#i tried to watch a youtube video and my brain could not for the life of me focus

[fiaistired]

Elysian Fields by The Mechanisms save me

Elysian Fields by The Mechanisms

save me Elysian Fields by The Mechanisms

[shuuuuush]

LET ME LOVE YOU 【SHARKY】

【Summary】 ; Finding yourself dragged in to join a video with the beta squad, you meet Sharky. You've promised before that you wouldn't fall for anyone anymore after all you've been through. But now that he's popped up in your life, maybe you're slowly breaking your promise.

【Warnings】 ; slow build, reader has a description of a past abusive (more toxic than abusive) relationship and insecurity, mentions of trauma from it, slow brains to comprehend feelings, words: "damn", "bastard", "Shit" are used, Sharky being a jokeman.

【Pairing】 ; Sharky x f!Reader

【Word Count】; hehe 15k !!

【A/N】 ;Hope you all enjoy this, and it did take a while, so please let me know what you all think about it ! @vctrvn-ls thank u so much for scenario ideas and motivation when I felt like my brain was fried, and @allygatcr for hyping me up for this fic 🫶🫶 and all my mutuals who have long awaited this fic I love u all !

Masterlist

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The cold, cool air of the summer breeze hit your face as you stared out the window of the moving car.

Chin leaning on your hand as you watched houses and landscapes moved past your eyes in a speedy manner.

You didn't know what to expect in this upcoming event you were attending, well not a big event but a video that was shooting.

It was your first collaboration with other youtubers as you yourself was an upcoming one. Well you were more a guest than a collaboration but that's what you liked to call it.

Being nervous was an understatement, you didn't know what to expect but all you could do was hope for the best. Knowing the Internet could do anything after the video was posted was what made you more nervous, you hope things go your way and all but is that really realistic?

"You better not be over there being worried about the whole thing Y/N." A voice spoke beside you, one who was driving the car you were in.

Turning to roll your eyes at him, Aj just shook his head, hand still on the steering wheel as he continued speaking, since you didn't say anything.

"Cmon, I told you it's all good. These guys are my trusted friends and good collabs too. It'll help you a lot. And maybe get over your fear of…" He trailed off, glancing to your side as he faked a cough to quickly recover from what he was originally going to say, "You know what I mean. I'm telling you right now it's all good."

"It better be." You mumbled, still staring out the window of the car trying to calm your nerves down. Sure, Aj tried giving you a pep talk, but right now, it wasn't really working. Still, you appreciated what he did for you.

Aj was one of your family friends, you both have known each other since you were really young and both grew up together. He was the older brother that you never had. Throughout your childhood, you would be able to count on his triangle head.

Even though you'd both insult and tease each other, you still cared and were thankful.

And being the good friend Aj was, he saw how you were trying to become a bigger youtuber. But he knew you were afraid to expand and get to know more people than your small circle of ones you already knew.

So, he told you about the beta squad and how he and his friends created this group, where they make videos together and live in the same house. They do collabs with others too to make their videos more fun and interesting when there's guests.

He invited you, despite you saying you were fine by yourself, he insisted that it would be fun. And now here you are, on your way to the beta squad house to film a video with some people you don't know.

Except the short triangle head.

"If things don't go great, I'm heading straight back to this car, Aj." Sitting up straight and turning your head to him as you spoke.

You could tell he was contemplating whether or not to say some insult or snappy remark back, but in the end, he just nodded and said alright.

The driving came to a slow as the car approached the driveway of the house. The house itself was actually impressive. You thought maybe it would not be the best-looking house you'd seen with Aj living in it, but clearly, you're wrong.

I mean, what did you expect? They live in a mansion for crying out loud. You thought to yourself, as if hearing you, Aj laughed and commented on that thought.

"Yep, this place cost a sh' ton of money, but it's worth it." He spoke as he parked the car and turned off the engine. Looking for his keys to open the front door.

You laughed, finding the key on the front window of the car and handing it to him "Okayy mind reader shabeel. Thanks for the info."

He rolled his eyes in response and exited the car, causing a laugh to escape you again. Taking your phone out of your pocket, you looked at the time as it read, 4:30pm. The video was scheduled to start preparing to shoot at 5:00pm.

You got out of the car and shut the door, following Aj to the front of the house as he unlocked the door with some passcode at which he told you to "look away I don't want you breaking into this house"

And then proceeding to use the key to unlock the front door.

Stepping inside the house, it was cooler than outside, probably because of the air conditioning, and the mansion was huge, bigger inside than what it looked like outside.

Cold marble flooring that matched the white of the walls. Taking a look around the house, you noticed posters of all the beta squad, sitting on their thrones and wearing royal king crowns, following with their names beneath the poster.

You admit this place is starting to look really cool, and the fact that all of them are still quite young and can afford a house like this amazes you. Perhaps one day you'd be able to do the same.

Sniffing, you smelt a savoury aroma enter the room, you guessed, coming from the kitchen as you imagined the delicious food being cooked.

But your attention to food was taken away when you heard a ringtone coming from Aj's phone.

Glancing at it, he started to speak, "I gotta take this sorry, you can go ahead and sit on the couch or take a look around. Sharky might be at home right now, too."

Before you could question further where the sitting room was, he already was on the call, speaking to someone and walking out the door outside to the carpark.

You sighed, putting a hand on your hips, guess you had to explore now.

Thankfully, you found the giant couch without too much effort. As there was a glass door in front of you, beside the posters you were looking at earlier.

Speed walking up to the couch and plopping onto it, you felt the comfort of it instantly sink in, you felt like you were in your own bed that's how comfortable it was.

You pulled your airpods out of your pocket and connected it to your phone as you put them into your ears to listen to some music to pass the time a bit.

Going into Spotify to find your most trusted thing, your music playlists.

Pressing shuffle, you were glad one of your favourite songs popped up, "Thinkin' bout you." By Frank Ocean.

You listened to a lot of music artists and you never really had a favourite, but whenever you did listen to Frank Ocean it's just something about the lyrics that always touched you. Either they were too real or too sad and it made the songs more enjoyable. Or they were also just a good beat to be honest.

Humming along to the song, you foot tapped to the beat, following along with your head in sync. As you scrolled through your phone to find something to do, quietly singing the song that played through your airpods.

Cause I been thinking 'bout forever, ooh

Most of the time, you could almost dance to the music when you were alone but here, you were content with just tapping your foot along with the beat.

No, I don't like you, I just thought you were cool enough to kick it

You started humming along to the words, enjoying the beat of the music.

Got a beach house I could sell you in Idaho, since you think

Now the music had taken over and you were singing along to the music, not singing too loud but enough to not classify it as a whisper.

I don't love you I just thought you were cute, that's why I kissed you

Got a fighter jet, I don't get to fly it though I'm lying down

Too lost in the music, you failed to hear the footsteps approaching beside you. You jumped slightly as a hand tapped your shoulder, causing you to remove one of your airpods and look up to see who it was.

"Hey, sorry for startling you. I just wanted to come over and say hi, You're Y/N, right? The guest today?"

You were greeted by dark chocolate eyes that were connected with a smile. A pretty face, you'll be honest. And he was tall. Damn, he was tall. Like 6 foot something, definitely. He had a good sense of style, wearing a grey backwards hat and matching hoodie and joggers that had a logo, Primo on it.

Still hooked on the fact that this beautiful man was standing in front of you. Were you daydreaming again?

Maybe you were observing him for too long, as he waved a hand in front of your face with a small chuckle.

"Oh! sorry, yes, I'm Y/N, I didn't mean to stare.." You internally punched yourself in the brain. He didn't have to know you were staring. Why did you say that out loud? You frickin idiot. You still haven't even turned off your music yet.

You paused the music on your phone and it caused an excited gasp to escape from the man in front of you, confused you looked back up at him to see him smiling with excitement as he was looking at your phone.

"Oh my days, you listen to Frank Ocean? Do you like his music?" He came over to sit beside you, still excited like a little kid who just made a friend for the first time.

You gave a slight giggle as you nodded, "I don't just like his music, I love his music. It's just something about the way his songs are always so real."

"Yeah, it's so relatable, and the way his lyrics are raw, it just makes it more enjoyable, you know?" He added, nodding while he talked and listening to you intently.

"I know, right? Honestly, one of the best music artists I know." You agreed, a small smile dusting your face as you talk about the one thing you enjoy, music.

He chuckled, "The greatest of all time," he stopped for a bit before asking, "What's your favourite song of his?"

"Ohh, it's hard to say because I love them all." You looked away to ponder for a minute, trying to differentiate which of his songs you would classify as a 'favourite.' No one really asked that before, too, so you never really had to think about it. "Honestly, I can't choose."

"Cmon, you have to have one that you could listen to forever."

You thought for a bit, "Hm, but if I had to have one, I'd say this song I'm listening to right now, Thinkin Bout You."

"Ohh, that song is so good, I'd say mine is Pink and White, only because I've been listening to it a lot." He admitted, one hand in the air as he said that last statement with a grin.

It's been a while since you've been able to connect and talk to someone about interesting topics you enjoy. You felt so welcomed, and something about him just warmed your heart, always managing to put a smile on your face every next sentence he spoke.

You could tell he was an open person, someone you could trust. This feeling you get of trust and instant friendship is rare and hard to find, and when you do find it, you've heard that you shouldn't lose it. It's a once in a lifetime chance.

Suddenly, he face palmed and mumbled an 'I'm so dumb,' "Sorry I forgot to introduce myself, I'm Sharky." He held a hand out to you to shake. You took it automatically and with a smile.

"Y/N L/N." Wait, you didn't even register what his name was for a second, and then it just clicked. "Sharky? Like a shark? Is that a nickname?"

"Aha, yeah, that's what I'm nicknamed as my actual name is Sharmarke. It's just that's what I'm better known as." He scratched the back of his neck while looking to the side, a small pink dusting his cheeks.

You were about to ask more on that before you heard more voices enter the room. Both of you turned your heads to see what you assumed was the beta squad, and some camera crew entered.

Sharky turned to you and smiled, "We can talk after, I think we're about to start. These are the rest of the beta squad." He said, standing up and pointing to the four guys. You followed his line of sight and saw them waving at the both of you.

Getting up and coming over to greet them all, you introduced yourself to the three and got their names as Niko, Kenny, and Chunkz. You were about to comment on the last one's name before he put up a hand and pointed to all of himself as his explanation to which he gave a laugh.

The camera crew set up everyone, placing mics on them and doing sound checks on everyone. Putting cameras in two rooms, one for the main video and the other for another part of the video, the part where an individual talks to the camera themselves.

Now you saw that everyone had put on their silly costumes and understood why Aj had asked you previously to bring something too.

You had brought a red riding outfit since it was the only costume-like thing that you had owned. You changed into that, and you went to check out everyone's costumes, or if you didn't know what it was, you asked them.

Kenny was dressed as bigfoot, Chunkz as "Prince of Saudi Arabia", Niko as Sharky, well more specifically a Shark biting him, Sharky as a black viking and Aj a sheep. Quite accurate, you thought with a small giggle.

The lighting in each room took a while to set up as it had to change throughout the video. Green and red lights were the two colours. While getting mic'd up, Niko explained to you the video they were shooting.

A game called Mafia.

"So basically, there's 6 players, 6 cards, 2 for the mafia, 4 for the civilians. The cards are picked at random by all players. The mafia share their identity with each other, while the others close their eyes and are left in the dark. All players open their eyes, and the game is on." Niko spoke as they finished up the sound and led you all to the mafia game room upstairs. He continued to explain the game to you while also showing you a clip of the previous videos on how to play.

"The civilian's job is to find the mafias and get them out. They need to work together in catching these two and not letting them take over. The only problem is they don't know what card everyone else has. The mafia's job is to make all the civilians turn on each other and eventually vote each other out, making them the only remaining players."

"And at the end of every round, one person will be voted out and punished by being dunked into a tank of freezing water, the victim will then reveal their card showing the rest of the players whether they made the right choice or not." Aj laughed as he told you that this was his favourite part of the game. He just hoped he wasn't the one being dunked in the tank.

Everyone sat down in their respective places on the couch. You sat down next to Aj, obviously because he was the closest to you, following Chunkz beside Aj, Niko, and Kenny beside him. Leaving one space beside you, Sharky took that place with a smile on him.

"So the game ends when either both mafias are caught or all civilians are outnumbered and voted out, right?" You asked no one in particular, but they all nodded and that you now understood how the game was played.

You'll admit it does sound fun. You've never heard of this game before, but if it's as fun as it sounds, it probably would end up being one of your favourite games. And as Aj told you before your chance to get over your fear. You don't like being reminded about it, but just for a while, you didn't have to remember.

Looking around the grey but well lit room, you noticed an LED light sign that read "Mafia" in blue, and playing cards that had each beta squad member on it as a king or joker etc.

The camera director told you all it was starting in 1 minute, causing the chatter to cease as quickly so that they could start filming. You glanced to your side as Aj nudged you, giving you a thumbs up and mouthing an "you'll do great," to which you whispered a thanks.

Seeing this interaction, Sharky leaned in towards you but respecting your space and also whispered, "Don't worry, Y/N, it'll be fun." He smiled at you when he saw that the nerves in your face calmed down a little after both of the reassurance you've gotten.

"Camera rolling!" The cameraman shouted.

Aj was the first to speak, "Welcome to another game of Mafia! Please welcome our new guest, drum roll, please!" Everyone was hitting the table to sound a drum roll as they then all pointed at you, "Y/N L/N!" You waved at the camera and thanked everyone.

"Now that we've introduced her, it's time to pick the cards." Sharky glanced at you for a split second when he spoke, before reaching to grab the cards, everyone following suit to do the same.

If the cameras didn't pick it up, then you surely did when you both made eye contact with each other after looking at your card, which was the mafia card. The King. Why did you look at Sharky first after looking at your own card? You really don't know the reason for it. But you couldn't ponder any longer as you had to win this game.

Chunkz did the honour of telling everyone to put down their cards and close their eyes.

"Mafias! Open your eyes." Chunkz said cheekily while dragging out the 'eyes.'

Slowly, you opened your eyes and looked around, trying not to make any noise when you turned as you were still wearing your hood over your head.

Looking towards your right, not Aj, not any of the other boys so that must mean, as you turned your head to the left, you met eyes with Sharky, who smiled instantly and slowly nodded his head while you gave him a smile back.

"Mafias, close your eyes." Chunkz shouted, which caused the both of you to turn your heads back and shut your eyes. "Everyone, open your eyes."

When you opened your eyes, for some reason, you just couldn't hold in your smile. You were excited, genuinely. This already seems fun.

Aj must have caught on to this because he instantly went to attack you on that. "Nah, why you smiling Y/N, are you Mafia?"

"What? Can I not smile?" Damn it, where you about to get caught already? The game just started ain't no way you're letting them think you're mafia.

"Smiling is a bit suspicious, you know? I'm getting mafia vibes from Y/N." Aj turned around to the rest of the guys and pointed at you, who faked being shocked and hurt.

"Wow Aje, you know, you thinking I'm mafia without any other grounds other than me smiling is suspicious in itself. I'm thinking you're targeting me because you're mafia." You stated as a matter of fact, to which the others nodded.

"That does sound like Aj when he's mafia." Kenny said, rubbing his chin while looking at Aj with distrust.

"Yo HOW blud. She's trying to trick you all against me." Aj shouted as he threw both of his arms in the air to prove his point.

"Yeah, I think we should just vote Aj out. Personally, I don't like mafia infested rats." Niko laughed as he looked at the camera saying those last words.

"So all in favour of voting out, Aj?" Sharky spoke now, looking around the room as he raised his hand to see who would follow, and everyone did but Aj, causing the shorter man to stand up and leave, mumbling an "I hate you guys" making the rest of you laugh.

All of you were led outside and were about to watch Aj be dunked into a tank of freezing water. You laugh as you remember Aj saying earlier that the forfeits were his favourite part of the video, oh how the tables have turned for him.

Niko was the one to throw at the dart target board for Aj, he missed the first few times but when he finally made it, seeing Aj's face as he dropped in the water was one that made everyone burst into laughter and excitement.

As he got out of the tank, the boys shouted "Show your card" And when he did, it showed a 5 of spades. Everyone just groaned in disappointment.

"YOU LOT WASTED YOUR TIME, MAFIAS STILL OUT THERE." Aj yelled as he ran back into the house to change out of his now freezing cold clothes.

Obviously everyone knew Aj wasn't the mafia but if he was that would've been great, 1 out. But realistically they just wanted the rat gone. Kenny pointing a suspicious finger at you after Aj showed his card to everyone.

You glanced at Sharky, sending him a quick, worried look as you saw Kenny tell Niko his suspicions. And you both knew what you had to do in the next round.

As everyone sat down, Chunkz was the first to speak, "Now automatically I'm smelling Niko vibes." He giggled afterwards as a shocked and confused look went on Nikos face.

"What? I've not done anything? You can't always target me because you don't like me."

"Okay so Niko, who do you think is the mafia?" Sharky asked, because he knew that once Niko thought that one of you was the mafia, he would stop at no costs to prove his point and he might even end up winning the game.

"Well, earlier, Kenny told me that it could be Y/N. But I mean, you haven't really done anything that would be mafia suspicious in my eyes. But Chunkz keeps targeting me, so now he's my suspect."

You sighed quietly, hoping no one heard that. At least Niko didn't think you or Sharky were mafia.

"Yeah, actually," you started to speak, turning to Chunkz, "Why are you thinking Niko's mafia?"

"Nah, it's because every Mafia, I go for Niko, I just try to show from early that he's not my friend. There's like no coalition."

They all went back and forth with the banter and hurling suspicions left and right and each other, but surprisingly, no one thought you or Sharky were mafia. The only suspects were Niko, Kenny, or Chunkz.

Sure, they suspected you both a few times, but really, they didn't think much of it, as everyone was already pinning it against themselves they didn't have time to suspect you both fully.

Until the last round, Chunkz had been voted off and seeing as his card wasn't a king card the suspicions now turned to you again. Kenny was the first to pounce again on the argument.

"Listen, Niko, I'm thinking Y/N is mafia. One hundred percent, no doubt. But I think Sharky might be the other mafia. I'm not too sure about that."

"Niko, don't listen to him, I promise you, I am not Mafia." You looked at Niko and put on your best innocent face.

"I don't know, to be honest, I'm baffed." Niko threw his hands in the air in confusion and placed a hand over his mouth to think. "Then again, big foot here isn't really giving me much evidence to question on."

"Yeah, but it's not about evidence!" Kenny shouted, and it caused the rest of you to laugh at how serious he's being, even if he was telling the truth, you were a mafia. "Oh my days, Niko, can't you see? They literally are both mafia!"

"Niko man, vote out, Kenny, because clearly he is mafia by trying to lure you in and win. There is one other mafia. I think it's Y/N if not you. At least get one of them out." You turned your head as Sharky spoke those words. You thought he was supposed to work together with you?

But then he sent a sly wink and smile towards your way, if you blinked you would've missed it and then it hit you, if Niko voted our Kenny here, you and Sharky would've won, both the mafias would be left standing winners.

And so when it came to the vote, it started with Kenny voting for you, then it was up to Niko, who looked back and forth between you and Kenny, you pleaded one last time with him.

"Look Niko, if I was mafia I would've been out by now, this is my first time playing. If you think it's me, vote for me by all means but if you just use your brain you could clearly see Kenny is mafia."

And with that, Niko agreed and voted Kenny, leaving you and Sharky to vote for him as well. Instantly after the votes were complete, Kenny stood up and left yelling at the camera as he didn't want to get dunked in water.

But as soon as he did, and when he showed his card making him a civilian, you and Sharky both shouted and jumped with joy, while Niko just stood there mouth agape as he slowly went to cover his mouth still being shocked and the rest of the boys yelled at Niko for being an idiot.

While you and Sharky celebrated, he went up to wrap his arms around you while yelling "We did it!!"

And you laughed along, hugging him back. When you did, it instantly felt comfortable, being in his arms felt safe. You didn't know what it was, why did it make you feel all fuzzy?

It reminded you of your mother's hugs when you were a kid, and you won something, the genuine happiness and excitement you found in that hug reflected Sharky's hug. It felt familiar and you wouldn't admit it if anyone asked you but you could stay in that hug forever.

Maybe you lingered in that hug for a second too long as the others started teasing Sharky, saying ooo, and Chunkz started singing, causing him to let go of you as quick.

After they calmed down a bit, they filmed the outro, and thanked you as their guest, and they allowed you to do the honors of saying, "play the trailer."

After they finished the filming, you grabbed your belongings, and headed towards the bathroom to change out of your red riding outfit.

Just as you were about to enter, you heard your name being called, you turned your head to see Sharky running up to you with a wave.

When he finally reached you, you gave him a small smile to which he returned it and then rubbed the back of his neck while looking away.

"Hey, I just wanted to ask if you'd like to hang out sometime?" Sharky asked, a small cough erupting out of him at the end of his sentence. As he gazed back at you with those same soft brown eyes.

You were about to say sure, but then you hesitate. Why did he want to hang out with you? Did he mean romantically or platonically? And if you were about to fall in love again, you didn't know how you would feel about it. The last relationship you had, let's say … didn't end nicely.

But you were thinking too far ahead, for now you could make friends. And you always stick to the same branch of people that you hang out with, and these guys all seem really nice, and Sharky did have the same interest as you in music so why not?

"Sure, I'd, uh, I'd like that." You hated that against your own will. Your cheeks started to burn a little. You just hoped it wasn't noticeable to him.

"Yes!" He did a mini punch in the air but then realised what he did and scratched his head and cleared his throat, "I mean, that's great. Could I get your number? If you're okay with that, that is?"

Nodding, he quickly took out his phone and handed it to you, and you typed in your number, putting your contact name in too. He waited patiently as you did and when you handed it back to him, he called the number and the phone in your pocket buzzed.

He smiled and thanked you, "Hey, you know we make a good team. You actually did really well for your first mafia game."

"We do," You laughed, "you guys should invite me more on your mafia videos."

Sharky was about to say something when Aj yelled, "Hey lovebirds! I gotta drop Y/N back off so be quick and finish your conversation!"

Your eyes widened, Lovebirds?? Oh hell no, Aj's not getting away with that, you mumbled under your breath. Glancing up at Sharky to see his reaction he had the same reaction as you, but he just rolled his eyes and smiled at you saying that he'll leave you to it and pointed at the clothes you were holding. He waved as left to head towards the group.

Going into the bathroom and shutting the door, you looked at the mirror. Damn it, you were blushing. Shaking your head, this was gonna be a long car ride.

When you were done changing, you walked towards the door, where Aj was standing, waiting for you on his phone, when he looked up at you he rolled his eyes and said finally.

"Alright, I'm gonna drop Y/N off. See you guys later!" He yelled into the house, causing the boys to yell out a bye to you, and Niko popped around the corner to shake your hand and say bye to you.

"By the way, Y/N, all that banter that we said earlier, that was just for the video, so don't mind it." Niko admitted, waving a hand off towards Aj, who just laughed as he agreed with him, and then you both left to head to the car.

"So, what was that all about, ay?" Aj teased, as he had a smug grin on his face. As he glanced over at you, who was there looking straight ahead on the road, trying to avoid this conversation.

"I don't know what you're talking about." You shrugged, crossing your arms over your chest.

"Y/N, cmon, don't think I didn't see that idiot Sharks flirt with you."

"Flirt? I don't think he was flirting, he was just being friendly. We just met after all."

"Nah, he definitely was. Knowing Sharks, he just sucks at flirting. Actually," he started as he turned into the street you lived in. "Yeah, maybe he might just be friendly. But I'll be honest, it looked like flirting to me, Y/N. So just be careful. Don't want him breaking your heart or vice versa aight?"

You scoffed. Aj was definitely overreacting with this. But it did make you think, was he really flirting with you? Or was he just being overly friendly. You hoped it was the latter, though. You don't think you could handle a relationship right now.

