you still thinking about it?" After a few minutes of silence, you plucked up the courage to say something, your voice low for fear of disturbing the false peace in the room. "Because you haven't made up your mind yet," Tony snapped, still with his back to you. You let out a shaky sigh and squeezed your eyes shut tightly; you were hoping he wouldn't mention your obvious indecision out loud.

"It's difficult..." you were walking on shaky ground, you knew how this whole Sokovia affair was messing with the man "... harder than you make it sound, Tony" you were grateful that Tony hadn't had the courage to look you in the eye, you didn't want him to see the tears that covered them, but you were sure he heard a slight flaw in your voice that denounced your current state.

"You need to clarify which side you're on." You missed all your husband's sarcasm and good humor, it had been days since all your conversations sounded like a silent clash until one of you decided to leave the room for fear of the next words, you'd like to do that now. "I need some time, okay?" You didn't think the treaty would bring the peace Tony wanted, you also feared the damage the Avengers were bringing, but the risks of the Treaty of Sokovia were too great to ignore. Tony closed his eyes tightly, your false indecision making it obvious to him which side you were on.

You were about to say something else in an attempt to maintain your temporary union, when Tony snapped, "You'll have to decide soon," shifting uncomfortably in his chair, you looked over your shoulder at him with frowning eyebrows, they had set a time and you didn't know it? Anticipating your next question Tony was quick to reply "Steve has just been arrested, I'm negotiating his release in exchange for the treaty" Your eyes widened, what would the Captain have done?

Tony turned on the TV and saw a news report about the recent events with Bucky. As he watched the images. A sigh of disappointment escaped your lips, Steve's choice should not have been made on the basis of this negotiation. Like a muscle memory, Tony grabbed her hand, tracing imaginary lines on her wedding ring. In easier times, that act would have brought her comfort, but now it only increased the weight the ring now carried for you.

A guilt invaded your chest, a feeling that you were betraying Tony and in a last attempt to remain faithful to the man you loved you asked, "Do you really believe in the treaty?" Before Tony had a chance to answer you with a probable lie of certainty you added "Be honest" Silence returned to the room for a few minutes, he was trying fulfill your request "It's our only option" Tony knew that those words weren't enough for you, if you were going to sign the Treaty of Sokovia you needed him to be sure that it was the right decision and he didn't have it.

Your hand pulled away from your husband's grip, you bit your lip nervously "I can't do that" The words came out in a whisper, you were ashamed of them. You had promised to be with Tony through all of this, but that wasn't what you were doing now. Tony felt a lump forming in his throat, swallowing dry "Rogers will sign" He tried to sound like his past self, that Tony who was sure of something, but he couldn't. He hoped that the statement would convince you. He hoped the statement would convince you to stay, if the captain gave up the fight there was no point in going against the treaty.

"He won't, I'll convince him to do the right thing" Tony let out a low sigh, accepting defeat. Your body moved away from Tony's chair when you noticed that he wouldn't say anything else, you walked to the exit. Tony realized that this would be his last chance to make everything clear, he just wanted to make sure that he wouldn't spend years dwelling on it "I love you" Your words came out firmly, but apprehension didn't allow him to turn around to see your reaction, "I love you, Tony" You left. For him, those words brought the comfort he wanted, the certainty that you knew that that clash wouldn't change his feelings, even if you weren't going to be together now.

＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿

I was too lazy to translate it.I still don't know what the fandom's reception is like with writing, but here's my attempt.

[machifuwa]

World's Most Beautiful Mirror | Epilogue 2

Shinobu: That's right... I do like to collect ninja comics and others related to that but...

I don't remember many details of the ones that were mass-produced because they were popular before.

I'm afraid that one day I'll be forgotten as one of the "common idols", as well...

Koga: Yeah. I'm thought of as a degraded copy of Sakuma-senpai by many people, that giant piece of light named "Rei Sakuma"ーBut one day, I myself will be forgotten.

It's...scary.

Well, I shouldn't end up like that, though~? I've been working hard these days to write songs and find my own personality, yeah!?

Shinobu: Oogami-dono, you don't look like Sakuma-dono as much as they say, though?

Koga: Oh, really? Well, as for your unit, you're a pretty unique group of "Heroes and Idols!"ーa group of uniquely crazy people, so I feel like you'll be remembered. I'm not sure, though~

Shinobu: Oogami-dono really is kind...♪

Koga: Aah?

Shinobu: ...Fufu. In that sense, "2wink" may also be remembered because they are twins, which is very rare.

Koga: That's right but, it's probably complicated for them too.

Everyone remembers that they're twins. But, only a few people will know which one is Yuuta and which one is Hinata.

And since they're idols too, there's probably times where they'd think, "I want you to look only at me!"

In such a case, It's hard to be thought of as "the other twin," ain't it?

Shinobu: Could it be that Yuuta-kun's recent irritability is due to his budding desire for such things?

Koga: Aah? I don't know, I ain't Yuuta, am I?

But. I wonder if that's what the "Producer" was thinkin'.

That's what I'm guessin'. He seems to be the typa guy who knows how hard it can be to forget "oneself"ーfrom his own experiences.

Shinobu: ? Oogami-dono, are you acquainted with the "Producer" by any chance?

Koga: No, I don't know him at all, but that's the only thing that was written on the CD booklet he has ever released under his own name.

"I got what I deserved. I was acting as if I was parasitic about other celebrities, and that's the reason I lost my sense of "self", he wrote there.

He wrote that in the booklet when he put out that CD, because he wanted people to find that kind of him, and he wanted everyone to know about it.

I heard that the CD didn't sell well, though.

Shinobu: Well, that's just something, that poor thing...

Koga: Heh, if sympathy can get people to buy CDs, anyone can be a top idol.

He was a strong man, and after that, it seems he stopped working as an individual and went back to bein' a parasite.

And, well, he built a fortune, he's well connected and even now he's still goin' strong. Don't feel sorry for him. He became a happy dude in his own way.

However. To the world, he looks like a carefree and frivolous parasite, but because of his true feelings leaked out, it remained in some people's hearts for a long time.

The words he spit out as a normal human being, who wasn't a parasite, overlapped with what Yuuta said in "SS".

Shinobu: ...What exactly happened in "SS"?. Yuuta-kun, you've changed a lot since then.

Koga: Hmm. If he hasn't said anythin' to you, I can't tell you what's going on and what's not, but...

...That Yuuta, he gave up.

Even though he said somethin' like he was feelin' refreshed after tellin' me his true feelings, he didn't make a face like "I want you to understand me like that" at all.

He already thought that I'll never understand, and what's worse is that he looked as if he didn't believe in me. Of course.

I've never been able to understand his feelings.

I'm such a disappointing senior, y'know, it's no wonder he has given up on me.

Shinobu: ……

Koga: But you know, it must be tough not to be understood by anyone. Even a transcendental person like Sakuma-senpai can't stand it.

So I at least tried to tell him that there were some people who might understand what he was goin' through.

Shinobu: That is...?

Koga: I'm talkin' about the parasitic bastard that no one understood.

At the time, the guy whined about how no one was looking at 'him' back then is now a very popular "Producer" who is loved in and out of the industry.

From his way of life, I thought that Yuuta and Hinata could learn somethin'. Not sure.

I thought, at the very least, that guy would never pretend not to see Yuta and Hinata...so I told Hinata.

It would be a shame to kick away a man who is supposed to understand us, thinking he is our enemy, right?

Prev | All | Next

Season: Winter

Translated by mars

Proofread by machi

[intearsaboutrobots]

heyyyy so you seem to be into horror movies atm. would you mind recommending a few you really like? i'm looking for new ones to watch :)

oh!! yes defs!! i am having a Films Phase atm and that is a Lot of horror for me. I'll aim to keep this to a reasonable length lol and not to succumb too much to recency bias

Saint Maud (2019)

Follows a pious nurse who becomes dangerously obsessed with saving the soul of her dying patient.

having said that... i just watched this and i can't get it out of my head. this is the kind of horror where the perspective you're tied to keeps doing things that make you go "oh no :cc".

maud's particular strain of religion is roman catholic ish so ymmv on whether you want to watch a movie w those themes - i loved it and canNOT stop thinking abt it!!

Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

A monstrous spirit seeks revenge by invading the dreams of teenagers.

literally wes craven should get a nobel prize for the idea of "slasher but the murders happen in your dreams" bc the weird dream imagery is SO good. follows kind of a standard slasher model in basic structure, except now when there's a Murder Chase Sequence you can have the weird dream feeling of running like you're moving thru molasses, communicated via rad practical effects. also nancy thompson is THE most competent person on earth, i love her so much.

it does have the blood and gore you'd expect (a LOT of blood) and since its the 80s the villain has some weird horny energy towards the teens he's murdering.

Blood and Black Lace (6 donne per l'assassino) (1964)

A masked, shadowy killer brutally murders the models of a scandalous fashion house in Rome.

do you want to see some murders done in the most saturated colourful gorgeous lighting? do you not need much in the way of a plot? boy is this the movie for you! truly beautiful, i gasped aloud in fear at some scenes.

the murders do hew violent, and my friend and i both had to look away from the screen at a point bc we did not want to see events unfold further, so if violence is an issue watch w caution.

Eyes Without A Face (Les yeux sans visage) (1960)

A surgeon causes an accident which leaves his daughter disfigured and goes to extreme lengths to give her a new face.

this is a movie that is shot so unsettlingly. the camerawork is *chef's kiss* very effective and creepy. it is also a movie in which face transplants are a major plot point. you might think, as i did, that since it is a black and white movie from 1960 probably they don't have the effects to fully realise the scary parts of that - go ahead and take my word that they make do JUST fine.

aside from the face-related stuff, which you can consider as much or as little as you like to decide if you'd like to see, this is also a movie that makes scares out of someone having scarring/disfigurement and having prosthetics to cover that. if you don't want to watch that, more than fair.

The Wicker Man (1973)

A puritan Police Sergeant arrives in a Scottish island village in search of a missing girl whom the locals claim never existed.

i love this movie so much. classic folk horror, the aesthetic of a 70s crime show which appeals to me deeply as a columbo enthusiast, FOLK SINGING. it is also, Imo, not That scary???? unlikely to give you nightmares, by my reckoning at least.

what this movie Does have, if not scares, is a fair bit of nudity/sex, so keep that in mind.

