#it is ungodly the amount of hours i have sunk into this game

[diagoose]

pm2 is a great wholesome game with nothing problematic whatsoever and i am a great dad btw

[fancybehaviour]

Daddy Woes

Summary:

Harry is a good husband; so he sends his wife out on a much needed girls day. James Sirius is a naughty boy; so he sends his father down an anxiety spiral.

Notes:

Written for @harryandginuary BINGO!

Prompt I 23: “Why are there zucchini all over our kitchen?” “Do you not like zucchini?”

The sun had sunk low on the horizon, and in a few minutes would dissapear for the night. About dinner time, thought Ginny, as she made her way home after a long enjoyable day, her heels clicking rhythmically against the cobble. As she walked, she rewinded the highlights of her girls day out with Hermione and Luna in her head. Ginny had had an absolute hoot meeting her friends.She was sure she would continue to reminisce until the next time she could have such a day; after all being the mother of a seven month old meant that such trips were a rarity and she cherished them a lot.

Her legs ached from all the walking around she did while she helped Luna shop for her trip and she was looking forward to taking the nice long bath her husband had promised to draw her. She let out a sigh as she thought of sinking her aching legs in a hot bath, her husband perched at the edge of her bathtub as she gave him an exaggerated recount of the day's events peppered with silly nonsensical jokes, him guffawing at them all even though he had already heard them all. He did that a lot these days, laughing. Especially since the birth of their beautiful boy.

She felt a swell of love rise in her as she thought of her family; her seven month old baby son who could scream the house down and her loving husband who tried his best to give her respite from the said infant. 

"Harry?" she called, pushing the front door to close and locking it. "James darling? I'm back home. Did you boys have fun?". She continued heading towards the kitchen where she could hear noises, taking care not to trip over the many toys that were strewn about their living room. Courtesy of their many relatives and friends, James seemed to have an amount of toys that seemed absolutely ridiculous to Ginny who couldn't remember seeing so many toys even at the Burrow, that had been the residence of seven children. Making the matter even more ridiculous was the fact that James's favourite toys were actually the copper pots and pans that he liked to bang about making noise.

It was only when she reached the kitchen and took in the desecration that it was  that she realised that perhaps today, she might be the only one in the Potter household who might have had any semblance of fun.

Eyes darting from her slightly whimpering son in his high chair, to the trail of food spills surrounding him to the multicoloured stains adorning her husband's apron and his miserable face, she decided to address a whole other issue: “Why are there zucchini all over our kitchen?” 

“Do you not like zucchini?”, asked Harry, in a tone that might have been wry if it weren't for the long suffering expression on his face.

"Absolutely not. Can't believe you thought I did, the honor of questionable taste will forever be Hermione's ."

He gave a laugh that seemed more for her benefit (making Ginny wonder if parenthood had done a number on her humour too) and set about cleaning up. Ginny walked into the kitchen and lifted the whimpering toddler into her arms. She pressed a loud smacking kiss on both of his chubby, chubby cheeks, and rocked him gently, seemingly this was all that was needed for his whimpers seemed to slowly subside. She could feel Harry's eyes on them as he continued to clean up the mess; she remained silent, waiting for him to tell her what was weighing on his mind.

Instead he said, "He missed you," so she turns around to see him, looking at them softly with a look on his face that Ginny could only describe as melancholy. It reminded Ginny of her fifth year, when he looked at her like that, like she was everything he wanted but was unattainable.

It seems she was going to have to demand answers after all. Very well.

"Alright Potter, spill. Whatever happened today that has got you relapsing into your teenage angst?"

He laughed, and this time it was a genuine one; BINGO!

Pulling a chair at their kitchen table and settling himself down he said " James kept crying after you left. A lot." 

"Uh-huh. Nothing he hasn't done before. "

"Yeah. Sure. But today I just realised.."

"Yeah?" She asked, settling down into the chair opposite him, shifting James into her lap who seemed very fascinated with playing with her hair.

Harry watched him for a moment and then continued, "I know James crying is nothing new. Yet for some reason, it just bothered me today, you know."

"Uh-huh."

"It made me feel like a bad parent." he confesses, looking a bit surprised himself, perhaps at that he had spoken it out loud, yet continued with "I have been feeling like it a lot these days."

