#i would include more of the letter but it keeps giving me error messages

[clove-pinks]

'H.M. Steam frigate FIREBRAND and the Experimental Squadron': c. 1844-1845 print (NMM).

Detail, with the sails unsurprisingly furled under full steam. Henry Thomas Dundas Le Vesconte referred to Firebrand as "this monster of a steam ship" in an undated 1844 letter to his sister Rose, when he briefly found himself aboard her before joining HMS Superb, also in the Experimental Squadron. Superb makes his official naval biography in O'Byrne (his last ship before joining HMS Erebus), and I believe this letter in the archives of Newfoundland and Labrador is the only proof he spent some time aboard Firebrand.

"ROSE" is written at top right, and Henry begins

My dear Sister, Mamma scolds me for not writing to all of you.  I hope my dear sisters will not attribute it to want of regard for them but first if I write to Papa I know that the letter will be read by all tho so often am I far removed not only from you but from all our friends that I have little to say which can interest nor in common. I have to thank you for some very kind letters while I was away from England, to which you will find I have returned not much improved in fortune but a good deal older yet I fear not much wiser. I am going again but I do not know exactly where. I have been of course anxious to be employed since my return for they sent me on shore on 4S a day.

He offers to sail "with a squadron of new vessels who were to have their respective qualities tested," and is sent to join Superb, but somehow ends up on Firebrand:

I found myself sent to Plyms. to join the Superb. On arriving there I was sent back to get men for her at Portsmouth and as soon as I got back again I was ordered to Plymouth to join the Firebrand steam ship of the first class. The vessel I had previously wished to go out in - this was done in a mistake Sir Wm. G who is good natured but blundering - having fancied that he had promised this appointment to me. I spent three days at Southampton and at [illegible] I might having remained as long as I dared do I left a childrens party at Mrs. Blanchards, I have heard Mamma speak of her, and came alone cold dispirited and miserable to this monster of a steam ship - where I now am.

(Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador)

[casteliacityramen]

Munday Tuesday Lore Post: Humanity - Threat Assessment REBUTTAL

Scribe and Artificer J., I am writing to further inform you of our opinions on the subject of your most recent letter. Yes, your 'e-mails' did go through. Stop sending them. No, we will not accept the "good old-Unovan values of one on one combat" on the issue, no matter how many "fite me" messages you send. I am aware that this 'e-mail' is a lot more convenient than our courier system, but perhaps you are spending too much time on this "internet" that you so adore. This new messaging system of yours is enough to handle, as is. I feel that I must, at the very least, clarify our reasoning behind our verdict. For the most part, the council agrees with your assessment. Yes. Humanity is destined for greatness. Yes. Humanity shows limitless promise. Yes. We do take inspiration from their innovation (it'd be strange not to address this due to the way we talk to each other now). But humanity is an abnormality to the point of absurdity. They are our precursors, long before His Majesty Arceus gifted us with life, yet they still show signs of incremental growth. They repeat mistakes. They are prone to infighting. Their restrictive age keeps them from making wise decisions. For Arceus' sake, they only recently realized that it may be important to write things down. They are too unpredictable. Worst of all, they possess a power far greater than you give them credit for. Their abnormal power to persuade. Like you say, they have made complex societies, and have even gone as far as to borrow pokemons' powers for a mutually beneficial gain. What's mind-boggling is how oblivious they are to their power. No one is arguing with you that Humanity has cemented themselves as the top sapient life on the planet. Our scholars still debate on whether or not they should be classified as psychic-types due to this feat and the discussion is far from resolved. Perhaps this discussion would have been finished were it not for the fact that they are constantly changing, as you have mentioned in your assessment. Frankly, my dear friend, if I may be honest, humanity terrifies us. Imagine, if you will, the Order brought into chaos because we were convinced to make a decision without careful deliberation. Like you say, humanity barrels its way towards greatness. However, we cannot afford such rashness due to the gravity of our work. Which brings me to our next point. I understand your frustrations in our decision-making process. In comparison to mortal life, you are right in that we take too long to make a decision. This is an issue we hope to address in the future. However, these rules are written in blood. Yours included, if I'm not mistaken. We guide the entirety of existence in their path--there is no margin for error. You, of all people, should know this, given your current assignment. Your mind seems cluttered. Perhaps you need a reduction in your duties. As scribe, artificer, and now warden of some… particular probationary members, you seem to be spread thin. Do let me know if it's too much for you. Kindly, Head Scholar and Council Member Lok P. S. Are we still on for Dungeons and Dragonites? Steward Lia would like to join us. P. S. S. I know I've been pencil pushing for the past couple thousand years, but I bet I could kick your ass. Even with your blessing from Lady Victini.

[minju221]

Reflective statement

draft 200- 300 words

I researched design conventions we learnt in class, such as Dadaism and Poetic style of listing, which I used to design my texts' composition. These helped me to design while following existing design practices. Reflecting on this, I could look further into various forms of design conventions including historic and more modern examples. Applying this to the research for the animated typography, I am currently looking into both old and new examples of typographic movement. 

My design process included physical sketches of typographic ideation and playing with the letters to communicate my message. It also consisted of repetitive experiments and developments on InDesign where there was a lot of trial and error with different typefaces and fonts, colour, scale, and composition. My next steps would be to extend this experiment and try more of other completely different strategies. For example, there could be more refinement of the scale of the letters such as pushing more subtlety into those designs. There could also be explorations of other background options other than crumpled paper. Such as these, in my next steps I would my design explorations and try a range of conventions that stand outside my comfort zone. I did a few print tests for the feedback, and it was helpful as I could see my design in a physical printed form off the computer, which is very different. In the future, I will do more print tests throughout my progress to see them in a clearer perspective and help me with my design decisions.  

I had to focus on both developing my design visually, while making sure that it is responsive to the brief and conveys my own personal connection in Aotearoa today. Sometimes it was difficult to decide which design iterations were more successful than others at conveying this message while being visually interesting. It was also hard to judge my designs while looking at them for too long and becoming used to them. While it was easy to experiment with posters by making a lot of variations, it was a lot of more difficult to judge which design works best. To help with this in the future, I would ask for frequent feedback from peers and fresher pairs of eyes and perspective to gain advice on how the design seems at first glance/ impression. This could be helped with more print testing and reflecting on other people’s feedback.  

I thoroughly recorded my experiments and developments on my blog to show my decision making around the design elements that lead to my final posters. My blog shows my engagement through the thoughtful annotations that demonstrate a very good understanding of what is working and what is not within my own designs.  

My introduction reads well and gives a good overview of my journey into design. My rationale gave a solid insight into the design of the posters and throughout the design process it could be expanded with more conversation around specific design decisions.  

Finally, a challenge I faced was balancing the workload with my other subjects. I can improve this by keep developing, experimenting, and spending time on my design, and getting in the habit of doing a lot of short periods of work rather than procrastinating and leaving a large amount of work to do later. This also includes regularly checking in with my peers and lecturers for feedback. I think I need to do further design research and become more knowledgeable about design conventions and practices such as grids, colour, composition, and hierarchy. Through this, I can make the elements of my posters purposeful and follow existing design conventions properly. This will also include more research into Adobe programmes and learning more skills on InDesign and applying more technical and digital techniques.  

[iwhishtomeetinournextlife]

An anonymous love (Part 1)

Summary : Y/N sees Sirius Black running away after a particulary rough letter from his mother. She wants to cheer him up and decide to send him a letter, anymously, she knows how much he hates her house.

Warnings : Slytherin!Reader, female!reader, reader is worried about Sirius, not proof read

Word count : 1.8k

English is not my first language, sorry if there is any mistakes

You're here - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7

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Y/N loved receiving letters but even more sending them, she loved including all sorts of little gifts in hers; flowers, drawings, photographs, candies sometimes, she loved it even more now she was a witch,  she started doing experiments with her magic. She learned how to make the drawings moves, charms the flowers so they would reopen as fresh as new, she even found a way for the letter to be read out loud if desire, in a way were it doesn’t fold and destroy itself the ways howlers do, so it could be listen to over and over again, her family especially loved that one.

She wanted to see now if could even include kisses, or even hugs, the feeling of arm wrapping around you to squeeze you tight was one of the best feeling to her and she wanted to be able to send it to anyone, so they could feel it whenever they wanted.

She was able to put the hugs and the kisses on little cards who had to be unfold, it took many mistake, accidents and retry but she was able to do it after some times. It wasn’t as reusable has she had hoped, only three uses who doesn’t last more than five seconds, but she was confident enough to know she will do better in the future.

She had send her last version to her parents a few days ago, one she was the proudest of, and was now waiting for their respond. Making sure everything was perfect was important as the first time she tried to do it the message felt like a dagger stabbing her chest. Thankfully she had no injuries, Mrs Pomfrey assured her there were nothing, the pain stayed a few hours though and she could have kissed the nurse for excusing her from the morning class that day, she would have not been able to work anyway.

Y/N was now waiting at the slytherin table next to the few friends she was able to make among her own house, quietly eating while listening to the crazy story of the friend on her right, laughing joyfully. She turned her head when she saw the owls starting to enter the room, eager to find if she will receives the respond of her parents, she watch as the other student opened their own mail, including the raven-haired boy at the gryffindor table, Sirius Black.

He had catch the eye of Y/N like many others, girls and boys, but she never dared to make a move, she was a slytherin and she knew how much he hated them. She had thought many times to send him an anonymous later but what for ? It would be a lost cost and she rather let the feeling die rather than being hurt. Well, at least she thought her feelings would disappear as time went by but she was incredibly wrong, it only got more intense.

Being in most of his classes was of no help, his cocky behavior, his stunning looks and charming smile. What bugged her the most was how brilliant he was, she never saw him study or even really paid good attention in class but was somehow able to earn good marks. She was a bit jealous of him for that if she was honest with herself, she wasn’t a bad student per say but did have to be focused and study to have good grades. They talked a few times before, mostly him helping her out with classes but he was nothing but nice and patient with her despote the green of her tie.

She fell for him even more when she saw him helping first years travelling the corridors and defending a third year against her bully, the punch was perfectly aimed for Merlin’s sake ! She loved every story he told her, all the pranks, the aventures, the quidditch match. The more she learned about him, the more difficult it was for her to keep her eye away from him.

“You’re drooling again”, Jacob snapped her out of her mind “ ‘m not !” swipping her lips just to be sure, making her friends laugh, she was red of embarassment, so out she hadn’t notice the owl giving her her parent’s letter. She gratefully took it before giving a bit of food to the owl who then flied away. Y/N got interrupt has she was opening the enveloppe.

“C’mon, you cant’ keep looking at him from afar for the rest of school ! Talk to him for once and save us the lover eyes !” said Olivia, “I can’t, you know he hates slytherins” her friend opened her mouth to protest before being cut. “Plus, he is way out of my league, he is like-" Y/N hesited a bit on her words, waving her hand around “- a sun giving life around him and I’m just somekind of, I don’t know, insect in the dirt”. Her friends around all gave a chorus of long sighs, they heard that a million times before, she rolled her eyes “My point is, I will never have the courage to ask him out”.

Before anyone could talk, a loud sound was heard comming from the gryffindor table, followed by the sound of turn up paper. When Y/N looked, she frowned, seeing Sirius almost running out of the room. “Wait mate !” James Potter, his best friend, tried to follow him but Remus Lupin stopped him. Y/N didn’t quite catch what they were saying, something about him needing to be alone.

And alone he stayed, she didn’t see him for the rest of the day, and she learned during the dinner that night it was because of the letter he received from home, it was quite known by most of the people who cared enough to be aware of the disastrous relationship of Sirius and his family, as it wasn’t unusual to see the boy upset because of his mother. Y/N’s blood boiled every time it would happened, how could someone treat their child that way ? Taking their time to write every horrid words just to cause pain ? Using something she loved so much to cause trouble instead as it should be : for the one you loved.

The scene earlier that day worked her up so much, she put her parent’s latter away without reading it, and it is only now in her bed she remembered even having it. She smiled at the curved letters, it was her mother’s handwritting, she very enthousiatly explain how her and her dad loved the hug, that coupled with the speaking spell “It was like you were right here with us !”, well not quite as she precised right after, but it felt nice to feel and hear their daughter after so many weeks apparts. She laughted when her father this time wrote she should find a way to commercial it, as she will become the richest witch of the wizard world. “Sure thing dad” she thought to herself. She carefully fold the paper before putting it in her “letter box”.

Then when she laid down, she couldn’t stop feeling sad for Sirius, he had such terrible parents but deserved so much more. She turned and turned and turned around in her bed, searching for a way to cheer him up and then she stopped, thinking of the letter of her parents and the success of the hug in the message, perhaps, she could send him something ..? She blushed at the idea, what could she says ? “Hey, your parents suck but your butty could send me in outter space”, sure, yeah, what a great idea Y/N.

She sighed, fine, maybe not that harsh but she could try to remind him how much is he loved here and how much of a great person he is. So she sat down in her bed, took a piece of parchment, her ink and her quill, careful to not wake up her roomates as she closed her curtains. She blow air through her mouth for a minute, gathering some courage, and then she start to write, hoping he would like it.

----------------------------------------------------

The next day when she woke up, or more like when it was time to get ready since she didn’t close her eye all night, wanting the message to be perfect : the drawing, an illustration of a dog, a stag, a rat and the moon, remembering the nickname and the jokes the marauders gave and made to eachothers, she charmed it for the little animals to run around the paper, leaving paws or hooves print behind –which disappear after a few step of course-, the curves of the words, the ink, she had opt for her favorite dark purple, the flowers had she picked, some wind-flower and cyclamen, that she carefully stuck to the parchment.

And of course the final touch : a kiss on the forhead. She had thought of a hug but decided it was too much, it could be scary to suddenly feels arms around you. A smol kiss was more appropriate, a bit bold yeah, but more fleeting, less intimidating and still a tender gesture.

When she was happy with the result and check any error in her words she put the message in an envelopt, decorated with stars, showing the cannis constellation, because of Sirius name obviously. And then put it in her bag, careful so her friend would not see it.

Once she was ready and out of her room with her friends, she realised she had no idea on how to give it to him. Surely not by hand, she didn’t put her name anywhere for a reason, maybe slide it into his bag during class ? But she was to scared to be caught.

She didn’t have to worry about it to much, since Sirius wasn’t at the class she shared with him, his friends looked troubled and worried, calmer than usual. Y/N felt a weight setting in her stomach, was the letter that bad he didn’t want to show up today either ? When he wasn’t at lunch either, she decided to send him by owl.

She excused herself from her friend, saying she had to send a letter, it wasn’t unusual for her to do so, so they didn’t even flinch. Once at the owl aviary and once she gave it to an owl and walked away, trying not to think to much, she stop. What if the letter only made him more upset ? Of course nothing she wrote was mean, but what if he didn’t like at all the idea of some unknown person looking in his private life ? Feeling arrogant enough to think they could cheer him up when his friends, those whom he consider family, weren’t able to do it ? Y/N turned around to take the letter back but it was too late, the bird had fly away, and since he was at hogwarts, he will have it in a few minutes only.

She felt the weight in her stomach get heavier, she hoped so much it will not make things worse.

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Hoped you liked my first fic ! I don't know when the second part will be posted but I'll do my best for it to be soon.

Have a nice day ! Love you <3

[hes-writer]

Errors

Summary; harry comes over for dinner

Warnings: angst and fluff for this one

Word Count: 3234 words

A/N: possibly the last part of the Tarnish series. Thank you for all the support that you have given me and @devilinbetweenthesheet-s. This was a month worth of work and I cannot believe that I was actually consistent with the updates (except for this one, which is 2 days late lol). 

Read till the end for a sneak peek of part 6!!

This is Part Five of the Tarnish series.

____

Harry felt out of place.

As a world-renowned pop star, he was used to being paid a different kind of attention in most of the places he went to. He should be used to it. Harry had to take measures in order not to get recognized for stepping into a local coffee shop. Even in hot weather, his recognizable tattoos gave easy access for fans to whisper amongst each other, wondering if it was the right time to ask for a photo or merely share a conversation with him. 

 His voice--the thing that made him as famous as he is now--was tinted into his fans’ heads. Recognition blaring in their ears when the deep, gruff tone projected the open air. It would be quite disturbing if he had to change the pitch for everyday errands. Harry would rather feel out of place than go to extremes to change who he was. 