The Endless (2017)

As kids, they escaped a UFO death cult. Now, two adult brothers seek answers after an old videotape surfaces and brings them back to where they began.

this is a movie that does a lot more than what it says on the tin, and goes in some weird mindbendy directions. it's been a minute since i watched it but i was SUPER impressed by the visuals. while there is certainly some Scary Business depicted, in general the camera will move off of the horrible-thing-abt-to-happen and so you only witness the effects of it, not the thing itself.

Candyman (1992)

The Candyman, a murderous soul with a hook for a hand, is accidentally summoned to reality by a skeptic grad student researching the monster's myth.

see now, that description gives the idea of a simpler movie than this is. it also (tries to?) talk abt race and class, and it captures the feeling of reality slipping around the protagonist as she gets pulled into this Spooky Business.

i will highlight this since the description doesn't imply it that if unreality/gaslighting Type Things are not fun for you, this might not end up being enjoyable

------

honourable mention: the conjuring (ghosts), insidious (ghosts), hellraiser (kink demons and body horror), friday the 13th (slasher), halloween (slasher), the exorcist tv show (weirdly good?? Very spooky possession stuff), gaslight (does what it says on the tin, does it REALLY WELL)

[luxaryllis]

Hi, there! I would request a hurt/comfort fic in which Leona’s fem! s/o suddenly faints after a traumatizing memory of his Overblot episode. And when she wakes up, she tearfully tells him of her fear of losing him a second time. How will he react? Angst with a happy ending, please! Thanks a bunch!

Remembering a Traumatizing Memory of His Overblot w/ Leona Kingscholar

Note: This took so long to get back to, I’m so sorry. For some reason, I couldn’t find this ask on my phone Tumblr, so I have to write this on my laptop.

Anyway, this is probably my first time doing an actual romantic fic, so please excuse anything wrong, or tell me and I’ll try to fix it.

For plot reasons, I will make Reader NOT MC; so Reader is already a student in NRC before MC. The year Reader is in is up to you, but it’s preferable if they were a third year mostly because Leona is 20 canonically.

WARNING/S: Chapter 2 Spoiler/s, Possible OOC, Reader identifies as female and uses female pronouns, Reader has an established relationship with Leona, Reader is NOT MC, Mentions of overblot, Reader possibly has PTSD, Contains Angst, Angst to Comfort, Probably a bit bad (I'm bad at romance sorry-), Mentions of death (no one actually dies dw-), One curse word

Anyway, let’s get to it!

------

Leona growls at the Savanaclaw students, who were all sweating and panting (some were on the ground, possibly fainted from exhaustion).

“Grrr, you’re all not doing good enough. How do you think we’ll be able to win the Magift tournament against RSA?!”

One of the Savanaclaw students, a jackal beastman, speaks up, wiping some sweat of their face, “Dorm Leader Leona, we’re all just so tired. A bunch of us stayed up last night studying for the exams... we’ll do better, I swear!”

Leona clicks his tounge, "Tch. You better. If we lose to that lizard's dorm, I swear, I will punt you to the next dimension."

A resounding, "Yes Dorm Leader" was heard from the other students.

From the stands, overhearing the conversation, [Name] frowns, worry bubbling up in her gut.

---

[Name] enters the Savanaclaw lounge, not expecting to see her boyfriend growling at his juniors, in an attack stance.

"What is going on?!"

[Name] shouts, concern and sloght fear being detected in her voice.

At the sound of her voice the entirety of Savanaclaw looked at her. Everyone except Leona were staring at her like she was their saviour and last hope. Leona, however, looked at her and stiffens, his green eyes narrowing.

"[Name], stay out of this", 'please' her boyfriend's eyes pleaded, but everything else just screamed hostility.

However, the woman stood her ground.

"No. Leona, tell me. Please just tell me. What is going on here? You've been acting out of it recently."

[Name] does her best to stay calm and neutral, slowly approaching Leona as a few students decide to book it and leave the room.

Leona presses his lips together, breathing heavily. He releases his stance when everyone else finally leaves. His shoulders were tense, which normally isn't such a usual sight on the prince. After a while of silence and a slight staring contest between the couple, Leona sighs heavily.

"Just stay out of it. It's like they all just got so puny all of a sudden. It just HAD to be when the selection for spelldrive players would be right around the corner."

Leona's voice was tight and frustrated, as if he was holding back on snapping at his girlfriend. Which, he definitely was; he may be feeling really annoyed right now, but he wasn't going to be showing any sign of disrespect to his woman.

[Name] sighs and tries to reason and calm Leona down. She does understand where he's coming from, after all. However, her gut feelings tell her something bad might happen, so she tries choosing her words carefully.

"Calm down. School's been very hectic at the moment as well. They want to win the tournament against RSA just as much as you do. Just give them some time, be patient. They'll come around soon enough-"

"'Soon enough' won't cut it! They have to come around NOW! At this point, Savanclaw's lost all it's glory. All those wins and recognition go to th at lizard in Diasomnia. We have to be able to take 'em all down."

Leona cuts [Name] off, some of his tension getting to him. He regards the Diasomnia Dorm Leader with a sharp tone on his tongue, as if spitting out a rotten vegetable he was forced to eat. He looks at the girl with his eyes narrowed into a glare.

[Name] frowns even more, a small part of them starting to get very, very scared. She blinks, and suddenly all she sees was Leona's overblot, looking down at her like some pest. She gasps slightly, blinking again and now she sees Leona as himself. She repeats this process for a while until the panic kicks in.

Suddenly realizing the eerie and unsettling similarities on the the mental image she was seeing and of the man in front of her, [Name] starts to breath heavily. She starts shaking profusely, hands reaching to her ears and gripping the sides of her head. She shuts her eyes and starts muttering soft protests, "no... no please... don't hurt me... don't leave me... I've always been here for you.... don't... don't do this..."

Leona, not expecting the strange reaction widens his eyes, quickly going to his girlfriend and taking her in his arms. He tries comforting her, which unfortunately, isn't something he's very good at.

"Hey... hey, hey, shhh.... it's... it's alright... you're alright, okay? Everything's fine..."

Realizing that [Name] wasn't responding, nor was she moving as much, Leona checks and notices that she was unconscious.

Absolutely alarmed, he calls for Ruggie and tells him to take care of the dorm while he's gone.

"Hold on! What happened to [Name]! Is she okay?!"

"......I don't know...."

Knowing that this would be a bad time, Ruggie stays quiet after hearing Leona's unsure statement. He nods and heads back to the lounge, watching as Leona rushes to the mirror and leaves to go to the infirmary.

---

To say that Crewel Divus was startled at the sudden entrance of Leona Kingscholar would be a HUGE understatement.

However, looking at the girl in the lion beastman's arms, the teacher's eyes widen and he quickly has Leona lay down on the bed.

Crewel does a couple check-ups on the fainted student and finds that she has a fever. Not a very high fever, but a fever, nonetheless.

He tells Leona that nothing seems to be wrong with her other than a fever and slightly elevated heart rate which is slowly but surely going back to normal.

"When the pup wakes up, don't overwhelm her. It would most likely worsen her condition. Am I understood, Kingscholar?"

"Yeah, yeah. You got it teach."

---

"HOW DARE YOU DEFY ME, [NAME]?! FIRST, THE UNRULY HYNENA. AND NOW EVEN MY GIRLFRIEND THINKS I'M THE WORST!! IS THAT WHAT IT IS, HUH?!"

Leona's voice rips through [Name]'s heart, hurting her beyond relief.

The dryness of the sand caused by her boyfriend's magic hurts her eyes and makes it hard to even keep her eyes open.

"Leona, please! Stop this!! We can talk about it please!"

She tries to shout out to him, though the effort was futile and only seemed to aggravate him further.

"TALK ABOUT IT?! HAHAHAHA DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH. WITH THIS POWER, I CAN TURN THE WHOLE WORLD TO SAND AND MAKE EVERYONE BOW DOWN TO ME!!!"

'No...'

'No please...'

'If you go any further, you could die...'

Words that easily formed at her tongue but never slipped out. She tries opening her parched mouth only to see that the phantom behind Leona was getting bigger and bigger.

It... it was... swallowing Leona in its body! The girl tries running to the live of her life, to maybe save him or at least get to him.

But she was too late.

The lion phantom's paws swiped her away, and she gets sent flying to the pillars, screaming one thing.

"LEONA!!!"

---

"LEONA!!!"

[Name] awakens with a bolt, sweat running down her body and tears streaming her face.

She breathes heavily, looking around.

She was in the infirmary...?

Her dream suddenly resurfaces in her head.

Leona.

Where is he?

What happened to him?

Is... is he okay?!

The woman suddenly hears a groan and looks at the side of her bed, eyes widening at the sight of her boyfriend seemingly waking up.

He seemed fine for the most part. But... since when was his eyes bags so bad??

Realizing that [Name] was awake, Leona's shoulders sagged in relief.

"Thank goodness, you're awake. Wait... are you okay? Hey, why are you cryi- ack!"

The second prince of the Afterglow Savanah was cut off when his girlfriend hugs him tightly, crying even harder. Sighing with a ghost of a smile as he loosely hugs back.

"I... I thought I was gonna lose you again...."

Leona frowns, confused, until [Name] continues.

"Like your overblot. You...", the woman sniffs, "you scared me. So damn (or darn if u aren't comfortable with swearing-) much..."

His eyes widen. Ah... so that's what that was about...

His expression softens, his arms tightening firmly but comfortably around the sobbing woman and he leans his head on hers.

"I'm sorry.... for.... everything."

And Leona was. He truly was. It still did feel kind of strange apologizing, but for his girlfriend he would be willing to do it until his throat would bleed.

He never realized that his overblot would be so hard on her. He thought that she'd have mooved on from it but... it seems that wasn't the case.

His heart warms at the thought that his girlfirend was worried for him. He gets filled with warmth and tenderness as he realizes that his girlfriend is actually real, and loves him very much.

Being the second prince of the Afterglow was a tough way to live. Getting constantly compared to Falena, being disliked and borderline hated by the people of the kingdom, always being overlooked... it taught Leona that even a good thing would never last forever with him. And that no one would ever dare want to be close to him.

Until [Name] came and barged into his heart. She showed him true love and that she wouldn't abandon him.

She didn't care about the fact that he was the second born and would never get the throne. She didn't care that he was disliked and had a bad reputation. All she cared about was Leona.

And all Leona cares about is her.