There.The dam had finally broken. Ginny had long since suspected that Harry was having troubles with parenting. She had caught him brooding about with a tea mug in his hands instead of going back to bed after whatever ungodly hour James Sirius had decided to wake them up. 

She tried many times,to get him to talk, but between her own exhaustion, an infant with a strong pair of lungs and Harry's stubborn refusal to burden Ginny with anymore than she was already dealing with nothing had come out of it. But now that he seemed to want to talk, Ginny did not stop him.

"I just… "he paused, and swallowed, something he did when he was overcome with emotion but wanted to bite it down.

"I want to do this right. I have never wanted so badly to do something right in my whole life. Family..it means everything to me and I want to be a good father but I'm afraid I am failing."

"You are an amazing father, Harry."

He shook his head. 

"Am I?"

"Yes" Ginny agreed furiously.

Harry looked into her eyes at that and she hoped he could read her, that he could see himself from her eyes, how she fell in love with him more and more everyday as she saw more and more of dad Harry.

Looking away he continued, "I sure don't feel like it. Today, while you were away, all Jamie wanted was his Mum. I tried everything, feeding him your milk, his favourite toys - yes the pans and pots, we are lucky we have no neighbours- feeding him all sorts of baby food and yet nothing seemed to work for long before he started wailing again. "

Ginny replied, "I don't want to sound like I'm being condescending, but this is the only way I can seem to put it- he's a toddler Harry. No one knows why toddlers do what they do. If he was fussy with you today and missed me I doubt it's because he has decided you were a bad parent."

"I know that - rationally.But the part of me - the same part of me that gets jealous of blokes trying to chat you up or worries that Ron is going to make a new best friend  - that part of me makes me think I have been a bad father."

"Today when Jamie kept crying for you, and I wasn't able to calm him down or feed him any of the amalgamation of baby foods I made- it just felt like I was in over my head, without a clue about what was doing. I might as well have been one of those dads who say they are 'babysitting' their kids and leave them up to their mothers and that's not- I never want to be that."

"I don't just want to do this right, I want be good at this. Like I am at Quidditch or catching dark wizards. I know I can catch a snitch, I know how to find a criminal on the run from law. Just like that, I want to be good at taking care of my son...but today, everything I did kept failing and that made me think.."

"James dented your confidence, didn't he," she said softly.

"He did," Harry agrees looking over at the boy who was happily sucking on his toes, completely ignorant of the spiral he had sent his father through.

Lacing her fingers with his, she said,"My mum told me, with parenting, there's bad days and good days, but you've got to understand that having bad days is not equivalent to being a bad parent."

"I imagine she had a lot of those, with seven of you," replied Harry wryly.

"Two of them Fred and George", Ginny reminded him.

They sat for a moment in silence both lost in thought.

"Gin-"

 "Harry" ,they both started at the same time, and Harry motioned for her to go on.

"I was just thinking - I had help with this. My mum, Fleur, Angelina, my teammates - I had people to talk this with. To reassure me that I wasn't doing things wrong. But you don't have that."

"No. But I've got you."

"You do," she agrees. "But also, maybe you should talk to people too. Maybe my dad or Bill or George"

He snorts at that. "If anyone had told me ten years ago that I'd be talking parenting with George.." he trails off as Ginny gives a light chuckle.

"Seriously though," she says again,       "Give it a try. I'm always here though. To listen. Or if you wanna get competitive over who is the worse parent".

Grinning, he says "I fed him courgettes Gin. He hated it. I'm winning this game." and she smiles at him, simply happy to see him happy.

"Oh and what is it?", she asks, and at his quizzical raise of eyebrows she elaborates, "that you wanted to say? You wanted to say something but you let me go first."

At that he gives her a wide smile and says, 

"Just that I love you."

[thebluenoteblog]

Oh, Baby

Summary: Your lie leads to a fight which leads to a silent treatment and a very interesting hockey game.

Player: Colton Parayko

Word Count: 3.5k

Requested: Can i request a fic with colton where he and y/n fighting or having an argument but he has to leave for the road trip the next day so you don't have time to apologize then when you want to call him to apologize turns out he calls you first? I really like all your fics! Bur really love the colton ones! Good job!

You sat on the bathroom floor staring blankly at the wall with the test grasped loosely in your fingers. What a colossal fuck up. What a massive, grade A, absolute fuck up. You tossed the test up angerly into the sink then sunk back against the wall with your head in your hands. You’d done it now. You’d really gone and ruined everything.