࿙ ࿚ ࿙ ࿚ ࿙ ࿚

He watched as the car drove away, and when he turned around, he was frightened to see Chunkz looking at him with a sly smirk on his face. He just rolled his eyes as he made his way towards the couch, Chunkz following him as he continued to pester the other Somali.

"Oh my days, I know I made it so awkward. You know how awkward that was? I'm not good with girls at all." Sharky covered his face with hands as he slouched down onto the couch and sighed.

"You seemed fine when you hugged her." Chunkz did his famous laugh, as he went to sit beside Sharky.

"Stop, man, that was just -" Sharky cut himself off. What was that hug actually? Shaking his head, he cleared his throat as he pulled out his phone to ignore looking at Chunkz. "A winning hug. Like I hug all of you when we win a game."

"A winning hug? Sharky, you're a joke man. I know you fell in love instantly, bruva." He elbowed his friend as he laughed in his face. Causing the fellow Somali to pull over his hood to cover his face, which started to warm up.

Fell in love instantly? Sharky's not like that. Or was he? He didn't know at this point, just the very thought of you got his face heating up and the flutter of wings in his stomach grew out of nowhere. You've got him second-guessing himself. Usually, he's a confident guy, but now.

Now, he's definitely not.

Sharky was in the kitchen when he first saw you, he was making something to eat while waiting for the guys to arrive back at the house, but that's when he saw you walk toward the couch and sit there like you owned the place.

He was about to ask who you were, but then he remembered there was a guest for today's video. Normally, he would just call out loud and make his presence known, but he was caught off guard by your singing or, well, whispering the words to a song.

A song to which he also listened to.

He started to smile after hearing the words to the song you were singing. He leaned back against the counter to listen, but he then decided it would be a bit weird if he just stood there listening to you without you knowing, and that's how he decided to confront you.

As he moved closer to you, he realised how pretty you were. Like genuinely pretty, stunning even. The way your face smiled in that look of content as you listened to the music and-

Oh no. Maybe Chunkz was right.

You head down the stairs to make your breakfast. It was about a week since you met the beta squad. And you were currently at home. You just finished getting ready to go on your morning run.

Usually, you don't go on runs in the morning as you'd sleep in, but for some reason, you had the urge to just get up and exercise.

As you were making your breakfast, a classic bowl of cereal and toast, your phone buzzed on the table. Turning your head, you stopped making the cereal and opened your phone, and checked the notifications.

A big smile cracked on your face against your will as you read the text from Sharky.

Message sent at 8:16 am

Sharky 🦈

Good morning 👋🏻

I was thinking, do you wanna … maybe hang out today?

IF YOU'RE NOT BUSY THAT IS😅

You 💟

Morning Sharky !

Nah I'm not busy, where do you wanna go?

Sharky 🦈

Hmm, wherever you want! I don't mind honestly 😁

You 💟

Ok, how about let's meet up in the park since I'm gonna go on a run there anyway and we'll see where it goes from there 😂

I'll see you at 9

Sharky 🦈

👍

See you then ❤️

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You stared at the message he last sent, "See you then ❤️"

Oh my days, you're going nuts over a heart emoji? You thought, internally slapping yourself, but you can't help but look over the message, and then you shook your head. Get yourself together, you send hearts to everyone, why did it surprise you when he did?

Finally taking the pieces of toast, and finishing off your cereal. You ate as quickly as you could, as soon as you finished it you grabbed your house keys and headed out to the park.

Locking your door, you put on your headphones and play your music playlist. You start to jog towards the park. You were thinking of running, but maybe you'll save that last bit of energy when you're closer to the park.

It was a chilly morning, the cool, crisp air hitting your body, but not enough to make you freeze, especially since you were jogging.

You don't remember the last time you jogged, maybe a few weeks or months, who knows at this point. Perhaps the conversation you had with Aj last time slightly may have hinted that Sharky does like his runs in the morning.

Is that what motivated you to run? Or was it just the fact that you haven't been out in a while?

The warmth hit you as soon as you closed in near the park. It wasn't that far from your house, maybe about 20-24 minutes.

You reached the entrance of the park, the soft scent of the array of flowers surrounded the area, and the tall trees moved with the gentle breeze.

People walked around the park, and some kids played as they ran around the park, chasing each other and shouting with joy when they caught up.

Nearing a bench, you sat down and pulled out your phone, checking the time, 8:42 am.

Maybe he was here already?

You hesitated. Should you call or text him? You ended up calling Sharky to see if he was here already or not. The phone rang twice before he picked up the phone.

"Hey Y/N, I'm at the park where are you?" Sharky's voice spoke through the phone.

"Just near the entrance, I'm sitting at a bench, uh," looking around, you tried to describe your surroundings, "near this really tall tree."

You heard him laugh softly through the phone, instantly causing you to smile and ask, "What's so funny?"

"Nah, it's because you said you're near this really tall tree, but Y/N, there's trees everywhere." He laughed again, making you roll your eyes but still have a smile on your face.

You ended up sending him your location, and he followed it, finally making his way as he caught sight of you sitting on the bench.

He stood there for a split second because call him crazy if you will, but he swore he saw some light shine upon you as the trees moved their way to do so. He softened his gaze, as the scene in front of him seemed like a movie.

It was a chilly day, yes, but somehow the sun came around just as he arrived. And especially when he saw you, the trees, sunlight and wind might have been paid actors if it wasn't for the fact that they're not people.

"Is this seat taken?" A familiar voice spoke as you looked up and met eyes with Sharky, who smiled as soon as you did. You motioned for him to take the seat beside you, and he gladly did.

The sounds of the park all muffled out, no person walking past, the rustle of trees in the breeze or even the cars on the far side could be heard as you drowned out all noise to listen to the Somali in front of you.

As you both talked, you ended up deciding to head to a cafe nearby, just to grab a drink, to talk and get to know each other. The walk wasn't that far and it was a small cafe.

A blue and white awning hung over the entrance and window of the shop, the inside was decorated nicely with tables and chairs surrounding the room. The warmth from the coffee being made radiated throughout the cafe, and the smell of baked goods added to it.

Both of you waited in line to order your drinks and pastries if you were feeling like it. You stared at the menu board behind the counter, looking at what to order. They had a wide range of drinks and food. Checking the prices beside them surely they couldn't be-

Why the hell are they so expensive??? You thought a small cafe like this would surely have good prices, but this was insane. £6.80 for a coffee? Crazy. And that was the cheapest thing there.

"What ya thinking of getting?" Sharky asked, leaning down to ask while still keeping his eyes on the menu board. You looked up at him briefly and made eye contact, causing you to turn your head swiftly back to the menu and pretend to look at it.

"Hmm, I was thinking of getting just the coffee because it's the cheapest thing there." You scoffed, shaking your head at the insane prices of this place.

"Just coffee? You could get something else too. You know I'm paying right?" He blurted that out like you were supposed to know that already, a giant grin forming on his face. You raised your brows, surprised.

"No, it's alright," you waved him off, "I can pay for my own one."

"Cmon Y/N, I insist." He started to grab his wallet from back pocket, but you stopped him by pushing his hand away from reaching it.

"Well, then I insist back?? And I don't want you to waste your money."

"It's not a waste if it's for you, plus I asked to hang out with you today. It's the least I could do." He shrugged, finally managing to reach for his wallet without you stopping him.

You were about to argue on that until he shot you a look, and you ended up rolling your eyes and accepting. Inside, you were grateful. At least your wallet was saved.

"Fine." You sighed. When you looked back at him, he had a smug grin on his face. He looked as if he had achieved the impossible, but he laughed when he saw the frown on your face.

He ordered for the both of you, and you waited for about three minutes before you collected your coffee and a pastry.

Heading over to a table that had two free seats, you sat down across from each other. Sipping your drink as he started a conversation. Turning to face you as he put down his own cup of tea.

"You have a channel, right? What videos do you make?" Sharky asked, genuinely curious since he didn't actually know much about you being an influencer.

"Honestly, I haven't made many videos, just a few prank videos with Aj and some beauty videos. A mix of everything I'd say." Chuckling as you took another sip of your coffee. He nodded at your answer and smiled.

"What else do you like to do then? Do you have any hobbies?" Laying his hand on his chin as his soft eyes met your gaze.

"Um," you ponder for a bit, "I like music, and I sing," you hesitate, scratching the side of your head, "well sometimes."

"Ohh, of course!" He throws his hands up in realisation, "Frank Ocean! So you like singing, that's good to know."

"Maybe one day you could put on a show and sing for me." Sharky's lips curled into a small smile, creasing the outer corner of his eyes. And seeing your face get slightly warmer only made his smile grow wider.

It seemed as if you've talked forever, the way the conversations you've had with him flowed like honey. Almost as if you've known him your whole life, it was almost … comforting.

You don't know how you ended up talking about football, but it led to a conversation with him explaining the basic mechanics and how it's "so easy" even a baby could do it.

"You really don't know how to play football?"

Seeing you shake your head, must've lit a light bulb in his head, as his gaze turned from one of confusion to his sienna brown eyes widening.

"Unacceptable." He shook his head and stood up, taking your hand in his as he left you out of the cafe.

By the looks of the sky, it was evening already, the sun slowly setting as the sky painted a canvas of light orange hues and yellow rays.

You laughed, still holding on to his grasp, "Where are we going?" As he led you both down the street.

Your laugh rang in his ears, a small thing motivating him to stay by your side. It was angelic. You may not have thought so, but to him, if his heart had melted from it, he would fix it all up just to hear it again.

He brought you to a stadium, a football stadium. The grand entrance of the place staring you in the face as he entered in with some ID card and brought you to the pitch.

"I'm teaching you how to play football." Sharky spoke as he grabbed a nearby football that was lying in a basket full of other ones. Putting one hand on his hips as he beckoned you to come closer.

You were in awe of the stadium, it was huge, and it especially looked amazing in the evening, the peach coloured rays hitting the walls of the stadium emitting a soft hue around the pitch.

"How were you able to even get in?" You inquired of him, slowly walking closer to him as you looked around the stadium.

He led you to the middle of the huge pitch. The whole stadium was empty, except you thought you saw two cleaners, but other than them, it was just you and Sharky on the field.

He grinned, "Perks of being an ex-emirates stadium worker. Plus, I'm a youtuber, they know me." Putting a hand on his chest, as it was something that always deeply touched him.

"So," He started, as he kicked the football to go in front of him, "I'll show you how to kick the football first." He motioned for you to come closer, pointing at his right foot as he told you to kick it with the side of your foot instead of the tip.

He took a few steps back and sped up towards the ball and kicked it just as he showed you, evidently making a goal.

Earning a cheer from you, to which he gave a small bow, running up to get the ball back and placing it in front of you. "Now you try." He placed his hands on his hips as he waited for you. You looked at him as your face contorted into one of confusion.

"Uh, I don't think I'll be able to score a goal just like that? "

"Well, try it first then you can complain." He laughed, ushering you forward towards the ball, you looked at him and then back at the ball.

'Well here goes nothing' you thought and tried to kick as Sharky showed you, but you ended up only kicking it more than a meter away from you, and heading off to an angle to your right.

You heard a small snort come from Sharky as he tried not to laugh at that kick, earning an embarrassed chuckle from you, as you tried to shorten yourself from this situation.

Making Sharky feel bad so he put on a smile for you, to make you feel less awkward about this, he really did want you to learn and he has tons of patience so this would be really easy he thought.

"Yeah, maybe we should practice other things before goals. I realised that may be a bit difficult." He rubbed his chin, thinking of what to do next and his brows raised as it came to him.

He moved towards the storage room and brought out a few cones, placing them in a row in front of you, measuring the width of the spacing between each cone with his own body, he placed six cones in a row.

Taking the ball back and bringing it near the both of you, he started to move it between his feet, looking up at you as he did.

"So what I'm doing right now is called dribbling." Slowly moving towards the cones, the football still between his feet as he demonstrated going around the cones left and then right, up until the very end where he repeated it again heading back to you.

"Dribbling is basically just moving the ball between your feet, like kicking it a little."

Passing the ball to you as you stopped it with your foot, the small of your lips turning upwards, "You could practice by going around each cone and coming back to me here."

You nodded, placing it between your feet, moving closer to the cones as you tried to kick it back and forth between your feet, but it's easier said than done. As you tried but ultimately failed, crashing into the cones as you almost tripped over the ball, trying to go through the cones.

Causing a small laugh to come out of Sharky, as he walked over to you and extended a hand to help you up. He put the cones back in their place and let you try again, repeating to you how to do it as he watched you try to dribble between the cones. Evidently crashing into them again, at least it wasn't all of them this time.

After a couple more training sessions (more like failed attempts) you managed to do somewhat of a decent job at dribbling and sometimes you scored a goal. Almost always you earned a high five from Sharky, even if you did fail an attempt, he'd just smile and say we can try again. Never did he sigh and give up.

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"Wait, what did you just do right there?" You asked, after he suggested you can take a break, since you seemed out of breath after all the training.

You were kicking the ball back towards the seating area when Sharky quickly kicked the ball from beneath you, taking it back towards him as he tossed it up into his hands.

"This? It's called a nutmeg, you simply just kick the ball through your opponent's legs, to retrieve it back so that they won't have it anymore."

You laughed, sitting down in one of the chairs, gazing up at Sharky as he messed around with the ball. "I thought nutmeg was a spice?"

He furrowed his brows for a split second and then let out a laugh, "Yeah, it is, but that's just the term for it. We're not really cooking here, are we?" Shrugging his shoulders as he went to sit beside you.

A soft silence filled the area, as both you and Sharky didn't speak a word. Even the usual white noise, when things got quiet, couldn't be heard, but instead, a delicate soft breathing between the two of you.

Fiddling with your thumbs as you stared at your feet. When is there ever just silence? Normally overpowering the peace, the sounds would get louder, the steady rhythm of your beating heart, sometimes going off track to stumble you.

But now, it's at ease, the quietness, an instant comfort to soothe your mind and heart. Lifting your head up to look around the stadium, it's not normally quiet in a place like this, but now, now is a rare time.

Sharky was looking at you now, eyes softening at your figure, the way you're peacefully sitting here, content, and the soft breathing from you showing him that you're alright with him being here. Alright, with him being beside you. And that, that's what makes him smile.

"You know what," you say, suddenly standing up and placing your hand on your hips, catching him off guard as he didn't expect you to move suddenly, "Let's do a 1v1."

Sharky squints slightly, uncertainty written upon his face, "Are you sure? It seems a bit unfair from my point of view."

"Are you doubting me?" You scoff, picking up the football that was tossed to the side earlier and holding it in your arms.

He laughed quietly, gazing up at you with his brown doe eyes, "Not at all."

Both of you moved towards the centre of the pitch, placing the ball in the middle of you and Sharky. You glanced up to see he was already looking at you. You thought it was to prepare himself, but something was telling you it was anything but that, behind his eyes. Shaking off the thought and ignoring it, you stood ground and prepared for the 1v1.

"Don't go easy on me." You grinned, winking at that statement.

He pretended to think for a minute but then smirked and locked eyes with you, "Never, don't worry. First, to score wins."

He counted to three, and you both aimed towards the ball, you managed to grab it first but he took it off of you, heading towards the goal while dribbling, you tried to run after him but then you saw that he was about to make a goal.

You remember him doing a nutmeg, earlier and thought maybe this was your ticket to victory, moving closer as you ran beside him trying to get the football.

But as you did, your foot got caught on his ankle causing you to spin. Your eyes widen as you see him fall back and you shut them waiting for impact.

Only when opening them do you find yourself fallen.

on top.

of Sharky.

It was too fast to stop it, and both of you didn't react until it was too late. Landing on his chest, you slowly lifted your head up to see him, his hand reaching to touch the back of his head. Your brows furrowed in worry, and pupils written in fear.

You watched as his gaze instantly shot to you, raising his head just as quick and the same worried expression you had on your face, reflecting his own one. "Are you alright?"

"No! Wait yes, I mean, are you alright? I should be asking you, not the other way around…"

Your voice trailing off, you found yourself frozen in place, a shiver of nervousness hitting your skin. Despite your brains commands to move, your body ignored it.

As part of you wanted to get up, the brain telling you to do so, the common sense in this situation, but your longing heart, the other, just wanted to keep looking into his dark eyes and get lost in them.

Dark chocolate rays fanning out around the bottomless pit of an iris, inky crescent moons trapped by a hazy, black limbal ring.

Those eyes are the colour of every tree in the forest, richer, due to the golden light from dawn to dusk. The warmth of an eternal hearth felt in those deep brown eyes.

Holding eye contact was the strongest thing you could have ever done. An achievement, a rare feeling inside of you bubbling up just waiting to come out.

For a second, you thought you imagined it, but reality hit you as you see his eyes flicker to your lips. Your mind finally taking over the reins, causing your heart to match the speed of the beads of sweat falling down.

You blinked, clearing your throat and getting up off of Sharky. You got up, stumbling, almost tripping on your own foot as you do so. The normal colour of your cheeks suddenly changing to a red hue as the warmth builds up.

Why can't you function properly today?? Placing a hand on your face, you can feel the warmth radiating, no doubt an obvious hue, seeping and shown through, you could not let him see you like this.

His brows knitted together as he took a glimpse at you, and he shifted to sit upwards, What happened? What did I do? Sharky thought, as he observed you, watching as you stood there covering your face with your hands.

Standing up now, rushing to your side, he put a hand on your shoulder as he tried to get your attention, "Are you okay?"

The smoky sound of his voice, making you feel intoxicated. The sound of your heart beating like crazy rang through your ears as you could barely make out the words Sharky was saying. Your breathing, quickening, and uneven, why were you like this?

Sharky didn't know what was happening at this point, he guessed maybe you were a bit overwhelmed with the whole football thing, and tired from all the running. He was worried but he didn't want to overthink it if it was a minor issue.

"Do you want some water?" He offered, handing you an extra bottle of water, he brought with him earlier.

"Uh, yeah…" You accepted, nodding your head frantically and taking the water from him, "Thank you." turning away from him as you drank.

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The night sky was aglow with the bright city lights of London, the shades of navy and black painted across the sky like a giant canvass, and yet the stars fought their way onto this canvass, outnumbering and conveying their glow to the eyes of people.

You were heading home now, and even though you insisted you'd be fine heading back yourself, Sharky wouldn't take no for an answer and made sure that you had to return home safely.

Walking beside each other as a small breeze hits your backs. Sometimes when you walked your hand would brush against his, and your stomach would get butterflies. Causing you to pull your hand back but not enough to make it too obvious.

The touch was electric, one that sent your nervous system to jealousy, but you couldn't help but think about it. The soft touch of his hand, what would it be like to hold it again? But… longer?

Little did you know, he was thinking the exact same thing. Earlier, he did manage to grab your hand, but only for a short spur of the moment. It wasn't technically holding your hand. It was more of a… guiding you.

Sharky wasn't gonna back down this time. He had an amazing time with you. Your laugh, your smile? He really didn't want it to end. Just one day isn't enough time with you.

How did he do it before? How did he manage to take hold of your hand earlier? Maybe it was because he wasn't overthinking back then, but now he was.

I've done way more scarier things, I got this. He reminded himself, taking a deep breath to prepare, hyping up himself as he tried to get rid of the nerves.

3… 2… 1… He reached out for your hand, but you suddenly stopped in your tracks. Turning to face the other way, he retracted his hand.

"This is my stop." You mention, as you came to a stop in front of the pathway of your home.

Shit, Sharky sighed, gaze turning to the floor. There goes that opportunity, he sighed. Why couldn't he have just done it faster?

"Alright… uh, I'm gonna go? Thank you for walking me home, Sharky." You beamed at him, flashing a shy smile as you tried to hug him goodbye.

Clearly, he didn't know it was going to be a hug because he tried to elbow bump or more of a fistbump you instead. You tried to motion to him that it was a hug and he ended up realising it with a laugh, then engulfed you in a hug, wrapping his arms around your waist as you wrapped yours around his shoulders.

"Of course," He spoke just above a whisper into the hug, and smiled to himself, good thing you couldn't see his face right now because if you could, rosy cheeks dusted his face and a wide smile stuck on his face.

If you could stay in this hug, you would, the warmth radiating from it shielding you from the night breeze. The soft fabric of his clothing hugged your figure as it provided comfort in his arms.

As you tried to pull apart, a piece of your jewelry got caught on a stray thread of his jumper, an awkward chuckle coming out the both of you as you attempted to try and just break the thread off of your necklace.

Instead, it just made the thread longer, to which you just resorted to taking off your necklace and handing it to Sharky, giving up on trying to remove the stray piece of thread.

"Just… when you get home, cut it off and give it back when you next see me." You say, a tinge of hope in your voice, hoping that he did want to see you again.

But your worries were gone when you saw him flash you a smile while he gave you a nod, holding your necklace in his hand.

As you both walk your separate ways, you're both thinking, "Why the hell, did I make that awkward?"

Days turned into weeks, and during that whole time, you'd hang out with the beta squad more and more, being in their videos to just movie nights and snacks, which included more time spent with Sharky. He did give back the necklace after a couple days, but from your perspective it looked as if he was busy those couple days.

But in reality, he was debating what day to give it back to you and how. Should it have been a gift he gives you along with the necklace? Or just hand it back to you normally? He did the latter, but it did really mess him up, a flustered mess thinking how he actually had something of yours with him.

Throughout the weeks going by, Sharky invited you to join in his videos, the fans loved you with the beta squad so he thought it would be a great thing to have you on his channel. He said it would be great for your channel too but honestly in his heart, he just craved to spend more time with you.

Every minute with you was precious, every moment and every smile. Hearing your voice, brightened his whole day, yes his heart would race and yes his breathing would be uneven thinking about you. But it didn't matter, none of it mattered as long as he was by your side.

You made everything better, and he knew it, in fact he wished every day would be with you.

He had learned a lot just by hanging out with you for videos or even just football sessions. He loved listening to your voice as you talked about your passions or just random things that came to your mind. He'd often smile as you talked, sometimes not even realising he was staring at your features.

Gazing at you was like daydreaming outside a window, it wasn't much to people on the outside, but to himself, it was something he couldn't stop himself from doing. It was addicting to say the least. You've got him hooked from the start.

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"No. Way. You have to come over right now, spill all the tea."

You let out a laugh, currently you were on a call with your friend, trying to catch up but she realised it wasn't easy to get to know all that's happened through the phone so she arranged for you to meet at her place later today.

She drove to your house, waiting in the driveway as you hurriedly got out of your house, locking the door as you left. And making your way to her car.

The weather wasn't the best, it could've been better but the raindrops hitting against the roof of the car and the floor outside didn't seem that the weather was going to get better anytime soon.

On the way to her place, she started to tell you stuff that's been going on for the past couple of weeks, exciting things and sometimes boring ones, you'd be honest sometimes you could fall asleep to what she says at times.

When you arrived at her house, she got you some warmer clothes and brought you a hot drink. Thanking her as you took a seat on her couch, her following suit.

As soon as she sat down, you knew she was going to ask you what happened in your life so far. Usually, you'd laugh and say nothing much, as she almost basically told her whole life story in the car. But this time, there was something interesting to talk about.

More like… someone.

Explaining the start of when you met Sharky, to the football training, the videos and the hangouts you told her all about the fun, but you also told her about how you couldn't function at times around him.

When you finished telling everything, she put a hand on your shoulder and looked deeply into your eyes, "You're in love, no doubt in my mind."

"Are you joking? In love?" You scoffed, averting your gaze from her to the mug you were holding, sloshing around the liquid inside of it.

"You're so delusional. Can you not see it?" She sighed in exasperation, throwing her head back to lean it against the couch.

"Last time I was in love, it didn't really turn out well." You mumbled an air of melancholy surrounding you as it clouded your features. Placing the cup onto the table as you crossed your arms in front of you and leaning back.