 This lifestyle was something that he was used to, having been under the scrutiny of the public eye for a little over a decade now. But Harry knew that Y/N was a small, town girl practically bickered and poked until she was forced to cough something out to taint Harry’s name in vain. From the way, he preferred sniffing his nose into a hanky instead of a Kleenex. The way he snored loudly when his nostrils felt dry. The way his hair isn’t as naturally curly as it appears to be. All of these things were the borderline crossing of his privacy that she could’ve taken to the press, urging in many articles written about his odd habits or preferences.

 Not that he thought Y/N was that type of person to spill secrets in the midst of desperation, but Harry had cheated on her for God’s sake. If she did run her mouth, Harry wouldn’t blame her. He was horrible to her; cheated on her for a year, not even bothering to tell Y/N that his affection was teetering in favour of not hurting her and wanting to keep his side relationship a secret for a taste of adrenaline that came with his less-than boring life. 

 Harry left her alone while she was going through a life-changing period of her life. To be fair, Y/N didn’t actually tell him. She tried, but the message never reached his cognition. Harry wanted to save his salvation by choosing to believe that it was her fault for not visiting him in person to tell him the news. 

 Really though, how could Harry possibly know about her pregnancy if she didn’t make the effort to inform him of his own child. It wasn’t like he was supposed to check in on her, his ex-girlfriend, right? That was unheard of. And frankly, Harry thought that the day everything blew up--when she read the letter meant for Camille; Y/N made it very clear that she did not want to speak to him again. So really, Harry was just respecting her wishes. 

 Y/N was supposed to be the one feeling out of place; not Harry. If only she had told him when she identified the symptoms of pregnancy, he could have helped out. Harry wasn’t sure if he would have left Camille to begin a family with Y/N (if she took him back) or if he was only a parent of support. One that was there for the sake of raising a child but not sharing the means and affection to build a relationship with Y/N. 

 These were Harry’s thoughts as he sat with the family of three. In between Y/N and Connor as they sat on opposite ends of the round table with baby Halo in her high chair and Harry across from her. Halo was staring at him with wonder and curiosity; a shy type of look that tinted her cheeks a tad rosy and her lashes to peer at the man adjacent to her, wondering why he was joining them in their family dinner. 

 Harry felt out of place.

___

 “What’s wrong, baby?” Connor asked, feeding the child a spoonful of peas. “Not usually like this,” She shook her head, tucking her arms together and pursing her lips inwards in a sign of rejection. 

 Halo looked at Y/N who was giving her a soft smile, then to Harry. “She’s not usually like this. She must be shy that you’re here tonight, Harry,” Y/N explained, a tone of indifference that she tried to mask to help Halo feel a little more comfortable. 

 Harry gulped heavily. His child was uncomfortable because of him. He almost felt guilty for wanting to scoop her up and canoodle Halo in his arms. Harry still hadn’t had the chance to do that. 

___

 When the door opened earlier this evening, Harry was met by Y/N’s furrowed brows, firmly reminding him that this dinner was for him to be slowly introduced into Halo’s life. Harry would get the chance to care for her by helping the child with her nighttime routine. That included brushing her teeth, tucking her in, a bedtime story and possibly a kiss on the forehead. 

 Harry was giddy, to say the least. Harry was confident with kids and could easily mould into what they needed. If they wanted him to pretend to be a car while they jumped on his back as they grasped onto his curls to steer him, he would. If Harry was instructed to be a pretty princess with a plastic tiara on his head, he would exaggeratedly lift a pinky up to play the part. It was easy for him to win the hearts of his little nieces and nephews because they were familiar with him. They knew him as ‘Uncle Harry’ who gave them gifts whenever he came over to visit or if there was a large family reunion.

 He couldn’t exactly do that with Halo. She was familiar with him, yes. However, the one time they interacted, Harry had made her cry. It didn’t sit right with him that tears sprung from her corneas when she was only trying to make him feel better, sensing that her parents wanted nothing to do with him.

 It wasn’t like Harry knew what she liked either. Did Halo like playing with dolls? Animals? Race cars? The most basic of things, Harry didn’t know. What was her favourite colour? When was her birthday? His resumé was already tarnished since he wasn’t present when her mother fell pregnant. Then, he missed her first steps, her first words. He was just a stranger to her.

 And it showed from the way he stepped foot into the kitchen.

 Harry heard her before he saw her. Tiny squeals and giggles fell from her mouth as Connor chased her around with plates grasped in his hands. Y/N had scolded the man for getting distracted instead of setting the table. Halo’s noises quieting down when she caught sight of the familiar yet unfamiliar man loitering the doorway.

 “‘M sorry, love. Halo wanted to play,” Connor gripped her waist to pull Y/N closer to him, pressing a kiss to her cheek as she fought off a smile from splintering her face. “Right, cutie?”

 “Wanted to play! Sowwy mama,’ Halo apologized, tugging on her pant leg. 

 That was when Harry realized the possibility of ruining the little family they had in the words. But this was supposed to be his in the first place so he couldn’t care less if he wrecked it. As selfish as it may be, Harry thought that there was meaning in him accidentally hearing Gemma’s conversation with Y/N. Sure, it was bound to happen, but it couldn’t have come at a better time. The hole in his heart caused by Camille’s confession of not wanting kids was growing each day, accentuated by the late-night trip to the grocery store and seeing the small baby clothes that took up half of his palm. 

 It was a sign, right? He felt like he was drowning in a relationship that had no future and the next day, he was met with Y/N and their baby. 

___

 Symbolism. As a writer, it was absolutely crucial to introduce some sort of word, item, place, or person and infuse it with impeccable meaning. Irrefutable to the point that that noun is and will be what the writer makes of it. 

 Round tables were supposed to be better at sprouting conversations than rectangular or square tables. Any conversation between a pair must be shared with everybody who sat around it. There was no room to quietly snicker or ration secrets. Yet somehow that theory was not working. At all.

 Harry felt like an intruder sitting in a table that never held more than three people because it was always just them: Y/N, Connor and Halo. As the child got more comfortable with his presence, she slowly started babbling incoherent and coherent words alike, conversing with her ‘parents’ as they asked her about her day at daycare. Y/N asked about Connor’s day at work and the latter reciprocated the question which she was currently answering. 

 “It wasn’t as busy as I thought,” Y/N shrugged her shoulders, forking a piece of mash. Connor made a sound of recognition, “S’that why you texted me to go home instead?”

 Y/N nodded, helping Halo scoop her own forkful of mash, “Yep, I had time to go to the store. I know that you were swarmed at work,” The couple allotted a loving glance towards each other. 

 Harry’s heart was cracking. He was witnessing what he could have had and He had a front-row seat to it. Was it jealousy? Maybe. He was in a relationship so he shouldn’t feel like swarming Y/N’s smaller frame in his arms, shielding her and baby Halo away from Connor. But he did.

 “What about you, Harry?” Connor questioned him with a kink to his brow. Harry could tell that the question wasn’t sincere, purely out of consideration. 

 In a surprise, Harry coughed a little, reaching out to his cloth to dab the corners of his mouth. Truth to be told, Harry spent the day in a state of anxiety. From the moment he woke up, Harry could feel his chest expanding with nervousness, heart beating loudly and pounding in his ears. He picked at the skin of his lip in the wonder of what he was going to wear. If he should wear cologne or if it will irritate Halo’s senses. He spent the better half of the morning browsing online for toys he could get in a hurry to give to Halo. 

 Harry contemplated cancelling the dinner because of the uneasy feeling boiling in his stomach. Heightened senses and pinched nerves convinced Harry that he could feel the muscles of his esophagus contracted as he swallowed. Lungs punctured with the tip of the pen he was using to scrawl a list of ideas to build a bond with his daughter

 “It was alright,” Harry said warily, “Didn’t really have anythin’ to do today except come here,” 

 Y/N pulled her head back in surprise, “Sorry, we ruined your day off,” 

 His eyes widened immediately. Harry’s usual aura of confidence nowhere to be seen, “N-no, no. I didn’t mean it like that,” He could feel stray curls hitting his cheekbones lightly. “I jus’-- it’s m’break so I haven’t got anything for the next couple of months,”

___

 Harry’s settled nerves were awoken when it was time to clean up. Y/N insisted on doing the dishes with Connor while Harry bonded with Halo. 

 “Remember, you’re doing this for her,” Y/N whispered in his ear, causing shivers to crawl up his spine, “Don’t be nervous, Harry. She’s going to love you,” She added, seeing the way he blinked warily at Halo and Connor. Even going as far as giving him a comforting smile. 

 “Thank you, Y/N--for giving me this,” She nodded in response, jutting her chin downwards.

 “Hawwy? Mama said you gonna help me get to bed?” Halo’s green eyes still shone despite the dim kitchen lighting, reminding Harry that this was his and Y/N’s creation. Throughout the dinner, the child had somehow warmed up to Harry’s presence. With a promise of an ice cream trip after her nursery classes earlier in the morning, Halo was quick to befriend the man who she pointed out: ‘has the same dimple as me!’--while poking a stubby finger to her plush cheek, grinning to showcase it. 

 Harry could feel his heart thud, crouching down to her level, worried of her straining her neck looking up at his tall stature. “Tha’s right. Wanna show me where the bathroom is?” She nodded, grabbing Harry’s index finger to drag him along, exerting his lumbar to keep his height low. He could feel Halo’s feet stumbling, keeping her balance by tightening her grip on Harry. 

 Their time in the bathroom was fairly short. Halo had learned to brush her teeth by herself. She only needed Harry to guide her up the stool so that she could reach the sink, spitting the foam from her mouth when Harry made a funny face in the mirror, giggling loudly that had Harry’s chest feeling light. 

 As they walked through the hallway, Harry couldn’t help but let his ears be numb to Halo’s babbling about her favourite stuffed toy. He didn’t mean to. Instead, his neck craned to the door left agape, assuming that it was Connor and Y/N’s with the way the Gucci shoes that Harry had bought her were neatly placed at the bottom of the foot of the bed. He stared down at his moving feet, mood souring despite the bright colours of his loafers imprinted in a little rainbow--the same ones that he just caught sight off and wavered just as quickly.

 “You like it?”

 He snapped out of his thoughts when Halo climbed on her tiny bed, clutching her favourite stuffed toy. Harry plastered a beaming grin on his face, inspecting the painted room, the small desk pushed against the wall and the numerous artworks taped to almost every surface. 

 One, in particular, had his heart aching more so than it already was.

 It was a hand-drawn stick figure portrait of Y/N, Halo, and Connor. Harry couldn’t even pretend that the skinny, stretched black marker was him because the child messily penned Connor’s name underneath. The figures were holding each others’ hands, oblong faces paired with a curved mouth shaped upwards. It didn’t help that the title at the top was “My Famli” which was crossed over with a red marker and re-titled underneath as “My Family” in neat handwriting that Harry could recognize as Y/N’s. 

 “Hawwy?” She repeated, wondering why he was staring so hard at the drawing taped on her bedside table. Her brows furrowed when a drop of tear fell from his eye and landed on Connor’s head, smudging the ink and making it blurry disarray as Halo gasped. “Oh no!”

 “‘M s-sorry, Halo,” Harry’s tongue felt too thick in his mouth, sobbing threatening to escape but he remembered how that would make his daughter feel. Halo placed her soft hand on top of his.

 “It’s okay, Hawwy. I can do it again,” Her timid voice made his heart flutter. Halo didn’t want Harry to cry again and it looked like he was about to so she scurried in planting her shaky legs on the floor. A blank paper was already stable on her desk, grabbing a marker to draw the ruined project again. She could see Harry’s shadow towering over her, thanks to the light projected by her lamp. 

 Flipping the paper over, Halo giggled, “Go away! Y’cant see it till it’s done,” She used her force to push him backwards which wasn’t a lot so Harry walked backwards until the back of his calves hit her bed frame. “Stay there and play with Honey,”

 As she got back to work, Harry searched for ‘Honey’, finding an oatmeal coloured bear with a pot of honey clutched between its threaded paws. He stared at the plush toy for what felt like forever, wondering how special this must be to her. And how Harry wasn’t the one to have given it to her.

 “Done!” Halo’s timidness returned, hiding the paper behind her back yet Harry heard the slight crumple. 

 Placing the stuffed toy on the bed, he asked, “Are y’gonna show me?” 

 She handed the artwork to Harry while he watched, smiling softly. Halo slapped her palms on her cheeks when Harry turned it over, his breath hitching when he saw the extra figure that she had drawn. 

 Harry. With a head of wild curls and dotted green eyes that appeared more black with the lighting.

 He couldn’t help it when happy tears seared his waterline which Halo mistook for complacence. “You don’t. . .like it Hawwy?”

 “I-I do. I love it, honey,” Harry admitted, chuckling slightly as he patted his upper thigh. She climbed onto the bed with him, the wood creaking beneath Harry’s weight. Halo clumsily climbed on his lap, lifting his heavy forearm so she could sneak between his legs. 

 Harry could feel his nonexistent double chin crowding his neck as he looked down at Halo who was cuddled to his chest, lips turned into a pout, looking at her quick-minute work. “I like it cause you’re there,” She pointed at the ice cream in Harry’s hand before yawning loudly. 

 “You’re sleepy, baby Halo?’

 She nodded, pressing a small hand on his chest. Harry took the initiative to lay the child down on her pillow despite every nerve in his body urging him to stay in that position. But Harry figured that he had probably overstayed his welcome for the night. 

 Harry pressed a passionate kiss to her forehead, caressing her head gently. Sleep eyes stared at him as he pulled her fleece blanket to her chin. “Stay?” She questioned, fists crumpling to clutched the end of the fabric.

 “I can’t, bub,” He informed with regret, shaking his head sadly and his mouth curved downwards. His knee was sore with weight pressed on his knee cap and his lumbar was aching with how he crouched down one too many times this evening, but all pain seemed to disappear when Halo picked up Honey the Teddy Bear from beside her and gave it to Harry. “For me? Thank you,”

 Halo laid back down on her bed, “Mhm,”

 “Why?”

 As a two-year-old, Halo could only say so many words, yet her thoughts went far deeper than her brain could comprehend. That she felt a profound attachment to Harry despite seeing him twice. How pleasant it was to spend even just a small amount of time with him. Harry was nice and gave her forehead kisses and rubbed her head that placed a smile on her face. He cried because he loved her artwork and he apologized when he did something wrong. He contorted his lips into a silly face to make her laugh. He was going to be picking her up from school and Harry said he was going to buy her ice cream tomorrow! 

 “I dunno,” Halo shrugged, peering downwards to avoid eye contact. Harry chuckled heartily, puckering his pink lips to another peck on her forehead, and then both of her cheeks. 

____

let us know what you thought!! Part 6 aka Ruin is already up on Patreon!

RUIN - SNEAK PEEK

“Hate to remind you but Harry left you once before, don’t think he’ll hesitate to do so again,”

She froze at Connor’s words. Y/N was aware that he only said that in good faith, to remind her of how hurt she was at the time and just how long it took for her to be able to finally breathe again. 

One side of Y/N urged to still defend Harry. She wanted to turn and around, yell at him because Connor doesn’t know Harry as she does. Harry wasn’t the type to build a child’s dreams up only for him to personally manhandle the heart and crush it in his fist. There was a reason why he was a godfather to so many kids; Ruby, Arlo and Jackson—because he was capable. Harry was a nurturing father who put himself on the back burner in favour of making sure that the little ones were safe and secured. He had no problem being third if it meant that the kids were first, then Y/N, then him. 

It all sounded so good in Y/N’s head; so well-rehearsed and very well thought out. The monologue that had somehow stuck in the sides of her brain like a script taped to the wall, ready for the time it needed to be recited. The shredded pieces of paper also reminded her that Y/N might’ve known Harry before, but she certainly doesn’t anymore. In fact, she knew just as much as Connor did.

Just like Y/N had grown and evolved into a new person, Harry was not the same guy he once was when they were together. 

“I told him the consequences if he did,” 

Connor pulled back, stepping away from her. “But wouldn’t it be better if we didn’t take that chance? Who knows what he might do. . .” He trailed off, grabbing a dry rag to wipe the water dripping from the dish. 

____

Permanent Taglist: @splendidsunsetsx @swagmoneymaya @luviewoo @textingharry @arypesanchez @theresthingsthatwellneverknow @sonofabitchstyles @elizabeth23567 @lauloupi @prettylovley @gohometoacactus @xxxxdelenaxxxx @moonlightmaliksblog

[kiingocreative]

The Structure of Story is now available! Check it out on Amazon, via the link in our bio, or at https://kiingo.co/book

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If you ask around, a lot of successful writers will tell you that they look at their writing the same way they would a business. And what do successful business all have in common? They have clearly defined brands that are designed to appeal to their target audience or customers.