You were pregnant.

You had only been dating Colton for six months and the idea of sitting him down right now and telling him that you were having his baby was the most terrifying nightmare that you could imagine. You had faith in him. You knew he wouldn’t walk out on the baby. But… what if he walked away from you? What if he did something even crazier like… propose?

You allowed your head to fall back, smacking against the wall as your eyes fell closed. Literal nightmare. You pulled your phone out of your pocket and looked up the number for your doctor’s office. There was no sense in telling him anything until after everything was confirmed by a blood test and an ultrasound.

You scheduled an appointment for the next week and climbed back to your feet, buried the test in the bottom of the trash can then opened the door. There wasn’t any time to sit on the bathroom floor and be pathetic. The game came was coming on in a few minutes.

****

Thump, Thump, Thump, Thump, Thump.

You stared at the monitor in awe as tears filled your eyes. That little blob was your little blob and you loved it. It had a heartbeat and as you were answering the doctor’s questions about yours and Colton’s genetic histories you had come to realize something else. This baby was half Colt.

You could picture a baby boy with the palest skin, lightest blonde hair and the brightest blue eyes, always filled with curiosity. You could see a toddler on his first pair of skates wobbling around the ice. A little boy running around the playground always faster than everyone else, so much taller than all of the other kids in his class. More determined to succeed than the other kids and doing it effortlessly but doing it so quietly and humbly that no one noticed.

For the first time since the positive had shown up on that pregnancy test you were happy. The problem was you still didn’t have any idea what to expect from Colton when you told him. Because now not only were you pregnant but you’d known for a week and neglected to tell him. For three days you’d had an excuse while he finished up his road stint, but he had been home for six and was leaving the next day. Still you’d neglected to spill.

You had the excuse of the doctor’s appointment until today.

Which meant you had to tell him tonight.

You prayed for a win.

“You look to be measuring at around five weeks,” the doctor said casting a smile in your direction before she returned her gaze to the screen to snap a few pictures. “The baby’s heartbeat is strong. Everything looks great.”

You walked out of the appointment with three pictures of your little baby, a video of his heartbeat and the feeling of a piano having been lifted off of your chest but chained to your ankle.

****

They lost. Badly.

You left Enterprise right after the game and headed home without waiting for Colton.  You sent him a quick text message simply: come over to my place. I’ll cook for you.

           He didn’t respond right away but you didn’t expect him to. Half an hour later he responded with: I’ll be on my way soon.

You were moving around your kitchen throwing the ingredients of a dish that you knew he loved together in a way that you had memorized by this point when he walked into the house. “Kitchen!” You called anxiously.

You had yet to decide whether or not you were going to tell him about the baby after their horrendous loss to the Canes. So, when he walked into the kitchen all smiles you were relieved. You were expecting a grumpy Colton, not a happy one.

“Do you just call out what room you’re in every time someone walks into the house?” He asked, “What if I was someone breaking in?”

“I live in the suburbs.” You said while stirring the pot on the stove, “The worst crime I’ve seen since I moved into this neighborhood was some kid setting up confetti cannons to go off when people opened their front doors.” You looked up, “That’s why I’m thankful I don’t have a storm door.”

“There’s a first for everything,” He said moving closer to look over your shoulder at what you were cooking. He studied it for a moment then asked, “Is this pity food?”

You laughed, “No.”

“Is it…” He paused, “Guilt food?” He studied you and you avoided his eyes, focusing your attention on the pot and stirring with more focus than was probably needed. “It is guilt food!” He exclaimed, stepping around you to lean against the counter so he could see your face. “What did you do?” He asked.

You narrowed your eyes at him, “Who says I did anything?”

“You’re making me guilt food, you basically admitted it.” He said, “That means you did something. So, spill. It obviously isn’t that big of a deal or you’d be more concerned. What, did your ex leave you more flowers?” You shook your head, “Did you wear one of the other guys jerseys to the game?” You just laughed in response, “Come on your killing me here, (Y/N).”

“You have to eat the guilt food first,” you said with a laugh. “I wouldn’t even say it’s guilt food… just… put you in a good mood food.”