"Hey," She turned to you, nudging you to make you face her, "Your ex was a piece of shit." You let out a small chuckle as she continued. "You didn't ruin anything. He ruined it."

"This Sharky you're talking about clearly isn't like that. From what you're describing to me anyway. And clearly, you like him." She grins, a stupid grin on her face.

"I don't—"

"Look me in the eyes and tell me that again." She cuts you off, glaring and raising one brow at you.

Your mouth snapped shut, pressing into a thin line. She has a point, one that you couldn't argue on, and even if tried, it would make you look stupid.

"C'mon, you can't deny that you didn't like that date." She teased, a knowing smirk lingering on her face as she drank the rest of her coffee.

"What date?" You raised eyebrows surprised, turning to face her.

"You know, where y'all went to a restaurant and then he taught you how to play football after?" She giggled as she saw the look on your face.

You rolled your eyes playfully, shoving her arm slightly, "Stop messing around. We didn't go on a date! It was a friendly hangout. He sees me as a friend for sure."

She gave you a look which said really? Are you kidding me?

"But is that really all he is to you?"

You gulped and thought about it, shifting your gaze to the ground. Your mind suddenly goes back to the past weeks.

When your hand would brush against his, or when his arm would be pushed near yours in a tight space, your heart would race each time without fail, and you'd think about it for days.

Or when he'd speak, his voice warm and calm, like a flowing river, soothing to one's heart. And that's how he made you feel, all warm and fuzzy on the inside, a tingle in your stomach building up.

When you'd happen to look across the room and he was standing there so perfectly, talking about something you couldn't hear with a glimmer in his eyes and the corners of his lips upturned.

And when he'd notice you looking, turning his gaze to your direction and you'd stare into his dark golden eyes, suddenly everything around you would blur out, the voice of someone speaking disappeared, and the sound of your surroundings vanished. And all you'd notice was … Sharky.

"Just date already!" Your friend laughed, cutting you out of your thoughts, shaking your head to focus again.

You would laugh it off, but the truth was that you were scared on the inside. You didn't want it to end up like your last relationship, cold and cut off. But then again, Sharky wasn't your ex. Sharky was a whole different person.

You had promised before that you wouldn't love for a long time, to heal you had said, you roll your eyes at that, you couldn't stay away.

Why? Because here you are catching feelings.

࿙ ࿚ ࿙ ࿚ ࿙ ࿚

The talk with your friend really made you think this week, made you think a lot, actually. Maybe you'd try to accept that you've fallen in love, but it's hard when you don't even know if the other person feels the same way.

It's honestly so frustrating, and yet you hate that you love the way he's making you act up like this. It's like a high school girl with a stupid crush.

You don't even know if you've been obvious to him this whole time.

But you had to ignore it, just for today, because right now you were heading to the beta squad house to film a video for Sharky's channel. A general knowledge video is what he mentioned to you.

As you arrived at the house, you were greeted by Niko as he brought you along to the sitting room. Aj, Chunkz, and Sharky were standing there talking to the camera crew.

While you walked in, you caught the eye of Sharky, waving to you as soon as he saw you, of course you waved back, but this time you took more notice of Sharky, specifically the way his eyes lit up as soon as he saw you.

Or maybe it was the way Chunkz elbowed him in the ribs immediately after Sharky waved at you, a knowing smirk on his face as he switched his focus between the both of you.

Niko turned to all of you, reminding you all that the video would start in 10 minutes, "So if you guys need to do anything, now's the time not later."

"Oh! That reminds me we've gotta get the boxes for the challenge upstairs." Sharky added, heading towards the door, but stopping before he reached it, half turning to face you all with a questioning look.

"Anyone gonna help me?"

"We three are a bit busy so," Chunkz stated, Shrugging his shoulders as he put on a cheeky smile. "Y/N can help you with that? Right Y/N?" Chunkz wrapped an arm around your shoulders as he observed his friend's reaction.

You glanced between Chunkz and Sharky, both of them waiting for your answer. You nodded hesitantly before following Sharky upstairs.

There were forfeits to this challenge, most of them being hidden in boxes that you'd have to find out during the recording of the video.

As you both walked towards the room, you hated that your hands started to sweat, and your heart started to race. The silence was deafening to your ears, you wanted to break the silence but what could you say? But you didn't have to worry much as he ended up speaking first.

Sharky cleared his throat as he opened the door, revealing a small room that had a poster covering the walls, some few items scattered around the floor and the stack of boxes, "We don't have to take them all in one go, by the way."

"Obviously not." You giggled, watching as he moved towards the boxes only to stop after hearing your sarcasm.

"Sorry." You groaned, diverting your gaze as you covered half of your face with your hand out of embarrassment.

He rolled his eyes at your response, shaking his head with a small smile.

With your help almost all of the boxes had been brought down in no time, leaving only a couple of things on the bed. You were so focused on actually helping that you hadn’t noticed Sharky walk in whilst you were picking up the cards with the questions on them.

His hand grazed over yours, slightly brushing just the back of your hand, but it was enough to make you freeze and make your heart beat like crazy.

Your mind was all over the place, nervous and flustered. Your gaze darted up and down and all over him, struggling to focus. As you glanced at his face you noticed something different…

He wasn't wearing his usual backwards hat or a durag this time, but just his hair, the way the curls formed faultlessly on top of his head, accentuating the rest of his features. He'd be on the front cover of a modelling magazine, and you could stare at it all day long.

And when he looked at you, oh boy, that's when you knew you were in for it. You can't go back, you've fallen too far ahead now. Those eyes, they hypnotise you, draw you in instantly and it's hard to get out.

"Stop looking at me like that." You half-rolled your eyes, but the corners of your mouth started to curl up against your will.

"Like what?" He chuckled, making your heart skip a beat once again. Genuinely smiling and you could tell he was curious to know what you meant as he leaned just maybe an inch closer than he already was.

When you look at me and it speaks a thousand words when our voices couldn't and when our gaze crosses from a distance, and it fills my heart with comfort.

The way your eyes have that slight crinkle at the corner of them and that makes your face the cutest when you smile and makes my heart skip a beat, all. the. damn. time.

And when those eyes are looking only at me.

"Nevermind," You dismiss him waving a hand, while looking away, missing to see that he frowns, he has that longing behind his eyes to ask what you meant but he knew he shouldn't pry any further, he didn't want to scare you away.

But he had to know. His mind couldn't stop his curious heart, and so he moved without thought, stepping closer towards you and grabbing your waist.

You yelped at the sudden closeness, eyes widening in shock at how close you both were. His face leaning towards yours with longing eyes, his lips slightly upturned at your reaction as your face started burning.

"Tell me." Sharky breathed, his eyes flickering to your lips for a second too long before gazing back into your eyes.

He was too close, too close that you could see all of his features, the small crinkle on the side of his smile, the unrivalled shape of his eyes, making him unique.

And you'd dare say you also saw a small pink dusting his cheeks.

He was too close, too close that you could feel his breath upon your lips, just centimetres away from you.

His lips looked inviting,

craving something from you.

Asking you to complete it, to fill in that emptiness, it so longed for.

Or maybe you were the one that longed for it?

And you watched as it slowly formed into a smile, glancing back up to the eyes of the owner.

You could see that he was inching closer and closer, your heart denying your every wish to stay calm.

Your mind was frightened, scared of the outcome; it was like stepping on glass, afraid to fall into nothingness and yet your heart thrived in it, determined to see through it.

Honestly, you could move, you should move. It was the smart thing to do.

And yet why didn't you move? You could've moved, told him you weren't okay with him being that close.

But you just… couldn't? It was like you were frozen in place, stuck, bound to stay here for eternity.

And so maybe that's why you shut your eyes slowly.

Waiting to accept the invitation.

But the creaking of a door opening made both of you jump and pull away, swiftly turning your heads to see who it was.

Niko raised his eyebrows, glancing back and forth between the two of you, "Am I interrupting something here?" His mouth formed into a thin line as he scratched the back of his neck, silence dawning upon his answer.

Only until a cough came from Sharky, did Niko return back to his normal self, disregarding what he said earlier and advancing towards the middle of the room, lifting a box, "Guys, we're starting the shoot in 3 minutes and you both didn't even bring down one last box?"

Walking to the door before turning to the two of you, "By the way, when I said earlier, if you have something to do, do it now. This is not what I meant." He laughed, bolting downstairs not to see yours or Sharky's reaction.

Sharky rolled his eyes, scoffing as he couldn't help but let a smile sneak on his face, as he placed his hands in his pockets. "We better head back down, I guess."

You nodded, swallowing the nerves as you took the cards back into your hands, walking beside Sharky downstairs, avoiding any contact with him.

Throughout the whole video, your mind just couldn't focus. Your thoughts going back to earlier, what would have happened if Niko didn't walk in? What would you have done if he didn't? Was Sharky even trying to kiss you and you were just delusional?

Aj kept snapping his fingers in your face every time he noticed you weren't focusing. People who would watch the video would think he's just being his usual Aj self, but in reality, he was worried.

Worried that maybe something happened, and you were going back to not feeling like your usual self.

He hated that time, he hated whenever his friends felt at their worst. He knows because he's felt that same way before, and to feel it multiple times? There's nothing worse.

And so after the video, he went up to you, to see if you were alright. He caught up to you, right as you were about to leave the house, calling out your name.

"Ay Y/N, why you leaving so fast? Are you alright?" Worry surrounded his voice as he placed a hand on your shoulder.

"I'm okay Aje, thanks." You chuckled nervously, "Just uh, tired, yeah..." Scratching the back of your neck as you glanced away.

You hoped he hadn't seen the way you tried to avoid Sharky, or the glances you took during the video, causing your heart to race every second you did.

"Thanks for having me, tell that to the boys alright?" You gave Aj a small smile, patting him on the shoulder as you pointed towards the door with your thumb, indicating you were gonna leave, stepping out the door.

"How are ya gonna get home?" He shouted after you, still at the door, watching as you walked towards the driveway.

Turning around, you pulled out your phone in your pocket showing it to him, "Uh, I'll just call a taxi." You waved at him as you left.

As soon as you turned round the corner, where the eyes of the houses were gone, you took a deep breath, trying to steady it, as you wiped your sweaty hands. You cursed under your breath, How'd one guy get you messed up like this?

࿙ ࿚ ࿙ ࿚ ࿙ ࿚

Aj closed the door when you were out of sight, as he turned towards the sitting room where the rest of his friends were. But he stopped in his tracks, a light bulb flickering in his head as he remembered something.

He scoffed as he peered inside the room, showing Sharky, Chunkz and Niko, having a conversation around the table, sitting back with their phones in their hands.

When he turned to head to the kitchen, Aj heard Sharky's voice call out to him as he glanced back and saw Sharky walk up to him.

"What's up Aj?" Sharky asked, darting his gaze around the room, it's as if he was looking for something, "Where's Y/N?"

Aj raised a brow, something clicking in his head, as he eyed the taller man in front of him. He placed his hands in his pockets as he spoke.

"She left." Aj started, squinting his eyes at Sharky as he continued to speak, suspicion drawing in his voice, "But I was just thinking, Sharks, what happened upstairs earlier?"

Sharkys eyes went round for a split second before returning to his normal face, "What do you mean?" He chuckled.

"Don't play stupid, I know you know what I mean." Pointing a finger at him, his voice raising slightly.

Sharky diverted his gaze, staring at the ground as he scratched the back of his neck. He knew what Aj was talking about, but was it what Sharky was thinking?

Aj shook his head and sighed, "I know you like her Sharks, but …" He trailed off, getting the other Somalis' attention as he watched Aj continue.

"I was worried. She wasn't herself today. It reminded me how she acted after her ex, dazed, fake smiles, and all that shit." Aj narrowed his eyes.

Sharky's brows upturned as he listened, something aching his heart. Would it be right to ask what happened? Or would it be overstepping his boundaries if he did?

He shook his head. If it was overstepping, Aj would tell him, and so he spoke, "I don't want to pry too much, but what happened?"

"Her ex was fine at first you know? No one noticed anything off with him, he was great until he started being toxic, then we could see it from a mile away. Man flippin gaslit her into believing that he loved her the whole time." Aj furrowed his brows in annoyance, as he placed his hands on his hips.

Sharky's face was stern, no emotion on it other than in his eyes, flames of anger burning behind them, his brows knitted together.

If looks could kill, his one would have.

How could someone do that to you? Play someone's feelings like it was a game? He hated people like that. He thought it was so disgusting to even think about it. For sure, if he ever sees the guy, he's gonna have a serious talk with him.

"I don't want you breaking her heart. You're a good guy for sure so just stay that way, blud." Aj pulled a smile, looking up at Sharky as he patted his shoulder, going to the kitchen and leaving Sharky with his own thoughts.

࿙ ࿚ ࿙ ࿚ ࿙ ࿚

He slowly went over to sit on his bed, still in disbelief. You had to go through all that? And that bastard treated you like that? Proper mad, that guy.

Something in his heart suddenly twisted, an ache, or a pain, he wasn't sure. But he didn't like the feeling, the feeling of someone hurting you? Sharky would never do that to you.

He knew he didn't like you, because he loved you. He loved you so much that it hurt to think of someone hurting you. He wanted to be there for you, always. To let you lean on him when you needed to, and to be there just to see you laugh, to see you smile.

Pulling out his phone and putting on his Frank Ocean playlist, the song "Thinkin' bout you" popped up.

He sighed quietly as he put on his airpods and laid his head on the headboard of his bed, shutting his eyes close as he listened to the song.

"I've been thinking 'bout you"

A song that was your favourite of Frank Ocean.

"Do you think about me still? Do ya, do ya?"

He smiled, remembering you first singing it.

"Or do you not think so far ahead"

"Cause I been thinking bout forever, ooh"

And that's when it hit him, forever is a long time. And he didn't want to just think forever. He wanted to experience things, experience them with you.

But how could he, if he didn't tell you that he loved you?

He wanted you, no, he needed you.

That's why he got up and ran out of his room, grabbing a jacket on the way out as quickly as possible.

That's why he fumbled rushing to get his car keys to drive to your house.

That's why he's getting into his car, not even bothering to put on a seat belt, but focusing on getting out of the driveway to head to you.

And that's why he's running up to your house, knocking at your door, in the middle of the night.

And when the door opens, revealing you, looking up shocked when you see him, that's when he knew he wasn't too late, that he could still tell you.

Sharky is always a prepared guy. He plans out things for everything, and he's normally very organised. But this was hasty, reckless even, for the first time from what he can remember, he's unprepared.

No planning, no nothing, he was just following what his heart desired in this very moment. And in this moment, he desired you.

Rushing to you? Was definitely spontaneous. But how could he complain? He'd change up his life. He'd endure through any hard circumstances if it meant he'd be by your side.

This was why he wanted to let you know, to let you know now before it was too late, before someone tried to take you away from him.

He turned his gaze to the floor, fumbling for the words to say, suddenly his mind was everywhere, words didn't exist, only feelings at this point.

But he tried, calming his heart down as he shifted his gaze back to you, taking a deep breath in to say something, anything to you.

Sharky rushed to speak, "Y/N, I'm never this impulsive, I think things through, I … I … I'm organised, I plan it all out but…" His brows drew together, sighing in exasperation.

"Agh, I can't stop thinking about you. You're making me act all different, I can't focus anymore." He rubbed his temple, trying to calm his voice, to speak clearer.

"My heart races everytime I think about you, my palms start to sweat and my brain just can't focus. Everytime I close my eyes at night your face shows up and I can't sleep."

His eyes were darting everywhere but you at this point, "Every song I listen to suddenly reminds me of you and I can't get you out of my head."

"And every. damn. glance. I take is because I can't take my eyes off you, you really steal the spotlight when you're in the same room as me. I can't concentrate."

"You honestly looked so perfect when we were filming the video earlier and before upstairs… I'm sorry. I couldn't control myself. The urge to kiss you was killing me, and if Niko didn't walk in, I would have kissed you without thinking properly."

He realised he hadn't looked at you the whole time he talked because he was afraid, afraid of what your reaction would be, afraid maybe you wouldn't have felt the same way as him.

Maybe he read the signs wrong? Maybe you didn't love him back as he did with you?

But the thing was when he did look at you, you were in shock, you stood there wide-eyed, frozen in place at his confession. You couldn't say anything, you wanted to, but nothing was coming out.

He thought he was done for, that you didn't feel the same way until he saw the bright red flush creep upon your cheeks. Your gaze softening at the Somali in front of you.

He took a deep breath, inhaling as much air physically possible because right now he felt like he couldn't breathe either. You were just there in front of him, barely even an arms reach away from him. And the urge to envelop you in his arms was too strong.

"I will treat you right, the way you should be treated. I would never do anything to harm you or hurt you. And it's because I love you. I truly love you. Please…"

This was the minimum he could do for now, Taking your hands in his soft ones, moving your gaze to his soft sienna eyes.

He knows he shouldn't be doing this right here. But he couldn't help it.

It was now or never, to think he would lose you was one mistake he never wants to make, not later, not now.

But if the pain of not having you in his heart was stronger than in his head where his logical thinking was, just for once, just one time in his life he could ignore it.

He would do anything.

Anything for you.

So he spoke, words coming out of his loving heart rather than his mind, his brain allowed his heart to speak just this once, to know, truly know what you feel.

"Let me love you."

Taglist: @b4tasquad @p3drii @n1kodl @elora-k @slutforpablogavi @enhacolor @amwife @distantfromu

Mutuals Taglist: @b4tasquad @p3drii @vctrvn-ls @allygatcr @slutforpablogavi @kennysboxergf @n1kodl @amwife @heartsforaj

Taglist for this fic: @vctrvn-ls @allygatcr @kennysboxergf @lunasmindinwriting @heartsbyvalentina @heartsforaj @elyse3s @leanamaybank

I'm sorry if anyone else wanted to be on the taglist here. Send me an ask, and I'll add you! Currently cannot think rn of who I have to add-

[balkanradfem]

I have a story to tell! It's about the laptop's broken power button.

I realized I wouldn't be able to turn my laptop back on if I ever shut it off, so I decided to keep it in 'Sleep mode', from which it can wake up by the spacebar key. I got an advice from a cool woman on tumblr to try and download a program that would allow me to power it up by opening the lid – however I didn't have internet at home, and so I had to wait for tomorrow, to go outside and get some public wifi.

I wake up at 6am, go to the park with my laptop in sleep mode, and discover that my laptop, has decided to power off completely, and is not interested in turning back on. I try to open and close the lid a few times, because that's how I brought it back to life last 2 times, but nothing. The plastic frame of the laptop is so badly broken it's being held together only by ductape and some internal parts have completely crumbled, including the power button.

At this point I had to go to work, so I spent my morning at work, putting a plan together in my head. When I came back home, I opened the closet, and got my old laptop out, the one that stopped working 3 years ago. I liked my old laptop so much, that after it died, I bought a used one that was the exact same mark and build, so that if my new laptop had a broken part, I could take it out of the old one. And now, I would figure out how to replace the power button.

I had not ever dissembled my laptop to this depth, to get to the power button you have to dissemble most of it, so I thought it would be a good practice to do it on the old laptop first. I tried to also watch a video on my phone on how to do that, but my phone just looked at me and went 'do you know how old I am? I am older than youtube. Respect me and get this nonsense out of my screen' and then it died. So I was on my own for this. I had experience replacing the hard drive, and the power jack, but I usually did the power jack in a sneaky way, only dissembling it partially and plugging it in at an angle. I didn't know if I could do the power button in a sneaky way.

Dissembling an old laptop was fun, but I did have to remove and unplug almost every single hardware in there, and I managed to remove the power button without removing the motherboard, so at least I had that going on for me. Dissembling my current laptop was an anxiety-ridden nightmare, I kept reminding myself that laptops are machinery, and they're made to be dissembled by males, so the parts can't be so fragile that they would stop working if I just unplug them and set them aside, and I would remember to plug everything back where it was. But even so, my brain was going 'The save of Stardew Valley is in here! If you mess it up its gone!'

I decided I wanted more shortcuts, and the frame of my laptop is already so broken, I was able to twist it and pull it apart without a complete disassembly, and I jammed the new power button and the little card that goes with it, in there, and screwed it in at an angle, using a knife tip instead of a screwdriver. You should have seen it; I had another knife handle stuck inside the laptop to keep it opened enough, a lamp on my shoulder, lightbulb aimed inside the laptop so I could see what I was doing, my hands at odd angles trying to locate the place where I could plug the card into the motherboard, it was brilliant. I was like an old master at work. And I plugged the damn thing in!

I assembled the laptop back nervously, again telling myself that putting a single screw into the wrong place will likely not destroy the laptop, and that it only matters it's all plugged in correctly. I opened the laptop, pressed the power button, and nothing. It didn't work.

Well what now? That was my only plan. I turned it over, started dissembling it, and I noticed right away that even with my trickery, the thing unplugged from the motherboard because I did not, in my mischief, pin it inside correctly. So I did the whole thing again, lamp on the shoulder and everything, and even before I managed to assemble the laptop back, the power button triggered from some internal debris and the laptop started powering on.

It's working now! I did it correctly. Now, while I was assembling it back and putting ductape all over it, it turned off 4 more times just because the frame is so broken it keeps triggering the power button accidentally, so I'm not having high hopes of this laptop surviving a long time, it's very old at this point, the fact that it works is a miracle and my persistence in replacing the parts. I can only have access to tumblr while I have a laptop! My phone laughs at me if I try to open an app on it. So, I'm here for now, due to the mischief and courage to open the laptop and mess with it, but, if I disappear randomly, the laptop said no, and I didn't manage to access tumblr in the local library because they block risky sites a lot.

[c0la-queen]

Absolutely melting at the idea of the Hybird!Boys nagging at Reader for her food even when they already have their own, literally just a bunch of spoiled little babies UGHHH THEYRE SO CUTEEEEE I love them sm…

Like reader’s got herself a nice meaty dinner, maybe a good cut of steak, and as shes eating she suddenly feels smt wet poking at her arm, and she looks to see what and it’s Soldier booping her arm with his nose, staring and drooling at the delicious steak, he starts trying to hop up to nip at it while reader tries push him away, but she ends up cutting a lil piece, dusting off the salt seasoning as best as she could and feeding him it anyways,

I like to think that Tord/Soldier likes snacking on other’s food, esp if its like savory salty meaty stuff yknow what I mean? I can totes see him as the asshole type to steal the other guy’s food stuff, maybe he’ll be a bit nicer to you and nag ask you first

AHHHHHHHHHH SAME THING FOR PRINCE TOOOO WHEN YOU HAVE LIKE A DELICIOUS LIL CREAMY TREATIE He would WHINEEEEE for some sooo badd you HAVE to give him some, he loves treaties sm and will be As dramatic as he can to get the sweets he wants

Going to Starbucks with him and everytime you HAVE to get him a pupcup kinda situation, so you only stop by there sometimes on occasions like when you have to get him to the vet for a checkup otherwise he’ll by crying allll the way home when you deny getting him one cause he’s already have too much and that’ll both break my heart and also annoy me sm LOOLLLLLLL

I literally have such a huge soft spot for Prince and his pompousness…I wanna shower him in kisses and babytalk and squish his face so badly he’s such a cutie patootie

The day you cook bacon for breakfast???? It’s over. Prepare for the hardest tussle in your life wrestling with Superhero for the bacon, if he already bosses you around then you know HE WILL BE RELENTLESS with the bacon, a Giant wolfdog fighting you frfr for food??? Gone…

SOLDIER ENDING UP JOINING IN TOO?1??1?11 literally actually over. It’s a battle to the death. Someones probably going to get hurt and its probably most definitely is going to be you falling over from 2 big ass wolfdogs jumping onto you and knockign you over for the bacon LMAOOOOOO

Soldier and Superhero fighting each other for it but they take it too far though and it become an actual fight for food situation…hic…Reader has to step in and stop them somehow, everyones upset, she has to make both of them 2 pieces and scolds them, they resolved and apologized nicely though at least…

And reader never makes bacon for breakfast ever again(unless its a special occasion when she wants to treat the both of them)

Really love the thought of Monster being the one that rarely nags reader for food like the others Only cause hes a bit distant and has a kinda weird ego abt it y’know, so its Reader who spoils him and tries to get him to try stuff cause he’s a good dog, he deserves it

She notices him eyeing out the food shes having curiously, sniffing at it, so she gets a small piece and asks if he wants to try it and she gets vv happy when he accepts, the others probably gets jealous at the treatment and tries to get some too lolll he probably feels SO proud and full of himself whehehe…

Omg you are SO correct and big brained for this!