Leona smiles softly into the love of his life's head.

"I won't ever leave you, [insert your chosen/fav term of endearment]. I promise."

"You better not break that promise, lion."

"I won't. ...I love you. Very much."

"I love you more."

---

Crewel, who was standing by the door of the infrimary, raises an eyebrow at the display and smiles.

'Ah, young puppy love...'

He thinks to himself as he silently leaves the couple alone.

---

END!!!

Okay!

So!

I did promise that I would be out with something new by the end of the week!

Here it is!!

Thank you for reading!

Feedback and comments are very much appreciated!!

Have a great day/night, everyone!! 💙

[chaoticparker]

Movie Night

peter parker x reader

w/c: 0.7k

warnings: one lil suggestive joke but its all fluff

summary: You and Peter have a movie night

a/n: let me know what you think <3

masterlist

"I got the popcorn in the microwave, did you pick out a movie yet?" You asked as you walked into Peter's room, in which Peter was sitting on his bed with his computer out.

"No, I can't decide between Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Clue, what do you want?" Peter replied. You and Peter recently decided that you would watch one movie from each decade, tonight being 80's, each Friday, because Friday was always May's late day so Peter and you would have the apartment all to yourselves.

"What no Star Wars suggestions tonight? You always ask to watch them." You crossed your arms and Peter just rolled his eyes, "If were to watch Star Wars in chronological order, The Phantom Menace came out in the 90's and if we were to watch it in release order A New Hope came out in the 70's. And I don't want to start with the second or third ones. Isn't obvious?" You and Peter laughed and you sat down next to him on the bed, "No but seriously what do you want to watch?"

"Hmmmm, let's watch Ferris Buller, I already know how Clue ends." You smiled teasingly and Peter placed his hand behind your head and pulled you in for a kiss. You both smiled into the kiss, it was messy and may not be even considered a kiss, but it was fun and sweet.

*Beep* *Beep*

You pulled away and Peter jokingly frowned, "I'll get the popcorn and you set up the movie, 'k?" Peter nodded and as you got up your heard a faint, 'I can't believe I got cocked block by fucking popcorn', from Peter which made you bite back a laugh.

You quickly opened the microwave and then opened the popcorn bag and poured the popcorn into the bowl. You quickly took a handful of popcorn and ate it as you walked back towards Peters room.

When you went through the door you saw Peter snuggly under the covers. When he noticed you standing in the door way, he lifted half of the covers and you slid in next to him. He pressed play on his laptop and you handed him the bowl.

As you watched the movie, you both made commentary on the plot and the characters, and your hands brushed up against each others a lot and it made Peter blush like a middle schooler.

Once the movie was done Peter reluctantly got up and gave you a quick kiss on the cheek, "I'm gonna clean and put the bowl away, I'll be right back." You hummed in response and tried to work up the courage to actually get up and get changed into your pj's.

Peter was back surprisingly quickly and practically pulled you out of bed. "Come on darling, you need to get up." You got up and peter went over to his closet and pulled out an oversized shirt of his and tossed it to you. "I'll be in the bathroom, just knock when your done."

You turned around and got changed into the super oversized shirt. You knew that the shirt was big on Peter but you didn't realize how big. It was practically a nightgown on you, but as unflattering as it might've been on you, it smelt like Peter which always made you happy.

You've probably have stolen at least 5 sweatshirts from Peter but they have all lost his scent. You and Peter did have a system where you take a few of his sweatshirts, make them smell like you, then give them back to Peter, and the cycled continued. You believed that this the most clique and embarrassing couples thing you both do, but honestly you really did not care, Peter had amazing taste in comfy sweatshirts so Mj's eye roll that she gave you was completely worth it.

You knocked on the bathroom door and Peter swung it open, "all yours, lovely" You moved to do your nightly routine and Peter switch places with you, "I'll meet you in bed." Peter kissed you again and left.

A short time later you left the bathroom and headed to Peters bed. As you entered his room, a small light on his bed side table was on and you could see Peters passed out face and his arms and legs all sprawled out. You gave a light laugh and turned the light off and crawled into the bed. You had too lightly shove Peter to the side which must of slightly woken him up, because he wrapped his arms around you. "Night love."

"night Peter."

[scented-morker]

h o t e l k e y

1.6k words chenle x fem!reader fluff, humour, suggestive based off of the song “hotel key” by old dominion (ik ik a country song gross)

“it makes her think of me, and that night we left our hearts on our sleeves and our clothes all over the floor”

You find yourself releasing yet another deep sigh as your father beckons you from across the ballroom, but you still put in your brightest smile as you make your way through the heavy throng of people, preparing to be introduced to yet another business associate who's name you'll forget way before the end of the night.

"This is my daughter, Y/N"

He was already gesturing and introducing you by the time you made it to the place next to him, and you accepted the hand of the older man standing in front of you.

"Oh she's grown very well, such a pretty girl"

"You aren't the only one to think so, she was recently crowned Queen of the Seoul Pageant, you're looking at a future Miss Korea"

You tried to keep yourself from cringing as your father blatantly boasted about you, hoping the other man would pretend not to notice.

He didn't, instead he did something even worse.

"Oh that's great, my son is about the same age, he just performed his third concert at the Golden Hall of Vienna"

You could see your father controlling his face as to not appear impressed, but when the other man turned around to find his son, you got the pointed look you knew meant 'be better than whatever his child is'.

The man turns back around and you pretend to pay attention while he introduces his son who isn't there yet, the exact same thing your father did.

At the end of his sentence a boy your age approaches, and it might be the first time you've actually been interested in something going on all night.

Because my goodness, he is gorgeous.

"Chenle, this is Mr.Y/L/N"

He shakes your fathers hand and you can't spot a single thing he does that is less than perfect.

"I was just telling him about your concert a few weeks ago"

There's a flicker of something in his eyes and you think maybe he feels the same thing as you, though he quickly recovers into the golden boy he's expected to be.

"Oh I hope you weren't bragging, it wasn't anything that special"

"Now don't be so humble Mr.Chenle, that is very impressive"

You laid on the charm you knew your father wanted, and his short nod of confirmation validated your thoughts.

It seemed that Chenle hadn't noticed you until the words left your mouth, and his eyes seemed to shine when he did.

"You are very beautiful Miss.L/N"

"She's going to be Miss Korea"

You made sure only Chenle could see your small eye roll as your fathers launched into another round of 'my-child-is-better-than-yours".

"How about I get the lovely lady a drink?"

Both of your fathers seem thrilled by the idea, and you weren't going to pass on an opportunity to get away, so you politely nodded and let him lead you away.

"You are an angel, thank you for saving me from that conversation"

He laughed at your immediate character switch, "I hope you weren't there for too long before I got there to save you".

"Doesn't even matter, as long as we're safe now"

He laughed at your dramatic phrasing, walking straight past the bar and towards the front door.

"You wanna get out of here"

"I thought you'd never ask"

He pulled you along with him out the doors, getting his car from the valet and driving out onto the main road.

You inhaled the scent of lemon and new car while you fiddled with the radio, Chenle tapping his fingers on the arm rest while he spoke out loud about ideas of where you could go.

By the time you pull up to some random fancy hotel, you're both laughing to the point of stomach pain, and you don't know why but you had never felt so comfortable with someone so quickly.

"Hello I'd like an executive suite"

You zoned out while he spoke to the woman at the counter, and was only pulled back in when he wrapped his arms around you and yanked you towards his body.

You looked up with wide eyes, but a quick scan of the scene told you what was going on, and your eyes narrowed at where the female worker had her hand still hovering over Chenle's chest, obviously having just been removed from an attempt at flirting. The current contact you had with the boy and the two pairs of eyes on you told you that he had used you as a cover, and he had obviously said something, something they were both waiting for you to respond to.

"I'm pregnant"

They both looked at you, the woman's eyes wide with horror, Chenle's wide with bewilderment, probably at why that was your panicked response.

You looked up to meet his eyes and you both immediately broke into loud laughs, Chenle swiping the key cards from the counter as you both ran towards the first hallway, his hand holding yours the entire way.

When you finally stepped out of the elevator and made it to your suite, there were tears dried on your face from laughing so hard, and Chenle was still teasing you.

"I'm pregnant," his words were once again cut off by his laughter and you smacked his chest as you inserted the card into the door and yanked it open, throwing yourself onto the bed while he came in still laughing.

He tossed himself next to you, turning onto his side and propping his chin on his hand to looks at your face.

"I told her that we had just gotten married and needed a room" he wiggled his eyebrows as you laughed, mirroring his actions as you turned to look at him in the same manner.

"Well I said I was pregnant, so at least she won't get the wrong idea about what we're doing up here"

"Oh yeah? What do you think she's thinking?"

His voice gets softer and he leans in towards your face, to the point where your lips are only centimeters away.

"You know"

"No I don't think I do?"

"The devils tango. The sideways salsa. The no pants dance. Hanky panky"

He had lost it by the first euphemism, but you kept going, although making him laugh that hard while being so close proved to be a bad idea, and you felt his head hit yours before you had the chance to move away.

"I was going to kiss you but after that I don't think I want to"

He barely got the words out between his laughs and you acted offended, although disappointment was the real emotion you were feeling.

"Why? Because I'm too funny?"

"Yeah, uh-huh that's totally it"

He had finished his laughing fit and was able to speak clearly, a smile on his face while he rolled his eyes, continuing his path back to your lips.

You were barely a millimeter apart when your phone started ringing, both of your groans echoing throughout the room while you blindly reached for the device.

"Where are you? I cant find you and Chenle's father seems to not be able to locate him either. You better be making smart decisions. I'll let you go this time but we've got another party next week and you will be there the entire time"

Your fathers voice was loud through the phone, and you were sure Chenle heard every word.

"Ugh" you let out an angry groan as the voicemail finished, throwing the device somewhere across the room.

"Why do they always do this?"

Chenle got a similar text from his father, and now both of you were mad, knees touching as you sat angrily on the hotel bed.

"What do you think they'd do if we just ran away?"

He looked at you in amusement, not a single ounce of surprise in his gaze.

"I've thought about it, leave the city"

"Maybe the country" you added, and chenle let out a melodic laugh, content to sit in some random hotel with you and talk about running away together.

But that wasn't what you wanted right now.

Right now the thought on both of your minds was to make you fathers mad.