What does that mean, concretely?

• It means that they know what they stand for, what their values are and what they’re offering.

• It means that they know who their target customer is, in terms of demographics, likes and dislikes, and general lifestyle or habits.

• It means that their messaging and content is tailored to appeal to that type of customer…

• …So that, ultimately, when their ideal customer lands on their social media pages or website, they can relate to everything on there and be more inclined to purchase a product or service.

Being a writers is no different, in that your work will be, by design, targeted to only a segment of the population. Nurturing your brand is how you’ll ensure your book will be put in front of the right readers, and have the best possible chances of success.

Before you set out on your journey to building your online presence, therefore, think about what you want your channels to reflect—be it across social media or through your website. The online image you’ll be creating has to be consistent across all of the mediums you are leveraging.

This by no means implies your online persona should be fake—quite the opposite in fact! The more genuine your online image is, the easier it will be to maintain over time and the more believable and consistent it will appear (because it’ll be true!).

Why Your Online Image Matters.

Trying to maintain a fake image will, at best, make it unconvincing and, at worst, confusing.

And that’s the thing.

Most people reject what they don’t understand. If they check out your content and it looks all over the place or doesn’t make sense, they’ll simply move on. Confusion turns people away from your content before they’ve had a chance to hear what you have to say.

Ask yourself some questions before you start:

• Who are you? What makes you, YOU? What is unique to you?

• When people think of you, what do you want them to think about? Someone who’s fun? Quirky? Talks about things as they are? Someone who’s formal? Someone with a particular interest? etc.

• How does this translate into the look and feel and content of your social media channels, your website etc.?

Take some time to write this down and use it to create your brand guidelines. And I mean exactly that: write it down. Make it a rulebook, and refer to it regularly. It may change and evolve with time, but having a reference point you can physically consult (as opposed to shreds of an idea of what your brand is about somewhere in your mind) will keep you and your brand on track.

Everything you post about, and the format in which you share it (e.g. photos, videos, long captions, blog posts, newsletter etc.) should be in line with the image you’re building.

From there, identify who your target audience is, and make sure your message (and its delivery) is relatable and appealing to that audience. It can take some trial and error to get right, so give yourself room to learn and grow!

Your Instagram Brand: Content vs. Aesthetics.

Looking at Instagram, you’ll see two main types of focus:

• Focus on aesthetics: these are feeds with high quality, impeccable pictures, quirky reels/videos, with a consistent theme and colour palette, and a huge focus on being visually pleasing.

• Focus on content: feeds where more thought and effort is placed on the post captions.

There are different ratios in which you can combine the two. Go back to your brand guidelines and see which ratio or combination of the two feels like a better fit. Ask yourself what would be more relatable for your target audience. Find what resonates most with you and your brand and stick to it, especially at the beginning when you’re growing a platform.

If you’re unsure what’s right for you, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Take some time to browse Bookstagram and find accounts you like. See what they’re doing and use the techniques you can see are working for them and feel right to you. Find what works, throw away what doesn’t.

Whatever you do, keep it consistent.

Wherever you land on the ‘aesthetics focus’ to ‘content focus’ ratio, as with a lot of things the first thing that people see when they land onto your channels (be it your instagram feed, your website etc.) is… Well. What they SEE.

People’s opinion of you based on your content will likely be formed (often subconsciously) within seconds of landing on your website or feed. Within those few seconds, they’ll decide whether or not to stick around or bounce, never to come back again.

For that reason, it’s important to keep the look and feel of your content generally consistent. Remember, confusing people is the surest way to fry their brains and turn them away from your channels before they give you, or what you have to say, a chance.

Your channels should all reflect the same look and the same message, i.e. they should look like they belong to the same person, and not show people one person on Instagram, a different one on your website and yet another one on Facebook. Things need to line up for your audience to get a sense of who you are and what you’re about, so that they can evaluate whether or not they can relate to it all. Once again, and I can’t say this enough, confused brand messaging is your worst enemy.

Professional, or not at all.

Consistency is one thing, and it’s crucial, but it’ll mean nothing if your channels don’t all look professional. Professional doesn’t mean it can’t also have a casual vibe, or be a friendly brand. Professional means whatever your brand is, it should have a certain polish to it, and clearly show that it was thought through and well-executed.

If you’re not convinced, riddle me this: When you land on a website that looked hacky or unsafe, do you still stuck around and browse through it? Or when you find an instagram account with burry pictures, weird-looking captions and totally unrelated content throughout, do you still scroll through for more?

…

My guess is you wouldn’t, because when you find something that looks dodgy (or, in other words, unprofessional) you can’t get away from it fast enough. We all do, because on a primal level that sense of uneasiness, uncertainty and insecurity signals to our brain that there may be danger, and it triggers our flight response.

Here are some prompts to get you started with building professional-looking and consistent channels:

On Instagram:

• What’s your Instagram handle? It is unique and memorable? Find a handle that says what it does on the tin, and one that doesn’t include a string of random numbers and letters. e.g. @authorjohnsmith is good, but @johnny_1999 and @John_Smith99 aren’t because they say nothing about who you are and they won’t be easy to remember.

• What type of pictures are you posting? Are they all clear and high-quality?

• Will you be using filters? If so which one? Ideally pick one and stick to it to give your feed a homogeneous look.

• What format are you using for your captions?

• Are your captions properly spaced out and easy to read?

• What content are you planning to post? Will there be recurring themes? If so, which ones?

On your website:

• Does your website look professional? Or does it look like a dodgy website that people will want to run away from immediately?

• Is your domain clear, specific and easy to remember?

• What does your landing page (your website home page) say about you?

• What imagery are you using?

• Is the look and feel of your website aligned with the look and feel of your Instagram feed? i.e. do they look like they belong to the same person?

• If your website navigation clear?

• How many clicks does it take to go from your home page to finding key information about you and your books?

• Is it easy for people to get in touch with you?

REAL and GENUINE does it.

I appreciate that a lot of the information we’ve covered so far sounds like it involves a lot of over-engineering of your online persona, but that isn’t to say that to succeed you need create a fake alter-ego.

Quite the opposite, actually.

What it suggests is that you should take some time to think about what makes you YOU, what feels real and genuine to YOU and to see how you can best translate that into images and content that will help people get to know YOU and what you stand for.

The illusion of perfection won’t make you attractive. All it’ll do is make you seem one-dimensional, and most likely make it look like you lack substance. In this day and age, people like to be able to relate to others and to see what goes on behind the scenes, the good AND the bad.

That’s all that your writer brand is. And the people who can relate to it will be the ones who stick around to hear more of what you have to say and will be more likely to enjoy your books.

In fact, look at it that way: building our writer brand online is like matching-making our books to their ideal readers. It’s getting our work in front of the people who are primed to love it and embrace it. And if we’ll give our characters a chance to find their literary soul-mates, why wouldn’t we grant our books the same courtesy?

[kenkamishiro]

20210218 Jack Jeanne Creator Interview with Famitsu - Interview #1 with Ishida Sui

The Jack Jeanne staff (Ishida Sui, Towada Shin, Kosemura Akira, Seishiro) were interviewed by Famitsu, a Japanese gaming magazine for Jack Jeanne’s release. Someone was kind enough to let me read it, so I’ll be translating the 4 interviews. The interview with Ishida I’ll do a full TL, and the other three I may do more of a summary since I’ve been busy lately.

Ishida Sui

Creator / Character Designer / Script Supervisor

Mangaka. From Fukuoka Prefecture. Creator of “Tokyo Ghoul” and “Tokyo Ghoul:re.” 2021 marks his 10th anniversary in the art industry.

Characters that were created based on the idea of “personifying plays”

Please share with us how you honestly felt when you received the commission request for this work.

That it seemed kind of questionable but interesting nonetheless. “If others can do it, I can too,” I thought.

How did fans react after Jack Jeanne was announced?

I still get letters from the readers of Tokyo Ghoul to this day, but some of them would bring up Jack Jeanne, or mention that they like a character and are interested in them even before the game’s release, so it makes me happy seeing that reception.

Please share with us your thoughts about being in charge of the character design.

It was a good learning experience because it was something I’d never done while working on my manga, trying to finalize the 6-member cast of the protagonist and the main characters, and then completely focusing on them as an elite squad. I tend to make too many characters, so...

When coming up with a character, how do you develop their image?

Previously, I decided it based on the character’s name and face. But with Jack Jeanne, it was a trial-and-error process. At first, I envisioned each character as a personification of a play - for example, Fumi was modelled off of “Salome”, Yonaga off of “Shintokumaru”, Shirota from one of Yamamoto Shūgorō’s works... I dropped the idea after that...and that’s how they were developed. They were created in a peculiar way this time.

Which character did you have the easiest time drawing, and on the flipside, which character did you find yourself struggling to draw?

Kai was the very first character I created, followed by Fumi. Those two I was able to draw relatively quickly. I wouldn’t really call this a struggle, but Suzu, the one with the red hair, wasn’t part of the main cast of six at first. Ootori, the blond character with the prickly personality, was actually part of the main cast at first, but since I wanted a simple-minded character, Suzu ended up being promoted.

I’m sure you consider every character your favourite, but if you had to pick only one character, who would it be?

Probably the main character Kisa. She embodies everything I think of in a shoujo manga protagonist, and I’m very fond of her. But I really do love all the characters. They each have their own appeal, so I can’t settle on just one.

Was there anything you had to constantly keep in mind when designing the characters for Jack Jeanne?

Broccoli specially requested that I give every character a strong colour palette. It’s because if I’m left to my vices, I end up using only subdued tones...I also constantly kept in my mind that I was making them look good-looking as boys.

You were also responsible for the event illustrations in the game. Could you give more details about them, and any difficulties that you faced?

For the event illustrations, I had to be aware of what scene would best match the script. Towada-san also specified where the illustrations should be inserted, but if there was a better scene before or after it, I gave priority to it instead. The hardest part...was drawing them all by myself. There ended up being more than 160 illustrations.

I heard it was you who requested Touyama Maki to design the chibi characters. Please share with us the appeal of the chibi characters drawn by Touyama-san, as well as your thoughts when you saw the chibi characters in the game.

Touyama-san’s appeal...is that their art is great! The deformed characters are perfectly balanced and outstandingly stable. I’m also a fan of their art and I like their life-proportion-size characters. It’s really cute seeing them move their tiny limbs around on the game screen.

Despite his humble abilities as an amateur lyricist, he oversaw every song with a burning passion that was second to none.

You supervised the game and the script, but what was the most memorable part of working on this game for you?

For starters, I vividly recall talking with Towada-san all the time. It was common for us to spend 10 hours a day talking to one another, several times a week.

How did production handled between the two of you for the script proceed?

I come up with the general outline. I’d talk about the overall flow and the key developments during the meetings, and Towada-san would take that and organize it, adding descriptions and colour to the details. It would have been impossible to create Jack Jeanne without her.

You wrote the lyrics to all the songs, including the opening song “Jack & Jeanne Of Quartz.” Please share with us how you came to be in charge of the lyrics.

Originally, there were several candidates, and there was even one person that I thought, “This person might be the one.” But I realized that it would take an enormous amount of time to share the understanding of my work to them, so I decided to give it a try, thinking that even an amateur would be the best for the job as long as they were passionate.

How did you come up with the lyrics?

I’m embarrassed to say this since I’m a complete amateur, but I tried my best to associate it with the feelings and information related to the subject, and whether it sounded good when sung...at any rate, I did my absolute best.

Are there any verses in the lyrics that you’d like people to pay special attention to, or any phrases that you really liked?

Avu-chan from Ziyoou-vachi (a 4-member rock band) is a friend of mine, but when I met up with her, I had her look at the lyrics, and the part she liked I also ended up liking. It’s the phrase “charcoal night grey” in the opening song. I also like the last two lines of the ending song because they represent the entirety of the game.

What was the most memorable interaction you had with the composer Kosemura-san?

He was professional in that every time, he exceed my expectations in what I wanted conveyed. We also spent about a week together (?) during the recording boot camp for the demo songs, and the time I spent sitting next to him and listening to the same songs was surreal. I couldn’t believe the person sitting next to me wrote the songs that I listened to as a student.

I want readers to like Kisa. A cover illustration filled with strong emotions.

On October 9, 2020 on Twitter, you tweeted, “Makin’ games is hard.” What was it you found difficult?

I was given a lot of decision-making authority as a producer, but since I’m a company outsider, I had a hard time making decisions without seeing the actual situation or making choices in areas where I had no insight. It was a tweet vexed from my inability to understand due to lack of experience. I wish I had more power...

What do you want people to pay attention to when they play the demo version?

I’d like people to pay attention to the fact that the art and script were created by very few people (almost two people), much like an indie game. Something like, “Ishida really drew all these characters!” or “Towada-san really wrote all the script!”...there is more to come in the full version.

You drew the cover illustration for this issue of the magazine, but I’d like to hear more details regarding this.

I drew it while reflecting on how lucky I was, like, “I’m really drawing for the magazine I’ve read since I was a kid...!?” I drew both male and female forms for Kisa, in the hopes that people would come to love the main character.

Please leave a message to your fans and readers who are eagerly awaiting the release of this game.

I made it so that players of all ages and genders can enjoy the game. There is a lot more in store besides just the illustrations. I hope you will play it!

[kyoupann]

Please do more of the writing head canons. It’s really interesting to see other people’s ideas on the topic, so if you can be bothered, I would highly appreciate more, thanks bye <3

Y’all don’t know how happy I am to talk about these headcanons, they are my babies and I love them so much :’) thanks for asking g <3

Handwriting Headcanons

Same dynamic as before, try to guess whose handwriting it is before reading and tell me how many you got right! <3

You can find the first post here (no need to check it tho)

Quick disclaimer: halfway through making my initial notes, I remembered I had one (1) single lesson of graphology in my applied linguistics class, but that was a year ago and some information might be off. I just thought it was neat to include.

Another quick disclaimer: I don’t know much about Hylian, but I like to think it has a similar stroke system to Japanese, so the pressure and accuracy of your strokes play a major role in your handwriting (among other things, ofc.) so there are some parts where I focus more on that

(First Row, from left to right)

Sky

Our first boy is mother hen! Believe it or not, he has the prettiest handwriting out of all of them! Sky: probably has nice, even elegant handwriting because Sun forced him to practice when they were little. In the end, that paid off because his handwriting is the prettiest one. There’s no pressure, but he is confident in what he writes that his lines aren’t thin. Mistakes? what is that? this boy has impeccable grammar and spelling. No mechanic errors to be found in his letters! I’d like to think that many of Hyrule’s classic/staple poems were originally written by the firt king aka sky child. Like, imagine, after a retiring from being a Person of Power (as the first ruler), Sky finds comfort in the arts: revisits his old woodcarvings and starts writing poetry about the world he still doesn’t fully understand. wowie. tldr: sky writes poetry and you can pry it from my cold dead hands.

This is what one of his letters would look like: 

Next one is the one and only, our Hero of Time

2. Time

I’ll die on the “Time didn’t know how to read and write” hill. His handwriting is simple, not pretty but not messy. It has some grammar and spelling mistakes here and there. Can become unreadable if writing in a hurry, he sorts of forgets spaces between words are a thing/letters have different sizes and lowercase letters end up the same size as capital letters. I’m not saying he sometimes forgets to write articles: he just doesn’t want to. Honestly, he just has this dad-neat handwriting. He is a gentle dad and writes like a dad, if he puts too much pressure onto the paper, his handwriting become too sharp/angle-ish and ends up looking ugly. And as much as he would like to not care about it, in the end he does (:

Malon taught him how to write and it was quite the experience. At first he didn’t want to because he was ‘too old’ to learn and it was torture at first, but now look at him devouring his cowboy novels. 

A chunk of his handwriting: 

*sniff* such a dad quote.

3. my mansss, your  4x1 deal at Target: Four

Look, my boy is patient! He could do some nice and fancy lettering if he wanted to. He was taught that handwriting and spelling said a whole lot about him as a person, you know, like a first impression kinda thing; so he always proof reads more than twice before sending ­a letter. Super rare grammar mistakes.