He groaned and stepped behind you, wrapping an arm around your waist, pressing himself against your back and using his free hand to brush the hair off of your neck. He pressed a kiss to the bare skin of your shoulder just above the line of your shirt. “Come on, tell me. You know I don’t like to wait.”

You sighed as he continued the trail up the side of your neck then whispered in your ear, “Please, (Y/N/N)?”

Well, he’d done it. He found your weakness. Your brain was only halfway functioning as you whispered, “I’m pregnant.”

You didn’t realize the words had come out of your mouth until you felt him freeze behind you. After his long pause you were halfway expecting him to drop his arms, back away, and retreat from the room, maybe even your house. But he didn’t. He pulled the wooden spoon out of your hand and placed it on the counter then took half a step backwards, so he had room to turn you around. Now that you were facing him he looked into your eyes and in the most dazed, confused voice you’d ever heard leave his mouth, asked, “What did you just say?”

You hesitated for a moment, biting your lip as he stared down at you. You could tell he was beginning to get impatient when finally, you managed to tell him for the second time, “I’m pregnant. We’re having a baby.”

His eyes widened but he didn’t say anything, clearly shocked into silence. You would give him his moment though. He was still taking it better than you had. He hadn’t thrown anything. You lowered your eyes to the floor, took a deep breath and then twisted to turn off the burner.

When you turned back to face him Colton was staring at your stomach. “There’s a baby in there?” He asked quietly. He still sounded confused. Not angry. Not indignant. Just confused like he couldn’t quite wrap his head around the idea of there being a tiny human running around the world with his looks and your stubbornness.

“Yeah,” You said, “I went to my first ultrasound today. I have the pictures if you want to see them.”

He slowly looked up from your stomach to meet your eyes. “You went to the ultrasound without me?”

You licked your lips nervously while shifting your weight from foot to foot. It hadn’t really occurred to you that he might want to go to this appointment. He was so busy with playoffs coming up and you had been so upset about being pregnant at the time that you had just assumed he would be as well. Though somehow judging by the hurt look in his eyes it seemed like a bad idea to tell him that you thought that he wouldn’t be interested in going. “I wanted to be sure before I said anything. I didn’t want to worry you unless I had to.”

“How long have you known?” He asked now taking a step back.

You responded slowly after an awkward pause, “A week.”

“How could you keep something like this from me for a week, (Y/N)?” He asked. He wasn’t yelling, his voice was a controlled calm. “We’re supposed to be a team. You can’t lie to me about stuff this big.”

“What if it had been nothing?” You asked.

“Did you think it was nothing?” He responded, his tone rising for a second before he calmed it again. This was a man who laughed when people tried to punch him yet he was struggling to control his anger over something you had done.

Your lack of an answer was more than enough of an answer.

He crossed his arms and stared at the floor. You pulled your lip between your teeth and stared at him. There was a tense silence for some amount of time that seemed ungodly but probably wasn’t actually that long.

You shuffled your feet along the hardwood floors, “Are… are you mad at me?”

“Yes… yes (Y/N), I’m mad at you.” He said, and you winced because you didn’t even need a full hand to count the number of times that Colton had openly admitted to being mad at you in the six months you’d been together. “I’m already going to miss so much. I could have actually been there today. You didn’t even think to give me the choice.”

“Colt, I was scared!” You defended, arms crossed over your chest and chin stuck out stubbornly. You briefly felt a flash of pity for your boyfriend if the baby did, in fact, inherit your stubbornness.

“Of what, (Y/N)?” He asked, rather loudly for a man who prided himself on so rarely getting angry.

You snapped back, “Of what you would say! Of what you would do! I didn’t know if you would want to have a baby with me! What if you thought I was trying to baby trap you or something?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” He asked, shaking his head. He took a step away from you. “Wow. I thought our relationship was a hell of a lot more than that. I thought you knew me better than that.”

“People do crazy shit when they’re stressed,” you told him, again finding yourself defending your position.

He just continued to stand and shake his head at you. After a tense silence he turned and walked out of the kitchen and into the living room. You followed, closely on his heal. “Where are you going?” you asked him.

“Home,” He said. “I can’t do this right now.”

“Colton do not walk out that door,” You stated with wide eyes as he pulled on his coat. He eyed you with a look that very clearly said I’d like to see your microscopic ass stop me.

He made it all the way there, had his hand on the door knob, then sighed. For a moment your heart lifted as you thought he had decided to stay. He turned to you, pressed his lips to your forehead and said, “I love you.”