Poor Reader would absolutely never get a moment of rest with these four eccentric wolf dogs.

Before adopting them, she definitely had a habit of sitting on the couch with her dinner and watching YouTube videos about niche internet drama (yes I'm projecting) but now she's realized that, to the boys, this is simply an open invitation. I guarantee that, at first, Soldier wouldn't even beg her for the food. He'd be the type to just reach over and start sniffing at her plate. He's not even trying to be sneaky about it! That bastard would have the audacity to look her in the eyes while trying to take food off her plate! She tries to scold him about it, but he simply does not listen - in his mind, there's nothing wrong with what he's doing. So she's taken to sitting at the dining room table and watching YouTube videos on her phone instead. (Soldier will still put his head on her leg and stare at her expectantly.)

Reader is simply Just A Girl 💅, so we know our self-love queen would go get herself a sweet treat all the time. It varies, usually whatever she's craving at the time. There have been times where she's got a random craving for something she doesn't have, and will get up and leave her house to go get it (the boys get so annoyed and huffy). But she should know that no matter what it is she gets, Prince will want a bite. He'd be cute about it, too - whining and pouting and blinking up at her with those baby blue eyes. Eventually, Reader would giggle and give in, with the warning of "Just one bite, baby." Then she'd share a little piece with him. If it's something that isn't safe for dogs, she'd be less willing to share with him, insisting that it'll hurt him. Still, he'd whine for it. (It's not Reader's fault that she doesn't know he can have them!) And yes, I feel like Prince would be the most well behaved in the car, and the best around people, so he's the one that gets to join her on outings more often. She made the mistake of stopping by a coffee shop and getting him a pup cup ONE TIME, and now he's hooked. Every time they pass by that coffee shop (he knows that it's Reader's favorite, since the baristas know her by name) he will bark and howl and work himself up into a tizzy until Reader finally sighs and gives in. After he gets that pup cup, he's back to being well-behaved and a sweetheart. Reader hates it. Plus, people would fawn over Prince in public since he's such a pretty boy. He absolutely eats it up!

God save Reader if she decides to make bacon one morning. It's not something she does often - she probably decided to do it this time as a special occasion. Maybe it's the morning of her birthday or a holiday. Either way, she decided to make a big breakfast for herself. Which included bacon.

Superhero is normally the first of the four to wake up. From what Reader can gather, Soldier takes the night shift. He stays awake through the night, watching out the windows and sometimes patrolling the house. Because of this, Soldier tends to sleep during the day. Superhero then takes the mantle of "guard dog" during the day. Prince and Monster will sometimes take the night shift instead, but it's normally Superhero and Soldier.

Still, Superhero has a routine of patrolling the house the moment he wakes up, checking for anything wrong. If Reader is making bacon, though? Superhero is glued to her legs in an instant. She'd laugh at first and lightheartedly tell him no. He wouldn't give up. He'd escalate to putting his front paws up on her shoulders and trying to reach the bacon himself. Reader would definitely have to half pick up/half drag him away from the stove. He'd boof and snap his teeth demandingly, as if he's entitled to a piece of this bacon and how dare you not let him have a piece! Reader, always one to fight him on everything, would be adamant not to.

Then Soldier enters the scene. As I said before, Soldier usually sleeps through the first half of the day. But the moment the smell of bacon spreads through the house? She hears claws clacking against the floor as he barrels into the kitchen. It would probably be the most excited Reader has ever seen Soldier, tail wagging and eyes shining brightly. Superhero immediately growls and snaps at Soldier. Reader would just let them tussel at first, using the distraction to finish cooking her bacon. Eventually, she realizes "Oh shit those are NOT play growls-" and quickly runs over to the two to separate them. It takes the promise of two pieces of bacon each to get them to finally settle down.

Reader never makes bacon in her house ever again.

Meanwhile, Monster would be different. Where the other three would be swarming her legs the moment she starts cooking herself dinner, Reader notices that Monster is always sitting patiently to the side. She has to subdue the others by continuously feeding them bites of what she's cooking, but Monster never begs for any. He's the only one that she can eat on the couch with, because he'll lay on top of her feet and won't try to steal her food. But she does notice him glancing at her food. So, since he's always been such a sweetheart, Reader would happily offer Monster food. He would take it slowly, hesitantly. But he feels better after Reader cooes and praises him for being so good. His tail would wag contently. Still, he would never bother Reader for her food. We love Monster in this household <3 I will say, I like to think Tom personally doesn't like bacon. So, if Reader tried to offer some to Monster because it's only fair, he would sniff it, then huff and sneeze and turn his nose away. Doesn't bother Reader, though. Just means it's one less rowdy wolfdog trying to tackle her.

[alanaartdream]

Funny thing happened on one of my TikTok videos where I was drawing and talking about fairly odd parents; my fairy Timmy au; and Nicktoons unite

And I had a comment on one of them

Asking

*Danny PHANTOM has a FANDOM 😭*

With that crying emoji with it and I responded that yeah it does like I was surprised someone would ask like that being as Danny phantom was one of nicktoons most popular cartoons along with fairly odd parents invader zim; Jimmy neutron and SpongeBob for quite awhile until well Nickelodeon made SpongeBob their golden child out of its cartoons and devoted all it’s attention to it ignoring it’s other cartoons series (it kinda reflects in the nicktoons unite games because when those games started you could see they tried to include all the most popular cartoons main characters as it’s focused but as the game started to hit the end of their run the games got more and more focused on making SpongeBob the main focus witch is kinda sad they went that way)

Like I live in Australia 🇦🇺 and grew up in Australia 🇦🇺 so not all the nicktoons shows or games made it to here or were not advertised much other here ( also like most Australian families didn’t have foxtel networks like Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon; like in mine it was enithr have internet cable or tv cable and we went with having internet cable so would end up watching Danny phantom on YouTube as well as watching others game play of nicktoons unite games on there as well; think I enjoyed watching the cut scenes most)

So my guess that commenter didn’t really get to see Danny phantom cartoons ever being as here in Australia most of us got to watch Nickelodeon cartoons through abc kids channel here a lot of fairly odd parents cartoons made it on there and I think jimmy Timmy power hour made it onto there

(I was obsessed with cartoons as a kid and became obsessed with anime as a teenager; those both became a hyperfixtion for my adhd brain and I can tell you kid and teenager me REALLY hated those reality TV shows that got into way of cartoons/ anime I wanted to watch

I hated those sidcoms that were not cartoons because they stated to replace cartoons I enjoyed on other free to air channels here in Australia

Think I wasn’t the only kid who hated those I remember abc kids network asking it’s kid fans what they wanted on the network and a lot were asking for anime content so not many wanted those sitcoms)

So my guess is they only knew a handful of the nicktoons because probably only got to see only a handful of the cartoons from where they were from (what I do know Australia got SpongeBob on channel 10 network in the mornings I believe; not sure wasn’t as into SpongeBob as many others were I was more into fairly odd parents; invader zim; a very beavers cat dog Rugrats and Aaaahhh! Real monsters!

Ok now that I think about it it was abc kids and channel ten that would air Nickelodeon cartoons/shows to Australian audiences one would do mornings or Saturday mornings while the other would do afternoons after school

You had to get the times just right to watch your favourite shows

And I know jimmy neutron did well here because his movie did make it here as did fairly odd parents because that ended up showing until like seasons 6-7 on abc kids in afternoons then just stopped so kids knew about those cartoons heck avatar last air bender ended up on that network as well for a time but the thing was invader Zim and Danny phantom didn’t end up on either of those free to air tv; you had to watch on YouTube or a friend would have dvd box set of the show and you could watch it from them (that’s how as a teenager I got to see invader zim and Danny phantom I had to go to YouTube for that)

So maybe that’s why half don’t understand Danny’s family/ friends got his back while many misunderstood how Timmy’s life truly sucked for him or why he needed Wanda & Cosmo

They may not of gotten many episodes to go off on and maybe what other fans have told them or maybe I’m overthinking things

[randomlifex]

Invisibile string

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ‘♡’- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Jang Hyunho x fem!reader

Sequel of Love isn’t a timely feeling

Plot:you have never been close to Hyunho, but why, after leaving the mafia game behind, there’s an odd feeling connecting the two of you?

Warnings:anxiety, panic attacks, references to death

Author’s notes:I know I have a few requests to publish, but the concept of the invisible string popped in my mind and decided to never leave until I wrote this sequel!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ‘♡’- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Life had been feeling strange since you left the mafia game. You didn’t have many memories of it besides the police kicking the door and handcuffing Seeun’s parents, the only thing that experience left you with was anxiety.

Your therapist said it was normal:your brain got so used to a fake reality that forgot how to live in the real world, so, as a sort of side effect, you would feel anxious, and you would perceive your everyday life as something different or odd.

The only thing comforting you was the knowledge that all your classmates were on the same boat as you, including Bora. Maybe her conditions were even worse than yours:she had multiple panic attacks and showed up at school only once or twice a week if she was lucky enough to get out of bed.

Without her, you would spend most of the time alone, having lunch at your desk while watching kdramas and funny videos on YouTube.

Sometimes you would meet your classmates’ eyes, they were all the same:empty, dark, confused; you were almost scared by the way they started at you, but you weren’t able to understand why. There was only one pair of pupils that seemed to look strangely kindly at you:Hyunho’s; but, again, you had no idea of the reason behind it.

You had never really talked to him, you ended up in the same team a few times during PE but he was the leader while you occupied the back lines, which was why you didn’t even have the chance to work close to him. All your interactions had always been brief and limited; however there was something tying the two of you together, like an invisible string…and he knew it.

He knew it because he kept looking at you, turning around when you noticed him; you even believed that he tried multiple times to talk to you but always stepped back when it was time.

Maybe you should’ve made a move, maybe you should’ve walked up to him and simply said hi like classmates normally do, but anxiety was holding you back. You had been thrown back to the real world only a few weeks before, so stepping outside of your comfort zone was still too much for you.

The last bell of the day rang, making your thoughts fade away. You collected your stuff and left, watching as your classmates ran downstairs.

Students flooded the hallway, pushing each other.

You found yourself stuck in a mess of bodies and loud noises:someone was laughing, someone was yelling, someone got called out by a few teachers.

You looked around, scared as you felt anxiety rising from the depths of your insides:you kept repeating to yourself that everything was alright, that you had been in that situation before, multiple times since you started attending high school, but there was nothing you could do to control that feeling. Your breath shortened, your heartbeat accelerated and your hands started sweating while holding the handrail. You felt dizzy, so you closed your eyes in hope to calm down, but you failed due to someone running past you, bumping onto your shoulder. It made you lose your balance, falling down the stairs.

Luckily, there were only a few steps left, so all you got were a bunch of scratches on your knees and a bloody hand. You tried to get up, but your head was spinning too fast while students either jumped over you or suffocated you with their bodies. You started coughing as you were having troubles breathing. For a moment you thought it was over; but then asomeone grabbed your shoulders.

“It’s okay, I’ll get you out of here” Hyunho said, helping you standing up. You wrapped your arms around his waist, still coughing with your head spinning fast. The boy kept you close while making his way though the students, leading you out of that hell.

In the corridor, away from the crowd, your legs yield. You held onto Hyunho’s shoulders, but there wasn’t much you could do since you were about to faint. Your classmate slid his hand under your legs, lifting your body up:

“I got you yn” he whispered softly, but you had no chance to reply as you blacked out.

When you woke up you found yourself lying on the bed of the infirmary, there were plasters on your knees and your hand was all bandaged up.

“Welcome back” Hyunho said, walking towards your bed and caressing your head

“What happened? My head aches” you sighed

“You passed due to a panic attack. The hallway was too crowded for your senses” he explained,gently moving your legs aside to sit on the edge of the bed

“Did you help me?”

“Of course I did, I couldn’t leave you there” he smiled, fixing the strand of your hair falling on your shoulders

“Thank you…” those words came out as uncertain. Everything was so odd. Why was he acting like that?

You looked at your hand, flexing your fingers:that pain was too familiar. Was your brain tripping?

“Slow down or later on it will hurt” Hyunho said,holding your hand in order to stop your movements. You looked at him confused.

“What are you doing?” you asked

“Trying to save you from an uncomfortable pain” he joked

“No -you paused, staring into his eyes- what are you doing?” you asked again

The boy left your hand, looking away:

“I don’t know. Since we escaped that game there’s something leading me to you” his eyes met yours. The two of you looked at each other for a while, then Hyunho caressed your cheek. Your body shivered in pleasure at that contact:his hand was soft and warm. He was so familiar.

“I know that feeling -you sat- and I’ve been thinking about the reason behind it, but I can’t tell” you talked

“Maybe there isn’t a reason, maybe it’s just another stupid side effect. You can’t keep your sanity after being kidnapped and forced to die multiple times in a deadly simulation”

“I don’t know -you gulped, the atmosphere had become so heavy- the only thing I know is that I’m cold. I need a blanket” you giggled, trying to tone it down.

Hyunho didn’t hesitate to take his hoodie off and put it on your shoulder. As soon as your skin met with the fabric of his clothes his scent embraced you. You didn’t know how to describe it, it was delicate and soft. So good but also so familiar…maybe even too much familiar.

Your head began to hurt even more, so badly that it seemed to be about to explode. A moan of pain escaped your lips. You covered your face with your hands, closing your eyes and praying that everything would pass quickly, but it didn't. On the contrary, suddenly your mind began to run and run and run:images darted and disappeared from before your eyes like lightning in the stormy sky. You could see Hyunho:first he was comforting you in a bathroom you didn't know, then he was healing your hand; one moment he was smiling arrogantly on a rooftop, the next moment, in that same place, he was weeping in despair with you. That was the last thing you saw; darkness followed after that. Paradoxically, however, everything was now clear:you remembered what you suffered in that game and, with that, you also remembered that your heart had begun to beat for Hyunho.

“Yn! Yn!” the boy called you, wrapping your shaky body in a warm embrace. How much you missed it. You rose your head, smiling through the tears:

“Now I remember” you said

“What are you talking about?” Hyunho wiped your tears away, confused

“Now I remember where that string comes from…”

“String? What string?”

“I love you, Hyunho -you said, cupping his cheeks- and I know you love me back, you just don’t remember it” you said, kissing his lips.

That was enough for the boy's mind to clear. As it happened to you, images flashed before his eyes like scenes from a movie. He, too, now remembered everything:he remembered the desire to see you smile another day, he remembered the fear of losing you and the need to hold you close to him. He remembered how he wanted to protect you and how much he suffered seeing your helpless body on the ground. He remembered how he had managed to frame Dabum, avenging you, and the frozen petals of the rose with which he had accompanied your body to the cold storage room. He remembered everything, and being able to hold you again seemed like a miracle to him.

His hands rested on your cheeks, bringing you closer, intensifying that desperate kiss you had begun. His tears of happiness mixed up with yours as your hands interwove in his hair.

“I missed you so much” Hyunho finally talked, putting a few strands of your hair behind your hear.

You smiled, getting slowly up just to sit on his lap and hug him. His arms were tightly wrapped around your body as your head rested on his shoulder. You closed your eyes, finally being able to enjoy the scent you loved the most in the world.

“This time I’ll never let you go” he said caressing your head

“This time I’ll never leave” you replied, burying your head in the crook of his neck.

You were happy and you knew it.

[rigelmejo]

Languages I tried to learn:

Spanish: Me llamo Mejo. I don't remember how to spell things in Spanish, or anything much besides introducing myself and como estas? muy bien. tres bien. tres mal. verde, azul, roja, rosa, blanco, gracias, de nada.

It was in middle school, one class for one semester, I remember I found it really hard. I think all the words that stuck were words I heard in real life, from elementary teachers year after year, or friends saying como estas, or the TV. I can read nonfiction spanish like a Linguistics textbook I have, or wikipedia, or some short news blurbs, but I think a lot of the reading ability is just me relying on cognates with French and English, and similar grammar to French in some ways. If it's a fiction book, there's a lot I can't read, and if it's a radio show/podcast I can only understand a sentence once in a while.

I studied Spanish a little on my own again in college, listening to Language Transfer Spanish (only a handful of lessons), Coffee Break Spanish (only a handful), and Dreaming Spanish (a really cool youtube channel - I only watched a few videos but I'd love to watch more one day). I only studied for a few months in college, mostly to hear the DIFFERENCE between Spanish and French pronunciation so I stopped confusing them in my head when reading. It did work, I got a much better ability to differentiate Spanish and French pronunciation, and got a mental framework for how each sounds so that when I read now I mentally 'hear' the right pronunciation. I can sound out words in both languages better now, guess a better approximate pronunciation of stuff I read, and when I hear French or Spanish my brain 'clicks' quicker into realizing which language I'm hearing and recognizing what words I do know. Whereas before I did the crash study of Spanish, my mental framework of French pronunciation was super weak and I was confusing it with a bunch of romance languages and couldn't recognize words I heard at all.

German: Ich heisse Mejo, wie heisst du? ich mochte eine kekze, ich habe zwei hunds, ich bin, du bist, er/sie/es ist, wir sind, heir seid, sie Sie sind (a conjugation song my teacher had us sing all the time), bitte, danke, guten morgen, iche swimme gut, ich komme aus United States, wunderbar, blaue, braun (?), ich weiss nicht, ich liebe meine sestra (?), ich swimme, ich spreche deutsch ein bitte, Die pferd ist gross (big?).

I studied it for 2 years in high school, we did a ton of conjugation tables and we did 2 years of Rosetta stone. My take on Rosetta stone: I'm glad school paid for it, and that I never did, because it is way too slow for any self-study learner and a waste of money. I learned a lot of nouns from Rosetta stone (a few hundred), because the program was basically seeing a picture with the word in german and matching them, and recording your pronunciation. I don't remember much active vocabulary, what I typed above is nearly all I remember how to say. But I can passively read okay... ish? Maybe at an A2 level. I can navigate informational German sites like university sites and news sites, and find some key information I'm looking for, and I can understand the small bits of German in American action movies and comics. In retrospect, I did not know how to study a language in high school, my teacher taught to the book and tests so I did well on tests but couldn't do much outside of answer test questions and fill-in-the-blank sentences for conjugations, I'm frankly surprised I learned enough to get the small bits of German in American comics (like X-men).

To be fair to my high school, the high school classes were half the pace of college classes: so a beginner 1 class for 1 semester of college, would equate to 2 semesters of high school. So by the end of 2 high school years of German, we just covered Beginner 1 and 2 which would land potentially around A2 level. If I wanted to continue learning, I think I know enough that I could probably push myself to learn by reading and looking up words, or jumping into upper beginner learning material, I have a decent foundation of common words passive vocabulary I don't remember until I see it/hear it again.

French: je m'appelle Mejo, comment allez-vous? comment ca va? Tres bien, tres mal, j'ecrire un petit.

My active vocabulary is absolute trash right now. Whenever I don't use French for over a month, I forget to say almost everything I used to know how to say, then if I get back into French for a few weeks a lot of my active vocabulary comes back... but even then, it's probably less than 1000 words I can use to talk, off the top of my head, when I'm using French regularly. Speaking and writing are my weakest skills in French, and they're super weak! I do know how to talk my way around topics though with 300 ish words, so I mostly do that when I have to.

My reading skill in French is fairly good - I can read pretty much anything fiction or nonfiction, my Google is in French so my search results and Wikipedia results are automatically in French, and a lot of news sites, that probably helps me see a little French regularly. I 'lose' my reading skill if I take a 6 month or longer break from French, but it comes back within a few hours of trying to read again. My reading skills in most languages I've studied pretty much come back within hours, if I try reading again. I'm usually back to my last 'top' reading level within a couple weeks of reading in a language again. My reading skill in French is about what my reading level was in college for English. I think my reading skill in French helps indirectly with reading Spanish a bit, especially non-fiction Spanish where I run into more cognates.

My French listening skill is maybe at an A2 level? It's much better than it used to be (as it used to be that I understood almost nothing spoken), but I can read pretty much anything whereas I definitely CANNOT even listen to an audiobook. When I listen to audiobooks I only understand maybe 70%, even though I can read and understand 95%-100%. I like the youtube channel Comprehensible French and I'd like to listen to more some time, when I want to work on improving my listening skills more. In college, I studied French for 1 semester just to see if I COULD learn to do anything in a language! Since in middle and high school I had tried studying Spanish, German, and self-studying Japanese, and never learned enough to do anything useful in any of those language. So I took a class in college, my wonderful professor taught us er verb conjugation, and Je present-tense, j'ai (I have), and Je vais (I am going to) conjugations so we could express one version of present past and future tense, this helped a lot with figuring out how to say a LOT with just those 3 tenses and all the regular er verbs.

That same semester, on my own, I studied 300 common words to express yourself in a language (a tumblr word list) and that helped me start talking/writing really basically quickly. That was super motivating. From there I studied a 1000 common words list online, with sentence examples, just reading it daily, and re-reading it weekly, for a few months. After that, I tried reading graded readers and news articles and wikipedia, looking up words about once a paragraph or when they looked like words that were the most critical to grasping the main idea. So I was reading while looking words up by the time the class ended, and then I kept reading. By 1 year, I was looking up 1-5 words a page, and reading novels and thicker non-fiction stuff like informational books, and by 1.5 years I was not looking up words except in fiction and old history books, then by 2 years I wasn't looking up any words. Around the end of year 1 I read a French grammar explanation site entirely in French, read 300 pages of Le Francais Par Le Methode Nature (I LOVE that book so much, it helped me so much at internalizing stuff and speeding up my reading comprehension, and I didn't even finish reading it), and listened to Coffee Break French podcast for a few months to develop a mental framework of the pronunciation. After the pronunciation work, I mentally had sounds for what I read and got better at guessing pronunciations, saying words I'd read, and recognizing some words I knew from reading in people's speech. I also got better at differentiating French from other romance languages when listening and reading, because before pronunciation audio study I had often confused them mentally and that made it hard to remember new words I learned because in my mind I couldn't remember which language the words were from.

By year 2, like I mentioned, I was reading pretty much whatever I wanted without looking words up. At that point, I just kept reading whenever I wanted, and reading got easier and easier until it felt almost as easy as reading English. I read English slightly faster, can scan for details in complicated fiction text faster in English, and reading French novels feels like I have to put a bit more effort in to analyze the underlying meaning of particular details (so it feels like reading in English did when I was in 11th and 12th grade IB English college-credit classes). Reading non fiction French feels virtually the same as reading English, I often forget my google results (like typing "wordX definition" or "X" wikipedia results) are in French unless I need to share the search result with someone else and realize I need to get to the English version of the result for them. I think my reading skill is maybe B2?

I stopped working on improving my French on purpose after year 2, since reading whatever I wanted was the initial goal I had. I still work on improving my listening skills once in a while, but I really need time to focus on it intensely for a while if I want to see my listening comprehension improve a lot. My speaking and writing skills are, like I mentioned, absolutely horrifically bad. If I wanted to improve those I'm not even sure how I could start except... maybe getting a language exchange partner or tutor. I think I could read a grammar guide again, write a TON of example sentences that I'd like to be able to say while making sure they're grammatically correct, and then practice talking to someone a LOT until the correct patterns are internalized. Because the thing is... reading... does not require you to really know the perfectly correct way to write/say things. When reading I don't need to remember gender of nouns, like if a word is le or la, I just read it quickly and know it's "the." When reading, I don't need to remember when the verb ending ent is pronounced or silent, I just scan it and move along while noticing which kind of noun the ent is conjugated for. I don't need to specifically know how to conjugate each version of past tense, I just need to recognize what the tense I'm reading means. I don't need to remember the irregular verbs and how to conjugate them myself, only recognize them when I read. So I'd really need to make a lot of things into specific correct habits if I want to improve speaking/writing.