The faster he writes, the more slant his writing becomes. Under stress/ when not sure how to write things down, run-on sentences are everywhere and his handwriting is inconsistent in general (I don’t headcanon each part of him having completely different handwriting because handwriting becomes muscle memory over time. It’s just slightly different variations of the same, like idk  Vio’s handwriting is neater than Green’s and Red writes hearts instead of any dot/circle and no, I do not take constructive criticism on that, jk i do.) Adding on to each of the colours’ handwriting, I’d think Red and Green write with words slanted to the right( inclined), Vio is a mix of the opposite, so reclined and straight, and my mans blue a true neutral writes straight (kinda like Time’s).

The logic behind this is that inclined writing supposedly means honesty and need for giving (and getting) affection; reclined means, as you can probably imagine,  defensiveness and repression of true feelings, but also shows great concentration; straight handwriting means self-control, observation and reflection as well as distrust and indifference. But as complete being (tm), Four just writes as in the image example which is not too straight and not too inclined, and I believe that’s a good middle for him

HOWEVER, if I’m feeling in the mood for crack, I totally accept this boy to have the ugliest, chicken scratches-looking handwriting! :’D It’s just funny to think that someone like him, who has to be precise and careful in his work, can't write neatly to save his life. 

One of his letters would look like this: 

Also I just LOVE how his hero titles look in this font ksksks

and that’s

(Middle row, from left to right)

4.- Mister Bunny Boy - Legend

His uncle taught him how to write. I’d call his handwriting pretty and neat at a first glance, but he presses too hard on the paper, most of the time staining the back or the following page. Sometimes will retrace some words if he doesn’t like how it looks (which only makes it messier). According to my notes, a thick or strong handwriting represents determination/commitment.

As I also headcanon him to know many languages, mechanical errors are more present than grammar ones; that is, weird capitalisation of words. Punctuation is somewhere in between; uses too many commas when he should just cut the sentence. he mixes punctuation from two languages or more in writing when too distracted (or too focused, because, well, pressure.); when he writes for himself, he has almost no problem following said language’s punctuation rules. Also, this is just polyglot culture, and I’m projecting a bit, but when he forgets a word in the language he’s writing, he just replaces it with its equivalent in another language because we don’t care about fluency, but rather functionality. in this household (more on that in my language hc, ksksks).

An example of his writing:

so powerful

4.-  Mr. Wolfman, howl me a song - Twilight

I don’t have much for him because 1) I don’t think he writes a lot and 2) he is a hands-on/visual learner, I’ll die by that. He only learnt how to write because Ulli insisted it was important and he was not about to disrespect his momma; he IS That Guy, but doesn’t really write enough to have neat handwriting.

Many people seem to overlook the fact that his house is filled with books and write him as completely illiterate (which if not explored properly, ends up feeling a bit disrespectful and full of prejudice, but go off I guess; and that’s on my core Headcanons for Twi); however, he sticks to simple sentences. Knowing how to read and understanding a text is different from knowing how to write them. Like, when we would see a semicolon and understand its position in the text, but didn’t understand the nature of it. Is this clear? idk i’m sorry. So yeah, boy reads a lot, writes very little.

As for his Actual Handwriting, as opposed to Legend, his handwriting is thiccc but not because he presses into the paper; he is just that messy, he has no sense of ink-flow-control, he does what he can with what he has. To the untrained eye, his handwriting illegible letters like v, n, u are very similar; when he makes notes for himself he does it in the form of doodles or small ‘icons’. But! He reads a lot, so he rarely makes spelling mistakes (: he is your go-to guy when you don’t know how to write a word.

An example of his writing:

He keeps a journal, sue me.

3. My first born- Warrior

Okay, first off... I accept this is completely biased. I saw the idea and said “That’s True”. If you haven’t, please read Effective Communication; or The Lack of Thereof by htruona, a fic where the boys reflect on the language barriers between them. It’s incredibly funny and probably what made me start making these silly notes. So, if you’ve read that fic, you know where I’m going.

My man, Warrior, can’t fucking write. I mean, he physically can, but it’s very bad. Here’s the reason for it, tho, and it’s not his fault: Technically, he knew how to write alright but he joined the military and whatever note he had to write had to be concise or in the worst case coded. He mixes capital and lowercase letters. If we consider that he joined the military at around 15, his handwriting and grammar had yet to continue developing. Just think about how after summer break, your handwriting was always slightly worse than before because you didn’t write for an entire month. Now think what 2 years can do to that. Hmm, not cool, dude. He makes quick notes, when writing he’s all gotta go fast. he is the lighting mcqueen of writing; good for emergency messages, not ideal for love letters. His punctuation also suffered a lot, he only know full stops and commas and hardly uses them. A sentence for him is either one word or fifty without a single comma, no inbetween.

His hero title and an example of his writing.

(Bottom row, or what I like to call “fuck cursive” row)

7.- Magic man - Hyrule

I’m basic and I do agree with the popular headcanon of he not knowing how to write because well, y’all know his Hyrule. He only knows how to write his name because that’s important, same with numbers. I don’t see why would he write/read except checking the roadsigns. (he can even use this as an excuse for getting lost frequently; he thought it said something different.) But I do think that because his habitual reading consists of roadsigns, his ‘punctuation’ is weird af and places full stops/points/periods at the same level of his words and his commas/question/exclamation marks below them. Yk, creative license. Sadly, I don’t have much about my magic hands man so here’s what his writing would look like if he actually wrote a paragraph:

Man, I love Hyrule.

8.- Man, I don’t understand this boy -  Wild

Cursive? ain’t nobody have the time for that. He woke up and had to save the world in his underwear while not knowing how to read nor write.  He learnt during his journey and was taught by multiple people from different regions, that explains his inconsistent spelling of things and names for them. So Wild knows language variations for many items and uses them interchangeably (even if they aren’t exactly the same). Another headcanon related to writing/language skills that I’ve been thinking about is that if the shrine was able to cause amnesia, I’m sure there were other areas in the brain affected which leads us to language disorders such as agraphia and aphasia. But that’s a story for another day ksksksk

An example of his writing (after relearning)

9.- The best of sons - Wind

I don’t have much for him and that makes me sad. Look, he’s a kid, doing kid things like stabbing dudes on the head. This boy was taught cursive by his grandma, but could never do it and no one needs it anyway. His handwriting is good enough for his pirate life, Tetra is the one to handle Official stuff, he just gotta sign. Spelling and grammar mistakes abound. He is still relatively young and can correct his handwriting if he desires. But same as Wild, with how many times he’s been thrown out and hit his head, I’m starting to consider some language disorder for him as well.

An example of his writing:

aaand that’s it.

Thanks, y’all for showing interest in this silly thing uwu it was fun to finally talk about this. If you ever want to discuss ideas/headcanons(especially if they are related to language and culture), I’m your person (: I’m always happy to hear new headcanons. Feel free to add anything to this post either in a reply or in a reblog, I’d love to hear from y’all <3<3

[nomadinia]

Chronicles of an unfortunate athlete (part 1)

I waited a long time to write this review because I wanted to make sure I had all the facts. I was originally going to give CareAxis a 1 star rating, but the physiotherapist I met with was beyond amazing, hence the only reason for my 2 star rating. Note, this review is more about my experience as an athlete with one of the doctors running this program than the program itself.

There is so much to say that I don't really know where to begin, but let me start by saying that dealing with the CareAxis neurosurgeon's office was one of the most frustrating medical experiences I have ever had. Since my situation is quite peculiar, I have dealt with my fair share of unhelpful doctors, but this neurosurgeon in particular is the epitome of medical nonchalance in my eyes.

This has been a 5 years odyssey, so I’ll try to be as concise as I can throughout this review.

I am a former competitive varsity athlete and some of my teammates have gone on to become Olympians. Needless to say, my body has endured some grueling training. I trained at a competitive level from the age of 18 to 23, and one thing about grueling training is that it makes one very attuned to their body, so I’ve always known automatically when something was up with mine. I always wanted to continue my competitive career at a professional level, but unfortunately due to debilitating back and shin pain and incontinence (keep that in mind), I had to retire from competitive athletics at 24. Fitness and competitive athletics were everything to me, I had a fitness blog with over 62,000 followers, I was about to start a fitness channel, and I was putting in the hard work towards becoming a professional runner.

My deteriorating physical health took a huge toll on me mentally, but despite my early retirement, I still clung to my dreams of returning to competitive athletics. So for 3 years, I had endless appointments with my family doctor to try to find the cause of my symptoms. However, at 27, I was tired of getting nowhere, so I started pushing for diagnostic tests. I am fortunate to have a family doctor who understands my drive and doesn't mind sending me for diagnostic tests as long as I pay for them.

In June 2020, I had a full body MRI and that's when we discovered that I had moderate to severe congenital lumbar spinal stenosis (L4-L5-S1). Thinking it was the source of my ailments, my doctor and I were ecstatic. I was even more ecstatic knowing that there were still hopes of qualifying for Boston 2022 if I could get surgery in 2020. Since I knew how ridiculously long the wait time for a neurosurgeon is in Quebec, I searched the Internet for private neurosurgeons in Quebec. I was very happy to CareAxis initiative and thought it was really great after reading about it. Besides, because the program included an orthopedic surgeon, I was even more excited, thinking, "let's kill two birds with one stone - we can find a solution to my back pain and also to my shin pain”. All in all, I had so much high hopes.

One thing leading to another, I self-referred myself to the program, met with a physiotherapist (to whom I gave a copy of my MRI report and a flash drive containing the images thinking that would be sent to the neurosurgeon (keep that in mind). I have to commend CareAxis because I was contacted fairly quickly after my assessment with the physiotherapist (2-3 days). Unfortunately, I couldn't make it to the appointment because I live 2 hours away from Montreal and I'm a public servant, so I can't just give a 2 day notice to my manager. I opted for a phone consultation.

Now that's where the whole debacle begins...

1) At our first consultation, the neurosurgeon did not have my MRI report or MRI imaging study. I was baffled because (a) this information had been provided to the physiotherapist, and (b) I distinctly remember leaving a voicemail for one of his receptionists with the information of the clinic where I had my MRI.

I was so excited for our first phone consultation, but it really turned out to be unfruitful. Side note, he is very punctual in terms of his phone consultations. I was very disappointed though since our first consultation lasted less than 15 min if I remember correctly. Although disappointed, I was not mad because it was more of an administrative error. I couldn't really blame the neurosurgeon, but it should have been a red flag call to the many communication flaws in this program. Before ending our phone call, he asked me to send him a copy of the MRI images and the report and I did so promptly.

2) Since the clinic where I had my MRI did not provide me with a CD, as patients have access to an online portal, I downloaded the images onto a flash drive and sent it to the neurosurgeon. On our first phone call, I mentioned this and made sure that sending the flash drive was okay. He confirmed that it was ok. Everything was sent by express mail, so I knew he would receive it within a week.

I waited a whole week and no phone call.... Knowing how busy neurosurgeons are, I let the time pass (a WHOLE month) because I figured he had a lot to do. Besides, no one likes to be seen as a clingy patient... Of course, after a whole month of no response, I finally called his clinic and to my surprise, his secretary informed me that he had not been able to open the USB drive... Internally, I was very annoyed because this meant that if I hadn't called his clinic, no one would have informed me of the problem. Once again, I brushed off the issue and told his secretary that I would contact the Vancouver clinic to have the CD sent to them.

3) I contacted the Vancouver clinic and had the CD sent to the neurosurgeon’s office. I think it was sent to him fairly quickly. Unfortunately, he was once again unable to see my images as his clinic did not have the necessary technology and once again nobody informed me of the problem. Again, I wasn't really mad because the technology used in Vancouver to perform my MRI required a specific type of software (DICOM).

I found it strange though that a hospital could not open a DICOM file given that (a) I was able to see the images on my computer after downloading a DICOM software and (b) other clinics were also able to open the images. Anyhow, I was not too bothered by this problem, what irritated me was once again the lack of communication from neurosurgeon’s office.

4) Since the neurosurgeon could not open my MRI images, he scheduled me for an MRI and, yes, you guessed it, again, no one called to inform me. It was a total shock to me when on Christmas Eve (December 24) I received a letter in the mail informing me of an MRI scheduled for December 26. I live in the National Capital Region, which meant a two-hour drive that I didn't mind, but for God's sake, it was the holidays and people make plans at this time of year. Of course, when I tried to call the radiology division to tell them I couldn't make it, I was greeted with an auto message saying they were closed, so of course I couldn't talk to anyone. That's when I started to get more than a little annoyed.

Fast forward, I ended up getting the MRI he ordered. While I really despise many aspects of his program, I have to give credit where it is due – the MRI rescheduling was done pretty quickly (February 2021). Now we are getting to the part that really was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Because of all the shenanigan going on, it took the neurosurgeon about six months to tell me that it was not my spinal stenosis that was causing my shin pain and incontinence. I don't mind him not knowing what was causing my shin pain and incontinence, but the fact that the whole process took six months is unacceptable!

From the time I referred myself to CareAxis (September 2020) to the time the neurosurgeon was finally able to get an MRI of my spine (February 2021), six months elapsed. For many people, 6 months may not seem like much, but for a high-performance athlete who wants to return to their sport, it's half a year. In the world of sports, especially high performance sports, so much can be accomplished in six months, especially in terms of training or rehabilitation... Keep in mind that since I was out of my sport for such a long period of time, I could have really used some of that time to reacclimate my body to a high and demanding level of physical training. Those six months of shenanigans really could have been cut in half if only there had been ongoing communication with the patient (i.e., myself). I could have been proactive on so many aspects throughout the process.

Since the neurosurgeon was quite baffled by my situation, he decided to make an appointment for an in-person consultation to better evaluate me (in May 2021). However, I remember having a strange feeling during our last phone call - as I explained my symptoms to him, I could sense the disinterest in his voice. At that point, I realized that he is the type of doctor who won't do much to help an athlete get back into their sport.

After our last phone conversation, I fell into a depression because I was disappointed that my spinal stenosis wasn't the cause of my shin pain and incontinence. I was really at my wits end with all the diagnostic tests and medical appointments. Eventually, I picked myself back up and, because I didn't want my judgment to be clouded, I cancelled the in-person consultation with the neurosurgeon and decided it would be best if I did some research on my own. I also asked my doctor at the time to refer me to a sports medicine doctor.

Long story short, after doing extensive research, I felt confident enough to meet with the neurosurgeon. So I called his clinic to make an appointment - his office never returned my call (it's been 7 months now). Dr. Santaguida never sent notes to my doctor either and didn't even try to refer me to anyone else. He simply forgot about me. Fortunately, I was always proactive, and during those 7 months, I had asked my doctor for a referral to another neurosurgeon, but more importantly, I sought recommendations from experts. I contacted a Norwegian MSK rehabilitation and injuries specialist who reviewed my MRI images and recommended the right spine surgery. Furthermore, I obtained a second opinion from Sandford University, Jefferson University, UC San Diego, and the Global neurosciences institute. And we were able to shed some light on the incontinence.

With a proper physical exam and detailed sports history, we could have easily shed light on most of my ailments. Moreover, I could have had the necessary additional tests quickly and been on my way back to a very physical lifestyle. It turned out that in addition to spinal stenosis, I have chronic exertional compartment syndrome – CECS (shin pain) and a sports hernia (Gilmore's groin, athletic pubalgia, whatever you want to call it) in my right groin that causes the urological symptoms (incontinence). And to top it all off, I have PCOS.

Imagine having PCOS along with moderate to severe spinal stenosis, CECS and a sports hernia that irritates the bladder. Life was certainly not joyful... While the chances of the CareAxis neurosurgeon suspecting CECS and athletic pubalgia would have been very slim, he worked with an orthopedic surgeon who could have given him excellent advice on how to manage a former athlete... This neurosurgeon could have even referred me or suggested that I see a sport doctor. I went through many extra hurdles that could have been avoided.

While I can't fault the neurosurgeon for not knowing about CECS and sports hernias, as these are occult sports injuries that only a sports physician or team of experts would suspect, I am definitely irritated that I had to endure unnecessary pain and that proper treatment was delayed.

[jui-imouto-chan]

Part 9

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@multishipper-trash

I switched to calling him Shoyo since everyone except Kageyama calls him that but I’ll probably go back to Hinata in a different part (also bc Natsu is technically a Hinata so)

•

“A letter!!” Natsu announced from the door, her feet slapping against the wood of the stairs as she made her way to Shoyo’s room. “Nii-chan!!

“Coming!”