Then he was gone.

****

You realized that you were wrong about five minutes after he walked out the door. Your pride however, would not allow you to call him and apologize. To be completely honest, you didn’t think he would answer if you did. You’d never seen him this angry with you. He had never walked away from you in the middle of a fight.

This time he’d completely left the house.

You’d expected him to stop by the next morning before he left and fix things. Nothing. Radio silence. Not even a text message.

Then he left town.

Without another word.

That was when you got an idea of how angry he really was. You could never imagine him doing this, let alone five minutes after finding out you were pregnant. It was so uncharacteristic for him. You’d really fucked up and you knew it.

But even the day he arrived in Boston you were too afraid to call him and apologize. Too afraid that he would ignore your call, send you to voice mail, or tell you that he was done with you. A thousand worse case scenarios ran through your head every waking moment of the day and hormone and fear induced nightmares destroyed any chance you had of regaining your sanity while you slept.

You almost didn’t watch them play the Bruins. You almost decided to sit in the bathtub with some music playing, tune out life and pretend that your world wasn’t falling apart. Though as you sat down on the side of the tub, before you even turned on the water, you sighed and shook your head.

You couldn’t miss the game.

You hadn’t missed a Blues game by choice since years before you’d started dating Colton. You weren’t going to be so petty that you chose this one to miss. For all you knew he would play amazing and you would miss it, then you would feel horrible and it would make the situation even worse.

So, you stood your miserable ass up, made your way into the living room and turned on the pregame. You saw him for the first time since he walked out the door two days before as they showed clips of him skating around the ice during warm ups.

He looked out of it. He wasn’t talking to any of the other players like he usually did. He wasn’t smiling or laughing or tossing pucks over the glass. He was going through the motions. You really hoped that he had more life than that during the game.

A small part of you was relieved that he was as unhappy as you.

A bigger part of you hated it.

The game started, and you really wished it hadn’t. The first twenty minutes was nothing but Colton missing passes, overshooting the net by a mile, and giving the puck to the other team. By the time intermission came you were really wishing you could have a glass of wine.

Then second period started.

What Chief said in the locker room you would never know, and you were sure Colton would never tell you but things turned around really quick. His first shift he came out onto the ice skated straight to the player with the puck and completely destroyed him in the middle of the ice. He passed the puck to Perron who buried it in the back of the net.

Everyone looked a little bit surprised, especially the dude in black and yellow still in the process of regaining his balance as the Blues celebrated their goal. You were right there with them. He didn’t stop there. His next shift was on a Blues power play and after almost taking off Rask’s head with a slapshot, he was passed the puck again a few seconds later. Back of the net. Blues 2-0.

Colton with an assist and a goal. Two points in five minutes after the cluster fuck that was the first period. Lord bless Chief and whatever magical powers he possessed.

Not long passed before Colton was throwing his hands in the air, indignant look on his face as he skated to the penalty box. “St. Louis 55, two minutes for charging.”

Well… yeah. It was a good call. But Colton was pissed. He wasn’t talking or laughing or smiling in the box like he usually did. No. He was angry.

He came out on the ice ready to fight. You didn’t even have time to register who the player with the puck was before Colton smashed him into the boards.

Colton is a big guy. He was pretty angry when he made the hit, so it was safe to assume that he hit the guy pretty hard. It was also safe to assume this because the Bruin’s feet came out from under him and struggled to get back up. His teammates didn’t seem to like this very much.

You watched with wide eyes as Wanger got in his face, well… tried to get in his face, yelling something. They dropped their gloves.

And holy shit, Colton won the fight.

The best part of the entire game? It was listening to Pang’s commentary on Colton’s random personality change. “That sure was something from big fella, number 55. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him lay a hit like that on someone!”

“And the big fella follows up his assist with a goal? So, what do you think was said between periods Kelly? Have you ever seen this kind of aggression from Parayko before?”

“Well Kelly, I didn’t think I’d ever see the day that Parayko took a charging penalty and a fighting major in the same game. That must have been some chat in the locker room.”

And you didn’t realize it until John Kelly responded but when he did you actually laughed at the absurdity of the entire situation. “Well Pang, Parayko just completed a Gordie Howe hat trick. That is definitely a  first for him.”