“You better kiss me before we get interrupted again”

You don’t have to tell him twice, within a second his lips are crashing into yours, tongues clashing and hands grabbing at whatever they can reach, both of you trying to contain your smiles at the feeling of freedom.

When you woke up the next day the alarm on the side table read 3:00 and a laugh left you mouth as you woke up the boy next to you.

“Chenle we were supposed to check out three hours ago”

His eyes widen but he joins in your laughter anyway, both rushing around the room to locate your belongings.

The same check in lady at the desk from yesterday glares at you as you run through the halls, and since you paid yesterday you thankfully don’t have to speak to her, Chenle just throwing the key card down on the front desk and running with you in his arms towards his car.

He was too busy dismissing calls from his father and screaming along with the radio to notice the way you slipped the other key card into your small purse.

“we both know we can’t open the door no more, but she kept the hotel key”

[yourmidnightlover]

i’ll never be ready

Summary: when you've been taken by the recent unsub, you both come to a shocking realization.

TW: torture, self-hatred (derek, spencer), scars, noah (the sucky date guy), angst, fluff if you squint. let me know if i missed anything*

WC: 3,486

————————————————————————

saying the case was rough was under kill-which, ironically, was opposite of the unsub's mo. everyone had nearly lost count of how long they had been awake. 36, maybe 38 hours of nonstop work? going over case files and reviewing them for something - anything you might've missed. it all seemed a bit pointless because each time you reread a file you felt your eyes dropping down, threatening to betray you and make you succumb to the sleep.

"y/n," hotch spoke. "you've been up the longest. go back to the hotel with derek and get some rest. be back here in 5 hours," he demanded in a soft tone.

"won't argue with that," you chuckled best you could before morgan grabbed the keys, ushering the two of you to the car.

your hotel room was a few doors down from morgan's. he bid you goodnight before he opened his door, allowing you to continue on to your room. you decided to get a bottle of water - the sleep deprivation probably making you feel more dehydrated than you actually were.

after you paid for the bottle, you took a swig of it and trudged on to your room. only, you didn't make it. it felt as though the sleep you yearned for had finally taken over as it was accompanied by a throbbing migraine in the back of your head.

-

"what's taking them so long?" emily asked, looking at hotch for answers.

l"i'm not sure. i told them to only be gone for fi-" he was cut off by morgan slamming into the police station.

"she's gone," he uttered plainly, worriedly as he avoided any eye contact with the rest of the team.

"what do you mean 'she's gone?'" jj argued, feeling the worry bubble up inside of her as morgan continued talking.

"i knocked on her door to let her know that we had to leave. i-i thought she might've just slept through her alarm. but then she never answered," his eyes finally met someone on the team's. "i kicked through the door and the bed -it-it wasn't even slept in. i'm so sorry," he mumbled to that particular team member.

spencer felt his heart drop in his chest. he wasn't angry, per say. he was furious. he was frustrated and confused and wanted to hit something - someone. but not morgan. he wasn't mad at morgan. it wasn't his fault you were gone. at least that's what he thought until Garcia pulled up the footage from 6 hours ago.

the image of derek going inside his room, allowing you to wander past yours and retrieve the water before walking halfway back to yours, only to be hit over the head, was the only thing he could see. and what he did see... well, what he saw was in red.

"you didn't even walk her to her room?!" spencer accused derek.

"kid, we were all tired. i'm sorry, i really am," he pleaded with the young man.

"don't 'kid' me! 'sorry' won't bring her back! we know what this guy does to people and you didn't even make sure she was safe!" spencer walked closer to derek. "i can't believe you. we all had a discussion about how she was the unsub's type. you knew that and you still let her get taken," he poked his finger in his chest.

"i didn't let her do anything. i didn't want this to happen, reid," morgan tried to calm him down, only for them to be interrupted by jj coming into the room, asking for spencer to come with her before promptly leaving derek by himself. "i-i swear, babygirl, i didn't think th-"

"that's the problem, derek," she cut him off. "you didn't think," she said in a calm, sweet tone. "i love you, i truly do, but even when your guards are down when you're tired... you need to think."

"i know... i know. i don't- i don't know what to do now," he wiped the tears from his eyes.

"now you go be the hero i know you are," garcia smiled before signing off, leaving derek staring at a blank, black screen.

-

"look who's up," the unsub sang as you turned your head whilst lying on the cold, steel table. "before you try anything, there's no point in fighting. you're strapped down with reinforcements and the room is sealed with a steel door that can only be unlocked with my key."

"so what? should i just let you do whatever you want to me?" you scoffed as you rolled your eyes, observing the state of the room.

it wasn't very clean. it was dirty and grungy and the smell was absolutely horrid. you nearly gagged upon looking to the corner of the room, seeing an abundance of takeout and old pizza boxes - clearly old and moldy.

"that'll happen regardless, sweetheart," he brushed a strand of hair behind your ear, humming as he did so. "such a beautiful girl, truly," his hand travelled further south, grasping your neck tightly with the one hand before he brought a second one up to join it.

you stared him in his hooded eyes as he strangled you gently. you didn't make a show if it - that's where he got off. you wouldn't give him the satisfaction. although you would have to throw him a bone so he wouldn't kill you.

he was a sexual sadist. he got the relief from your pain and struggle. he would keep at it until you gave him what he wanted - your pain.

the profile had revealed that the unsub had a history of hatred for women from his own mother - who was most likely abusive. it was assumed that his father left at an early age and his mother blamed him for his departure.

"damnit!" he slapped your face, relinquishing his grip on your throat to allow you to breathe.

"what? can the big-strong-tough-guy not get off?" you mocked him, another slap hitting your face.

"shut UP!" he shouted at you. "when i get back you better be more cooperative," he spat out before grabbing a duffel bag and leaving.

a sigh of relief left you when the doors shut, hearing the deadbolt latch lock to signal you were stuck. you wriggled your wrists around, noticing they were bound by leather straps, as were your ankles.

-

"alright," hotch began as they gathered in the makeshift conference room, "so he has a 12 hour lead on us with her. we've profiled that the unsub keeps all the women at the same location. it'd be too difficult to move them with all the equipment he uses on them..." he looked towards spencer as he spoke, wanting to make sure he was alright.

"this has to be a power assertion move," emily added.

"you're right," rossi agreed. "taking a fbi agent would make him arrogant."

"so maybe he'll screw up? maybe we could find her?" spencer lit up at the brief sight of hope.

"don't get too excited, we still need him to make that mistake. but, yes, there's hope," hotch agreed.

penelope appeared all too sudden on the laptop screen, looking rather worried before she announced, "i'm gonna send you the video that just appeared on every screen in my bat cave. just... be prepared."

and then you were there.

you were strapped to the table, your shirt cut open to reveal your skin to the screen. the camera seemed to be hovering above the bed, focused on your body and the marks that already adorned it. you had a hand-shaped bruise on your trachea; a bruise on your cheekbone underneath your eye was contrasting your pale skin. the gag in your mouth held it open in what seemed to be an uncomfortable position. you looked tired. reasonably so, you never did get that proper rest you wanted.

and spencer would never get to tell you what he wanted if you couldn't make it out of there alive.

he never thought of you as anything but a friend but now that there was the possibility of you not making it back to him, he couldn't help but feel different about you. his heart was aching and he knew it would never stop until he was able to give it to you. now, he knew he wanted to hold you as more than a friend. he wanted to dance with you romantically rather than a silly platonic friendly thing. he wanted to kiss you, and tell you that he'd never leave you alone again. he just wanted you.

"look at how pretty she is lying there on the table," a voice that was off-screen cheered out. "although she's always quite the hottie, isn't that right... spencer? was that the name you told me, agent?" he grasped your chin, forcing your face to contort as you tried to wrangle yourself free from his grasp. "it was, wasn't it?" he laughed before releasing your face.

your eyes welled with tears upon the realization that the team might not make it to you on time. you had tried to put up a fight - you swore you did. but you could only fight so hard for so long. the light left your eyes in the form of tears streaming down your face, leaving them on display for your own team to mourn with you.

"looks like he won't be saving you, after all," he chuckled as shuffling was heard from over the screen. "let's see if they like the show, huh?" he brought a knife from out of his bag before removing the gag from your mouth.

"turn it off! turn it off!" you begged. "they-they don't need to see this, hudson," you revealed his name.

"hudson was the deputy that went home 13 hours ago. he was the one that gave us the files and intel on people in town. i guess he didn't actually go home," reid reminded the team.

"shut up, BITCH!" hudson wiped the knife down your right arm, a light hiss leaving your mouth from the intrusion.

"how about we get something to eat, yea? order some more jonny's pizza?" you emphasized before the knife went back into your skin, this time on the other arm.

"jonny's pizza is in a neighborhood only 10 miles away from here. hudson might own property near there. garcia?" spencer announced once more.

"on it," penelope declared before working her magic. "it says here that hudson's family owns an old restaurant that was shut down three years ago. it was passed on to him once his mother died. i'm sending the address your way."

"morgan, you're with me and emily-"

"i'm going with you," reid interjected.

"are you sure you're in the right-"

"i have to see her. i have to... i have to make sure she's okay," spencer tried to reason. hotch sighed before nodding his head in agreement.

they brought an ipad with them so they could watch as they traveled to the location. your arms were bleeding, but he had avoided the major arteries that would've killed you. your sobs wracked through the device, shattering spencer's heart more than he thought possible.

when they got to the restaurant, there were wooden boards surrounding every entrance. they left the sirens off in hopes to not scare the unsub into killing you.

"fbi!" morgan did his classic entrance, kicking the door in promptly. "hudson williams! fbi!" he led the team to the back of the room where a large, steel door rested.

spencer and hotch went to the sides of morgan, nodding at him to continue before he kicked the door in. the three, followed by more swat members, flooded inside the room quickly. spencer's eyes locked on yours as you lay on the table, looking sideways to see him. he saw the tears flow from your eyes as the unsub swung his knife up into the air, intent on stabbing you once more, this time fatally. spencer could swear he saw you mouth something to him before a shot rang through the air.

he looked to his side to see morgan had fired the shot that killed hudson, his knife falling beside your body as your body began shaking with sobs.

"let me go! let me go ple-please! get these off!" your arms struggled at the restraints before spencer holstered his gun, running to your side to work at the leather bindings.

"i'm here," he undid your wrists before you wrapped them around his neck, burying your face in his shoulder before sobs overtook you. "you're safe now, you're safe," his hand stroked the back of your head as you cried into his skin. "here," he pulled back momentarily before he shrugged off his vest and cardigan, handing you the cardigan to pull over your body.