Natsu bounced on her heels impateintly, listening to the rustle of Shoyo’s sheets. Shoyo yelped and then began hissing something she couldn’t quite make out, and then after a few minutes of relative quiet, Tobio and Shoyo shouted at each other before Tobio stormed out, barging past her without patting her head like usual. Natsu wondered if he had a fever, since his face was the color of steamed crab.

Huh, so did Shoyo. Maybe they were both sick?

“Nii-chan.” She proffered the letter, shifting her weight.

Shoyo shook his head, his flush lightening enough that it only stained his cheeks. “Thanks, Natsu,” he said, smiling as he ruffled her hair. She grinned up at him and turned on her heel, padding over to the kitchen to rattle off what she learned in school the day prior to their mom.

The letter Shoyo held was from the “Kenma” that had made a contract with him the month before, with a simple wax seal of a cat with headphones on. The envelope was crisp and pristine, although the penmanship of the address lines was constantly fluctuating between beautiful and scribbly.

Shoyo glanced around, making sure Kageyama wasn’t nearby, then retreated into his bedroom, ignoring the tangle of sheets that had collapsed to the floor during the earlier...incident... and instead settling into his desk.

‘Hello, Shoyo.

There’s more funding in the envelope inside the one you pulled this out from. Have fun with it, I guess.

I was wondering if you want to meet up with me at some point. I’ll leave my contact stuff at the bottom of this letter... Leave the scary guy you who follows you around at home please. I don’t want to get murdered.

Anyway. We can discuss the details for the date meet and greet when we meet up over text, if you want to actually do that.

Kenma.

XXX-XXX-XXXX’

Shoyo found the wad of bills and decided that he’d make sure ‘Kenma’ would let him pay for food and stuff for when they met up, guilt gnawing at him for taking charity. It wasn’t like he wasn’t giving anything for it, but he didn’t actually feel any difference in his mana supply—not that he could even actually tell that there was mana in him. Maybe the contracts just weren’t taking as much as he thought they would be? —Like everyone taking five yen when he has a billion yen: pretty much negligible. (—Thank you Tsukishima for using that word. Hinata just hoped he wouldn’t use it to describe his test score increases relative to his grade again.)

Shoyo snagged his phone off the nightstand (pointedly ignoring Kageyama’s beside it), tossing himself onto his mattress and kicking his feet as he sent a greeting.

•

Kuroo had himself draped over Kenma’s bed, scrolling idly through messages Lev sent to their groupchat and rolling his eyes. He glanced over at the partial-blonde, who was so close to the TV, Kuroo wondered if he’d eventually pass through the screen and actually enter the game.

Beside his head, Kenma’s phone flashed and pinged, and he’d never seen Kenma move so fast. The game was paused and Kenma was lain beside Kuroo in an instant, his eyes flicking across the screen with overwhelming intensity.

“Did a preorder drop or something?”

Kenma completely ignored him. Kuroo tried to quell his urge to annoy his best friend with dramatics.

The shorter spent five minutes reading whatever message he had received, probably rereading it multiple times if Kuroo were to go off the fact that Kenma hadn’t scrolled.

Finally, after an agonizing period of tense silence, Kenma’s thumbs got to work, typing and retyping words. Kenma mouthed the sentences and scrunched his nose periodically, probably noticing syntax errors.

It was a little bizarre, since Kenma didn’t usually care about what he wrote or how he wrote it. Kuroo once had to read the words “skin $100 said no moth,” with his own eyes, and the message still sometimes haunts him. (Kenma meant to type, “My mother said no to buying the $100 skin,” but didn’t correct himself afterward.)

“Do I add a ‘please’ when saying where to meet me or is that desperate?”

“Do you actually want my opinion or are you talking to yourself?”

Kuroo sighed as Kenma continued his pondering, muttering about lines from a few otome games. Kuroo leaned over and scanned the message, as neither of them had ever been particular about privacy, biting his lip to keep from laughing.

“Hey,” Kenma snapped, falling out of his deliberations. He rolled over and away, which led to him slipping to the floor.

Kuroo burst into cackles, only catching his breath after Kenma tossed a remote at his head. “W... Who’s got ya all riled u-up?” he tried to inquire, panting.

“None of your business.”

“Is ‘Shoyo’ a special friend I should know about?” Kuroo waggled his eyes, dodging an amiibo that sailed through the air and left a noticeable dent in Kenma’s wall.

“N-No.”

It was quite clear that Kuroo did not believe him one bit, his Hyena-like laughter rippling through the air. “You’re lying—your ears are red! Your blushing so hard!”

“Shut up!” Kenma hid under the covers at the foot of the bed, trying to look back at his phone. Kuroo, deciding that he was fine with dying there, poked at Kenma’s head, seeking amusement from teasing the half-blonde.

“Huh?” Kenma was stock-still, not even moving when Kuroo prodded at him. “Kenma, you okay? Are you dead?” The blankets were raised, Kuroo peering upside-down at his friend.

Dead seemed like an understatement—after all, at least then you would see the life draining out of the body. No, Kenma appeared as though his soul was sucked out with a vacuum and his body sat empty while his spirit struggled against the vacuum bag.

Kuroo snatched Kenma’s phone out of his hands, his friend not twitching or reacting at all. The only indication that Kenma was still existent was the slow paling of his skin.

“What’s got you so.... Oh. Well... Yep, that’ll do it.”

The last line of his message, which he probably was intending to delete—or at least rewrite—simply read, ‘I look forward to our date.’

•

“He won’t think that you wanted it to be a date if I come,” Kuroo explained as he shoved Kenma toward the cafe, still quite sympathetic of his poor friend’s pain. Kenma had his hood pulled up and kinda seemed tempted to drift into traffic, so Kuroo just kept a better hold of his shoulders as he drove him forward.

“Maybe he’ll take pity on me and stab me with a teaspoon.”

“Maybe you’ll be less morbid, how about that?”

“We both know that’s very unlikely.” Kenma managed to open the door before Kuroo flattened him against it.

“True,” he sighed. “So, you see him?”

Kenma glanced around, fingertips rubbing against his nails within his pockets as he sought out Shoyo.

After a moment of peering around, he spotted sunrise eyes and a mane of flame, as well as the scent of full, unfettered magic wafting through the air.

“There,” Kenma breathed as Kuroo straightened, eyes fixating on the summoner. Kuroo whistled to himself.

“I’m counting myself lucky that you’re not territorial.”

Kenma squinted at his best friend, though he let his withering glare fall exasperatedly. “I’m getting there.”

Kuroo’s smile grew with mischief. “Too late.” His tongue slipped across his upper lip.

Across the cafe, Shoyo shivered, glancing around and catching their predatory gazes. Unlike prey, his eyes didn’t waver, and their excitement only grew.

•••

••Part 9 of (?)••

This got a little longer than usual—I got carried away bc I love writing disaster Kenma 😂 and also Natsu is super adorable so I’m including her more 💖💖

•• Send Asks for more! Feel free to ask about characters and send Headcanons! Or if u wanna just talk Haikyuu/ships, I’m good with that too! :) and for other parts, search the “summoner au” tag on my blog and you’ll find em!••

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[prayerith]

a flaw in the code

Kaiba runs his Twitter more or less automatically, including a function to mass-block people who interact with Tweets he has blocked. Unfortunately, this sometimes means that he blocks people he doesn’t mean to block. When he gets confronted over this, how will he respond?

my introduction to canon x oc (the oc being kazuko kubota, the child of me and @duelistkingdom ) and it’s from kaiba’s pov (feat unrequited rivalship), because of course it is. enjoy! read on ao3 here

“Kaiba.”

Kaiba’s spine stiffened at the familiar voice. He clutched his books to his chest, their reassuring weight giving him the courage to spin on his heel. As he expected, Yugi Mutou was behind him. Or, not Yugi, but the other Yugi. He was wearing the uniform jacket properly, unlike his tendency during Battle City, but he was no less imposing.

Kaiba swallowed, hoping his voice came out naturally. “Yugi. What’s this about?”

“My partner was discouraged this morning. When I asked him why, he pulled up his phone instead of actually talking to me. So, I will do the same to you: care to explain this?” With all the flair he usually saved for revealing a Spell card, the other Yugi flipped his phone towards Kaiba. Kaiba had to squint—he wouldn’t be caught dead in his reading glasses at school—but when he finally made out the text, he frowned.

“So you’re blocked by somebody on Twitter? Please, Yugi, this isn’t something to get worked up about. It’s not like it’s a personal attack.” He ignored the voice in his head reminding him that he had written a program for his own Twitter that would block anyone who associated with certain tweets. Tweets that featured Yugi boasting about his beautiful, talented, clever girlfriend in particular.

“Just somebody, huh?” The other Yugi fixed Kaiba with a stern look. It should have seemed out of place on Yugi’s round, friendly face, but Kaiba couldn’t help but feel suddenly small. “Try again.”

Kaiba sighed, but took Yugi’s phone in his own hand, finding the appropriate position where he could read the text with the least amount of eye strain. And— “What is this?”

The other Yugi was right; he wasn’t blocked by just any random loser on Twitter. The screen was on Kaiba’s own Twitter page. Instead of the Kaiba Land promos and Duel Disk news he had most recently retweeted, however, the screen was gray, apart from a block of tiny letters. “You are blocked by this user,” the website proclaimed, though as Kaiba met the other Yugi’s piercing eyes again, it felt more like an accusation than a simple statement of fact.

“I’d think you would know,” the other Yugi replied, voice startlingly cool.

To his horror, Kaiba found himself at a loss for words. “I don’t—I mean—” He cut himself off, squeezing his eyes shut and taking a couple deep breaths. As he did so, he searched his memory, but he couldn’t recall hitting the block button on Yugi. At least, not of his own volition.

“Use your words, Kaiba.”

Kaiba growled, but forced his eyes back open. “I didn’t block you.” At the other Yugi’s raised eyebrow, he rushed on, words running into one another in his haste to get them out. “At least, not on purpose. In fact, my account is more or less completely run automatically, using programs that I wrote specifically for that purpose. Some of these scripts do involve blocking users, so it’s possible that your account got caught in some filter accidentally.”

The other Yugi frowned, crossing his arms and tapping his fingers against his elbows. “So what you’re saying is, your computer programs blocked my partner by mistake?”

“Exactly.” Kaiba couldn’t help but feel a jolt of envy at how quickly the other Yugi picked things up. “It was a quirk of the system, nothing more. Tell Yugi that he can stop moping about it.” He felt ridiculous asking someone who, for all intents and purposes, was Yugi to pass along a message to Yugi. Ever since Battle City, though, he’d found himself a bit more amenable to the ridiculous, implausible things that happened around Yugi Mutou.

The other Yugi, for his part, perked up substantially at the mention of his own name. “I can do better than that!” A genuine grin spread over his features, drawing Kaiba’s attention to his plush lips, the dimple on his left cheek. “I can bring him out so you can tell him yourself!”

He continued speaking, but aside from a few mentions of the word “partner,” Kaiba was no longer listening. Ice had shot down his spine, while paradoxically, heat bloomed in his cheeks and sweat formed on his hands. “That won’t be necessary,” he snapped, interrupting the other Yugi’s joyful monologue. “Just tell him what I said. Goodbye.”

With that, he turned on his heel and fled the hallway, books still clutched close to his chest. He could feel his heart hammering in his ears, even as he turned into the men’s room and locked the door behind him. The wooden door was cool against his back as he sunk to a sitting position against it, letting his school supplies fall from his arms.

God damn it. Kaiba exhaled sharply, dragging his hands down his face, before pulling out his phone and opening Twitter. A rare occurrence, as of late; there wasn’t much that he needed to keep up with online, and he rarely wanted to check the inane tweets his contemporaries made. When his profile opened, he navigated to the “Blocked Users” page. There was quite a bit to scroll through, but eventually, he was face-to-face with Yugi’s smiling profile picture.

Almost immediately, he turned his phone off, pulling his knees to his chest and burying his face in his crossed arms. He really did block Yugi. Prevented from interaction with one of the only people he actually wanted to interact with by his own programs.

He allowed himself a moment of despair, before pulling himself back together, unlocking his phone once more. Even so, he still flinched at the reappearance of Yugi’s picture. Keep it together, Seto. You’re just seeing what triggered the block. Think about it like a programming error.

One of the benefits of Kaiba’s auto-block program (nicknamed “Crush Tweet Virus” by Mokuba) was that if Kaiba blocked a tweet, not only did it block the person who made it, it also hid the profiles of anyone who interacted with it. What’s more, it allowed him to see the blocked tweet a given user had liked or retweeted. This was a nominally useful feature. In Yugi’s case, however, the reason for the block made Kaiba’s blood run cold. God. Anything but that tweet.

Unfortunately, no matter how much he tried to blink it out of existence, the proof was there. Kaiba opened the blocked tweet in question, and his stomach immediately turned over. He didn’t have a name for the emotions burning in his gut. All he knew was that the image of Yugi pressing a kiss to Kazuko Kubota’s outstretched hand, the caption declaring “These two are couple goals,” threatened to overwhelm him with discomfort. He had blocked it for a reason.

In fact, there was a theme to the posts he had blocked. They all contained some reference to Yugi Mutou, Kazuko Kubota, and/or the fact that they were currently in a relationship. As much as he wanted to lie to himself, he knew what irked him so much about the reminder that Yugi was dating somebody. It was the fact that he wanted to be the person whose hand Yugi was kissing—the reminder that Yugi clearly didn’t have the same feelings toward Kaiba.

His face was burning. If only he could take his uniform jacket off, splash water on his face, anything to calm him down without ruining his composed appearance. Instead, he navigated back to his “Blocked Users” page, once again making eye contact with Yugi’s smiling headshot. If his fingers trembled at all as he hit the “unblock” button, Kaiba certainly wouldn’t admit to it. He would have to reprogram “Crush Tweet Virus” to exempt Yugi entirely, as he would almost certainly interact with other tweets about his girlfriend. Girlfriend—the word made Kaiba’s stomach do another unpleasant flip.

He thought he was done with the whole endeavor. In fact, he was almost at peace, comfortably eating his lunch on the roof a few days later. Part of that had to do with the fact that he hadn’t interacted with Yugi in all that time, but nobody needed to know that. Unfortunately, things couldn’t be so easy for him.

“Hey, Kaiba! They told me I could find you up here.”

Kaiba nearly spit out his mouthful of rice. Surely, his ears were playing tricks on him. Kubota went to Rintama, she wouldn’t have time to make it onto the roof of Domino High during her lunch break. Yet, as he craned his neck up from his lunch, his stomach dropped. Those baby-pink hair buns could belong to nobody else.

He jumped to his feet, uncomfortable with looking up at the much-shorter duelist, then cleared his throat. “Kubota. What are you doing here?”

Kubota just grinned at him, though it looked more like a hostile baring of teeth to Kaiba. “I was in the neighborhood. Figured I’d drop by and thank you for unblocking Yugi.”

“You knew about that?” Kaiba said, keeping his gaze fiercely locked with her lavender eyes.

“Of course! Yugi and I don’t keep things from each other,” she responded, sounding hurt. “He was really upset when he realized you blocked him, so finding out that it was a mistake made him feel way better. So, uh, thanks.”

Why was she thanking him? He and Kubota didn’t speak much, but when they did, she was usually admonishing him. The lashing she gave him at Duelist Kingdom flashed through his mind; he suppressed a shudder. Yet, analyzing her body language, he didn’t think she was being sarcastic.

She cleared her throat, then, and gestured towards him. Right, she had said, “Thank you.” What was the right response to give? He settled on a curt, “You’re welcome,” and a brief jerk of his head, an abridged bow. Yet, she didn’t turn to leave. Instead, she glanced up and down his form, hands on her hips. One side of her face twitched—a suppressed smile?

“So, the stowaway tells me your Twitter account is basically automated,” she said casually, slipping one of the straps of her bright red bag off so that it hung from one shoulder instead of both.

“Stowaway?”

“Right, you don’t hang out with us much. That’s what I call the other Yugi.”

Kaiba flushed with embarrassment at the memory of the prior conversation. “I see. Yes, he’s right. That is how Yugi got blocked.”

Kubota leaned in, one eyebrow raised. “So, what program blocked Yugi? ‘Cause Stowaway tells me that he didn’t think you were lying about it being an accident, but I haven’t heard of anything that blocks people so liberally.”

“What do you mean?” Kaiba asked, frowning. “One person getting blocked by my program doesn’t mean that I’ve blocked everybody.”