(If you want to learn French to read: it's a very doable goal! French has a lot of cognates and near-cognates with English, and with romance languages if you know any words in another romance language. I would recommend you do at least a few months of studying French pronunciation/listening to French, even if you only plan to read, because a mental framework of pronunciation helped significantly in reading speed, translating reading skill to at least some listening and speaking skill, and in remembering new words you learn while reading. At least in my experience, I found a little pronunciation study helped TREMENDOUSLY with reading skill. Studying 1000 words, even as basically as I did with just reading a word list, made starting to read less of a hurdle. And the Le Francais Par Le Methode Nature book is such a wonderful graded reader that gradually increases vocabulary and grammar knowledge to a very decent foundation, if you're interested in possibly learning to read French BY reading French. The book is on Archive.org, and Ayan Academy on Youtube has the book lessons with audio on their youtube channel. There's also a lot of textbooks that specifically focus on teaching how to read French, I liked one by Charles Duff called French for Beginners - I also liked his Spanish book.)

Japanese: hajimemashita. Mejo desu, boku no namae wa Mejo desu, genki desu ka? genki desu. tenki desu ka? ii desu yo. boku wa sushi suki desu. inu to neko suki da. omae wa suki desu ka? tanoshii desu ka? omoshiroi tabemono da! shigoto wa isogashi da ne, tsukete kudasai. sumimasen, onegaishimasu. nihongo roku-nen ni o benkyoushimashita, muzukashi da. (I don't have a japanese keyboard installed on my computer right now). Like French, my japanese active vocabulary is AWFUL! I just do not talk or write to anyone, so I quickly forget how to say things, and then I still can't really say/write things... and if I take a break from studying Japanese for a month or more, I start forgetting whatever active vocabulary I was using. I do not think my active vocabulary will improve unless I start talking to people, and writing, a lot. One day...

I took a semester of Japanese in college, since I was able to learn how to do things in French the semester before. I felt that this time, in college, I'd learn to do something useful in Japanese and be more successful than my self-study attempts in high school. I had a great class, although it was very by-the-book. We learned using Genki, and utilized that textbook for EVERYTHING it could do. We recorded ourselves pronouncing the dialogue in each chapter (shadowed the dialogues), and were graded on pronunciation so it gave me a lot of motivation to really focus on pronouncing things decently and listen carefully to the sounds. We did every exercise in the book, from writing sentences to recording ourselves saying those sentences, and doing the audio exercises where we listened to short audio files and had to answer questions based on them. We also did weekly forum posts where we wrote about topics in Japanese using the words we just learned, and recorded ourselves saying what we wrote.

We got through the first half of Genki 1. Genki 1 and 2 has 1774 words (based on a search I just did "how many words in Genki 1"), so being generous if we learned 1/4 of those words then we studied 444 words. (I wish Genki 1 taught 1000+ words and Genki 2 taught 1000+ words just so the textbooks would at least teach 2000 words... or ideally I wish each Genki textbook taught 2000 words a piece... but Genki doesn't have as much vocabulary as I wish beginner textbooks did). The class was a good basic foundation, and at least taught me: hiragana and katakana (I studied with a simple mnemonics app for a couple weeks and the teacher provided study sheets with mnemonics), decent pronunciation and recognition when listening to Japanese pronunciation (I could look up any word I heard after this class just by listening to someone say it, and parse individual words in sentences which makes figuring out WHICH words I don't know and need to look up easier).

After that first semester, my self-study of Japanese was a hot mess for years! Also, at one point in college I was reading French 30 minutes a day (mostly maintaining my reading skill and gradually increasing passive vocabulary), studying Japanese 30 minutes a day (during which I learned almost nothing because Japanese required way more study time to make any noticeable improvements), and studying Russian 30 minutes to 2 hours a day (I was dating someone who spoke Russian, as well as their family and friends, and was basically crash studying common words and conversational stuff so I could talk to my partner's family and baby brother who we'd babysit, and my partner's roommates, also it was fun and cute to write/text Russian notes to each other - I'll mention Russian in a little bit). So I was barely making progress with Japanese for around 2 years.

I tried studying Heisig's Remember the Kanji, in the hopes if I learned kanji first in isolation then later reading and vocabulary-learning would be easier. HA HA HAAAAAAAA. I hated Heisig's book, I couldn't make up my own mnemonics, I ended up relying on kanjikoohi website and studying FROM other user's mnemonics. In 2 years I learned maybe 50 kanji, and it certainly didn't help that I can never focus on flashcards for long so of course I didn't manage to learn the 2000 kanji in Heisig's plan. I think it's an okay study idea for some people, but it sure wasn't for me! The only useful thing from the whole experience was that I learned I could USE mnemonic stories to help remember the appearance, meaning, and pronunciation of kanji or any words in any language.

At the beginning of year 2: I was no longer studying French actively (because I could read whatever I wanted so I'd just read books as desired once every few months), I was no longer studying Russian, and I had TIME for Japanese. Because Japanese was going to need 1-2 hours of study time daily, on average, or more, if I wanted to see significant progress in a reasonable amount of time. I also DESPERATELY needed a better study plan. I had been floundering, re-studying the same 500ish words and 50 kanji I had already studied before in class and in Heisig. I was also being too much of a perfectionist, and needed to change my whole mindset. Those first 2 years my plan had been: study 2000 kanji FIRST and do not learn any vocabulary until you have learned the kanji, then next read a WHOLE grammar guide before you start trying to read or listen or write or speak (since in French I'd cram studied grammar and 2000 common words BEFORE trying to read... but in French that cramming only took 3 months, whereas in Japanese it had been 2 years and I still hadn't finished). My perfectionist tendencies also made me feel the need to constantly RE-STUDY kanji and grammar because I was worried I didn't fully, perfectly, understand each thing.

So at the beginning of year 2 I changed my study plan, and study approach. Approach wise, I decided to veer away from my perfectionist tendencies.

My new plan for my study approach was: when I read a grammar guide to read NEW stuff regularly, and NOT do any review. (I would eventually allow myself to review materials I'd studied before IF I had free time after studying new things, but in the beginning I NEEDED to get myself to stop re-studying the same basic material forever). I would NOT take notes (because that got me into the perfectionist mindset I'd been stuck in during college), I would forgive myself for making mistakes. And I would learn from what had worked well with French - I would make my goal to start READING and doing stuff in Japanese ASAP. Because I knew actually reading/listening to the language was an activity that motivated me, that doing it as my study time was easy for me to consistently do (as I'd been able to consistently read French long enough to improve to my goal reading level), and it forced me to be comfortable with imperfection quicker (as I would not have perfect comprehension when listening/reading for YEARS, I'd need to get comfortable with just "understanding the main idea/enough").

My new study plan was: find another person's PRE MADE study plan that would prepare me for reading in Japanese, CRAM as much of that pre-made plan as I could, and start trying to read every single month until I found the activity doable. At that point, start reading and looking up words (like I had done in French). Now in retrospect... my japanese study plan changed a lot in the years afterward. But the study plan at that time worked incredibly well for helping me make significant progress and finally be able to DO SOMETHING I wanted to do in japanese, which was motivating. (I didn't use these at the time, but I highly recommend Tadoku Free Graded Reader's ASAP if you're studying Japanese, they are approachable as soon as you complete the first half of Genki 1... possibly even earlier, if you're okay with looking words up. I've used Tadoku's graded readers recently, and they helped a lot with developing a faster reading speed and becoming more comfortable WITH reading in Japanese).

The pre-made study plan I picked to use? Nukemarine's Let's Learn Japanese memrise courses. There were like 12 at the time (they're still on memrise if you find the user made courses and add them, they used to be labelled SGJL), and nowadays I think Nukemarine has the course for sale on his Patreon for use on Anki. I picked it because it taught kanji (with user added mnemonics), vocabulary (with sentence examples and audio), Tae Kim's Grammar Guide example sentences of grammar (with audio), and was organized so you learned a few hundred kanji, then words, then grammar, then you'd go to the next level pf the course and learn more of each. It was a course with everything in one: kanji I needed to study, grammar points, common words in sentence examples to practice listening and reading. I cram studied the course, got through I think 4-6 of the modules in the course in 6 months, and I practiced trying to read manga every month like I had planned.

By 6 months in, I could understand the main idea of manga pages if I looked up 1-3 keywords on each page. Reading a manga was doable, if I looked up a few keywords. I read a bit of Ranma 1/2, School Rumble, and Yotsubato. Then, because I'm an intense person, I tried to play my favorite video game in Japanese - Kingdom Hearts 2. I figured if I could play KH2, then I could keep studying Japanese by reading/watching/playing things and looking up words as I did stuff in Japanese. (If you would like to learn Japanese by playing video games, I recommend the youtuber Game Gengo - he posts Japanese lessons using gameplay and he teaches a lot each video, he makes Grammar Guide videos using gameplay examples, and he makes recommendations for what games are more useful for studying and how to approach studying with video games). By 6 months, I could play KH2, able to follow the main idea by looking 1-3 keywords up every few minutes. It was draining, it took immense mental effort on my part, I could only play for 2 hours at a time before I'd be too exhausted to continue, but it was doable. That was the turning point when I finally felt like I had learned to do SOMETHING in Japanese, and like I could keep studying my favorite way - by reading/watching/playing stuff in the language.

Then things got chaotic. I studied japaneseaudiolessons.com for a few months, and during that time I learned I remember new words VERY WELL when using audio flashcards with target language sentences/english sentences (I love japaneseaudiolessons.com, their lessons are free and they also have a free grammar guide, and nowadays they're making kanji books with mnemonics and example sentences... which I like and much prefer over Heisig's books). So I learned a few hundred new words, I kept reading manga and learned a hundred new words, I watched some lets plays and learned a hundred new words, I tried to play Crisis Core and Persona 3 in Japanese which fried my brain it felt so difficult (learned a hundred words). And by 2.5 years I'd learned maybe 1500 words from Nukemarine's lessons, japaneseaudiolessons.com, and reading/watching/playing Japanese.

And then... I decided to study Chinese! So Japanese took a pause, where I did nothing to study. A couple years later, I had time for Japanese again, and found my hanzi knowledge helped with reading Japanese A LOT. Even though I only knew 1500 words, I could guess a lot of kanji words, and suddenly I could play games like Crisis Core and Persona 3 without looking up any words, read some texts and grasp the main idea without looking up words, and read some manga for the overall main idea without looking up words! (I still needed to look up words in all cases if I wanted to understand specific details). I realized, thanks to some hanzi-kanji similar meanings, my biggest weak spot was SPOKEN vocabulary!

I suddenly could vaguely read like 80% of the kanji words I saw, but many hiragana words (or kanji words typed in hiragana) were a mystery to me. Grammar was also still giving me issues, as I'd only studied basic grammar so advanced grammar points were still incomprehensible.

I focused a lot on using Clozemaster for a while (studied 600 words in sentences with audio) to improve my vocabulary listening recognition and grammar comprehension, read some bits of grammar guides (I STILL need to read more about grammar), and now I'm doing Glossika Japanese since the primarily AUDIO use of the lessons is helping me increase spoken vocabulary recognition. Glossika is in sentences, with audio and text (if I look at the text), so like with Clozemaster, I am using it to gradually increase grammar understanding, and both spoken and text vocabulary recognition. It's going fairly well. I can play Yakuza just in Japanese and follow the main idea (I can look up words to understand details, but I can follow enough of the main idea to just PLAY if I'm too lazy to look words up).

Playing games I'm more familiar with, with less slang, are easier now and drain me a bit less so I can play for longer in japanese (like KH2 and Crisis Core). Manga are hit or miss on if I need to look up key words to grasp the main idea, but I prefer to look words up to learn the PRONUNCIATION. I can watch some shows and some lets plays and follow the main ideas entirely without looking up words (like Final Fantasy X lets plays, KH2 lets plays, shows like Our Dining Table), whereas other shows I can grasp the main idea but mostly from visual cues and honestly should look up words when watching (like Samurai Cat, Criminologist Himura and Novelist Alice). Novels are readable now, they require me to look up a LOT of keywords for main idea and details (like 5-10 a page), and I usually have TTS play so I hear pronunciations, but it is doable... if draining. My next study plan, once I improve my listening vocabulary to be closer to my kanji-word reading recognition, is to get Satori Reader app and read as MUCH as I can for several months. That will be my plan, once I'm through all the words in Glossika Japanese. I have studied 3378 sentences in Glossika so far this year, and I think that's at least 1500 words, so I think I'm getting toward a point where my vocabulary is finally INCREASING past the level it used to be at. I can notice improvements in comprehension of jdramas and video games lets plays especially, I am much better at just listening to japanese and grasping more of the main idea with less mental strain.

Chinese: I watched the Guardian cdrama, fell in love as it's everything I love in a story, and wanted to read the novel by priest. At the time, the novel wasn't fully translated. (Also, I started reading Mo Du's translation, that also wasn't finished). So: I wanted to read the novel. Me and wanting to read? EXTREMELY motivating. Reading is a primary reason I study the languages I have, and made the progress I managed, so having actual novels I was actively TRYING to read really kicked me into gear quickly. I learned from all my wasted time not-making-progress in Japanese for years, and made a much better study plan for Chinese when I started. I studied Chinese around 2 hours a day on average my first year, and thanks to the time put in, I made progress nearly as fast (in terms of days) as I did in French. I studied Chinese 4 times longer per day than I studied French on average, which also helped my Chinese improve in a timely manner.

So what did I do? I wrote a lot of posts about it so feel free to check those out for in depth explanations. But the short of it is: I looked up words whenever curious, when watching cdramas (Guardian, The Untamed, The Lost Tomb). I would watch with english/chinese dual subs (which on youtube is often the default subtitles on cdramas so that was convenient). This was month 1-3 ish, I would see dual subtitles, and type the pinyin into Google Translate app of words I heard that I wanted to see the hanzi that matched/see which english translation it went with. If I typed the pinyin wrong, I'd write in the hanzi. I was also reading Tuttle Learn Chinese Characters (800 characters - my favorite hanzi book with mnemonics), A grammar guide summary on a website, dongchinese.com's pinyin pronunciation guide, and watching youtube videos explaining tones. That was the first few months.

Then I read what other people did to learn to read, and used Ben Whatley's 2000 common chinese words memrise decks (hanzi words+pinyin+audio). I started reading graded readers such as Mandarin Companion (my favorite for beginners who know 100-500 words), Sinolingua (hardest), Pleco graded readers for sale (I liked these after Mandarin Companion). When I'd gotten through 1000 words in the memrise deck, I was around 6 months in, and had read some graded readers with 100-500 unique words. I started watching cdramas with only chinese subtitles (during study time - during relaxation time I still watched with dual subtitles, and would try to read the chinese sentences once in a while for practice understanding grammar and matching new words to english translation in the subs). At first I could only watch 5-20 minutes of a cdrama in only chinese before I'd be exhausted, and I'd look up key unknown words to understand the main idea once every 1-5 minutes. After a few months of this, I built up both my recognition of words I'd studied and my mental endurance, and I could watch show episodes all the way through in one sitting and just pause every 5ish minutes to look a key word up. I could watch certain easier shows like Granting You A Dreamlike Life and follow the main idea without looking any words up, after the first few episodes.

Around then I'd studied all 2000 words in Ben Whatley's deck (keep in mind: studying a memrise deck for me meant studying NEW words for a few weeks only, then doing a week of reviewing those 1000 words, take a break for a few weeks, then study 1000 NEW words and only review once done with all those new words... which is my usual process for using any SRS type app, it's how I use glossika now. It's just the only way I personally can get myself through those types of study materials. I get my actual "review/recognition" of those newly studied words by READING and listening to stuff in the language regularly, looking words up AGAIN while reading/listening until the words stick in my memory). So I was around month 8ish, I had read 500-1200 word graded readers in that period. Around month 8, I started trying to read webnovels using Pleco (I'd also recommend Readibu, or just reading in any eReader or web browser that allows you to click-translate once you know enough words - I also like using TTS function, particularly using Edge's Read Aloud tool which has the best TTS voice). It was draining, exhausting, very hard, and it took 2 hours to get through a chapter. I started with Guardian, Tian Ya Ke, and some dmbj fanfics. Gradually, chapters that used to take 2 hours to read got easier, I learned more words, and eventually I could finish 1 Tian Ya Ke chapter in 20 minutes. Around a year in, I started trying to read PRINT novels and books, to work on extensive reading skills, reading speed, and reading without a click-translation tool as a crutch. I started with Xiao Wang Zi (In retrospect, Tu Tu Da Wang is a much better story to start with a a beginner! I recommend all Heavenly Path Notion site beginner recommendations over what I started with, I started with unnecessarily harder stuff). It took 2 weeks to read on paper, only looking up 1-2 words per page. After that, I would go back and forth between extensively reading (sometimes while playing audiobooks or TTS), and intensively reading (looking up 1-10 words per page or chapter). I'd switch between novels I could comfortably extensively read, and novels I needed to look up words for, and just kept pushing the difficulty up. That's still more or less how I deal with what I pick to read, and how to read. I tried to read more, and I watched more chinese shows with chinese only subs. When Word of Honor cdrama came out around 14 months into learning, I watched that without english subs because I wanted to watch episodes IMMEDIATELY. I definitely got better at understanding shows, because after that I got better and better at comprehending shows, and by 1.5 years I could watch shows with no english subs if I wanted to check out a cdrama that had no english subs (without having to look up unknown words for main idea, understanding most details without word lookup, and without paying more attention than I'd pay in english)... although older cdramas, and some political and wuxia ones, I still need to concentrate harder and probably should look up words for more detail comprehension. But shows like: Humans cdrama, Go Ahead, Hikaru No Go (Qi Hun), most modern stuff iQiyi puts out (except adult crime dramas I need to pay more attention), Ice Fantasy, Love Between Fairy and Devil, I can watch with no english subs and not need to pay any more attention than if I was watching in english. I am now working on watching cdramas with NO subtitles, no hanzi to reference, to improve listening skills. Because I would like to be able to eventually listen to audiobooks with ease. I'm getting there... I can grasp the main idea of some audiobooks, and some audio dramas, now.

By 2 years I could read most things I wanted to read (cnovels, on the level of "grasp the main idea" without looking words up for some novels and then up to "grasp main idea and nearly all details" 98%+ comprehension for other novels), I could watch most things I wanted to watch in chinese with chinese subtitles (I still need to practice watching with no subtitles).

I am now maybe 4 years into studying? My reading skill I work on intermittently, the reading skill comes back to me within a few hours of reading so I just progressively pick a bit harder of a novel once in a while, and keep reading what I want to, reading on and off every few months. With novels, I really like reading things in their original language (since with shows I can at least HEAR the original language even if I see english subs, whereas there are very few english-chinese parallel text novels). So I often am reading at least 1 novel in chinese. When I'm lazy or short on time I like to read manhua as they're easy to read, fun, and have a few favorites (comedy like 19 Tian, and some ghost/comedy ones that remind me of dmbj, and some crime/horror manhua - like chinese webnovels, you can often find manhua by searching in google in hanzi or pinyin "manhua NAME-in-chinese zaixian" if you don't know what websites have the manhua you'd like to read, and once you find one manhua you like then you can browse that site for more). I watch shows with english subs still when I'm relaxing (or dual subs), or chinese subs if english subs aren't out yet or don't exist. My reading skills don't deteriorate much, and they come back quickly once I start reading regularly again. My listening skills deteriorate FAST, but also seem to come back within a reasonably short time period (a few days of listening or a handful of hours listening to things). Bilibili.com is fairly easy to make an account on (and you may be able to watch without an account), and I really recommend browsing bilibili if you're learning chinese (or japanese to be honest - so many japanese bl and musicals are on bilibili). I'm at the point where whenever I get on bilibili it recommends me audiobooks, BL shows, voiced manhua with music (which I love), audio dramas, reactions and commentaries on shows, and videos about new cdramas I might like. So just like youtube, I can easily go on bilibili and get sucked in by videos I'd like, except they're in chinese. It's also a way I find new manhua, donghua, BLs, and shows to get into.

I am now primarily working on listening skills. Now that I can read decently, I would like to be able to listen to audiobooks, since I like to listen to stuff while I exercise, clean, work, drive. I'm making gradual progress with that. I would also like to eventually improve my reading speed, but that's just sort of happening gradually as I keep reading extensively. (I have a few novels I want to read specifically my print versions for, since they have some content the webnovel version didn't have). My study plan lately has been: listen to audiobooks, listen to audio dramas, and occasionally listen to Spoonfed Chinese Anki deck audio files when I want to mostly just do review.

My active skills? Hahahaaaaaaaaa ;-; well. Sadly I suck at speaking and writing. When I'm reading chinese a lot, I have an active vocabulary that gets a bit bigger when I'm chatting/typing with people a lot (and the more active my chinese vocabulary, the less I can recall French or Japanese words I know)... so maybe 1000 words I can say/type reasonably quickly when I am talking to people a lot. When I'm not chatting/typing with people much, my chinese active vocabulary is small (like 300 words or something ridiculously tiny), even when I'm reading and listening a lot. I basically remember how to give my dog commands in Chinese (I taught him commands in Chinese, French, and Japanese lol), say some basic stuff like what I'm doing today/how I'm feeling/basic questions like what is X or what is the word for X or what does X mean. If I'm not reading or listening to chinese at all (such as when I take a few months break to focus entirely on japanese study), then I struggle to recall basic stuff like baba jiejie meimei gege and I feel super annoyed I for some reason can't recall baba! It's baba after all! (especially given that my brain will give me die die like historical novels or xianxia, ye, and obasan when I can't recall baba for dad). I couldn't remember how to say i have an older sister, her name is x "wo you yi ge jie jie. ta de mingzi shi X". Whereas right now, just because I heard chinese in the last month, I can remember how to say basic stuff. So yeah... if I take over a month break, my chinese active vocabulary falls to nearly nothing. It goes back up if I have to talk to people regularly, while also reading/listening to chinese. But when I'm taking a break from studying it gets bad lol.

(And lately I've been focusing hard on japanese study, like I mentioned, I studied over 3000 sentences the past few months in japanese. So lately I can recall Japanese words I'm trying to say, much faster than Chinese or French).

Russian: In college i tried to learn Russian for around 6 months. Then the relationship ended and I didn't need to talk to anyone in Russian anymore, and just stopped studying. I found some cool resources during those 6 months though! And tried to read 1 Spirk fanfiction in Russian (and learned physics is fizika which sounds similar to english, and extraterrestrial is inoplanetyanin - inter-planet-tian which is a very self explanatory word I love it). I also learned a few basic conversational things that I still haven't forgotten (mainly Poka for bye-bye).

What languages can I actually do anything in?

Chinese is probably my most comfortable language all around, because I can actually speak and type in chinese if I'm regularly using it, and I read/watch shows in chinese fairly regularly so my passive comfort is decent. My reading skill in Chinese feels comparable to how my reading skill in middle school in English was - I can read novels for adults, but miss some nuance and details unless I look up words, whereas if it's for teens or younger I get most details and most nuance, and I can read faster if it's for younger teens/written simply like some webnovels (like DMBJ), I can read manhua easily (and if they're full of a lot of specialized terms like crime manhua I can follow the main idea). I am sure if I keep reading in chinese, my reading skill will get better as my vocabulary increases more. Once I get better with audiobooks I'll be really hype. Chinese is the only language I think I could adjust to talking to people in, if I had to.