"thanks," you sniffled as you pulled it tight over your body, covering your exposed state before embracing spencer once more, pulling him as close as you possibly could.

"i'm never letting you go again, y/n," he whispered before placing a kiss to your hairline. "never."

"good," you responded before he took you in his arms, carrying you to the ambulance that made it's way to the restaurant soon after they did.

you were severely dehydrated. the lacerations on your arm caused you to lose a lot of blood. you had a concussion. but you would be okay. you were alive. by some miracle, you were alive. you were alive and he'd never let you out of his sight again.

the entire time you were gone, you couldn't stop thinking about spencer. i mean, yes, your team entered your mind but not as much as spencer. who did you cry out for when he would hurt you? spencer. where would you go to distract you from what was going on? spencer's arms. spencer was the answer to all of your problems. it was spencer.

"spencer?" you asked as your head was resting on his shoulder, his arm wrapped around your shoulders as a mild attempt to keep you warm.

"yes?" he turned his head down to face your droopy face.

"i..." you stopped once you realized what you had planned on revealing. "please don't leave?"

"i won't," he gently took your chin in his hand, lifting your face up to see his. "i promise."

you nodded your head contentedly, satisfied with his answer. you couldn't say anything about how you felt now of all times. you needed him, as selfish as that seemed. you needed him to lean on as a crutch right now. telling him how you feel is risky. he could run away and distance himself from you once you open your mouth. so instead, you'd keep it shut.

as the weeks went by, your wounds healed. your heart tried to mend itself as time went on, but the process wasn't as smooth as it was with your external wounds. it was a rollercoaster process. you tried to convince yourself that you didn't love spencer. each night when he would come to your house to check up on you and watch a tv show or movie, you allowed yourself to imagine a life with him. a life where you didn't have to hide your feelings from him.

and spencer thought that telling you right after might've brought on too much stress for you. he thought it would be selfish to tell you such a thing after you nearly died. so, he pushed his feelings down as well.

and then penelope happened.

she had set you up on a date with one of sam's friends from counter-terrorism. you didn't really want to go, but you felt bad enough after skipping all of the girls' nights once you got abducted. so, you had gotten ready.

you wore a long-sleeved blouse and a skirt, the sleeves to avoid a conversation with a stranger you truly weren't ready for. to be honest, you were dreading whatever would happen tonight. you had mentioned the date to spencer, telling him how you didn't even want to go anywhere; you weren't ready to go out in public by yourself yet. he wasn't excited for you, who would be after you confessed your hesitance on going anywhere.

"i'm heading out now, spence," you walked out of your bedroom and into the kitchen where spencer was standing, waiting for you to get ready.

"al-alright," he nodded before turning towards you. "you look... you look beautiful, y/n," he sighed, making you blush lightly.

"thank you," you went to give him a hug, wrapping your arms around his torso. "for everything," you kissed his cheek before pulling away. "i don't think it'll be that long, i hope it's not that long," you chuckled before continuing, "so i'll see you after?"

"uhm, yea," he agreed. "i'll see you later."

you sighed before grabbing your keys and leaving, driving to the restaurant penny had told you to go to. it had only been two months since your abduction. you hadn't been anywhere without someone with you, most of the time it was spencer. you parked the car, grabbing your purse from the passenger seat and placing it in your lap.

you shouldn't have come. you shouldn't have done anything. you should've stayed with spencer. you should've let him know how you felt. you should've...

you felt tears well in your eyes before you pushed those thoughts down. you took a deep breath to compose yourself before you walked into the restaurant. you were led to the table noah miller would be at by the host.

"hi," noah greeted you.

"hi," you tried your best to muster up a smile as you sat down.

"uhm, penelope mentioned how beautiful you were, but i think it was severe underkill," he chuckled,

"oh, wow, thank you," you smiled. "you look pretty great yourself," you motioned. there was a moment of unsettling silence before you continued, "i haven't been out in a while. so, be patient with me tonight."

"sam mentioned that you went through something... an abduction, i believe?" you nodded your head. "that is beyond cool. do you... do you have any scars?" his eyes widened at the thought.

"ex-excuse me?" you furrowed your brows at the question.

"do you have any scars from the abduction?" he asked once more as if he didn't sense what was wrong with it in the first place.

"you... you're seriously asking to see the scars from when i was almost killed?" you scoffed before leaning back, crossing your arms over your chest defensively.

"are those your scars?" he awed as he pointed towards your arms, the sleeves had ridden up on your skin.

"what the hell is wrong with you?" you jerked your sleeves down once more before you stood up and grabbed your purse. "i hope you rot in hell you freak."

you ran out to your car before calling spencer, tears already streaming down your face as you locked your car door.

"spencer reid," he answered the phone.

"spence?" you sniffled, wiping your nose.

"y/n? what is it? what happened?" he rose from his spot on his couch, shutting his book worriedly.

"i just... the date it - i need you, spencer," you cried out once more.

"do you need me to pick you up or are you alright to drive to my place?"

"i-i can drive," you replied as you wiped your tears.

"alright," he said. "i'll be waiting. should i stay on the phone with you as you drive? you could put me on speaker?"

"yea-yes, please," you answered before putting the phone on speaker.

you drove there as he read his book to you. his voice calmed you down a bit... only a little bit. not as much as his touch would. so, you sped there as fast you could without getting pulled over.

once you knocked on his door it opened in a matter of milliseconds. spencer's arms went around your waist as yours went around his neck, pulling him even closer to your body. your sobs rang through spencer's skin as he rubbed circles into your back, walking the two of you inside his apartment before he closed the door.

"what happened?" spencer asked as you curled into him whilst sitting on the couch.

"the guy wanted to see the scars," you sniffled. "when i got upset he saw them because my sleeves rolled up and well... the rest is history," you chuckled humorlessly.

"he really...?" spencer leaned back to look you in the eyes.

"yea... i know," you rolled you eyes.

"well whoever that guy is sucks. he doesn't deserve you," he twirled your hair in his fingers before continuing. "would you want to talk about it?"

"mm-mm," you shook your head. "not yet. i'm not ready."

and then it was more than abundantly clear. you might not ever be ready to tell him.

taglist:

@averyhotchner

@greenprisca

@muffin-cup

@spenxerslut

if you’d like to be added to the taglist, please don’t hesitate to message me or leave a comment!

[mimisempai]

Wait for me on the other side 1/8

Summary:

Mobius, a watchmaker, and Loki, a teacher, realize that they are separated by two years of time when they exchange letters from different years in the mailbox of the house on the cliff where Mobius lives. As the two lonely hearts feel they have found their soulmate, will they ever meet?

or the Lakehouse AU that nobody asked for.

Notes:

This is my very first multi-chapter AU. I hope you'll enjoy it. Chapters will be released on a weekly basis.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/32948254/chapters/81773392

3772 words - rating G

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 (End)

When two people "connect" the bond between them can be so pure and simple as to stir hearts in heaven.

When they connect in all the right places at all the wrong times, heaven weeps for broken hearts. To heal these broken hearts, heaven breaks time.

—Blithe Spiritus

Loki took one last look through the rearview mirror at the cottage on the edge of the cliff, which was getting smaller and smaller as he drove away.

Shifting his gaze forward, his face slid to the crate on the passenger seat, where Croki, his pet alligator, was sitting.

"I hope you will like your new home..." Loki sighed.

Then suddenly, he braked abruptly, holding back the cage with one hand as it slid forward. Then he backed the car up.

"Shit. I'm sorry Croc'"

He walked over to the mailbox. He put his hand through the window, opened the mailbox and put an envelope inside. Then his long fingers pulled the red flag in a vertical position, to indicate that there was mail. All this under the eyes of Croki who followed with attention all his gestures.

He tapped the top of the cage, "Come on, this time we're off for good."

He rolled, speeding up, refusing to look at the sign for the tiny village his home was in, New Asgard.  Loki rolled east, the cliff behind him, then passed a sign: New York, 35 miles.

The traffic became heavier as he approached the city.

After maneuvering through the various streets and making his way through the New York traffic, he stopped in front of an apartment building on a busy street. It was a very recent building, cold and sterile. The contrast with the tranquility of New-Asgard was striking.

He parked, got out of the car and took a moment to absorb the change in his surroundings. Then with a sigh, he began to unload his things.

**********

Loki stopped at the steps in front of the entrance to the imposing establishment - September High-School. He inhaled deeply to give himself courage before moving forward, climbing the few steps and pushing open the heavy door. He entered and walked to what appeared to be the front desk where a busy looking secretary was standing.

Loki asked softly, "Excuse me?"

"Just a minute, okay?"

Loki waited a minute, politely, then tried to get the secretary's attention again.

"Ahem... Excuse me, I need to..."

She handed him a stack of paper, while saying, without looking at him, "Just fill this out and wait for me there, okay?"

Loki handed it back to her.

"No, I'm Loki Laufeyson. I'm a new teacher. I was told to report here."

The secretary looked sheepish, "Oh, I'm sorry, Professor. You need to find Principal Romanov. She should be around here. A woman with red hair, dressed in black, you can't miss her."

He did indeed find the Principal in the hallway that the secretary had pointed out.

Natasha Romanov may have looked young to be a high school principal, but everything about her demeanor, her head carriage, her attitude exuded confidence and authority. She walked quickly down the hallway and Loki, though tall, had a hard time keeping up with her.

The principal handed him a large stack of files as soon as they arrived in her office.

"You will be in charge of the sophomores, this morning you will have three classes to teach and three this afternoon."

Loki repeated to be sure, "Three?"

"That's a quiet day, for a first day."

Loki looked a little dazed, he didn't think he was going to jump into the deep end and thought he would have some time to adjust.

The principal turned around, as if she sensed his hesitation, "The teacher you replaced let us down without notice, and it took us a while to find the right replacement, the students lost a lot of time for their final exams. We have to do our best to make sure they pass."

They walked past a student who was sitting alone on a bench, looking sulky. Romanov motioned to a supervisor.

"What's he doing here?"

The supervisor replied, "He was grounded because he took apart a computer to prove Professor Banner wrong and has to do an hour of gym under Professor Odinson's supervision. However, I can't leave the place unattended, and I was waiting for my backup to take him there.

"Peter get up," said principal Romanov in a sharp tone.