“Are you sure about that?” Kubota wasn’t looking at him anymore, instead focused on her own phone. She scrolled for a moment, fingers moving in time with the rhythm she chewed her gum, before turning her screen towards him with a cry of triumph. “This thread says otherwise.”

Again, Kaiba was forced to squint at someone else’s phone screen, and almost immediately, he regretted ever signing up for Twitter in the first place. The first tweet was from Mai Kujaku, reading, “Lmao, guess I pissed him off somehow!” It was accompanied by a familiar screenshot: Kaiba’s own profile, with the text “You have been blocked by this user.”

The next tweet was from Kubota herself, remarking, “Lol, I’ve been blocked since Duelist Kingdom.” After that, the replies were full of Yugi’s friends, all posting similar screenshots and complaining about (Mazaki) or rejoicing (Jonouchi) being blocked by Seto Kaiba.

Damn him for forgetting that Kubota was an excellent strategist in her own right; he shouldn’t have let his guard down around her. He would never admit he had been thrown off, though. Instead, he straightened his posture, using the extra inch of height to sneer down at Kubota. “So my program kept the dweeb patrol from interacting with me. Seems like it’s working as intended.”

“But you didn’t want it to keep Yugi out, right?” Kubota said, a confident gleam in her eye that he recognized from when she dueled. She was right, of course, but he kept his mouth shut rather than admit it. “Whatever your program does, it obviously has a chain effect, since I haven’t interacted with any of your tweets. Maybe it doesn’t involve your tweets at all? I can puzzle this out all day, Kaiba.”

“Fine! If I tell you, will you stop talking?” Kaiba growled, frowning all the harder when Kubota grinned in response.

“Sure.” Her voice was as bouncy as the curls escaping her buns. Kaiba hated it.

Kaiba paused, trying to collect his thoughts. All the while, Kubota rocked on her heels, humming a melody he didn’t recognize. Finally, he happened on a good starting point.

“I thought I was aromantic.”

To his dismay, Kubota appeared to choke on air, coughing hard before breaking into disbelieving laughter. He crossed his arms, glaring at her, until she finally collected herself enough to say, “I’m sorry, I just— That is not what I expected you to say.” At Kaiba’s silence, she sighed, putting her hands up in a placating gesture. “Fine, I’ll be quiet. I guess you’re not aromantic?”

Kaiba thought about saying something in response to her air-quotes, but thought better of it. “I thought that I was above all of that. I didn’t have time for romance anyway—I still don’t. But then, you and Yugi got together, and it made me feel...ill.” Kubota’s face twisted, but he didn’t address it. “At first, I thought I was having romantic feelings towards you—”

“What?” Kubota’s horrified cry was a bit much, in Kaiba’s opinion, but he felt the same way.

“Calm down, that wasn’t the case.” He narrowed his eyes at Kubota’s exaggerated exhale, but continued. “After some thought, it became clear that… I was experiencing romantic attraction, but not towards you.” The other words on his tongue died once that horrifying revelation was out, and he snapped his mouth shut, letting his confession linger in the air.

Kubota’s brow was furrowed, however. Why was she confused? Kaiba had told her everything she needed to know! He was about to accuse her of taunting him when she gasped, eyes widening. “Are you… Coming out to me?”

Kaiba’s already-pale face became even whiter. “No?”

“Yes, you are! You’re coming out to me! And you started your coming out speech by telling me my boyfriend was your gay realization?” With every step, she advanced on him, until she was close enough that when she pointed her finger for emphasis, it brushed his chest.

“That’s—a blunt description, Kubota.”

She just shook her head. “I mean, it’s fine, I’m bi, but it’s a weird way to tell somebody you’re gay. And this relates to Twitter...how?”

Kaiba scoffed. “I could be bisexual.” When Kubota’s brow raised, a familiar irritation began coursing through him. Better than embarrassment. “I could! You don’t know that I’m—that I don’t like girls.”

Kubota scoffed right back, undaunted by his bristling. “Whatever you want to tell yourself. I just want to know what this has to do with blocking Yugi on Twitter.”

“It has everything to do with that,” Kaiba said, but his mouth dried up as he realized exactly why Yugi and the rest of his friends were blocked. He cleared his throat, then balled his fists and looked away from Kubota. The words felt like venom in his throat; the only way to alleviate the burning they caused was to spit them out. “I set up a program to block anybody who liked certain posts. Posts that talked about yours and Yugi’s relationship.”

A raised eyebrow. “Just talked about? That’s kind of a broad net, even for you, Kaiba.”

“Fine. They were posts which included photographic or video evidence of you being a couple. Usually with highly supportive comments. Those were the kinds of things I blocked, and the virus associated with it blocked anyone who interacted with a post I blocked using this system.”

Kubota shook her head. “Even your weird Twitter bots are like Duel Monsters cards. I’d say to get a hobby, but it seems like you’ve got your hands full already.”

“Are you challenging me? Because I’ll wipe the floor with you in a Duel, we both know that,” Kaiba growled.

“No,” Kubota said lightly, “but not because I think I’ll lose. You’re so predictable, Kaiba. I should have seen this coming, though I didn’t think you would be this weird about me and Yugi. Guess I was wrong!”

Arms folded, Kaiba surveyed his adversary. Five-foot-nothing, blowing a bubble of gum at him while she rocked back and forth on her booted heels, skateboard underneath one arm. Her Buster Blader cards came to mind, and he cringed internally. He made a mental note: find a copy of her Battle City deck and run simulations against it, to discern ideal counter-strategies.

But, he needed to respond to her before that could happen. “Hmph. As long as Yugi doesn’t forget who his true rival is, I suppose I don’t need to make a fuss about his romantic decisions.”

Kubota’s shoulders shook, but she looked him in the eyes and nodded. “Thank you, Kaiba. Are you...sure you’re okay?”

“Of course I am,” Kaiba said, more off-kilter than he’d ever been. “Now, the bell’s about to ring, and I haven’t finished my lunch.”

Checking her watch, her glossy lips parted in surprise. “Shit, you’re right. I gotta get back to Rintama. Don’t be a stranger, Kaiba!” With that, she ran toward the stairs, waving at him over her shoulder before the door slammed behind her. Kaiba exhaled slowly, and looked at the remains of his bento. He wasn’t very hungry, all of a sudden.

What had he done?

[stray-tori]

TPN S02E04 - Initial Thoughts (anime-only)

viewing + post-ep talk with my friends: Google Drive (sorry, youtube denied me again)

(i) Translations are in the English (USA) CC (including the english bits as well for those who struggle with the audio/language, etc.)

pls validate my efforts and watch it.

there’s some anime-only talk about the adaptation towards the end, I wasn’t trying to be arrogant, just mention it to my friends based on some things I’d heard and without spoiling them about what is different that I do know of specifically. But if you want to avoid that, feel free to!

I definitely said it a bit too in favor of the anime, and obviously my friends’ just got my simplified thoughts on it? Like when they said it makes sense for the anime to move on quicker, but that’s not really what’s different. 

So yeah, please forgive the dubious things in that segment, I really just didn’t think about my words a lot.

.

. Random thoughts

The fish bug scenes were delightful TvT Also the animation during them trying to grab them???

The OST during Isabella’s scenes???? take me

I think we also heard the OST sneak peak from a while ago during the cave confrontation with the army force human

Don is a useless nightwatch, goddamn it Don

Don is an epic chairman.

Loved the shot of Ray shooting at the big demon (why didn’t Emma get a cool shot? :THONK:), very dynamic, very epic.

Also them running together to push the man off the cliff was... something haha.

I’m losing my mind that we’re actually just ending on the way ep1 started. Same animation loops too, eh. to be expected, and obviously adjusted for different clothing and items but. still as someone who wants to praise for not re-using animation, rip.

EMMA HAVING SLEEPING CHILDREN AROUND HER AWWWW

Eyy Ray took a bath with the others too, yay

.

. The bunker

So, the twist was that there was really.... no twist at all. Minerva was a good guy, he tried his best, he got discovered and chased.

And yet, I don’t think the bunker was previously discovered by the farms, which would at least warrant a “scare” like that, effectively making it a trap. They may have been aware of a shelter’s existence, but I don’t think they’ve been there before.

You could probably assume that the Troup that attacked our characters may have also removed the previous escapees from the scene --- but if that was the case, why leave all of the letters and other things in place. Not getting there immediately is understandable, they seem to arrived by foot (what? do you plan to keep an eye on the children the whole like 5 day march back or however long it took?? dang). So that’s not it.

So: what caused the HELPs? the person writing in the book seems to have been abandoned or more likely, are the only survivor of their group (maybe the only person in the group at all). Now it’d be an option for them to have found this safe haven and decided to just spend their days there, slowly losing their minds and doing the things on the wall. But then the message in the book, on the other hand, seems traumatized and sad, but not as lost as the carvings on the wall.

So either, they calmed down after going crazy and then once they did, they decided to leave.

Or it’s from two different people (or multiple), the one after the “HELP” one probably leaving the uplifting message in the book nearby of the scribbles.

I’m not sure which I’d find more likely, but all in all, I’m not sure why they didn’t just have the demons already know of the place and just have the letter (they probably wouldn’t have searched everything in the place) not be as obviously placed and then boom, they could still have made all discoveries they needed and when they found the help wall, it would have been from children trapped in the room while the men searched the bunker, wanting help.

* Clearly that’s not what they were going for, since there’s also day-counting things, but even that you could have explained by saying, they missed a child and the other escapees convinced them that they died, somehow and so they were left behind, traumatized by their friends being taken back and giving up for a while. It still runs into the same “but how can it be the same person?” doubt that my friend brought up, but I think that it’d justify the shock value of the wall more. Still not really making the whole “HELP” thing add up though, since that just sounds like there’s an immediate threat, when there isn’t. The only other thing I can think of is that the entire wall wasn’t one instance, so the counting could be solitude, the HELPs acute danger and the names probably also solitude. The drawing on the right also makes me think it was probably a child as well, fairly young. Poor kid.

Unless there’s something more to it I feel like it makes a little more sense, but still not a lot (WHY’D YOU LEAVE YOUR SNACKS, BRO) but seeing as we’ve left, I don’t think we’ll get to know.

.

I’m assuming the way the farm knew now is either a) they were aware but didn’t see any reason to go there unless there were children there, b) they saw the coordinate carvings (thanks Ray) or c) the pursuers contacted the farms (which would make sense, and again, thanks Ray).

.

.. the farm has a military force???

I also find it kind of funny that the farms have a military force??? Because so far, we’ve never seen them use guns to do anything. Which makes me think they might not be farm-intern but from an outside force, maybe the humans who are more “on-level” with them?

Like, what do they do all day. They’re probably not part of the buff demon guards and.... idk man haha-

.

. Isabella

Ahh I was happy to see her! I was even happier to be like “hah, prison. Knew it.” and then later reacting to the offer, even though that wasn’t exactly what I called, but damn. the pride. my fucking expression too lol, i couldn’t hide it at all pff.

Her jump in motivation is a little weird, but I do see it as, someone who has basically accepted their fate, and when that gets challenged, the will to live takes over. 

I’m also not quite sure how she’s supposed to capture them if she can’t leave?

And then of course there’s whatever they promised her aside from “freedom” (which, if that just means being let outside, good luck ma’am there’s demons everywhere) - or is the transportation to the human world included? :D

Based on her clothing in the OP, I might have guessed it’d be “become a grandma” but that doesn’t really go well with the promise of freedom so.... I don’t know where that entire thing is going pff-

We don’t know a lot about what drives Isabella but one of the few things we do know is a) will to live and b) Leslie (????), hence the lullaby in “stressful” situations.

She already got the will to live with the baseline deal, so the only thing I can think of that would make her react more than freedom would be that Leslie’s alive and she can see him if she helps.

I’m not sure if she’s interested in anything else, like how the world works or what she can do for anyone, like.... hm. Of course it could totally be something that we just don’t know yet but yeah I guess that’s my guess.

They probably won’t give up Ray and seeing as she’s more concerned about his brain than anything, I don’t think even if they did allow her to take him with her, it probably wouldn’t mean a lot to her. Plus, why lose another high quality cattle.

I guess it could be, she did seem she wanted to be a proper mother figure, but idk something tells me it’s probably not something like that.

It would also be more “???” than “OHHH” of an reveal. Then again, Leslie is also an obvious choice so.

Maybe it’s something entirely new, we’ll see :D

.

. The possibily wrong date

So when Anna writes a journal thingy, we see this

And, well, their escape happened in January 2046, so... for that to be true, somewhere along the line, an entire year would have had to pass.

I’m assume this is a production error because

they didn’t get to harvest once

they wouldn’t wait a year to talk about the plan to go back

Ray wouldn’t need an ear patch for so long, he only has a cut

the montage only showed 22nd and 23rd, if an entire year had passed, we’d have been shown more varied dates, etc.

then it makes even less sense for why the army shows up one year later out of nowhere :D

...

Smh, CloverWorks, what can you even do right.

.

Yee, thanks for reading!

[cagestark]

A Hole in the Head//4

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight

Tw: Spanking, graphic depictions of violence (not between our ot3)

SORRY ABOUT THE REPOST. Still being shadowbanned. Always going to be pursuing why </3

-

The dining room table is far too big for two, but Barnes refuses to join them for dinner. He takes up residence in the doorway leaning against the frame, his eyes on his phone. Earlier in the day, Pepper had received an anonymous threat via snail mail that had everyone on high alert. Since it was impossible to tell by the ambiguity whether the letter was in connection with Toomes or just with her work at Stark Industries in San Francisco, no immediate quarantine measures were being taken.

Apparently Tony’s mother was so far off the map in Italy that her own security detail had spent the last three days just trying to find her. Tony had laughed and cursed in equal measure, surrounded by anxious men who couldn’t decide whether to laugh as well or apologize. Afterward, Tony and Peter had spent time in their room unwinding, and that was when he had given the man every last detail about his day. The car. The mall. Running from Barnes. The alley. Tony had listened, thoughtful. He’d stalked to the window and looked out over the grounds, and Peter (not for the first time, not even that day) regretted having such a big fat mouth.

Tony had enough on his plate without adding Peter’s bullshit.

Enough on his plate, including the vegetarian tabbouleh salad with edamame and feta that they’re having for dinner. It’s so rich with pesto that just the scent of it makes Peter’s stomach grumble eagerly. Tony selects the wine because Peter knows nothing about wines (“Your palate needs work, sweet thing,”) and pours a generous glass only to place his hand across the top before Peter can pick it up. The message is clear: wait.

Tony takes his seat, unbuttoning the top button on his suit jacket. He unfolds his dinner napkin, but before Peter can touch his fork, he speaks: “Barnes.”

“Yes, Mr. Stark?”

“Come and take Peter’s seat.”

There is no invitation. It’s an order. Peter finds himself slipping from his chair and standing awkwardly beside it while Barnes crosses the room with slow, thoughtful steps. He brings with him the scent of leather and cologne. It makes Peter grit his teeth.

“Where am I supposed to sit?” Peter asks. He tacks on at the end, “Sir?”

Tony points to the space between his chair and Barnes’s. To the floor.

“But it’s tabbouleh salad night,” Peter whines.

“I won’t repeat myself,” Tony says. His tone rumbles over Peter like thunder, makes the hairs on his arms stand on end and his head bow. As embarrassing as it is, Peter moves to kneel on the hardwood floor, sitting back on his heels. Tony’s hand cards briefly through his hair before returning to his fork. “Please,” he says to Barnes. “Eat.”

Barnes, who ‘hadn’t been hungry’ ten minutes prior, is no idiot. He picks up the fork.

“Peter told me about your eventful day together,” Tony says. Barnes just nods, the movement visible from the corner of Peter’s eye. “And now I want you to tell me your version of the events.”

“You left at a quarter ‘til seven. Peter slept until nine in the morning. Breakfast at nine-thirty. We left for the mall in the black Cadillac before ten. Traffic outside Manhattan was typical. We made it to the Brookfield Place mall at eleven-thirty, where I parked at the—”

“I’m so tempted to let you go on,” Tony says. “I really am. I bet I could quiz you about anything from what Peter had for breakfast to what the license plate on the Cadillac was and you’d know every last detail.”

Barnes bows his head.

“But I think we both know the parts I’m most interested in. Pick it up from inside the fitting room.”