In French I probably have the best reading skill, as it feels just like reading English for me, except occasionally if the fiction novel is in a genre I haven't read before or it's a fairly old book. For everyday reading like online, I don't notice a difference between French and English in my reading speed or comprehension. My French listening skill is maybe an A2, I definitely cannot understand as many words when listening as when I'm reading. I can follow some TV shows main ideas, but I'm relying on visuals to guess what's going on, or relying on French subtitles since I can read them. If a person is speaking fast, I probably understand even less. As for typing or speaking French... I haven't done it in over a year, I can barely remember how to say anything...

Japanese: I'm basically testing if Glossika can get me to N3 level. I tried an N5 practice test online and I cannot pass it, but I can follow some TV shows main ideas, and I can follow the main idea of a decent amount of Lets Plays. So I am not sure what's going on with that. As I'd guess my vocabulary is around 2000-2500 words now, I can understand a lot of grammar that pops up in regular daily conversation, I can struggle through a novel okay... it's the pronunciation and hiragana words I lack recognition of, I can struggle through most japanese shows and follow the main plot even if I don't know many words in a particular show - and some shows I can follow most of the details and all of the main ideas. I can read manga aimed at teens for the main idea without looking up words, and for details too if I look up words. So I'm not sure what studying would help me pass an N5, N4, practice test... I do think my vocabulary and grammar understanding is gradually improving, as watching shows IS getting Noticeably Easier every month or so. My reading skill is also significantly better than it was at the beginning of the year (still where my Chinese reading skill was at around 8-10 months into learning Chinese, or my French was around 6 months into learning, but... at a point where I CAN read some stuff for the main idea, and can read without feeling drained if I look up 5-10 keywords per page).

My listening skill in Japanese is better than French... in a way. My listening skill in japanese is lower than my reading skill, but what I can listen to I can understand at normal speed - so I can understand a lot of video game lines, and some jdramas (especially daily life type shows like Our Dining Table, Midnight Diner), and even somewhat harder jdramas I can follow the main plot and some specific lines fully (Criminologist Himura, MIU 404). I am at the point where I can watch shows ONLY in japanese if that's the only option, and follow the main ideas of the plot usually, without being Too exhausted, which is where I was at in Chinese around 8-10 months into studying. My pronunciation skills - poor! Not as poor as French, since I can recall a few hundred words off the top of my head, if I'm studying Japanese more than Chinese on a given month. It's slowly improving. But like with any language I'm studying... I do not think it will improve that much unless I purposely start writing a lot, and chatting with people. And I'd rather keep working on listening and listening vocabulary more first, and reading more with Satori Reader first. I'd say my reading skill is artificially inflated IF there's kanji in the text, otherwise my listening skill (if I have visuals to look at like a person or show) is the highest). I think if I go by vocabulary I know, I am maybe N4-N3 level and especially more N3 level with additional vocabulary I can guess if I see kanji to reference. I think I'm getting into N3 level vocabulary wise, because with shows I can start to follow almost all lines if it's a daily life show, and follow most main ideas even if it's a crime show. Speaking/writing is definitely N5 it's atrocious (which may be why I'm failing the N5 practice tests). Fun fact: my vocabulary knowledge seems skewed toward video game vocabulary (probably from how much i learned by gaming or watching lets plays - I can understand like 90% or more of every word in Final Fantasy X or Kingdom Hearts 2, and even Persona 3 or 1 I can understand over 80% of everything and 90%+ if I guess with kanji similarity to hanzi and context. I can play Persona 2 psp games just fine without looking words up, it just feels draining reading all the text... but if I watch a show like Samurai Cat, I barely recognize 50% of the words).

Spanish: I can read some nonfiction, I think it's mostly utilizing the few hundred common words I learned in college during the sprint with some Spanish learning materials, and cognates from French. I can read enough nonfiction to look for information. Fiction is quite hard, I can read bits of fiction. I cannot understand much spoken Spanish unless it's very basic stuff (like hello, bye, thank you, this is X). I can barely say anything except basic stuff. I can read nonfiction okay in Spanish (around my old middle school reading level in English), but I think that's mainly because I read through a few nonfiction textbooks in Spanish out of sheer determination.

German: I can read some nonfiction if it's short and I'm scanning it for information, or something in an American movie or comic with a few lines of German. I can understand the same stuff I can read. I can only say a few things. Basically I can do barely anything in German, except scan websites for information and understand small snippets of German in action movies and comics.

Russian: I forgot almost everything except I am/I love/Bye/Hi/Thanks/Please/This is a X/I want. I still remember how to read the alphabet though. I can't do anything in Russian except sound out words, and pick out a few Russian lines on American TV shows.

Italian: I technically didn't study Italian but I have read part of Italian by the Nature Method book (and would love to read it entirely when I have time), and my dad's family is Italian so I just know some words from growing up. Despite knowing nothing, I for some reason find it fun to read my parallel text of Dante's Inferno and learn some Italian words as I compare the English to the Italian. No doubt that's going to totally skew what Italian I know in a weird way, because Dante's inferno Italian is NOT how modern people talk. (But like I mentioned... give me a book in another language and I get really motivated to try to learn to read it...and apparently reading is the only skill I reliably managed to develop and maintain lol). I can't do much in Italian except read a little bit, mainly from cognates from Spanish and French.

[blazehedgehog]

A Eulogy for my Playstation 4 Pro

So since I was a brain genius who decided to transfer all my fundraiser money to my bank account on a weekend, let's have a little eulogy for my poor Playstation 4 Pro.

I bought it in 2017 after a hellish move from Colorado to Nevada. We'd lived in Colorado for 26 years, and rented the same house for 24 of those years. I literally grew up in that house. Then our landlords got greedy (as all landlords eventually do), almost tripled our rent, and we had to move.

One of the last things I did before I packed up my computer was release The Definitive Way to Play Sonic Adventure on Youtube. That video was a modest success, but it had a secondary effect where a no-commentary gameplay video I'd uploaded for the fangame Sonic Utopia got picked up by the algorithm as a result, and that video suddenly took off like wildfire. I found myself sitting on a pair of videos that were about to pull in close to a combined 3 million views. It was the most I'd had a video blow up in a very long time.

I was now flush with a few thousand dollars of cash that I could do whatever I wanted with. That was great, as I got to help cover some moving expenses. I gave my Mom some money, I paid one of the deposits on our new apartment, paid to fix some stuff that got broken in the move, I bought myself a new desk, new computer chair, some storage shelves, a new bed frame, and still had about $700 left to spare. So I bought a PS4 Pro and a small handful of games (The Nathan Drake Collection, Yakuza Kiwami, The Last of Us Remastered, and Parappa the Rapper Remastered, I think). It was the first true next-generation console I'd bought in 11 years -- I'd had a Wii U, but that doesn't count.

Within that first year, I'd already run into my first problem with that Playstation 4. Back in the Xbox 360 era, I had a moment in my life where I was a psychopath that was running a media server off my PC. Every morning I'd wake up, download everything my Youtube subs had posted the day before, along with whatever GiantBomb had uploaded that day, and threw it up on the media server. The 360 could see the server, and those downloads would basically become my background noise for the day. I watched the entire GiantBomb Persona 4 Endurance Run that way: on the 360, through my media server. For context, these were the days before there was any way to watch Youtube on a television. There was no app. Youtube was just a website. So the Media Server was what I had to do to see Youtube on another screen.

In the move out to Nevada, I'd bought a cheap 32GB USB thumbdrive from the back-to-school section at Wal-mart and filled it full of movies and videos and stuff. With the PS4 set up, I plugged that thumbdrive in and tried out the PS4's media player capabilities, hoping it worked like the Xbox 360.

It did... for about 45 minutes. In the middle of watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie the media player suddenly crashed and refused to see the USB thumbdrive anymore. I reached down to pull it out only to find it was almost too hot to touch. I might have actually dropped the thumbdrive because it shocked me just how hot it was. I have never felt a piece of electronics be that hot before.

For the rest of that day, that USB port was dead. Nothing you plugged into it would be recognized. Eventually, it finally started working with controllers, but it never accepted any other thumbdrives, ever.

After about three years, I started to notice recordings were starting to get a little weird. Clips I'd record of my Fortnite matches would have huge 2-3 second chunks go missing, or the encoding would corrupt and smear. But then it went away, so I figured maybe it was just a problem with the game and not the console. It'd come back every now and then, maybe once a year, but it only ever happened with Fortnite, and only occasionally.

About a year and a half ago, I started to notice something else weird. Unless there was a specific game I needed to play for work stuff (like Sonic Frontiers or whatever), my PS4 was mostly just a Fortnite machine, and mainly because the PC version of Fortnite is a disaster.

But for months I'd left a disc in my PS4's disc drive. I think it was probably Balan Wonderworld or something, and as I booted up Fortnite for my daily founder's mission rewards, I noticed a sound. I'd been hearing it on and off for a while, but now I was finally paying attention to it. I realized: the console was sitting there scanning the disc, over and over and over, like it couldn't read it. I'd hear the disc motor spin up, the soft click-click-click as the read head scanned for data. It'd spin down, spin up, click-click-click, whirrrrrr, click-click, spin down, spin up, etc. Over and over. It'd do this for a good 30-45 seconds, then finally settle down and identify the disc.

The first time I noticed this, I ejected the Balan disc and put in something else; I think it was Dreams. PS4 read the disc instantly. I shrugged, figured maybe the Balan disc was just cursed and didn't think anything of it.

About a week later, I caught it doing it with the disc for Dreams. And then Sonic Frontiers. Then Sonic Superstars. Pretty much any disc I'd put in there. As the months wore on, it started taking multiple minutes for it to identify the disc.

A few weeks before it died, I ended up taking the disc out and basically resigning myself to only putting a disc in if I was going to play it, and removing that disc the moment I was done, because that scanning process seemed like it was making the problem worse.

A few months before it died, I got a full hardware crash on the console. The error code it gave me pointed to a hardware failure, but a google revealed that it was a generic error code that could mean literally anything. Right around this time, the video corruption in my Fortnite recordings came back around. I had a feeling it was the HDD.

Thus began the saga of trying to replace my PS4's HDD. I knew it could take SSDs, so I did some research, saved up $100, and bought a 2TB SSD that was compatible with the console. Followed Sony's official instructions on replacing the HDD, and...

It didn't work.

I vowed to get my money back and order a different HDD, but prices went up and realizing the other mounting problems with this machine (including the fried USB port), and my general mood overall, I just kept the money and figured I'd ride or die until the machine breathed its last.

8 months later... it refused to boot up at all.

Rest in piece, king. The only other console I've ever had straight up die on me like this was my Xbox 360, and if I'm being honest, I kind of smothered that poor boy a little bit hoping to get a sturdier console back from the repair center.

(I did not, but that's a story for another day.)

[nightttdreamers]

Night Shift | Craig x Kenny

AAA chapter two is heeeere its mostly silly fun before we actually start the fake dating part hehe pls enjoy (and check it out on ao3 for better formatting pls)

AO3 Link | 4k words | Chapter 2/?

Craig and Kenny strike a deal.

Craig has never been a morning person, but recently, it feels like every force in the world is trying to keep him in bed.

There’s the brief, near blissful moment when he’s just woken up. He can barely hear his alarm, the sleep not quite shaken off yet, unaware of what the day brings. Then, inevitably, his first thought washes over him; Tweek dumped you.

Just knowing that this is going to weigh on him all day is exhausting to think about. He doesn’t waste time wondering what he did wrong or how to best avoid the other anymore. The exhaustion comes from knowing that Tweek’s absence is just something he has to deal with now, every damn day.

Before, the habit of trying to beat his boyfriend to the first ‘good morning’ text motivated him to get up. But lately, he always spends a few minutes letting his alarm ring out, trying to delay his day for as long as possible. But, then his phone begins to buzz to life, and he knows he can’t ignore the real world any more.

On this particular morning, the urge to pull the covers over his head is particularly strong. Not only did he work late last night, but the fact that he looked like an idiot in front of Kenny is also hanging over his head. Craig groans, recalling their bizarre interaction.

“You wanna be my boyfriend?” He had asked.

Kenny looked bewildered, a mixture of surprise and concern on his face. But, before Craig could even go back on his question, Kenny replied, “Like, for money?”

Unable to bear the look on the other’s face, Craig turned away, pulling out a pack of Kenny’s usual cigarettes. “No, that would be stupid,” he stammered out. “I’m being stupid, fuck. Here, I can-” He took the magazine that Kenny had been holding and scanned it along with the Camels. Finally, he looked back up at the blonde. “Anything else?”

Kenny’s brows knit together as he looked at Craig. His lips were pursed together, shifting around his face like he was trying to talk without opening his mouth. “No,” he said after some pause, drawing out the word. “That’s it.” Kenny slid a few bills across the counter, not looking away from Craig as he took his items.

Craig thought that if tried to speak again, he would say something even worse than what he already had, so he simply nodded.

Kenny headed towards the door, shooting Craig an awkward glance back just before he left. “Take care of yourself, man.”

Craig rolled over onto his stomach, pressing his face deep into the pillow in an effort to stop his brain from playing the memory over and over again. When that didn’t work, he turned his head to the side, grabbing his phone from the nightstand and finally turning off his alarm.

He squints as the screen lights up, serving as the only light source in his room. There are two notifications from Clyde, one sent around 2AM linking a YouTube video called “BAD DAY Better Watch This 😂 1 Hour Best Funny & Fails” and another sent 20 minutes ago, asking “Tolkien had to make up a test please pLEASE can u drive me today PLEASE?????”

Craig gives the message a thumbs down and ignores the typing bubble that immediately appears (he’ll end up driving Clyde, of course, he just wants to fuck with him first). His next notification is a Snapchat message from “kmck69,” a username he doesn’t recognize until he opens the message.

kmck69: were u being serious b4

kmck69: it is a rlly stupid idea 

kmck69: but also im down if ur down

Craig reads the messages, then reads them again just to make sure he’s not hallucinating. As an added measure, he checks the user’s last story and, sure enough, it’s a selfie of Kenny holding a beer, Cartman lurking in the background, with the caption “5 screenshots and i piss in cartmans drink.”

Once Kenny had left last night, Craig had spent the last hour of his shift overthinking every detail of their interaction. He didn’t even know where his bizarre idea had come from, it had just slipped from his mouth before it was fully-formed. Hearing that Tweek was out hanging around with some goth kid infuriated him beyond words or logic. The only coherent thought Craig could form about it was that something had to change. He didn’t want to keep rotting in his bed, head swimming with thoughts about his ex. He just wanted to do something.

Asking Kenny to pretend to be his boyfriend was just the first idea that came to mind.

He hadn’t expected the other to even justify him with a response beyond their uncomfortable conversation. But, apparently, Kenny was mulling it over until nearly 4 in the morning when he texted, which is far more thought than Craig put into it.

It’s a stupid idea. He knows it is, they both know it is. But, it’s something.

spacemancraig: Yeah I’m down

He stares at his screen for a moment, quickly feeling the prickle of anxiety in his chest. It’s useless to sit and wait for a response, so he puts his phone down and pulls himself out of bed. The second he actually rises from his mattress, his phone buzzes to life, and Craig almost drops the device in how quickly he grabs it.

(Clyde) Literally I’m already ready I won’t hold you up I’ll even buy you starbucks or whatever gay shit you like

(Clyde) PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

(Clyde) I’m sorry for calling you gay and starbucks gay bro PLEASE don’t make me walk

He sighs, typing out a quick response before he puts the phone down for real.

(Craig) Fine

—-----

Kenny stumbles into Chemistry three minutes after the bell, handing their teacher a crumbled-up excuse note before shuffling to his seat. It’s not uncommon for him to be late, and normally Craig would pay it no mind. However, normally he’s not anxiously waiting for a Snapchat from the other. 

Craig can’t take his eyes off him, his notes trailing off as he drowns out the voice of their teacher. He’s not sure whether Kenny’s changed his mind and is brushing him off, or genuinely just oblivious of the holes Craig is staring into the back of his head. The blonde just rummages through his bag and pulls out a few sheets of paper, not even sparing Craig a glance back. 

Somehow, in every class he finds himself staring at the back of a blonde’s head. He wonders if he might be the problem.

At first, Kenny just chews on his eraser and passes notes to Kyle sitting beside him. But, after a few minutes of this, he turns and locks eyes with Craig. Before Craig can even try to communicate something quietly across the row separating them, Kenny turns away again, and Craig wants to throw his textbook at the other’s head. Before he can, though, he feels his phone buzz to life in his pocket.

kmck69: we have 2 talk abt it obv

kmck69: do u have work 2nite

Craig rolls his eyes as he reads the messages, unsure as to why Kenny needs to use the least amount of characters possible when he texts.

spacemancraig: No

kmck69: cool well i do

kmck69: im at the bijou from 4 to 12

kmck69: if u want free popcorn tho u can come after 10

kmck69: thats when concession closes so its kinda old but tbh still good

spacemancraig: Yeah I think I’ll pass on the stale popcorn

spacemancraig: But I’ll come by

kmck69: ur loss

kmck69: word tho

kmck69: also cute username lmao

Craig’s face scrunches up as he reads the text, glancing up to look at Kenny. The blonde looks back at him, flashing a smile, and Craig just flips him off in response.

kmck69: ooh rawr ur so scary and mean

kmck69: can u leave me alone im trying 2 learn >:(

He wants to retort that Kenny was the one who started it, but typing that feels incredibly childish. Instead, Craig rolls his eyes and tucks his phone away, looking back up at the lesson.

—------

There are a lot of points today when Craig’s wondered when his life took a wrong turn. Losing sleep over a conversation with someone he has never really given a shit about, feeling like shit the entire morning waiting on a message from the aforementioned someone, and now, he’s at South Park’s lamest and only movie theater at 10PM on a Thursday. 

Maybe it wasn’t just a wrong turn, maybe it’s an eighteen-year downward spiral and he’s just getting closer to rock bottom.

The Bijou is, of course, dead. Craig only goes when they randomly decide to screen something from the Criterion Collection. He and his friends used to hang around the place more often, but then Tolkien got a home theater and every movie started being available to stream, and they didn’t have to secretly spike their slushies in the Black household. Now, the only people that frequent The Bijou are the elderly and his 15 year old sister, for some reason.

He decided to wait until 10PM to go. Not because Kenny made the stale popcorn sound appetizing, but he figured the later he went, the less likely he was to run into someone he knew. He parks his car a few blocks down the street and walks to the theater, hands tucked in the pocket of his hoodie. The marquee has been defaced, as per usual, and just reads “PENIS” followed by the scrambled extra letters from whatever movie title it once said. How original.

The ticket booth is empty, and when he steps inside, the theater is just as deserted as he expected it to be. Craig isn’t exactly sure of his next move as he lingers by the entrance, looking around. Just walking into the theater without a ticket to look for Kenny feels wrong, but so does just standing around awkwardly. Before he can choose, though, someone speaks behind him.

“I’m sorry, sir. We’re not selling any more tickets to our last screening- Oh, Craig?” Chirps a voice from the concession stand. Craig turns, coming face-to-face with Butters. The other boy smiles at him, far too brightly considering the two of them are not friends. The most they’ve interacted in all of high school is the rare occasion that Craig visits the Bijou, in which he affords Butters a small head nod as a greeting if they meet eyes. 

“Hey, Butters,” Craig says. “Is Kenny around?”

Almost comically, Butters cocks his head to the side. “Kenny? I didn’t know you two were friends!”

An abrupt silence comes between them, and Craig just waits for Butters to tell him where his coworker is. However, the blue-eyed boy just looks at him with a quizzical expression on his face, and Craig realizes he’s waiting for a confirmation.

“Uh, sure,” Craig mumbles after a moment. “Friends. Friendly, I guess. So, where is he?”

Butters beams at his answer, starting to wipe the countertop he’s standing behind down as he responds. “That’s so nice. He needs friends who won’t get him into trouble, you know? And he was just talking about you the other day.”

“He was?” Craig asks, but before Butters can elaborate, the two are interrupted.

“Craig!” Shouts Kenny from across the theater. Clad in a button-down, black skinny jeans, a red vest and matching bow-tie, he looks starkly different than he did this morning. The almost formal outfit doesn’t look quite right on him, and Craig realizes he’s never seen Kenny in something that wasn’t two sizes too large. When the blonde arrives at the concession stand, he’s grinning, looking at Craig so excitedly that the dark-haired boy has to turn his face away.

“It’s me, don’t cream your jeans,” Craig says, earning a little snicker from Butters. 

“I’ll sure as hell try,” Kenny replies, not sounding nearly as sarcastic as Craig. “I was starting to think you were bailing. It’s late, man.” As he speaks, he lifts himself onto the concession counter and sits, dangling his legs.

Butters frowns, putting his hands on his hips (Craig didn’t know that people did that in real life, but it suits Butters’ cartoonish mannerisms). “Aw, Kenny. I was just wiping that down.”

Kenny rolls his eyes, swinging his legs around to the other side of the counter and hopping off. “Happy?” He asks his coworker, who lets out a little puff of air in response and returns to his cleaning. Kenny shoots Craig a funny look, and Craig feels like he’s missing something. “As you can see, Butters and I take a lot of pride in this establishment.”

“That sounds awfully insincere, Kenny,” Butters grumbles, mostly to himself. “I do take pride in this establishment.”

It’s pretty weird to watch Kenny and Butters interact like this. They’re both oddballs in their social circles, especially Butters, and he can’t help but feel a bit out-of-place talking to them, especially outside of school. Craig absent-mindedly slides his phone from his pocket, checking the screen, just out of habit.

“Got somewhere to be?” Kenny asks, and when Craig looks up, the other is staring right at him, of course. He’s holding one of the soft drink cups, filled to the brim with popcorn.

Craig tucks his phone away. “You were serious about the stale popcorn?”

“It’s just gonna get thrown out,” Kenny says, popping a few kernels in his mouth. “Did you want some?”

Craig narrows his eyes in suspicion, responding with an unsure hum. One time, in the 5th grade, he saw Kenny pick up an earthworm from the sidewalk and swallow it whole. He did it, of course, for five bucks from Clyde, but Craig still doesn’t trust his taste.

Kenny rolls his eyes, opening up the machine to fill another cup. “Don’t be a princess. It’s still good. Right, Butters?” Kenny asks as he slides past his coworker, crossing to Craig’s side of the counter. 

“Oh, I don’t like to eat the popcorn much,” Butters replies, attending to the machine once Kenny’s done with it. “I gotta smell it all day, then clean the machine, scrape all the burnt pieces. I used to think movie theater popcorn was one of the yummiest smells, but now it doesn’t really get my tummy rumbling.”

Talking to Butters is weird, Craig thinks. He’s not sure if he’s ever heard anyone else use the phrase ‘tummy rumbling’ in his life. He glances at Kenny, who seems entirely unphased by the other’s weird expressions. 

“Yeah, okay,” Kenny says with a small shrug. He hands one of the popcorn cups to Craig, who takes it reluctantly. “I don’t know why I asked him.��

“Not that this isn’t thrilling,” Craig says, turning fully to Kenny. Butters is pretty engaged with his cleaning, but Craig doesn’t need him hearing any part of this conversation, so he speaks low. “Can we talk now?”

Kenny lets out an amused puff of air. “Butters, I’m gonna go do theater checks” he says, not taking his eyes away from Craig. “Craig’s coming with me.”

“You better not just be sneakin’ him into the movie for free, Kenny,” Butters grumbles, but his coworker is already walking away, waving a hand dismissively. Craig spares Butters an awkward glance before following behind Kenny.

“You do that often?” Craig asks.

“What? Sneak people in?” Kenny replies. He shoots a look back at Butters, making sure he isn’t listening before he continues. “Not all the time. I’m not really into losing this job.”

Right, Craig thinks, Kenny actually needs this job. The thought makes him a bit uncomfortable, that Kenny has to put in the hours at a shitty movie theater to pay for things he actually needs. Meanwhile, Craig works so he can get out of the house and have some spending money.