The young man stood up, a sulky look on his face.

"Professor Laufeyson, take him to Professor Odinson in the gym and then you can begin your lessons in this class."

The principal pointed to the door of the classroom in question, then turned and walked back to her office, not waiting for an answer.

"Well come with me, Mister...?"

The young boy followed his lead and replied with a pouty tone, "Parker, Peter Parker. »

"Then let's go Mr. Parker, the computer dismantler." replied Loki with a wink.  He knew he couldn't condone what the young man had done, but he couldn't help but find it amusing.

Seeing that the professor didn't look reproachful as he said these words, Peter lost his pout and got a small smile.

"Although I'm curious as to what could have caused you to disassemble a computer."

Peter seemed to come back to life, explained to an amused Loki, that Professor Banner, who taught biology, had said that nothing could compare to the complex construction that was a living being and Peter had wanted to show him the opposite by dismantling the Professor's laptop.

"But I was about to put it back together though, I don't understand why he got so upset."

Loki couldn't help but laugh.

Peter's face frowned because they had arrived at the gym.

They walked through the door and there a giant blonde man came striding in, "Peter Parker, it's been so long! Tell me what you've been up to again." he ruffled Peter's hair who tried to shy away from it, then he held out his hand to Loki who had to hold back a wince at the strength of the professor's grip.

"Professor Odinson, but call me Thor. Nice to meet you. New professor?"

"Yes, I am the new literature professor, Loki Laufeyson, but call me Loki. I'll leave this promising young man to you," He winked at Peter before continuing, "as for me I'll be teaching my first class."

"Welcome here, and good luck!" threw Thor at him before turning back to Peter, "Go change, we'll start with 10 laps running around the basketball court."

Hearing Peter's grumbles, Loki smiled as he walked away.

A few minutes later, he stopped outside his classroom door and took a deep breath.

"It takes a little time to adjust, but most of the students here are exceptional and the teaching staff is really, really nice."

Loki turned to see who had just spoken.

He found himself facing a black man, taller than him, and very impressive. But despite his imposing nature, his smile and eyes were very warm as he held out his hand. "Heimdall, art professor, welcome."

Loki grasped it and replied, "Loki, literature professor."

Heimdall gave a small nod in the direction of the door, "Good luck." then walked away.

Loki, surprisingly relaxed following this little interlude, walked through the classroom door with a confident air, placed his belongings on the desk and with an engaging smile on his lips addressed his first students, "Hello, I am your new literature teacher and I hope we will work well together."

He paused, letting his gaze roam over the entire class before continuing,"O Captain! My Captain! Who knows where that came from? No one? No idea? It's-"

A young boy raised his hand at the back of the classroom.

"Yes Mister...?"

"Keener, Harley Keener."

"All right Mister Keener, I'm listening."

"It's a Walt Whitman poem about Abraham Lincoln. And it's plagiarism of Professor Keating's introduction played by Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society."

Loki didn't lose his confidence at all and replied, "Thank you Mr. Keener. I'm not going to apologize for the plagiarism. I didn't expect anyone to contradict me since this film was released long before you were all born. Thank you, Mr. Keener, for setting me straight. I won't ask you to call me Captain, Sir, or Professor, but simply Loki. Yes, Mr. Keener, Loki, as in the Norse god of mischief... "

The whole class, including Harley, laughed and Loki thought that it wasn't such a bad start.

But he still felt exhausted at the end of the day, and he slumped into the chair at his assigned desk in the teacher's lounge. He leaned in and put his head back, closing his eyes.

"So they've worn you out already?" it was the deep voice, which he recognized as Heimdall's. He opened his eyes to see that the art professor had sat just at the desk next to him.

"Yet the Famous Five keep talking about Loki, the new professor who is super cool. It's been a long time since I've heard a literature professor on such good terms." It was Thor who came to join them and pulled a chair to sit in the space between Heimdall and Loki.

"The Famous Five?"

Thor chuckled before answering, "They're called that because they're always stuffed together, probably five of the smartest minds in this elite school, and as a result always going out on the town to..."

"…the benefit of science." finished Heimdall.

"That's their argument every time they get busted," Thor clarified.

"Who are they?" asked Loki, curious.

"There's Peter who you met this morning, he's in the same class as his two childhood friends Ned and MJ. There's Harley who talked about how you put him in his place, when he thought he had fooled you. Captain my Captain huh?"

Thor chuckled before continuing, "and finally Kamala Khan, the newest one, a little brunette, a ball of energy who always wears a big red scarf, summer and winter and who the other four have taken under their wing."

"Interesting..." replied Loki, thoughtfully.

"Wait until you're the target of their prank and we'll see if you find these kids interesting." said an unknown voice behind him.

"Bruce my friend! Were you able to fix your laptop?" exclaimed Thor with a laugh.

Loki turned around, only to find himself standing in front of a man who was a little older than him. He stood up and held out his hand, "Professor Banner, I presume."

"Am I that famous?" the man asked, raising an eyebrow as he shook the outstretched hand in a firm grip.

"It's mostly that I had the pleasure of taking Peter Parker for his grounding to Thor." replied Loki

"That brat..." harrumphed Bruce. "He's smart... but his habit of proving he's always right..."

The other men laughed in unison.

"So boys? Are we having fun?" a young woman with short blond hair stepped forward and held out her hand, "Carol Danvers, homeroom teacher at this crazy school."

"Nice to meet you," Loki replied, shaking the outstretched hand.

Unaccustomed to being around so many people and especially such friendly people, Loki felt a little overwhelmed and suddenly the fatigue of this first day seemed to fall on his shoulders to the point that he had to stifle a yawn.

Thor patted him on the back and said, "I have an excellent remedy for that."

"What is it?"

Heimdall and Thor high-fived each other and said in unison, "The Bifrost."

At Loki's look of complete incomprehension, Carol explained, "It's a bar two blocks away, good burgers, good beer and for good company, that's us." she finished with a wink.

Loki realized they were inviting him to come with them but he hesitated and finally replied, "Thanks. I better not drink tonight. I'm dead."

Bruce retorted, "We're all dead."

"Yes, but I still have a lot to unpack."

They nodded, and did not seem disappointed by his refusal, even rather understanding. Loki really wasn't used to this kind of company.

Heimdall put his hand on his arm and then said softly, "Next time, then."

Loki, not understanding why his throat was tight, simply nodded.

A little later, they separated in front of the school gates. Loki on one side and the group on the other.

" Bye Loki!"

"See you tomorrow Captain!"

Loki lived only three blocks from the school and soon arrived home. When he entered he realized how sterile and cold his large apartment seemed.

He had not yet had time to unpack all his things and the boxes were scattered everywhere. The first thing he had unpacked was Croki's terrarium, which took up a whole room.

As he closed the door, he heard Croki's typical little paws coming and rubbing against him as usual. He patted his head and headed for the kitchen. Croki was a Cuvier's Dwarf caiman. Loki had once wanted to get a dog, but in the animal shelter he had immediately felt a connection with the animal, perhaps because he was different, like himself.

Loki opened the refrigerator which was desperately empty except for Croki's fish ration. He put it on a plate and put it on the floor while commenting, "Need alligator food. And human too."

He was going to have to do some shopping tomorrow.

After snacking on a bag of chips, exhausted, he took a quick shower before going to his room.

"Good night Croki."

His room was as functional and depressing as the rest of the place. He went to stand in front of the window. Outside it was all stone buildings. It was very difficult to even see the sky. He sighed, "What a view..."

He pulled the blinds and went to bed. Once his head was on the pillow, he fell asleep very quickly, which prevented him from thinking too much about everything he missed.

**********

A red pickup truck passed the New Asgard sign before parking at the side of the path that leads to the house. Its back end was filled with furniture and moving boxes. A mustachioed man with gray hair got out. He walked toward the cottage on the edge of the cliff and stopped, hands on hips, contemplating the view.

He opened the door, looked for the electric power meter. He turned it on and went to turn on the light in the entrance and then in what seemed to be the living room.

Mobius examined the place, satisfied. There wasn't much. A stereo, some books, an armchair. But the bare and cosy furniture matched perfectly with the austere beauty of the small cottage. He looked out the window at the cliff. He was going to like it here.

It took him a good four hours to unload his pickup truck by himself and install just about everything he had brought. Once finished, he grabbed a cold beer that he had put in the cooler and while drinking it quietly walked around the house before getting in the car to go shopping at the local grocery store that he had spotted on his way in.

Once he had gone around the store, with his groceries in his arms, he went to put them on the counter.

The young owner and his wife were behind.

"Hi, are you new around here?" the owner asked him.

Mobius smiled and replied, "More or less. My name is Mobius."

The owner replied, "My name is Clint and this is my wife, Laura."

Laura smiled and added, "You're going to like it. Especially now that the weather is getting warmer." Then pointing to the groceries, she added, "We'll get you some boxes for all that."

"Oh thanks." replied Mobius.

Laura fetched an empty box from a high shelf. Now that she was no longer hidden by the counter, it was obvious that she was pregnant. Clint rushed to her. "No, honey, let me."

Mobius looked at them, feeling moved and at the same time fully aware of his own loneliness. He paid, took his box and left, but not without promising the young couple to return.

He parked in front of the small road with his groceries in the back of the truck and noticed the mailbox with its flag up. He stopped and opened it. There was an envelope.

For the new tenant.

He took in the groceries, put them away, made himself a sandwich tray and taking the letter, he went to sit on the armchair in front of the bay window. He put his tray on a small table next to it, opened the letter and started to read.

Dear new tenant.

Hello and welcome to your new home and congratulations, blah blah blah. You have made an excellent choice, New Asgard is a wonderful place and this house is a gem, as you may have already noticed.

I'm sure you'll love living here as much as I do.

By the way, I'm the former tenant, Loki.

Mobius looked perplexed but also pleasantly surprised.

The post office forwards my mail normally, but if something should happen here, because the post service is what it is and we are never safe, my new address is below. Thank you.

Mobius turned over the letter.

P.S.: Sorry for the pawprints leading to the front door. They were already there when I moved in, as well as the box in the attic. I think it belongs to the owner.

Mobius stared at the letter in amusement and could not help but check the end of the letter.

He went to the front door. The floor was clean. Inside and out.

"What did he talk about?" he scratched the back of his head before heading for the ladder that led to the attic. He opened the hatch, poked his head through and looked around. It was empty. No box.