“I told him to stay out of the fitting rooms from now on. He said that he wanted to grab a shirt to go with the pants he was wearing, and that if I let him, he’d come without a fuss. It was an error on my part. I factored thirty seconds for him to find and return with the shirt, but within ten, my phone pinged to say that he had gone further than twenty feet away from me—”

Peter’s head snaps up. “You’ve been tracking me? Are you kidding? That’s such an invasion of privacy!”

Tony grips Peter’s hair in his fist, close to the roots so that Peter can’t squirm away. With his other hand, he reaches out for his wine glass to take a generous sip. “You’re in enough trouble, Peter,” he says after he swallows. “Say another word without me explicitly asking you to and you’re looking at astronomical trouble, baby. The likes of which you’ve never seen. Understood?”

“Yessir,” he murmurs, lowering his chin when Tony lets go of his hair.

“Bucky—go on.”

“I figured there were three options. He would stay in the mall, he would leave the mall for the street, or he would leave the mall for the car. I took my chances and went down to the bottom floor to head him off should he leave. Based on his rising elevation, he rode the elevator or escalators up to the top and then took the stairs down. He went out onto Vesey heading east. It wasn’t hard to cut him off.

“Once I did, I lost my temper. I broke his sunglasses. I pressed him against the wall and threatened him.” Barnes stops speaking. In the abrupt silence, Peter feels like everyone is holding their breath, waiting for confirmation of what they all know is coming.

“It’s okay,” says Tony, face no more expressive than a wall of stone. “Go on.”

“He—pressed against me. And he felt it.”

“Felt what?”

“That I was hard.”

Tony hums. Barnes is no longer eating, just holding the fork in his hand with knuckles turning white. For a moment, Peter sees the knife with the silver handle clutched in Beck’s fist, the one they had melted down and destroyed afterward. He has to blink away the illusion. “And then what?”

“I told him it would never happen and to give it up before he got us both killed.” Barnes pauses, and when Tony doesn’t fill the silence immediately, he asks, “Are you going to kill me?”

Peter doesn’t believe that Tony would kill Barnes, but there is a seed of doubt in him planted by Beck’s betrayal and Peter’s own inexperience when it comes to strategy. His tongue feels thick and useless in his mouth, unsure whether he should speak up and try to save the man’s life (he doesn’t want Barnes dead ) or stay silent and out of trouble.

“Only one thing will ever get you killed here,” Tony says. “And that’s betraying me. Are you going to betray me?”

“No, Mr. Stark,” Barnes says. His shoulders lower a fraction, the only hint of his relief. “My loyalty—it runs deep.”

“Loyalty to me or to Steve?”

Barnes frowns. “Both.”

“Loyalty to Peter?”

Barnes gives Peter a glance where he kneels on his heels in his Armani outfit, stomach aching with hunger because tabbouleh is his favorite. Peter keeps his stare on the edge of the table, stomach doing rolls knowing that Barnes is looking at him. At last, the man nods. “Yes.”

“If he wished for it, you could bend Peter over this table and eat his ass instead of this edamame, and I wouldn’t kill you for it.”

“I’m—always grateful not to be killed.”

Tony laughs, the sudden noise startling a flinch out of both of them. “You really are hard to get a rise out of. No wonder Peter was so, ah, animated telling me about your time together in the alley. I think if I managed to get a reaction out of you like that, I’d probably do cartwheels.

“My point is that if a part of this...tension between you and Peter centers on fear of me?—that’s needless. Baseless. I knew from the day you volunteered in my office to watch him that you must have had an ulterior motive. I didn’t think there was anything in the world that could have parted you from Steve’s side, but there you were, begging him to let you go. I knew then, and I was fine with it. Peter is handsome, he is smart, he is fun. I’ve seen straight men get hard-ons for him. It’s nothing new, and if we’re having honesty hour? I like it .

“You’re valuable to me, and I am not willing to lose you for any forgivable indiscretion. Understood?”

“Yes,” Barnes says, voice raspy. “Thank you, Mr. Stark.”

Tony smiles. “Call me Tony. Actually, don’t , I like the way you say my name like that, Mr. Stark . Fucking gold. Now, Peter on the other hand is in very big trouble. I had a long talk with him just the night before about how important it was to listen to your directions and follow any rules you laid down. Running away from you in a crowded public place definitely broke those rules, didn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Peter, apologize to Bucky.”

“Sorry,” Peter mutters.

Tony laughs as if Peter’s sulking insincerity is the funniest joke he’s heard all day. “That? That was just the preliminary apology, Bucky. You will be given a second and much more sincere apology as well, and he will keep apologizing until you see fit to forgive him. Understood?”

“Yes, Mr. Stark.”

Tony stands, the legs of his chair scraping against the hardwood floor. He removes his jacket and lays it gently over the back of his chair so as to minimize wrinkles. Peter’s eyes fall to the gun on his hip on instinct, even though he feels no fear from it. Next to come off are Tony’s cufflinks, two palladium rectangles that he sits beside his half-eaten plate. Both Barnes and Peter are entranced watching him roll up his sleeves to the forearms, revealing tanned, scarred skin. Those hands break men all the time, and tonight they are meant to break Peter.

“Peter, Peter,” Tony sighs. “What the fuck am I going to do with you, kid? Give me an answer, just for giggles.”

“Forgive me, sir?” Peter asks, showing every last tooth in a winning smile.

“Of course, sweet thing,” Tony says, petting a fond hand through Peter’s hair. He grips it tight, like slapping away the softness of a kiss. “ Eventually . Now, stand up and drop your pants.”

“What?” Peter gasps. His eyes flicker to Barnes who stares hard at the plate in front of him, fork still clenched in his fist. “What for, sir?”

“For a spanking. What else do rotten little boys get?’

“In front of him ?”

“They were his rules you broke.”

Peter shakes his head. The idea of Barnes seeing him that way is a delightful cocktail of embarrassing and arousing. He wants it and dreads it in equal measure, and for much the same reasons. Humiliating himself in front of people has more repercussions than just making his cock hard. It changes the way people see him.

Then the fear rolls off of him like water off a duck. Maybe he doesn’t want to give in. But a larger part of him wants to be forced to give in, and tonight, it’s exactly the thing he needs. Choices (he’s always fucking up these days, always making choices that get him in trouble or get him hurt) wrenched from his hands. Except that, for them to be taken away, he has to be holding on to them in the first place.

On the other side of the table, Tony plants his palms flat on the glossy wood, his eyes glittering because he knows . Their safeword sits between them like a dish they know neither of them will touch. Not tonight.

“No, sir,” says Peter, prolonging the inevitable. “I won’t.”

“Would you like a choice?”

His eyes narrow—Peter knows that when Tony gives a choice, it’s only because either will benefit him. His tone alone hints at a scheme, but begrudgingly, Peter nods. Curiosity killed the cat.

“You can bend over this table and take a spanking. Or ! You can sleep in the guest room tonight.”

Oh , he thinks as numbness prickles over his skin. Right. Either Tony knows he will win either way, or one option is so terrible that he knows it won’t be chosen at all.

Spankings are barely punishments—both of them know that. Tony had to find a real way to discipline Peter many years ago, and the options are all loathsome to the younger man: spending time in the corner without acknowledgment, eating dinner separate from Tony, or sleeping alone in the guest room. In all their time together, Peter had never done something serious enough to warrant sleeping alone. The meaning is clear. This is the worst thing Peter has ever done—and this is the angriest with him that Tony has ever been.

Peter doesn’t bend to his will, he breaks to it.

His eyes prickle as he stands and unbuttons his chinos. He undresses with shaking hands, taking off the jacket to lay it over the back of the chair atop Tony’s and then slipping his pants down past his hips. Leaning forward, he puts his elbows flat on the table, choosing instead to look down at the swirling wood grain rather than stare Barnes in the eye.

“You don’t need to count them,” says Tony, putting a hand on Peter’s flank and squeezing gently. It’s tears on a pillow to Peter’s hurt, the knot in his chest that’s wound tighter than a fist. But he appreciates it. “You can make whatever noise you need to, including your safeword . Understood?”

“Yessir,” Peter mumbles. His lips feel a little tingly, like when he gets stung by a bee.

Tony begins a strong rhythm over the fabric of Peter’s boxer-briefs. Peter braces himself so the force of the spanks don’t have his elbows squeaking across the polished wood, and still he can’t bring himself to look up at Barnes. He doesn’t want to see himself being seen.

When Peter’s skin is warm and red, Tony tugs the boxers down. Across the table like this, Barnes can’t see any of the goods, not Peter’s cock (which is hard, though he’s hardly enjoying this, it’s nothing but a reflex thanks to the Terrible thought of sleeping alone poisoning Peter’s arousal) and not his ass, but still, Peter feels exposed. Even more so when Tony begins to speak, his sentences punctuated with spanks from the flat of his palm that crack like thunder in the large room.

“You think I’m being unfair, sweet thing? Threatening you with the guest room?” Peter doesn’t answer or look up. With his head ducked down, at least if his eyes go misty, no one will be able to see. “I will do whatever it takes to make you see that there is a time for play and a time to be serious. You think one night apart would be rough? Imagine if Toomes took you. Killed you.  Imagine how many nights both of us would spend alone then, Peter.”

“Quit, please,” Peter says around the lump in his throat, eyes burning with imminent tears. He’s got that fuzziness in his brain, the kind that reduces his world down to only Tony. Tony, who he let down today. Who he is always, always letting down. “I get it now.”

“You don’t . I bring in my most capable man to watch over you; he agrees to put his life before your own, and you put him at risk in every way. My fucking heart lives in your chest, and you put it at risk.”

“I’m sorry,” Peter says through his chattering teeth. Tears drip from his eyes onto the wood beneath his face and he wants to reach out and smear them away with his hands, but he’s worried he won’t be able to support himself again. As it is, he feels them shaking, sapped of energy.

“Will you run again? Next time you’re bored, next time you’re scared, next time you have a few moments too long to think, are you going to run again?”

“No!” Peter cries, his whole body shivering with the force of Tony’s strikes. The pain goes deeper than his skin, deep, deep inside him. One arm gives away, sliding against the glossy wood and he lets himself go, clothed-chest pressed flat to the table. He cradles his arms around his head and lets himself shake with tears inside his hiding place.

But there is no hiding. Not when Tony presses flush against him, leaning over his bent form to take a handful of his hair and coax his head up from his arms.

Directly in his line of sight is Barnes. The look on his face isn’t something Peter can identify. There is no pleasure there, but no disgust either. His brows are lower than ever while he watches, still as a statue, like a man trying to be polite at the strangest dinner-and-a-show. Tony uses his free hand to take one of Peter’s wrists in a gentle grip, and Peter realizes that Tony has spoken only for it to be lost.

“Tell him you’re sorry, sweet thing,” Tony says again in his ear.

“’m sorry, Mr. Barnes,” Peter says, tears dripping off his chin. He searches the other man’s face, looking for the forgiveness that he needs. It feels like life or death.

But all Barnes does is nod and say, “Call me Bucky.”

#

-BUCKY-

In the den, Bucky pours the drinks. Help yourself to whatever you like, but grab me a whiskey neat, Tony says from his spot on the couch. Peter lays with his head in the man’s lap, dressed in nothing but his little see-through sweater and navy pants, the boss’s jacket thrown over him to keep him warm. The kid’s eyes are closed in rest though not in sleep, not for the way he shudders and sniffles.

Bucky keeps his eyes on the glasses while he pours expensive whiskey for the both of them, but in his mind he sees the young man bent over the dining room table, the arch of his back, the defeated slope of his neck as he braced himself on his elbows and took a pounding from the flat of Tony Stark’s hand. It’s a sight he won’t forget.

Something inside him has shifted now, maybe something that’s been shifting all along but slow, like tectonic plates moving against each other until an earthquake brings down everything. He won’t be able to look at either of those men the same.

His hands don’t shake when he crosses the room to hand Tony his glass, not even when the man tilts his head back baring his throat and drains the two fingers’ worth of alcohol in one gulp that has Bucky’s mouth feeling dry. God, to put his lips against that throat, to suck livid bruises and leave the imprints of his teeth on that throat...

“Thanks,” sighs Tony. “I could use about a dozen more.”

Bucky takes the glass back to the bar where he shrugs one shoulder and pours another drink. “It’s your whiskey,” he says.

“Don’t enable me,” Tony says, half his handsome mouth lifting in a smirk. He takes the drink, one hand slipping warmly through the kid’s curls (and curls have no right looking so soft, Bucky thinks bitterly) before nodding towards the armchair closest to his end of the sofa. “Sit, will you? Peter won’t be up for conversation while he’s locked in like this. But I have something I want to discuss.”

Bucky sits, hoping that the pounding of his pulse isn’t visible.

Tony is right about Bucky having an ulterior motive for offering to guard Peter, but it doesn’t seem like the man has any clue about the real reason, about the effect the older man has on him. It was grossly self-indulgent and more than a little masochistic for Bucky to take a job just beneath the boss he has an unhealthy obsession with.

And that was before he met the terror (the wild, beautiful terror) that is Peter Parker.

“He’s special,” Tony says, stroking the hair back from Peter’s forehead. Bucky realizes that he’s been staring at the kid’s face, glass of whiskey unsipped in his hands. Wincing at being caught, he lifts the glass to take a generous drink, savoring the flavor. “Like holding a live grenade. I knew from the moment I met him, but I thought even then that if it all exploded in my face, it would have been worth it.”

Bucky says nothing. He’s never experienced anything like that.

“But I didn’t keep you here to wax poetry. The explicit information I’m about to tell you is information only three other people have—” Tony smiles, coldly. “And one of them is dead.”

In his lap, Peter shivers where he’s feigning sleep, squeezing his eyes shut tighter. Maybe it’s easier that way. Bucky stands and goes to the closet where he knows the linens are kept (he knows every closet of this house, every nook and cranny). The blankets are the softest he’s ever touched, thick and rich. He drapes it over Peter and only notices at the end the tender, grateful look Tony is giving him.

After he takes his seat again, Bucky says the name: “Beck.”

Tony touches his nose with the finger of the hand that holds his whiskey.

“Quentin Beck. Born in California. Moved to New York after a less than sensational acting career finally was pronounced dead. He came to me the same way all of you do: through a friend of a friend, through some relation or acquaintance who refers you to me. He was good at stealth and had a flair for creative liberty during the year he worked under Vis in the Bronx. When the time came for promotion, he was lifted through the ranks and had the chance to come and work here at the house.

“Peter acted the way I would have expected Peter to. He flirts. Maybe his mother didn’t hold him enough as a child,” Tony says, smirking when Peter wrinkles his nose and pinches the man’s thigh. They all pretend not to see it. “But he craves the attention and the flattery. He’s always had my permission to find enjoyment when and where he can—I’m a busy man, and not nearly as young as I once was. But it seemed like every time someone began to return his, ah, affections, Peter would lose interest.

“Beck was the first to keep him enthralled. He was handsome enough. Sometimes, I would walk in on them kissing like teenagers, and getting caught just seemed to make Peter burn hotter. He wanted me to watch. I wanted to watch. We spent so many nights fucking and talking about it; we built it up in our minds, the way we expected it to go.”

Tony pauses, and Bucky finds that he’s been leaning forward more and more, entranced by the story. After Tony’s injury and Beck’s death, there had been much speculation about what had happened. The basis was obvious and well known: Beck had fucked Peter, and Tony had killed him. But in the details—that’s where the devil is. That’s where Bucky is right now, lost.

Beck, you lucky son of a bitch, Bucky thinks to himself. You didn’t even know what you had, and you fucked it up.

“I made a mistake, though,” Tony says at length. In his lap where Peter lies with his eyes closed, the kid reaches out, looking for his hand to lace their fingers together. There’s no room there for Bucky’s hand, he thinks to himself. God, he’s fucked. “Whenever they were together, I was looking at Peter. And that meant that I never really saw Beck.

“The sex between them was poor. Maybe Beck was nervous, maybe Peter was too. Maybe he was too used to me and the tastes we’d, ah, cultivated together. Anyway, it was a bad show, and I could tell that Peter was disappointed. He hadn’t even cum before Beck was blowing his load—into a condom, of course. I wasn’t letting anyone fuck my boy raw. After they fucked, we were supposed to end it, but I couldn’t help myself.

“Peter looked half-debauched. Hard, annoyed, naked on the bed we made together. Before I knew it, I was unbuckling my pants. Just the look in Peter’s eyes—God, I’ll never forget it. He knew what was coming. A real cock. A real man to fuck him within an inch of his life. I pressed his legs up, nearly folding him in half and then I gave him what he needed. He was just a little loose from Beck’s cock, no more than if I had opened him up with a few of my fingers.