Kenny glances behind them, then slides a vape out of his pocket and hits it. He turns his head to the side, courteous enough not to blow smoke right at Craig, though not enough to pick a less obnoxious flavor.

“Sorry,” Kenny says, noticing how Craig wrinkles his nose at the scent. “Butters doesn’t like it either, probably because it’d get us in trouble.”

“So you don’t care enough about this job to not vape?” Craig asks.

This time, Kenny blows the cloud right in his face. “Be nice to me, Tucker. I let your sister sneak in here all the time.”

Craig pauses, taking a second to process what Kenny just said. “You what?”

Kenny stops too, poking his head into the closest screening room as he speaks. “Yeah, she comes by a lot. Here, this one’s empty,” he steps into the theater, holding the door open so Craig can follow. It’s a bit odd-looking inside. It’s not often he sees empty theaters with the lights on, especially not clean ones. Kenny takes a seat in a nearby row, throwing his legs over the chairs as he munches on his popcorn. “Don’t worry, no one’s gonna hear us. I cleaned this one an hour ago, and I’ve only had to kick out people who stayed after a movie like, three times, so we’re good.”

Craig takes a seat a few spots away from Kenny, giving the other room to sprawl out. “Why did they stay?”

“Sometimes they just fall asleep. One time there was a couple fucking, though. That was pretty sweet. In that row over there,” Kenny points behind him, a smirk on his face.

Craig blinks and wonders what ever happened to the Kenny he went to elementary school with, the one who rarely spoke except for the occasional dirty joke. Focus, Craig.

“Uh, so about last night,” Craig begins, straightening up a bit in his seat. Kenny mirrors him, showing that he’s listening. “I was just talking without thinking. It is a really fucking dumb idea.”

“But you showed up to talk about it,” Kenny notes.

Craig sighs. “Yeah, I did. Because I’m really fucking dumb. And I’m sick of the sympathy from my dumb friends. And you said you’d be down.” Kenny just looks at him, and Craig finds himself talking just to avoid the awkward silence. “If you’re not anymore though, that’s fine. There’s no pressure or anything.”

“I’m still down,” Kenny says with a small nod. “As long as I’m paid for my time. God, I sound like a hooker.”

“You’re not a hooker,” Craig adds a bit too quickly. “We don’t need to actually do anything, I don’t think.”

“So what do I have to do?”

Craig doesn’t answer for a moment. Apparently, this tells Kenny all he needs to know.

“Oh, so you really didn’t think this through, huh?” Kenny makes an odd clicking sound with his tongue, shaking his head. Craig thinks he’s trying to be funny, but it’s not helping how embarrassing the conversation feels. “Okay, Craig. If you want Tweak to take you back, what do you think would really get him all pissed off and hot and jealous?”

“Hang on-” Craig sits up a bit, raising a hand as Kenny speaks. “I’m not trying to get him back.”

“You’re not?”

Craig opened his mouth, but words couldn’t quite seem to come out. Was he trying to get Tweek back? There were plenty of couples in South Park that broke up only to come back together. In fact, he’d stop getting hopeful when Bebe and Clyde would split, as it was inevitable they’d be sucking face again within a week. But, he’d never thought about that possibility for him and Tweek. They didn’t break up because of a fight or mistake or something stupid. Honestly, Craig still couldn’t quite pin why they had broken up. All he knew is that Tweek didn’t want to be with him anymore. The thought of trying to get his ex to change his mind and take him back hadn’t even occurred to him, and right now, it just sounded pathetic.

“Jeez, I didn’t know that would be such a tough question,” Kenny muses, bringing Craig out of his thoughts. “It’s fine if you want him back, man. I don’t judge.”

“I don’t” Craig says, maybe a bit too assertively as it makes Kenny lean a bit further away from him. “He doesn’t want to be together, whatever. I’m not gonna try to trick him into getting back with me. I just want people to know I’m cool about it.”

Kenny makes a little high-pitched hum, his face scrunching up. He takes another hit of his vape, looking thoughtful as he does so (as thoughtful as someone hitting a neon green cylinder can). “Okay,” he says, blowing out smoke. “We’ll make everyone think we fucked.”

“What the fuck- Kenny,” Craig stammers out, shaking his head as he speaks. “How would we even, who would fall for that? What’s that even gonna do?”

Kenny leans forward again, resting his arms on the arm of the chair and once again being too close to Craig’s personal space. “No, Craig, listen. This is one of my better ideas. If you immediately start dating some dude, everyone’s gonna think it’s a rebound and people know I’m not really the dating type. It’ll be weird, someone’s gonna see through it because I’m not not gonna hook up with someone else. But- if people think we just fucked, they’ll be like, ‘Wow Craig moved on and he doesn’t give a fuck and he’s so cool,’ which is your goal, right?”

Craig stares at Kenny, wide eyed, and Kenny stares right back. It’s impossible to focus on what the blonde is saying with that eager look in his eyes, like some kind of dog waiting for a treat. However, when Craig actually does start to process the idea, he realizes Kenny’s making some good points. Kenny raises his brows, still waiting for a reply. Craig lets out a sigh, looking up at the theater ceiling. “Fuck. That’s- Yeah, that’s a good plan.”

“I know!” Kenny starts drumming his fingers along the side of the seat, and Craig can tell he’s beaming without even looking at him. “I want sixty-five.”

Now, Craig looks back down at Kenny, who is making a face like that wasn’t a ridiculous thing to say. “Bucks? You want sixty-five dollars?”

“Cash,” Kenny adds. The two just stare at each other for a moment because every time Craig looks at Kenny, apparently Kenny’s already looking at him. 

“I’ll give you forty,” Craig offers, hoping his tone sounds firm enough to stop any further negotiation.”

“Deal,” Kenny finally leans back in his seat and Craig feels like he can actually breathe again. If they’re gonna do this, he needs to talk with Kenny about personal space. And maybe that god awful vape flavor too. Shit, they’re actually doing it. 

Craig nods before his brain fully catches up, like he’s convincing himself this is real life. “Okay, yeah. Deal. Wow.”

Kenny glances over at him. “You good? You can’t back out now. We said deal.”

Craig is still nodding, rubbing his palms on his thighs. “We’re good. I just didn’t really think you’d say yes. I don’t, uh, have much of a plan.”

Kenny puts his hand on Craig’s shoulder, giving it a little squeeze. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it, dude. ‘Cause I already have a plan.”

“My head’s not-” he starts, then lets out a breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What’s the plan?”

Kenny stands, looking back down at Craig with a grin. “If there’s one thing I know, it’s how to get people talking about my sex life. And lucky for you, I have just the party to get this rumor started.” Kenny rubs his hand on a chair, then sticks it out for Craig. “You trust me, dude?”

Looking up at the blonde, the sheer dumb confidence on his face, his stupid uniform bowtie, there’s no way Craig should feel at ease. But, he has forty bucks and his reputation on the line, and Kenny might just be the best shot he has at escaping his current hellhole situation. Craig stands, gripping Kenny’s hand.

“Fuck it,” he says. “I trust you, let’s do this.”

[saraph-smidgens]

Prologue - Away With The Fairies

I've always been pretty good at recounting my thoughts and experiences and putting them into my writing, so I'll recount this as best as I can in the most story-like way that I can.

October 31st, 2024. Just yesterday, right? The day I first posted on this blog, which occured right after the “experience” that's probably going to have “quite an impact on my everyday life”.

I'd ordered Domino's© to eat, my usual: Texas BBQ and chicken strippers. BBQ and garlic and herb dips. Standard. Two YouTube series that I love had been updated and I had happily consumed the new content along with the meal.

Despite the hot electric blanket and chocolate drink in my skull-shaped mug, I felt… incredibly bored. I watched Coraline for the 1000th time, which I obviously loved, but it didn't lift the heavy feeling in my chest. Neither did putting on super loud music and coming up with music videos in my head for my blorbos. All that did was give me a headache.

Yet again, for probably the 10th year in a row, I'd done nothing for Halloween. I still remember one day, in my old house, where I went trick-or-treating. I don't remember my costume, only going out with my mom across the street and one of my neighbours happily complimenting it.

I know I've long overgrown that spooky ritual, but still, why couldn't I have at least worn a costume to post on Instagram or something?

I just want my life to be more interesting.

Right when I finished that thought, I felt some… change in me. The heaviness in my chest itched and swirled and tightened, and a flurry of half-baked ideas grasped my brain for a moment before leaving as quickly as they arrived. It was similar to the tightness I feel in my chest sometimes when reading an especially angsty fanfiction.

I shook my head and tucked a few strands of sweaty curls behind my ear. It probably meant nothing, just my mind’s way of stimming from the new fandom content I had been handed on a silver platter just a couple of hours ago.

I would've thought nothing else of it if there wasn't a stranger sitting at the foot of my bed.

Before I could comprehend anything else about the image in front of me, I instinctually went to scream bloody murder.

But my throat tightened.

“Hey… Hey!” soft words fell out of the figure’s mouth, “keep quiet, okay?”

My whole body was shaking, and I tried to discreetly turn my head to look towards my desk, where my usual pair of scissors sat. I quickly discarded that idea. At that moment I was tucked underneath my duvet and aforementioned electric blanket, and the figure was in a kneeling position, back straight and looking down at me. They were in a much better position to leap up and grab the sharp item.

Instead I tried to control my sharp breathing and fully comprehend what I was looking at.

A trick-or-treater who didn't share my opinion on when you had outgrown the tradition, I guessed.

Their light purple minidress practically glowed from the glitter on it reflecting the light from the TV, which was currently playing another series that I was mildly obsessed with.

Their hair was an organised mess of voluminous curls, some let loose and others tied with a pink bow to create a half-up half-down style.

Their giant purple butterfly wings where could you get ones that looked so realistic?! almost fluttered a little every time they rocked on their knees, and I could catch a glimpse of a pair of purple heels with little fake butterflies attached to the straps that encircled their ankles.

“Um,” I choked out, every muscle in my legs and arms locking up from adrenaline, “nice costume and all, but trick doesn't equate to home invasion.”

They stared at me for a few seconds before sighing softly and rolling their eyes, “God, I know you're dumb and all, and that you Combos get blinded by fear, but this is kind of a hard thing to miss unless you have literally never looked in the mirror, which I know is not true.”

I stared back for a long minute, my mind just as frozen in my body, before it clicked.

That's. My. Fucking. Face.

My mind came back and immediately rushed around for an explanation. Several came forward.

“No,” the clone(?) interrupted, “you're not dreaming.”

Well, maybe-

“There were no drugs in the Domino's©. Probably.”

Hmm, well-

“I didn't make a silicone mask of your face-”

What if-

“Enough!” They yelled and my thoughts escaped me for a moment.

“First of all,” they sighed, “I can hear your internal dialogue, use she/her please. I know you say on your profiles to use any pronouns but I'm kind of the reason you mildly prefer this set,” they- she then gestured towards her extremely feminine outfit.

But cl-

“I know that clothes don't equal gender, you know what I'm trying to say though.”

“Sorr- wait, wait, wait. Explain literally everything else you've said the past minute. You can hear my thoughts? What do you mean you're why I tend towards she-”

“Oh my God,” her wings stretched out enough to touch the walls, “how has it not clicked yet?! Am I not good enough at my job?!”

I glanced towards my TV again, peeking over her right wing, and let my eyes linger on what was playing. An episode from a YouTube show that I fell in love with in 2018, and left the fandom in 2021, before returning to just a few months ago-

“Do you get it now?”

Everything settled into place.

“You… You're a si-”

“We prefer the term smidgen, actually.”

“...why?”

“Well, y'know how a while ago you were writing a fanfic for that show and wanted some synonyms to use for that word? That was one of the ones you didn't pay attention to when googling it, but I kept it.”

“That doesn't explain why.”

She shrugged, “I don't know, it's just cute.”

I laid back, my head involuntarily shaking gently with my mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping for air after being caught and tossed into the bottom of a boat.

“What are you then? Give me a whole exposition dump, I can take it.”

“I-” she smiled and stretched her arms out to feel the giant butterfly wings, “am your Creativity.”

“Oh,” I hummed, “like Ro-”

“This is nothing like that show, alright?! Sure, our manifestations as people are partially inspired by it but that also comes from, like, Inside Out, and that one CGI short film about two parts of a guy's brain trying to woo a lady! Sever the connection now, I'm begging you!”

The outburst had me pressing my back to my headboard, looking at a copy of my own face with eyes that I then realised were not protected by a pair of glasses and were pointedly not dark brown. And with no pupils. Quite a wacky pair of contacts, I guess.

Then, I quickly sat up, “I- listen, this whole little act has been real cute but you need to leave my hou-”

“Saraph!” She yelled, and continued before I could comment, “don't ask what I know you will, the reason I know your nick-and-name is simple and it's because I. Am. You! Well, a very strong part of you. The bit of you that fell in love with Alexa from Barbie And The Diamond Castle and wants her to be a cottagecore lesbian couple with Liana-”

Something in me snapped, and my breathing picked up again, though the type of fear I was experiencing as I curled up into a ball in my bed was different from the one I felt when I realised I wasn't alone in my bedroom.

“And then Mariposa and Princess Catiana were also- wh- hey, wait, c’mon, it's-”

The other me’s voice became distant as tears welled up in my eyes.

“I've fucking lost it,” I whispered, “I knew the paranoia and floating colours meant there was something up but I decided it was nothing so I said nothing and now I've gone off the deep end, I'm literally talking to myself but I was a fairy princess and-”

“It's okay,” the voice came back, the speaker's wings having relaxed at her sides, “you're not crazy or insane or anything like that, I know for a fact you aren't. You're imaginative at worst- honestly I kinda wish you were mad because that would make writing surrealism much easier- listen, I know that this is very new for you but, well, you kind of asked for it.”

“H-how?” I breathed out.

“Well, about 5 minutes ago you thought to yourself, quote-unquote ‘I just want my life to be more interesting’.”

I groaned and uncurled my body, pressing my hands to my face, “God, I did, didn't I?” I then let my arms fall and sat up again, “but I didn't know this would happen!”

“So?” Creativity smiled, “you're always wanting change. And you're good at adapting to it. This could be a good opportunity for learning new things about ourselves… And for drawing and writing. Like with everything you do.”

I stopped and looked at her, “you just asked me to not make referenc-”

“I meant what I said!” she snapped, but it was gentler than before, “but I just had to get that line in.”

“Alright,” I nodded, “okay, alright, cool.”

For the first moment in the last few, long moments, it was quiet. I realised then that, with this revelation, I might not have as many opportunities for silence as before. Even though I've craved a lack of unnecessary noise for years.

At that moment, I couldn't help but look at the large, thin, pink-purple appendages which stuck out of Creativity's back.

“I like the wings,” I mumbled.

Creativity grinned and stretched them out again, “aw, thanks. They really drive the point home, huh?”

I nodded, “I was going to ask if they were real but I doubt you could have that much control over some pieces of fabric.”

“There probably is someone out there who has created mechanical cosplay wings that you can move,” the smidgen mused, “but you're right. They're real. Well, as real as the rest of me.”

My right pointer finger and thumb came up to rub at my eyes, “so, what happens now?”

“You're sleepy,” Creativity stated, “and on top of that, the clock is about to strike midnight, so I must be gone now if you are to slumber.”

“Why are you talking like that?” I yawned, “I don't like Disney that much.”

“It's the first thing you thought of, isn't it?”

“I guess…” another yawn made a crackly sound fill my ears.

Creativity finally got up from her kneeling position, instead standing on the carpeted floor. The heels made her tower over me from where I shifted to lay down more.

Her voice softened, “your art and writing's going to get so much better from this, let me tell you.”

Before I could respond, she had sunk out.

The room somehow felt emptier than it did before she arrived, but that was soon mended by one of my cats jumping up onto the bed and curling up in the place Creativity had sat just a moment ago.

My eyes grew heavy and my thoughts began to slow down in the way they always did as my brain tried to convince me to sleep.

A human-like being representing all my creative ideas, who I can talk to face-to-face and go over my reverie with…

Maybe that could be better.

Yeah, fucking weird right? Who would've thought the embodiment of my Creativity would take inspiration from my childhood love of Mattel, Inc.'s Barbie movies? And why those ones and not the Rapunzel one? A recluse, introverted painter seems more fitting to my personality than Mariposa. Oh well, I'm writing this right after I woke up on the morning of November 1st, meaning that the spooky month is officially over unless you're those two kids.

Reiterating what I said at the start, I'm pretty good at writing out shit that's happened to me in the form of a story, huh? There may have been a few pieces of dialogue that I missed out but I just woke up, alright? And I was in a state of panic for most of it. Forgive me for my imperfect memory.

I hope this was at least mildly enjoyable for you, and if so, I'll post any more strange happenings with these “smidgens.” as long as this gets more than a handful of notes on Tumblr.

Have a good start to the month with the American colonisation holiday!

[ladadee195]

Ladadee meets Legends of Avantris at Too Many Games 2024 (LONG POST read at your discretion)

I'm not one to write up a trip report cause I'm firmly in the "no one gives a shit." camp but for this I feel like people will get a kick out of my anxious distress over the past two days and I know those that couldn't make it would also appreciate it.

I knew a few months ago that when LOA said they were gonna be at TMG that I could go, its only an hour away from me. I'd gone to TMG back in 2019 to meet Brandon Rogers of Youtube and Helluva Boss fame and even then I didn't get HALF as nervous as I did the past two days. I was a shaking hyperventilating mess. Embarrassing, truly.

Friday was worse then Saturday.

First off, we'd barely parked in the parking lot when we see Andy casually strolling across the parking lot and get into his very nice red mustang, nice to see where the car vlogs happen!

By the time we got to the booth I could barely breath but I wanted to grab my free pin and say hi first. I want to disclaimer this by stating that I realize LOA tries really hard to make it perfectly clear that the Party and fam are regular people that work hard to produce their content and be successful at what they do without being celebrities or influencers. Logically, I know this and I respect the hell out of it. However my hyperfixated brain and general anxiety made it incredibly hard for me to remain CALM. Its really hard to remain calm when you've been watching them by yourself alone in your room hours upon hours and then suddenly there they are in real life before you, talking to YOU! How am I meant to be remain calm?

Anyway, I met Andy and Nikkie. Talked briefly with Andy and just generally embarrassed myself but he's so cool ya know and is probably used to it all things considered. I asked them both to sign my Cake Chad shirt, both we're happy to do so and I got a great hug from Nikkie. After that I cut my losses and decided to move on. Their meet and greet wasn't for a few hours and we were hungry. When the meet and greet came, I jumped in line to get a picture. It went really quick and I got no chance to really talk to them but they were super awesome and I love the picture! I knew they were TALL but god I felt like a hobbit.

The live show wasn't until 7:30 so we left the con to check into our hotel and relax for a few hours. It was a nice break and I finally got to breath. We returned to the con and got seats for the live show.

if you haven't already seen other's overviews or the whole video I wont spoil anything but it was SO good. I was so curious about what they could possibly do for a one shot but holy shit was that amazing. Its always interesting and fun to attend live shows with cheering and laughter and suggestive whistles. Gives one a sense of community you only ever get a taste of on here or discord.

Afterwards we went back to our hotel and rewatched the whole show on the live stream LOL

Saturday I was much calmer because I had a goal. Get the whole parties signatures and not be embarrassing.

We did a lot of waiting cause the con opened at 11 and again their meet and greet was at 3 but we managed to pass the time well enough and then we got back in line. An readers when I tell you how amazing it went!?? I was very proud of myself even though I was still nervous and shaky I did much better.

They all were super cool and signed my Hootise shirt. I still geek out thinking about it! But the best thing happened. Richie saw my Gideon/Kremy candy bead bracelet I'd made myself and legit forgot I'd worn for this exact reason. This is how that went. Richie: is that a Kremy and Gideon candy bracelet?

Me: YES!I forgot I had that on!

Richie: thats the best I gotta get a picture and show Mace.

I was DYING omfg. The two behind the ship SAW my ship bracelet??? still freaking out. I decided that I should have made ones for them. I convinced myself they wouldn't like them, I know better now for next time.

After they'd all signed my shirt I gave them my thanks and MAYBE acted a little embarrassing when I told them name and that I was already in the discord but as I said earlier they're so cool and awesome I doubt they noticed me being like that.

i felt like even though it was short I had a really good moment with them which is all I really wanted.

I regret a lot of things. Like the fact that I had plans on making them gifts but ran out of time due to me being sick like right up until Friday and being so nervous and scared and I acted only a little crazy. I know next time (PAXUnpluged in Dec?) I'll be much better prepared.

I hope those that cared to read this very long post enjoyed my little overview. Just remember even though you may be scared and nervous to do something, you still should cause you never know how great it might be at the end.

[suzdotranslation]

[Interview TL] 4Gamer's Weekly VTuber Files #15 - Arurandeisu

source

Name: Arurandeisu Company: Holostars (1st generation) Streaming platform: YouTube SNS: X (Twitter) Hashtags: Live #アランストリーム / Fanart #アランの画廊 / Clips #切り抜きナンディス Character/Model designer: lack Debut Date: September 8th, 2019 Birthday Date: November 11th Height: 184cm Introduction: He is a detective, phantom thief, teacher, samurai, sniper, and demon hunter. A mysterious Italian who has traveled wide and far through different worlds. He currently devotes his days to this world after being entrusted with the dream of becoming an idol. While he claims to be the man of brains, he often relies on his brawn in the end. He likes pizza, meat, and cola.

10 QUESTIONS FOR VTUBERS

Q01. Tell us your main (streaming) content! Game and planned project streams, I also do DJ stream sessions playing Holopro songs, and I pretty much dabble in various genres!

Q02. What was the cue that kickstarted your streaming activity? Because I'd like to experience lots of things, I only got one life after all!

Q03. Please recommend us your “newcomer’s friendly” videos or stream archive! First, the quadratic equation-solving stream with Hiodoshi Ao-kun! To be honest I actually own a teaching license in science course, so I was able to make something like this. Of course, there's Ao-kun effort to solve the problems, and it shows in her remarkable growth in this stream alone! Link to the stream

Secondly, Since I have a pretty sturdy physics and all, I tried doing an experiment on myself. Now that I recall, each of these "world-level" tastes is pretty strong on its own. Once I had mixed it all in, turned out there was one flavor that stood out… Which you can check on the stream itself! Link to the stream

The third is a quick and entertaining one! I'd like to do something like this again but with more people. Link to the stream

Q04. Tell us things that you like or something you’re good at! I'm good at playing Rubik's Cube! I can solve one in under 40 seconds. And I like to stream, do muscle training, and DJ-ing!

Q05. Tell us a hobby or content that has piqued your interest lately! I've been really into fighting games recently!! In my day off I'd like to practice in the training mode quite religiously too. I also like reading manga and I have a wide preference in terms of genre. Among the ones I started reading recentlyー Chi. (Orb), Sousou no Frieren and Yofukashi no Uta are among the ones I really like!

Q06. Is there any VTuber around that has caught your attention? Let us know! Hanasaki Miyabi. The pioneer of our group, quite an interesting guy.

Q07. What are other things you’re paying attention to other than VTubers? Eiko Kano-san. I really like watching streams that could make me laugh a lot.

Q08. Is there a recent thing that left a deep impression on you, and is there anything else you’d like to try out? Since I like to do a lot of muscle training, I'd like to be involved in work with a protein supplement brand!!!!

Q09. What sort of content you’d like to challenge yourself for now? I'd like to come up with stream ideas, like holding game tournaments and such. It would be nice if I could make a fun project that gets people excited and happy!

Q10. Tell us your message to the readers! Thank you for reading this article until the end!! If you're interested feel free to check out my channel! It would be nice if you could watch my stream and comment on it tooー!!