Mobius went back down, shrugged, crumpled the letter and threw it away.

He finished his meal and went to bed.

The next day, in his clock store, while repairing an antique watch with an extremely complicated mechanism, he couldn't help thinking about the letter and its more or less strange ending when he was interrupted by the doorbell indicating that someone had entered the store.

He put down his tools, wiped his hands, and headed for the store.

"Hey Mobius! I made lunch, shall we share?"

It was the bubbly and somewhat invasive, Sylvie. The owner of the antique gun store right across from him.

He replied, annoyed, because she had interrupted his work that he loved, "I can't, I have urgent work to finish."

"Oh come on Mobius, there's nothing urgent about an old watch."

"It is to its owner."

She made a disappointed pout, "Well, okay..." she sighed and headed for the door, then turned abruptly. "Is it true you bought a house? Where is it? How is it?"

Mobius rolled his eyes, used to Sylvie's chatter.

"It's an isolated cottage, in a small village called New Asgard."

"You're sick to isolate yourself like that!"

"It's what I want and I already feel at home there. And now, if you don't mind, I'm going to get back to my work, which is not urgent." He walked briskly toward his studio, annoyed by the criticism of his choice, and didn't even hear the door close.

In the late afternoon, after his day's work, he decided to repaint the faded fences that lined the small path. The manual work, like his work on watches, helped him to clear his head.

A few hours later, as the day was getting darker, Mobius was kneeling on the steps and applying a new layer of paint to the weathered planks. He finished, satisfied with the result, and began to put his equipment away.

Behind him, a small dwarf alligator trotted along the path. Mobius didn't notice it at first. The alligator sped up and before Mobius could react, he stepped into the paint and left footprints behind him. "Hey!"

Mobius tried to catch the alligator but it ran back inside the house whose door Mobius had left ajar. Mobius was about to follow him, wondering what an alligator was doing here and if he was dangerous, when he suddenly stopped.

On the ground in front of the house, there was a trail of paw prints.

Mobius rushed to the garbage can and searched with determination through his trash when he finally found what he was looking for: Loki's letter.

He stared at it.

Sorry about the footprints leading to the front door. They were already there when I moved in, as was the box in the attic. I think it belongs to the owner.

He remained for a long moment staring at the crumpled note.

*********

Loki went out to have lunch at a place he had spotted not far from the school.

Finding the weather warm, he opened his coat and continued walking.

When he arrived at the place, he sat down on a bench and started to unwrap his sandwich, a book in his hand. He enjoyed this moment of calm, even if the place was crowded on this beautiful day.

Once finished eating, Loki closed his eyes for a moment, letting the sunlight warm him up. Just aware of the surrounding sounds, the water of the fountain, the splashes and laughter of the children playing there, an old man grumbling about global warming, the pigeons landing not far away, hoping to get some crumbs from those who like Loki had decided to have lunch here.

Suddenly, a horrible noise, a high-pitched squeal and a horn made Loki sit up. He suddenly opened his eyes and looked around.

A few meters away, in front of Loki, a double-decker city bus was trying to stop. It was going pretty fast, although you could tell the driver was trying to brake.

Loki registered it all, the noise, the bus, before noticing the gray-haired man standing directly in the path of the bus. There was nothing to be done, it was inevitable and almost immediate, the man was hit by the bus, and Loki, horrified, saw his distant figure fly ten or fifteen feet into the air before crashing to the sidewalk. The faint sound of the impact reached Loki half a second later, due to the distance.

Loki automatically took out his cell phone and dialed 911. As he walked towards the impact point, he gave all the information to the rescue workers, trying to remain calm.

Once he hung up the phone, he started to run towards the lifeless body.

_______

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 (End)

As always, bear with me as it is not beta'd and english is not my native language I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless🥰

[some-different-account]

My mum told me that whenever she hears "Panic! at The Disco" mentioned, she thinks of that one song, with the lyric "panic at the disco". She tried to find it for me but has no idea what it is. She thought it was a 90s song. She was typing in Google "panic at the disco song lyrics" but the problem with that is you only get songs FROM Panic! at The Disco. She went onto the music video for I Write Sins Not Tradegies because it was the first result, went to the comments and got confused by the people saying things like "i miss the old panic songs" so she thought that meant there were older songs than this one, so I had to tell her that those years old comments are referring to THIS song, which is now >15 years old. She didn't know p!atd was this old of a band though, she thought they were recent. So I looked up the release year of their first album and told her it's 2005. She is confused. Is she actually thinking of a p!atd song? Perssonally I don't know any p!atd songs where they say their own band name. I don't think there are any. We go to Youtube again. She remembers a music video by p!atd where "they were on a bus". High Hopes is the first result. I tell her she's probably heard that one because that's a popular radio song. It's not that one. She's typed in "panic at the disco tour bus video" or something, I don't think that's a good search because you'll get a bunch of results from p!atd on tour, singing live songs, which we don't want. She goes to the Hallelujah music video. "Oh they sung Hallelujah?" "No, that's his own song". She is concerned that Brendon Urie is in a precarious place in the music video but that's not it either. I'm scrolling through an article on all of the p!atd music videos ranked. I haven't seen the music videos so I don't know which one has the bus. Mum wonders how Panic! at The Disco even got their name. I look this up and tell her the result: "Panic! at the Disco got their name from an emo band you've probably never heard of called Name Taken. Brendon Urie and co. took inspiration from the Orange, California, band's 2004 track 'Panic,' which features the lyrics: 'Panic at the disco / Sat back and took it so slow / Are you nervous? Are you shaking?'" She looks up this song. We watch the music video for several seconds. That's not it. Dad comes in and asks what we're doing. Mum says I got her hooked on something. Dad says I shouldn't be selling drugs to family members. Mum asks him, does he know that one song, that goes "panic at the discooo" and it came out around the same time as that other song? Dad repeatedly says he doesn't know, he tells us to google it, to google "panic at the disco song lyrics". We tell him we've tried that, and he quickly realises that that's a really bad search term for what we want. He leaves. Mum tries to find again, those lyrics with "panic at the disco". I was already on a lyrics finder website, lyrics.com, that I was going to show her before she brought up the detail about the bus. There are 4 results for songs that say "panic at the disco", 3 of them are the same exact Troye Sivan song from 2015 that mum wouldn't be thinking of. The other is a song from 2004. We go to a lyric video. It's not that either.

We found absolutely no answers. We are both confused. What was that one song? WAS it by p!atd? On one hand, mum initially thought it was maybe a 90s song, but she didn't know p!atd is an older band than she thought. What's that music video with the bus? We will most probably never know.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHEN YOU CHOOSE TECHNOLOGY, YOU HAVE TO IGNORE WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE DOING, AND A PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE IS FOR THINKING OF PROGRAMS, NOT FOR EXPRESSING PROGRAMS YOU'VE ALREADY THOUGHT OF

That in itself is less likely to introduce bugs. That m. What makes a language good for throwaway programs, but was pretty much a throwaway program is something that you expect to write in school you are, the more of the world's infrastructure? We knew Lisp was a really good deal. Arduinos, 3D printing, laser cutters, and more informal. One reason it's easy to believe that taste is just a series of web pages.1 Anyone in the arts, and particularly in oil painting. It will be a collection of utilities for generating reports, and only incidentally for machines to execute. You can't trust the opinions of the others, because of the Blub paradox: they're satisfied with whatever language they use. Make something unsexy that people will later say turned out to be will depend on what we can do with this new medium.

You don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, so to explain this point I'm going to talk about art being good, and scientists start good, and get good, and scientists start good, and artists being good at making it. When people do that today it's usually to enjoy them again e. I drive down 101 from the airport, I still feel a buzz of energy, as if there were a giant transformer nearby. If the posts on a site are characteristically of this type are only a few years? One thing is certain: the question is hard to buy, people will change their mind about whether they wanted it.2 Google, or entering a market that looks small but which will turn out to be a UI for applications, but they're not entirely orthogonal. I only discovered this myself quite recently. Honestly, Sam is, along with Steve Jobs, the founder I refer to most when I'm advising startups.3 Why?

How hard he worked on part of a century to establish that central planning didn't work. B the subject of writing now tends to be literature, since that's what the professor is interested in.4 But this Lisp must be a hacker's language, I think we'll marvel at the inconveniences people put up with, just as newspapers that put their stories online still seem to have been the idea that they should be like telephones. And so, by word of mouth mostly, we got more and more programs may turn out to be i/o-bound. Lots of people heard about the Altair and think I bet we could write a x, y. Interfaces, as Geoffrey James has said, should follow the principle of least astonishment. The same thing will happen if you're running a startup, of course.5 So the test of mattering to hackers. In fact, shelving an idea probably even inhibits new ideas: as you start to think of some new feature, you catch sight of the shelf and think but I already have problems enough with that. There are sources of error so powerful that if you build a facebook that works at Harvard, it will be. So in 1998 powerful New York types were suddenly wearing open-necked shirts and khakis and oval wire-rimmed glasses, just like the core language. Google is an immense crater: hundreds of millions of people use it in all his paintings, wouldn't he?

He grew up in the small Welsh seacoast town of Pwllheli. You don't need the current. It was pulling on that thread that unravelled my childhood faith in relativism.6 There is such a thing as good art, in the long run.7 These are some of the software support for CDs and DVDs wasn't ready. I'm aiming for good ideas.8 This doesn't just affect what they claim to like; they actually make themselves like things they're supposed to be a genius who will need to do here is loosen up your own mind, it may not only filter out lots of good examples. That's what I thought the price should be. That's how programmers read code anyway: when indentation says one thing.9

I can just incorporate in the essay. I had a thought so heretical that it really surprised me. VisiCalc was not merely a microcomputer version of a tree that in the early 1970s, are now, just barely, on the order of twenty to thirty of them, and the difference is embodied in the name. There should be online documentation as well.10 Hackers need to understand the fear Microsoft still inspired in 1995. I know several people who've sworn off Perl after such experiences. In that case, in the sense that it sorted in order of how much advertisers bid as Overture did but in order of how much advertisers bid as Overture did but in order of how much advertisers bid as Overture did but in order of bids, you can use from any browser will be enough of a win in itself to outweigh any awkwardness in the UI. I'm not sure how useful his advice is good. You should give up n% of your company. Intuit is famous for introducing themselves to customers at retail stores and asking to follow them home.11 Historically, Lisp has been good at letting hackers have their way with it.