“The whole time, my mouth never closed. Fuck, the things I said to him. Asking him how it felt to be with a real man, asking him if he’d even felt Beck inside him, telling him how no one else could ever fill him up the way I did. It made me all the hotter to know that Beck was right where I left him sitting in the armchair, tugging on his clothes, ready to slip away and take his walk of shame. Peter looked fucked-out, his hands clutching the bedsheets, eyes squeezed shut and mouth open. But—! That was always my problem, wasn’t it? Whenever I was looking at Peter, I should have been looking at Beck .

“Maybe Beck was in love with him; I wouldn’t have put that past him. Peter is very easy to fall in love with. We didn’t factor that in, didn’t consider that Beck might not be up for sharing. I still remember Peter’s face when he saw Beck coming up behind us. I turned, and for a moment I thought he was trying to come and join us, can you believe it? I barely felt the blade. It struck my sternum and slid off the bone, down and away from my heart, piercing a lung. Beck had poor form.

“Peter was the one to crawl to the bedside table for his gun. Beck had dragged me from the bed down to the floor, and I think he was planning to finish me off—that was his mistake. He was looking at me when he should have been looking at Peter. The kid is only an okay shot with a handgun, but at close range, he blew Beck’s fucking head off. The end.” Tony’s hand pets at Peter’s hair, tracing the shell of his ear. “Kept pressure on the wound, too, until Bruce could get there and get me to one of the hospitals where I have pull. The kid saved my life.”

“Jesus,” says Bucky. “That’s a hell of a story.”

Tony smiles. “He’s a hell of a kid. I thought it was important of you to know all this. If you’re going to be afraid of anyone, you should probably be afraid of Peter. He’d kill for me. Won’t you, baby?”

Peter hums. His eyes begin to flicker beneath his lids, thin mouth going lax as he drifts off into sleep.

“We have that in common,” Bucky says without thinking.

“What’s that?” Tony asks.

Bucky finishes his drink, stalling, trying to think of an explanation that doesn’t sound so fucking lovesick. When none comes and he’s stuck with the truth, he resigns himself to it. To how lame it sounds coming from his clumsy lips and in his rusty voice: “We’d kill for you.”

Tony stares at him with an inscrutable expression, and for a moment Bucky thinks that he’s gone too far, made himself too obvious. Then it’s almost worth it for the way the man’s mouth slips up into a half-smile. So handsome it hurts, but it’s a good hurt, the kind Bucky would subject himself to again and again.

“I’ll drink to that,” Tony says, holding out his cup in solidarity before draining his glass.

[marumafan]

Hi! I’ve been reading your KKM analyses, and I absolutely love them, most especially the YUURAM ones! Can you do some detailed ones on Love Letters and Crossheart too? Please, please?!

Hi @celinelean​!

Of course! I'm having a day and may not be drawing, so why not?

Also to everyone who likes analyses/discussions, you can always leave some questions/requests in my mailbox if there's anything you're interested in. I'll try my best.

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Love Letter

"Love Letter" was Takabayashi-sensei's first new short story in about 6 years. The first part features Yuuri and Wolfram writing sweet stuff about one another.

The excuse of being 'from Greta's point of view for her homework' gave them both the excuse to express their true feelings.

(Now a cultural point here: The more I live in Japan the more I notice people never tell you the truth about anything. They either don't say anything and let you know 'in some way' or you never find out. A fan of maruma I once met, who could speak English, thanked me for continuing to talk about a topic even after we had disagreed at some point about something. She said people who disagree in Japan simply drop the topic XDD . True story. XD They avoid talking about 'truths' in general. So I feel like this whole keeping your true feelings hidden is a very Japanese thing (which is the target audience for maruma, don't forget). So in this story, both Yuuri and Wolf can express their feelings for one another.)

As for the things they like about each other:

The first thing Yuuri sees that Wolf has written in the cards was some compliment about his awesome black hair. But when Yuuri asks if he should write about Wolf's appearance "How good looking he is" " How his green eyes are like gemstones", "How even his eyelashes are blonde", Wolf's like "Of course not, that's not something Greta cares about".  (Wolfie, never change. XD)

Wolf also writes: "How well he gets along with his spouse" which really shows along with his entire demeanor during this story, that even though there's no official title, he really thinks of himself as already married to Yuuri.

Yuuri then writes:  "He never abandons his PARTNER" Again, this is a word you use for people you're romantically involved with, but in a more 'earthly' slang. This reminded me of the Seisa arc when, during the bed scene, Yuuri mentions how happy he is to have Wolf there.

He writes another 12 good things about Wolfram, and he mentions that "his left cheek was hot due to the flames of the fire" , implying his right cheek was blushed due to what he was writing. So he's putting in there things that make him blush.

Yuuri asks then if they will get these cards back, and Wolfram assures him that yes they will. Yuuri:"So that we can read them many times and remember how much Greta likes us."

Wolfram: "Of course"

Meaning: Yuuri:  "So that I can read many times all the wonderful things you really think about me?" Wolf: "Of course"

However, Yuuri tells Wolf about the futility of having the cards, when you have the other person right there living with you. Yuuri says" Even without something like this, I'm sure that the feelings would be conveyed, "  (XDD see this is what I'm talking about! This Japanese mentality of ‘expressing in some way without words’ what you feel)

BUT! this is when Wolf says that in that case, the cards would be more useful to remember people who live apart from you.

So Yuuri's 20th thing he likes about Wolfram is " He tells me things straight to the point".

This means, it's Wolfram who pretty much tells Yuuri to go visit Conrad and have him write stuff about him, cuz he's not living in the castle and so that Yuuri won't miss him.

Wolfram asks if Yuuri's going out. Yuuri says yes. Wolfram's last card says: How honest he is. Yuuri's last card says: How kind he is.

And I mean, damn! If this isn't yuuram af, I don't know what is.

Second part is what was introduced in the first part, Yuuri goes to visit Conrad, he's living above Jozak's bar in a cold, dirty room. And Conrad writes and gives him the card about Yuuri, and it 'warms Yuuri's heart'.

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Comments on Love Letter: I used to think this was a lot more conyuu than it is, but re-reading it and seeing that it was all Wolfram's idea to begin with (and Yuuri knows it was Wolfram's idea), it really shows that strong relationship between Wolfram and Yuuri and includes Conrad's current situation (not living in the castle) as a trigger for getting in a little conyuu in the story and making those fans happy.

You see this 'conyuu afterthought to please the fans' in the first two stories she wrote after the break "Love Letter" and "Lame star Wars". After that, they're all yuuram centric stories. And before the break, they were very much so as well.

It's very clear in everything Takabayashi sensei writes, that she really likes her main couple, and had always planned for them to end up together.

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Crossheart 

This is an older story (2010ish), even if it was only published as an extra for the omnibus release in July 2013, and it was also used as part of drama cd 70 released in January 2013. But the contents of this story are the origin of another story published in 2011, so it must have been written before that. (EDIT: I found the original information at Ray Clover: CROSSHEART IS FROM APRIL 2006! (file: asuka1302). It was published as a mobile story, and republished as an extra in the omnibus re-release! )

The title: Although it could be a combination of crossword and heart, like hearts crossing/intertwining; or crossword and the last word of the puzzle" kokoro->heart",   I like to think that sensei, knowing a bit of English based it on the phrase: "Cross my heart and hope to die"; as in 'a promise' -> which is the topic of this story. 

Then the intro line starts with "That day, there was a strong wind blowing since morning, so I couldn't really go outside."  This line, much like the title of novel 4, has the concept of 'wind blowing' that makes reference to the proverb 「明日は明日の風が吹く」`Ashita ha ashita no kaze ga fuku'. Tomorrow, tomorrow's wind will blow. Which means something like "there's no point in thinking ahead" or "What comes next is up to life". Whenever sensei writes that enigmatic first line, it usually carries a lot of meaning and foreshadows what is to come.

The story starts with Yuuri and Wolfram alone at the office. Some event is taking place and everyone but them is busy. Yuuri is doing a crossword and struggling. Wolfram finally gets closer to see what's bothering him.

The first hint for the crossword, is 'a pet name for children'. Wolfram then remembers his mother used to call him Honey-chan (Hachimitsu chan). Yuuri immediately likes the name and says "Maybe I too will start calling you that from now on, honey-chan."

(Additional info: In MisePan2, 2011, Wolfram gets angry at being called honey-chan, because "Yuuri is younger than him" so he has no right to call him something that older people call younger people. Clearly, "Crossheart" where Yuuri discovers Wolfram's pet name comes chronologically before Misepan2. So we can pinpoint that Crossheart was written before 2011, maybe it was even a failed attempt at Misepan2. Misepan 2 came out with the last DVD box, which was delayed a year due to circumstances with Takabayashi sensei. We know this because in the afterword of Misepan2 , the author says: "I really can't apologize enough for this.... I honestly apologize to all of you for keeping you waiting. I'm really sorry for the inconveniences I caused to all the parties I kept waiting for this." So sensei apologizes and blames herself for the delay of the last DVD box. This might have been due to her health issues, which she only mentioned once, in 2010. EDIT: I found the original information at Ray Clover: CROSSHEART IS FROM APRIL 2006! (file: asuka1302). It was published as a mobile story, and republished as an extra in the omnibus re-release!)

The second hint for his crossword was the name of a famous mouse, so of course Yuuri is thinking Micky, since the last letters are cky. But it turns out to be "Rocky" a famous mouse character. So there's a legend that small animals, like mice, squirls, rabbits and even birds can see spirits. And this particular mouse is said to deliver messages from the dead to their families.

This triggers Yuuri to ask a question to Wolf: "What would you do, if I never returned?". Wolfram asks him to clarify what he meant. And Yuuri asks: Would you cry? To which Wolf says: I wouldn't. At first Yuuri is a little hurt by the cold answer, like you wouldn't miss me? But Wolfram explains, of course he'd miss Yuuri but he wouldn't cry. Because if he did, Yuuri wouldn't be able to live a happy life back on earth. Wolfram's promise of not crying so Yuuri could be happy, left Yuuri speechless and then he noticed the word that was formed vertically in the crossword.

The hint for that word: "What you use to share your feelings with your partner."

The word is never specifically said, but in the drama cd it's "ko-ko-ro" -> heart. Which would also circle back to the "heart" in crossheart.

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Comment on Crossheart:  This story as well as its natural continuation, Misepan2, are very yuuram oriented.  Do you want an exorcism, another contemporary story of these two, is also largely yuuram. And the same goes for all of sensei’s work including the very last doujinshi. 

I also want to point out the pet name she chose: Hachimitsuchan. Again, I may be over reaching, but she has enough English knowledge to know “Honey” is something you call children AND your significant other. The fact that Wolfram eventually gets angry at it, adds to the comedy of errors, which is one of the underlying tropes in maruma. Yuuri’s sweet words are generally misinterpreted by Wolfram.

I've been saying this for years. Takabayashi-sensei has liked this couple from the very beginning and has been building their relationship for novels on end. Every story she's written, shows them happy and together. The very last one even has them married with Wolfram wondering if Yuuri would want more 'wives' (as in, what about the other ships?) and Yuuri assuring Wolf he only wants him (no other ships are sailing from this port).

People who ship Yuuri with other characters aren't basing themselves on novel canon, which is fine, of course! But the novel canon is yuuram. Note: I use yuuram as a word to denote the relationship between Yuuri and Wolfram, also because it’s shorter than royal couple. I’m NOT talking about ‘who’s top’ in the relationship. I feel like this whole ‘top’ bottom’ talk is so 90s, we should get over it, much like Takabayashi-sensei herself has expressed she doesn’t care about that whole ‘top’ ‘bottom’ thing. 

[penpalkingdom]

hei alle sammen! 🐸☔️🌸

🌲 i am a: language-loving, cottagecore enthusiast [age: 21 || pronouns: she/her || country: U.S. || nickname: errorca]

🍄 seeking a: friendly, enthusiastic pen pal to write to 2-3 times per month. you don’t have to be a conversational pro but i do appreciate a person who helps carry the conversation (just by like, asking questions and giving thoughtful answers and stuff).

☃️ bonus: if you speak Norwegian, i’ve been learning the language for years but never gotten to practice with anyone and i would love to write in Norwegian!

🍂 what i want to write about: whatever we’re passionate about! obviously it’s a bonus if we share some interests but really i think anything you are excited to share would be interesting! we could talk about our hobbies, the weather, our lives, or even just write peaceful daydreams and share drawings. i’d just be happy with any wholesome conversation. 🥰

🍎 a bit more of who i am: a language-loving, wannabe gardener grandma (at heart) with a lot of stationery supplies and a passion for all sorts of creative things, stories, and storytelling (from photography to d&d!). i’m also a perpetually busy anthropology student by day, and a netflix connoisseur by night. favorite aesthetics currently include cottagecore, academia, autumn, and cabin/mountain/forest vibes. 🍁🥖🍂

feel free to message me over at @error-ca if you’d like to write!

ps- i’d be super down for snail mail but i don’t have a PO box at the moment (but maybe i could like uh... handwrite letters and scan them until then?)

[pps- i actually posted here awhile ago but it was right before things started getting crazy with the pandemic so i didn’t get to keep in touch with anyone unfortunately]

[izzy-b-hands]

12 and 23 for End of Year Asks :)

12: Talk about a new friend you made this year

Oh gosh there's a quite a few ppl I could talk about here! I got to talk to more folks in the Pacific fandom and got to know them better (like yourself, @freebooter4ever, @rathernotmyname, and @bearkare!) But I also got to know more folks in the Queen fandom, especially @rushingheadlong and @tenderbri! If I count folks from the end of last year into this year, that also includes folks from the Metalocalypse fandom like @apineappleheart!

(and god I'm still missing ppl from all three of these fandoms, forgive me friends if I don't have you tagged on here, my brain is mush but you know you're on this list!!!)

And it's been just a fabulous year for that, honestly? Like part of it I think was Def my therapist pushing me to be braver abt talking to ppl (gotta give her the deserved credit lol) and me finally just being like

'these are people I consider cool who I look up to. The worst I can do is sound like an idiot talking to them, and that's just human error, so why not at least try and talk and make a friend or two?'

It's also come with frustrations (I'm trying to expand this making friends thing onto discord too, and I don't know that I'm always as successful there tbh)

But for someone who literally could count on one hand the number of friends I had made in the years prior to 2020, I think it's a marked improvement lol. And I'm incredibly grateful and feel lucky beyond belief to have met so many people who share interests with me, and want to talk to me about them and share creations like fic and art and everything in between!

23. If you could send a message to yourself back on the first day of the year, what would it be?

Hi Past Me,

Holy shit hang the fuck on. That's a bad intro for a letter, but this is a hell of a year, so don't be fuckin judgey about it. You'll understand by the time you reach the latest part of this year.

A few things: try and save more money. Idk how, but like...it's gonna Get Tight. Do your best to just save like crazy because it would really help you out. Maybe sell some stuff. Some body parts. Idk get wild and crazy, it's a new year! The world is new to you! Also update your resume. Make like several versions of it, as well as many cover letters, for like any industry you've ever been interested in. You'd be doing me a real big favour if you did that now, Past Me. Start applying now, do not wait. You'll want to wait, don't, because work gets even more hellacious and you are On Your Own. Buy some cloth face masks. Many. Buy stock in them. Learn how to sew them. Just...do it, and don't question it.

But also! You're gonna be on T before you know it, and that's going to make things better. Yes, it'll be gender euphoria mixed with pandemic panic, but it's still amazing all things considered. (Oh also there's gonna be a pandemic, FYI.)

You're gonna have some real lonely moments coming up, but you're also going to meet and begin to get to know some fantastic people. Try and focus on the happy of meeting people, and not on the moments of crushing loneliness.

Keep writing. Keep being weirdly overworried abt germs, that will actually help you this year some. Just keep going. A lot of stuff is gonna suck, but a lot of stuff also won't. Do your best, and try and survive. Your therapist is gonna basically make that your mantra, so get used to seeing/hearing that phrase lol.

Also, get those first drafts of the letters to Brian May, Roger Taylor, and Elton John done, or you'll hit December and they won't be written yet due to your nerves. Just do it now, you can edit and rewrite later.

Sincerely,

Future You, who is very tired and sort of can't believe next week will be Xmas, when it feels more like Week 159 of March.