[autisticwriterblog]

T, Tim Breaker for the mini fic prompts

-Koskela Knights

T - an obscure AU

I decided to use one of my favourite video games as the AU. It's called 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and I love it a lot. It's full of escape room puzzles and a mindfuck of a story line (but in a good way). Hopefully, this makes sense if you're unfamiliar with 999, but if not, it might help to watch the opening few minutes of the game on youtube, because that's what this fic is based on. Anyway, sorry for rambling. That's the AU I chose. 😂

Title: Trapped

Summary: Tim wakes up in an unfamiliar room with a strange bracelet strapped to his wrist.

Word Count: 608

Warnings: Mentions of kidnapping and drugging

Fic is under the cut. Or read on ao3 here!

Tim wakes up with a horrible headache—a sensation that only gets worse when he tries to sit up and smacks his forehead against solid metal. He cries out, forcing his aching eyes open, and finds himself staring at the underside of a metal bed frame. Is he on the bottom level of a bunk bed? What the actual fuck?

Carefully, Tim turns his throbbing head, staring around his unfamiliar surroundings. It looks like the interior of a cabin, the sort from an old ship like the Titanic. Seriously, what the fuck is going on? And how did he get here?

Everything feels fuzzy, but Tim tries to piece together his memories. Where was he before this? What happened to him? It’s hard to think when his head hurts so badly, but he focuses on his shifting thoughts like his life depends on it. Which may very well be the case.

Eventually, a memory comes to him. Tim remembers arriving home from the sheriff’s station after a long day, but finding the window open in his living room. However, he was certain that he left it locked. Tim would hesitate to call himself paranoid, but with all the strange dreams he has, he often worries about someone coming to get him—hence always double checking his doors and windows are locked. So, if he didn’t leave it open, what was going on? Tim approached the window to close it… and saw the reflection of a figure behind him—wearing all black and a gas mask over their face.

Something metal hit the floor with a thunk, followed by a hissing sound as white gas began to cloud the air… and before Tim could work out what to do, he accidentally breathed some of the gas and everything started to fade. And, with the stranger still in his home, he passed out.

So… someone was in his house. And they fucking drugged him. They must have brought him here when he was unconscious. Fuck.

Could this be Door’s doing? The guy haunts his dreams, so maybe he escalated to kidnapping? Or is this the cult he’s heard so much about? Shit, he doesn’t know.

Awkwardly, Tim eases himself off the bed and drops down to the floor, his feet struggling to keep him upright. His brain feels like it does summersaults inside his skull, his limbs weak and wobbly. He kind of wants to puke, but Tim manages not to. As he stares around the cabin, his eyes glance down… and he notices the strange bracelet on his wrist.

It looks like a watch but has no face—instead displaying a bright red number [5]. Tim turns his wrist over, longing to take the creepy thing off, but he can’t find a clasp, the whole band utterly smooth. So how does he take it off? The thought of someone strapping this to him when he was out cold makes Tim shiver.

He stumbles over to the door, but finds it locked. Tim isn’t surprised anymore. A weird machine sits on the wall beside the door, but Tim can’t make sense of it. He must need to do something to open it, but no ideas come to him.

A cracking sound makes Tim turn his head (and the room spins, throwing him off balance) in search of the noise. He stares at the small, circular window, where a crack has appeared. Tim’s stomach drops. And before he can think of any way to fix the problem, the crack widens and widens… and water begins to pour into the cabin.

And in that moment, Tim realises exactly how fucked he is.

[somedudenamedanthony]

Wanna hear a funny story about how I have some actual trauma that I closely associate with (not caused by) one of Lily Orchard's videos, if you wanna hear it?

I mostly like her stuff, but I cannot watch Snow White the same anymore ever.

Yeah, of course you do

TW for needles, blood, being in pain, panic attacks, asshole nurses, hospitals, and others, probably.

Background context:

Every year in January, I get blood tests done with the rest of my family. It's the first thing we do when the medical updates each year.

I am not afraid of needles, though I do feel pain easier than most, so I tend to like to keep distractions around me (ex: YouTube videos) to help me keep stone-faced as I don't like crying.

I'm like 98% sure I descovered Lily's videos sometime in mid 2022, and watched them after a month of Legend of Korra is Garbage and Here's Why being the first thing recommended to my on every other video I watched (I was going through a phase of getting back into Avatar after a small She-Ra buzz started fading and I needed something to distract myself from Arcane).

That same year in January was the third time I've ever had a bad experience with a needle in my life up to that point. The nurse was a young guy and didn't know what he was doing, and it left me in some pretty bad pain, that I struggled to shake off as hospitals already make me uncomfortable (liminal space looking ass alchahol scented white buildings), and it kinda cemented an idea that I didn't like them.

Now, I reacted to watching Lily's videos the same way I consume most new media that interests me. I go insane and watch the same shit over and over again, binging everything for like three months, then taking a step back to think about it and take the new media in healthily (damn you ADHD).

This lead to the 2023 blood tests, where I was seated in that stupid fucking hospital cuck chair, waiting for my dad and sibling (Arlo) to finish drawing blood so they could be in the room if something went wrong like it did the previous year (we asked for this, and the first red flag came when the nurse made a comment about me being scared of needles at my age. I wasn't yet, but it was some foreshadowing of her bitchyness I chose to ignore and now regret).

I figured to pass some anxiety, I'd watch one of the YouTube videos I downloaded for cases like this: Show White's in a minute video (along with the rest of the Disney ones in a playlist because they were my brain chew toy of the week).

My dad came in, we were still waiting for Arlo, but the nurse decided just having him there would be enough. I was hit with the sudden appearance of the needle, but kept my cool for a second, until I felt the nurse cutting open a different vein by grazing it and at this point I could feel the panic setting in. And also it FUCKING HURT. My arm was stapped to stop shaking and pop my veins, nurse tried again, and at this point I not only began crying, but Arlo finally came in, and saw I was getting aimlessly stabbed, and suggested I not be.

We took a break and I was layed down on the hospital bed to calm down while the nurse called over a second nurse to help. I paused the video and talked with Arlo a bit to chill, but then kept watching the video when the two nurses came back.

The first nurse made some minor (passive agresses) commentary about it while fondling my arm for a vein, not hearing anything Lily was talking about because I was watching it with wireless earphones in, asking if it was my favourite Disney movie (which it kinda was at the time) (I think ahe just hated how "childish" I was being by crying and thiughg the Disney stuff was part of that) (like I'm only a baby SOMETIMES asshole) but I explained I was watching a YouTube video. You know, talking to try to ignore the fact that I was getting tied to a bed bynthe second nurse at this point.

Then the fucking needle came out again after the small talk was over and I seemed calmer (read: I was not, I'm just good at bullshitting) and they apparently found a good spot.

So now, here I am, fifteen, strapped to a bed by two middle aged ladies who can't find my vein after they JUST HAD IT, complaining about me crying again and calling me a big baby, now trying to find a vein in my HAND (which became my main drawing area this year due to similar complications but with a much more skilled and actually nice nurse, and the back of my hand will continue to be my drawing area unless my wrist opens up a bit) and settled on drawing blood from the side of my wrist, all while Lily fucking Orchard is bitching about Snow White, and Arlo is trying to soothe me while glaring at our dad for doing nothing.

Anyways, I now have panic attacks at the mere mention of drawing blood (yesterday when I was in the ER because we couldn't get a doctor's appointment anywhere else and I am currently dealing with some stomach shit that makes me get heartburn so painful I vomited), and I can't watch her Snow White video (or even the original movie) anymore without becoming deeply uncomfortable and feeling the needles burn in my skin.

It's a shame, I really liked that movie :/

[thebrilliot]

Current project: Rubik's cube solving agent

Many years ago, when I first started learning to code (I learned C from a textbook using geany on a Linux machine my brother gave me), I tried and failed to write a Rubik's cube solver (the brute force way, mind you). Did I realize how hard that was? No, I did not, and after I gave up I don't remember ever attempting to use C again. In fact, I never thought I would attempt to solve the same problem again.

Fast forward to yesteryear when I discovered these fascinating math subjects called group theory and abstract algebra and I learned that apparently you can make a Rubik's cube multiplication table. Suddenly, Rubik's cubes (3x3x3 cubes being subgroups of the S48 group) are fascinating to me again and I have a very interesting problem which is that it took a super computer to find every possible Rubik's cube state and the shortest paths to the solved state for every one of them and then to discover that the diameter of the graph of Rubik's cubes is 20 which is now called God's number.

Well, 20 doesn't sound like a lot but remember there are 43 quintillion states and that is a lot. It takes supercomputers to get that far. But we do have tricks for simplifying problems such that computers can do more with the resources they have and those are called models. Now, are models perfect? Absolutely not. By definition they are simplifications. But models are useful (and fun). And we have found a way to model almost anything such that we can make heuristics which are fairly accurate and faster than simulating the entire universe. We have managed to replicate exactly two phenomena in the brain using computers: learning and spatial awareness.

Neural networks can learn, and the parallels between training a neural network and teaching a person something new are uncanny. Perhaps I will make another post about that sometime. Pedagogy is another special interest of mine. The other thing we can do is replicate spatial awareness. I can't find the video for the life of me, but I know I watched a YouTube video by a neuroscience student who used structures in the brain to design a deep learning model that would replicate a simple experiment that was originally designed for rats. It required that the model could relate temporal and spatial variables. It was great because he visualized the activity in both the brain and the model and you could see the similarity. My point is, his resulting model was almost identical to modern transformers used in LLMs today (not that LLMs should be worshipped the way they are but that's a rant for another day), so I would think that it is safe to say we can replicate spatial and temporal awareness.

Now most people think of Rubik's cubes as spatial problems. That is one of my questions. If you take the group of rotations of a cube, S4, you might think it is quite simple. There are only 24 ways to rotate a cube after all and each can be annotated with 2 or less "simple" rotations around the X, Y, or Z axis. But trying to draw the graph of all 24 elements with just the simple rotations as edges (1/8 of the multiplication table) is extremely hard to do. There are 72 edges and 18 interconnected "circles" (cycles of length four that are traversed with the same simple rotation). So is it a 3-dimensional space? Is it an 18-dimensional space? Does it even have dimensions? What's the best way to visualize it? I think it should be possible to train a transformer-based model in that space, have it learn how to navigate it, and then take a peek inside its brain to find the answer.

But since cube rotation is a solved algebra, I think the Rubik's cube is a better place to apply this idea. I'm making this summary/abstract a little late, but I wanted to put my thoughts down somewhere in writing, like a dev log. I have a horrible time documenting things and finishing side projects, and I want to be able to both share what I learn and finish this darn thing so I can say I have done it. For now, I'll pin this post and continue in another.

[cha-melodius]

Hiii, congratulations on your milestones! I am not very good at prompts buuuut how about Napollya + some creepy abandoned house? Or a cemetery. Idk, it's not Halloween but I'm feeling spooky loool Feel free to go paranormal with it <3

(Outsmarted tumblr to answer this lmao. You said go paranormal and my brain said 'what about rival paranormal investigators??' Mark this down as another AU concept I never thought I'd write. Hope you enjoy it!)

chamel’s fandom fest info | read all the fics

The Harrowed and the Haunted

(napollya, 2.7k, T; read it below or on AO3)

The tiny blue car is already there when they arrive, tucked off to one side of the gigantic, decrepit mansion, and Napoleon swears under his breath.

“How did he even know we were coming here?” he complains. “No one knows this place.”

“Everyone knows about this place, Solo,” Gaby sighs from the passenger seat. “It’s a local legend. And you weren’t exactly subtle when you teased it as our next location in the podcast.”

Napoleon twists in his seat to look at her. “You think he listens to the podcast?”

She levels a look at him that he doesn’t know how to interpret. “You two are hopeless,” she says instead of answering him, then unbuckles her seatbelt and gets out of the car.

She’s already elbows deep into the equipment by the time he walks to the back end of the car, so he elects not to push her on what she means. Besides, the one time he’d tried, she ended up on some long tirade about how they’re obsessed with each other and it would be funny if it wasn’t so frustrating and also if she didn’t have to listen to him all the time. To which he had responded that she’s his best friend and morally obligated to listen to him complain about his nemesis.

Also, he’s not obsessed with Illya Kuryakin.

Yes, Napoleon watches all the videos Illya posts and reads all the stories he publishes on his blog. Of course he does, Illya is the competition. Napoleon has to keep up with the locations he’s visiting and the kinds of footage he’s getting so that he knows how best to make his own superior content. Because Napoleon has a secret weapon that means his videos are always in better resolution, with wider shots so you can see that he’s not just using tricks, and his data are more robust. That secret weapon is Gaby and the completely bonkers ghost detecting equipment that she builds.

Napoleon had been a skeptic when he started doing paranormal investigation; his whole schtick was proving that there weren’t ghosts in the places where the other guys had recorded their sightings. Then he’d met Gaby at a convention and she’d bet him fifty bucks that she could show him a site that not only had ghosts, but also that she could prove it with hard science. He’d been intrigued despite himself, and their partnership was born. The friendship came about fifteen minutes into that first trip, when it became obvious that they shared a similarly sarcastic, dark sense of humor and brutally pragmatic outlook on life.

Together, they still spend the majority of their time proving that locations aren’t haunted, but occasionally things happen neither of them can explain. Not that he’s convinced that the explanation is actually ghosts, but it’s certainly something outside the realm of known science. With Gaby’s help, his business really took off: there’s the YouTube channel that he started with, but now they have a wildly successful podcast as well. The Discovery Channel has made overtures about a show. Things are good.

At least they are when Illya Kuryakin isn’t around.

Illya came out of nowhere with his blog Prizraki and a fledgling YouTube channel of his own. He shouldn’t have ever drawn an audience because he has zero camera presence, for all his good looks. He’s not even in his own videos all that much since he’s a one-man operation. But. The man can write. The way he crafts a story, the sheer atmosphere of it—he more than makes up for the shoddy camerawork and rudimentary editing. Napoleon had thought his work would be easy to discredit, but Illya is thorough. Meticulous. Irritating, especially when he anticipates Napoleon’s next move and makes it his job that much harder. Napoleon would swear Illya has it out for him specifically.

So yeah, they don’t get along. Their rivalry is well-known among the paranormal investigation community at this point. And if he spends an inordinate amount of time following Illya’s content, it’s only because he has to, professionally. He certainly doesn’t enjoy it.

They find the man himself on the second floor, apparently scanning one of the rear bedrooms. He’s hunched over his device, which is emitting a random-sounding beeping as he moves slowly across the room. Napoleon and Gaby had been led there by the readouts on their own equipment, although things start going all funny once they get into the room. Napoleon is pretty sure it’s just the interference from Illya’s shitty gear.

“Got tired of coming up with your own ideas, Peril?” Napoleon says as they walk in, the ancient floorboards creaking under their feet.

Illya doesn’t bother to look away from his scan. “Don’t know what you are talking about,” he mutters. He finishes a sweep of the far wall and pauses. “I have plans to investigate this property for months. Check my website if you don’t believe me.”

Napoleon doesn’t, because he’s read every word of that blog and he never mentioned this property. Not that he’s going to tell Illya this.

His nemesis finally straightens and turns toward them, his usual sour expression somehow failing to keep him from being ridiculously, irritatingly gorgeous. Napoleon would wager that at least half of his subscribers are only there for the occasional eye candy. And look, Napoleon knows his own looks bring him hits—leverages it, specifically—but Illya pretends to be above all that, which is annoying. After all, his numbers had shot up rapidly after that one video where he’d somehow ended up shirtless while investigating some kind of haunted bog (and if Napoleon had watched that one any more than the others, it was only because he couldn’t get over the idea of a haunted bog, that’s all).

“I take it you haven’t found anything yet,” Napoleon counters, looking around the room. It’s largely empty at this point, save for a massive wardrobe that’s probably too heavy to move, the florid wallpaper faded and yellowed by time and marked by no small amount of water damage. “Not that I fault you for that, given your equipment.”

“I have found plenty—”

“Solo,” Gaby interrupts. She’s across the room, and when he turns to look she’s tucking her own scanner away and sliding a hand over the seemingly featureless wall. “I think there’s something here.”

Jackpot. Napoleon quickly crosses over to where she stands and starts carefully inspecting the wallpaper, his competitor all but forgotten behind them. Well, almost. The seam is well hidden, but it’s there, and Napoleon feels out the secret panel within minutes. When a door pops open, he turns back toward Illya and smirks with immense satisfaction.

“What was that about finding things?”

Illya just about growls at him.

“Look, while you two have this little pissing contest, I’m gonna go get my auxiliary power block,” Gaby announces before they can get going again. “There are some really wacky readings going on here and I think I’m going to need the boost.”

With that, she disappears out the door, and a moment later they can hear the clunk of her boots on the wooden steps.

“So, you are planning on leaving, right?” Napoleon asks.

“I was here first,” Illya grits out, and then the asshole just storms right past Napoleon and into the secret passageway, like he has any right to it.

Napoleon follows him, because he can’t not. The passage is narrow, barely wider than the span of either of their shoulders, and nearly pitch black save for the illumination provided by their flashlights and the meager light that filters in from the main room. The house is enough of a labyrinth that it could go almost anywhere; it’s promising, for sure.

“Only because you knew we were coming here,” Napoleon calls after him.

Illya stops a short ways down the passage and turns to glare at him. “You cannot prove that.”

“And we found the secret passage,” Napoleon continues. “If we weren’t here you’d still be going around in circles, chasing your own tail.”

“The discovery was inevitable. Maybe you sped it along, but now you are just in the way.”

Jesus Christ, this is going nowhere. Fine, Napoleon can be the magnanimous one, especially if he can use it later to argue that Illya was unreasonable. “Look, you wanna investigate right now, be my guest, but you can’t be here when Gaby gets back. Your equipment causes too much interference.”

Illya hesitates a beat. “She said you were getting strange readings. What kind?”

“Like I’m going to tell you,” Napoleon scoffs.

“Did you have to learn to be this much of an asshole, or were you born this way?”

“Oh, that’s rich coming from the guy who—”

He doesn’t get to finish that thought, because suddenly it sounds like every door in the house slams at once, including the one to the bedroom that they’d left open. They both jump a mile, startled out of their skins, and Napoleon whirls to look behind him, though of course there’s nothing there.

“Wind gust?” he tries weakly.

He doesn’t even blame Illya for the exasperated look he gets in response. They both know there hadn’t been even a light breeze, plus, he can feel it. Illya probably can too. There’s something about the atmosphere that makes his skin crawl and his hair stand up on end, and as a professional ghost hunter, that’s not easy to do. He’s learned to trust his gut, and it’s telling him something is definitely hinky here. He walks back over to the door, but there’s no handle on the inside, which seems like poor design for a secret passageway.

“Not getting out this way,” he tells Illya. “Maybe the other side?”

“We don’t know where it goes,” Illya counters. “Should we not just wait for Gaby to return?”

He’s got a point, but Napoleon really doesn’t like being cooped up in here. He’s not claustrophobic, but there’s a closeness to the air that goes beyond what can be explained by the narrow space. Not that he’s going to let on what’s driving his decision.

“Wait if you like,” he says with a shrug. “I’m going to do what I came here to do.”

Except Illya is standing between him and the rest of the passage, which is really not large enough for the two of them to easily pass by each other. Still, there’s nothing for it; Napoleon starts walking toward him, assuming Illya will get out of the way, only when he’s less than a stride from the other man, he trips.

He’d like to pretend the floorboards were uneven, but it feels like something fucking winds around his ankle, effectively binding his legs and sending him sprawling into Illya. At nearly the same time, there’s a loud pop and the bulbs in both of their flashlights just about explode in a shower of sparks. The end result is that Illya is too surprised or too distracted to stay upright himself, and they tumble to the ground in a heap with none-too-few curses in both English and Russian.

“Get off of me,” Illya protests, trying to shove Napoleon away, and Napoleon would like to, truly, but one of Illya’s elbows caught him in the diaphragm and he can’t exactly breathe at the moment.

“Gimme a fucking minute,” he manages, trying to catch his breath while simultaneously ignoring how he’s managed to land pretty much astride one of Illya’s very muscular thighs. There’s not exactly a lot of room here for him to maneuver, anyway, and in the pitch dark the very last thing he wants to do is put a hand somewhere it shouldn’t go. He manages to fish his phone out of his pocket, hoping for an alternative light source, only to find it won’t turn on. “Damn. Phone’s dead.”

“Think it was an EMP,” Illya groans. “Will knock out—”

“I know what an EMP is,” Napoleon snaps, then he sighs heavily. “I don’t suppose you have a lighter?”

Illya doesn’t answer, but a moment later there’s a faint snick and a small flame flickers to life, washing the two of them and the passageway in a faint orange glow. It also reveals the deep scowl on Illya’s face. “Now will you get off?”

“Aw, but I was just starting to enjoy myself,” Napoleon teases. And then, because he can’t resist an opportunity to fluster the other man in any way possible, he gives his hips a little wiggle. 

Something flashes in Illya’s gaze, though he can’t quite read it in the flickering light. “Do not start something you do not intend to finish, Cowboy,” he growls.

Which is— Napoleon cannot have heard that right. He hit his head on the way down, maybe, except for the fact that he knows he didn’t; he landed on Illya’s ample chest, which he still hasn’t really moved from. Their faces are no more than a handful of inches apart. Illya takes a deep breath in and out under him, and the thigh between Napoleon’s shifts slightly. Napoleon licks his lips, and Illya’s eyes follow the movement.

“Who says I don’t?” Napoleon manages, his voice tighter than he’d like. “And what about you? I thought you hated me.”

“Too pretty,” Illya murmurs. “Annoyingly so. Anyway, you hated me first.”

Napoleon can’t help the soft puff of laughter that escapes him. “Gaby says I’m obsessed with you.”

“Is that so?” Illya asks with a smirk that Napoleon would kind of like to bite.

“I’m not,” Napoleon protests, but he doesn’t get a chance to get any more out because Illya tugs him down into a kiss.

Napoleon shocks himself by kissing him back, tilting his head until their mouths fit perfectly together, letting his arms go out from under him until his body is fully pressed up against Illya’s again. It’s hard and it’s fast and it’s filthy, and Napoleon can’t get enough of it. Illya’s hands go to his waist then slide down to his ass, which he grabs enthusiastically, pulling Napoleon’s hips closer as his rock up against Napoleon’s thigh.

He never thought— never let himself think— Fuck. He wants Illya Kuryakin so badly he can hardly breathe, which is a pretty fucking novel revelation right about now. He doesn’t even notice that Illya has dropped the lighter, plunging them into darkness, until there’s a loud creak outside the passageway and the door rattles in its frame.

They startle apart, or at least try to; Napoleon attempts a roll sideways, but there’s not really any place to go, so he just kind of ends up jammed next to Illya, his heart climbing into his throat because he’d maybe gotten so caught up in the moment that he’d forgotten that they’re in a fucking abandoned house that supposedly haunted, with actual weird phenomena happening around them, and he’d really rather not die—

The door rattles again, then swings open to reveal Gaby holding a lantern in one hand and her bag of equipment in the other. She takes one look at them and her eyebrows climb all the way up to her hair.

“Oh, thank god,” Napoleon exhales heavily. “You didn’t get hit by the EMP?”

Gaby frowns at him. “What EMP?”

“The one that exploded our flashlights and turned our phones into bricks.”

“That’s not how EMPs work,” she says flatly. “Care to explain how that relates to… literally any of this?”

Napoleon winces. “Not really?”

The look she gives him quite clearly says that he’s not getting out of any part of said explanation, even if she’s willing to let it go for the moment. “So. Ghosts?”

“Apparently so,” Napoleon groans as he attempts to extract himself now that he can actually see where he’s going.

“And we’re… collaborating?” she asks, looking pointedly at Illya.

Napoleon glances over to find Illya staring at him uncertainly, which is probably fair considering they’ve discussed precisely nothing about this. Still. He looks back at Gaby.

“Apparently so.”

~~~~~

(The Haunting of McAllister Mansion is their first joint video, published simultaneously on both channels; it breaks all their previous records for views, likes, and comments.

The latter are split between people confused because they were sure Napoleon and Illya hated each other, and those who just comment: called it.)