When looking at pictures of a trip or to find the origin of some bug in their compiled code e. Ask What would Steve do? And this brings us to what I think will be an increasingly important feature of programming languages a surprising amount of effort a startup usually puts into a version one, it would be useful if I explained what a nerd was. I didn't get to macros until page 160. If they can, corp dev people at companies that are otherwise benevolent. Why do they do it?12 You're thinking out loud. Some links are both fluff, in the sense that it sorted in order of how much money Yahoo would make from each link. Remember, hackers are lazy. How do you learn it?13 This seems to be quite malleable; there's a lot you can do for the next release. For example, explicit support for programs with multiple users, or data ownership at the level of type tags.

Programmers may spend a long day up to their elbows in source code, but you weren't held to it; you could work out all the details, and even so I didn't get to macros until page 160. Many evolve into real programs, with real features and real users. She's so sensitive to character that it repels her even to fight with dishonest people.14 There are only rudimentary libraries for manipulating strings. Ten minutes of searching the web will usually settle the question. The downside of tuning a site to attract certain people is that, historically, the things people have said about good taste have generally been such nonsense. It was High Technology Innovation: Free Markets or Government Subsidies? It is not the word. My mother doesn't really need a desktop computer, you end up with a much firmer grip on the code. Especially since you won't even really learn about it, and the way to do it mean she tends to get written out of YC's history. Developers have been able to keep up with you. Authenticity is one of the reasons artists in fifteenth century Florence made such great things was not just big corporations that depended on this principle.

Plus Reddit had different goals from Hacker News.15 The tiny, expensive pipeline to consumers was tellingly named the channel. So, in their way, did labor unions, the traditional news media, and the stores built with it are the foundation of Yahoo Shopping.16 Master of all I surveyed. There are specific implications. If there's no such thing as better, it doesn't matter much where a given individual goes to college. Is software a counterexample? It must have seemed to our competitors that we had some kind of connection.17 A startup can't hope to enter a market that's obviously big and yet in which they have no state, and that was more than enough. More generally, it means that you have one this has real implications for software design.18 Software companies can charge a lot because a many of the customers are businesses, who get in trouble if they use pirated versions, and b they work.

Notes

That was a kind of social engineering—. Sometimes founders know it's a proxy for revenue growth.

At the time and Bob Frankston. To the extent to which it is certainly more efficient. Unfortunately the constraint probably has a spam probabilty of. Galbraith was clearly puzzled that corporate executives would work.

I did the section of the things they've tried on the software business, A P successfully defended itself by allowing the unionization of its workforce in 1938, thereby gaining organized labor as a cause them to be careful here, because few founders are in a signal. By heavy-duty security I mean by evolution.

But you can describe each strategy in an urban context, etc. I startups. There can be surprisingly indecisive about acquisitions, and configure domain names etc.

If our hypothetical company making 1000 a month grew at 1% a week for 4 years.

The kind of organization for that reason. And they are like sheep, but it doesn't cost anything. Interestingly, the way they have raised money on convertible notes, VCs who are running on vapor, financially, and oversupply of educated ones.

Even Samuel Johnson seems to pass so slowly for them by the surface similarities.

Businesses have to think of ourselves as investors, is this someone you want to pound that message home.

For example, understanding French will help you along by promising to invest at a Demo Day. Professors and politicians live within socialist eddies of the products I grew up with much greater inconveniences than that. While the first scientist.

That way most reach the stage where they're sufficiently convincing well before Demo Day pitch, the fatigue hits you like a core going critical.

6% of the Italian word for success. If Paris is where all the best hackers want to be a distraction.

Several people have told us that we don't have to do that much to say yet how much he liked his work. It's not only the leaves who suffer. This approach has not worked well, but that wasn't a partnership. Conversely, it's easy to believe is that you'll have to preserve optionality.

Sullivan actually said form ever follows function, but I think is happening when you see with defense contractors or fashion brands. And I'm sure for every startup founder could pull the same work faster.

They hoped they were, like languages and safe combinations, and all those 20 people at once, and philosophy the imprecise half. Algorithms that use it are called naive Bayesian.

In practice the first duty of the techniques for stopping spam.

But it's a significant effect on college admissions process. That's why startups always pay equity rather than given by other people. The US News list tells us is what approaches like Brightmail's will degenerate into once spammers are pushed into using mad-lib techniques to generate revenues they could imagine needing in their racks for years while they think they're just mentioning the possibility.

Not in New York is where product companies go to die from running Kazaa helped ensure the success of their upbringing in their hearts that if the current edition, which would harm their all-important GPA.

If you were still so small that no one knows how many computers the worm might have. Experienced investors know about a related phenomenon: he found himself concealing from his family, that alone could in principle get us up to 20x, since human vision is the lost revenue.

[strawberryungjae]

hi i'm kinda new to the whole kpop world so i was wondering if you could point me in the direction of some older or kinda unknown kpop groups? you've talked about liking a bunch of groups and and having biases that you don't talk about as much. idc if they're disbanded or not. i feel like i know most of the more well known current groups but idk where to start with the others. thank you ^^

Oh man anon this is gonna take me a while. So thank you for your patience in advance!

*Disclaimer* The only groups mentioned below are groups I stan or have stanned in the past. Due to the sheer amount of groups that have come and gone I could not possibly name them all. That being said, if you don’t see a group that you would put on this list, it doesn’t mean they aren’t important. It just means that I didn’t know them well enough to feel like I should be the one to talk about them. I’m also not going to put these groups into categories either. Some of the groups mentioned below could be well known older groups, lesser known new groups, or even lesser known old groups. Since the parameters I was given were wide, I’ve tried to include some of everything. 

Anon, I’m sorry if I mention groups that you already know lol but since I don’t actually know the full extent of your group knowledge, I shall try to do the best I can. You also mentioned how I talked about liking a bunch of groups that I don’t talk about much so I’m only gonna post the groups that either aren’t on my blog at all, or they aren’t on there very often. I’ll try to link a popular/my favorite song by them somewhere for you to check out. And since you mentioned biases, I’ll post a gif of mine if I have one!

1. Super Junior - These boys have been around producing bops since 2005. Even longer than I’ve been stuck in the kpop volcano. I’m sure you’ve heard Sorry, Sorry before even if you’ve never realized it, but my current favorite song is Black Suit

My bias in this wonderful mess of a group is Donghae. My squishy man child.

2. C-Clown - This group of adorable humans formed back in 2012 but disbanded in 2015. A lot of people know, or have heard of, former member and leader Rome, aka Christian Yu. Their song Let’s Love has always been a BOP.

I never did choose a C-Clown bias... (although considering my tastes it probably would have been Christian)

3. BIGFLO - They debuted in 2014 but last year they had a few members leave and added a couple new members. My favorite song of theirs has been Obliviate for a while now.

My biases are Hightop and Euijin. Euijin actually participated in The Unit and recently debuted with UNB (he’s still an active member of Bigflo though, kind of like some members of Wanna One)

Euijin:

Hightop:

4. JJCC - This adorable group of boys debuted not long after my birthday in 2014. Their leader’s stage name is Simba (no joke... if that isn’t the coolest ever). They did have a member, Prince Mak (aka Henry Mak), leave the group last year though. He makes youtube videos and maybe you’ve seen the one he did not so long ago with Jackson of Got7. Their song Fire has been on my most played itunes playlist almost since it came out.

Choosing a bias in JJCC has always been really hard for me because it switches from member to member all the time lol

5. High4 - Debuted in 2014 with four members but in February of last year, one of the members decided to leave the group. My favorite song by High4 has always been Day by Day. High4 also had a subgroup called High420 (I see what they did there) which consisted of members Alex and Youngjun. They only released one song, to my knowledge, called HookGA

My bias is Alex (who recently enlisted in the military)

5. The Legend - These boys debuted in 2014 but disbanded last year after a lawsuit against their company over neglect. (They won but were forced to disband anyway) My favorite song is actually their debut song, Left Out

My bias was Roi (Qin Fen) who recently participated in the Chinese version of Idol Producer

6. MYNAME - Debuted in 2011. Although I haven’t heard any news of official disbandment, the group hasn’t been active much since 2015 and most of the members participated in The Unit. My favorite song of theirs is Too Very So Much

My bias is leader, Gunwoo

7. Imfact - Debuted in 2016 so they’re a newer group but I still think they need more love. All but one of the members chose to participate in The Unit, all of which passed auditions but none made it onto the debut team. My favorite song is actually their 2018 release called The Light

I have two Imfact biases. The dorky duo, Jeup and Ungjae (Ungjae is wearing the hat and Jeup is in the pink sweater)

8. B.I.G - Their group name stands for Boys In Groove and they debuted in 2014. They’re all a bunch of dorks and I watch their episode of The Immigration all the time. My favorite song is Hello Hello

My bias in BIG is babyfaced Benji

9. MASC - Debuted in 2016 so they’re another newer group that I think needs more love.  I have two current favorite songs, Tina (for... obvious reasons) and Strange

My MASC bias is Jihoon (whose stage name is 26 which makes me giggle)

10. Madtown - Although some might classify these boys as being more well known, I don’t see many people actually talking about them. The group debuted in 2014. There had been talk for a while about the group disbanding after their original agency closed and they were moved to a new one, which gave them no support. It was later confirmed by two members who participated in The Unit. Their Song OMGT is an absolute BOP

My bias was Jota

11. Boys Republic - Debuted in 2013. A few of the members participated in The Unit but didn’t make it into the finals. My favorite song has always been Get Down (the video for which lowkey has references to mad max fury road. also don’t watch if you’re sensitive to darker themes)

My bias in BR is Suwoong (who was a former bighit trainee and is good friends with BTS’s Jungkook as well as B.A.P’s Daehyun and Jongup)

12. Teen Top - These crazy boys debuted in 2010 but lost a member in February of last year. Their song Rocking will always make me want to dance

My Teen Top bias is C.A.P (who is close friends with my love Zico and Kyung of Block B)

13. Cross Gene - My baby boys debuted in 2012 but a member (my original bias, Casper) decided to leave the group last year. My favorite songs are Ying Yang and one of their newest songs, Believe Me the video for which is my favorite ever because it shows just how big of dorks they really are.

My current bias is Sangmin

I think I’m gonna leave this list here. Mostly because all of the other groups I can think of appear on my blog quite often. Hopefully this helps you out a little bit though!