You decided in that moment that you really needed to call him before the Blues played their next game. Someone was going to get hurt.

****

You wanted to call him that night when the game ended but you knew you would have had to wait until he got to his hotel in New York, god knows when. So reluctantly you laid down in bed deciding you would call him in the morning.

Though you couldn’t sleep, so you were laying in bed reading a book at three thirty in the morning when your phone started ringing. It was a facetime. You didn’t have to look to know who it was from. There was only one person who ever facetimed you this late at night. You jumped across the bed and grabbed your phone off the charger, sliding to answer it then settling back against the headboard.

He was sitting in bed, no shirt, hair a mess. “Hey,” you said.

“Hey.” He said.

“So…” You started, “Gordie Howe?”

He pulled a face, “I was really hoping you didn’t watch tonight. First period was brutal.”

“Second period was fun though.”

He gave you a stern look, “(Y/N), I sent a guy to concussion protocol.”

“He was cleared,” you defended.

He sighed, rubbing his forehead, “I don’t think that’s the point.”

“Actually,” you said, “I think that’s a huge part of the point.”

“(Y/N).” He said, stressing your name in a way that made the smile fall off your face as easily as it had come. “This isn’t why I called.”

Oh, right. You were pregnant. You lied to him about it. You went to an ultrasound without him. He was pissed. He left town without making up with you. There were a lot of big things happening in your relationship right now.

“I’m sorry-,”

“No,” He said, “I’m sorry.”

“What?” You asked, actually confused. You were wrong. You knew you were wrong. Objectively, most people would say that you were in the wrong.

“I’m sorry that I left the other day without fixing things,” he said. “I’m sorry that I left town without coming by to see you.” He shifted the phone and readjusted himself on the bed, now leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “I shouldn’t have done that to you. It was a dick move. I’ve felt like shit about it since I got on the plane.”

You shook your head, “You shouldn’t be apologizing, Colton. I’m the one who should be sorry. I lied to you. I took something away from you that you can’t get back and that wasn’t fair.”

He sighed, looked down at the floor as he responded, “Do I wish that you would have told me, and I could have been there? Yes, I do. I really fucking do. Do I hate why you didn’t tell me? Yeah, it really sucked to hear. But it happened. It’s over. I love you and I love this baby, and nothing changes that.”

“Colton,” you said quietly, and he looked up at his phone. You could see his eyes. They weren’t sad like you thought they would be. “I love you too,” you smiled at him, “and for what it’s worth, I wouldn’t want to start a life with anyone but you.”

Slowly, he smiled back at you. “Babe, I’ve never wanted a life with anyone as badly as I want one with you.”

[risottostitties]

Hi! First time here to ask haha! Any HCs for La squadra with an Otaku s/o? Like she watches anime and even buys merch in secret cuz she's scared they might find her hobby lame and immature? (Also,what will be their fave anime? And genre?)

Oh boy let me tell you I have some THOUGHTS about these boys and their taste in anime

La Squadra with an Otaku s/o

Risotto 

at first he’s gonna be kinda confused, not gonna lie. Growing up the only ‘anime’ he knew was like, Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z but at that point he was too old to really get into Pokemon, and he never considered DBZ anime because it aired next to cartoons and stuff.

But that doesn’t mean he won’t appreciate s/o and their good taste. He’s the kind of guy who wants to learn about what interests the people he loves, and he loves you. So he’d honestly enjoy late nights spent binge watching your favorites.

Comes to realize that DBZ was low key his gym goals for the early years of him working out. If you bought him a ‘Swole like Goku’ tank he’d probably wear it to lift in, ngl.

Knowing your favorites he’d probably look to merch for his go to birthday or Christmas gifts. Considering the hobbies and interests of some of his co-workers, a scantily clad waifu figure is honestly a welcome change of pace.

Depending on the style or aesthetic of the anime (ie, is it goth) he would be down to couples cosplay, although he wouldn’t be comfortable with you posting pictures of his face or any identifiable features of him online

His fave is probably the original Dragon Ball Run, followed very closely by DBZ for the nostalgia bit. Something deep like Full Metal Alchemist (Brotherhood and the original) would also appeal to him

Is also a big fan of Beserk, disappointed by the anime. And Vinland Saga, not disappointed by the anime.

Partial to Princess Mononoke as well. He likes some Ghibli films, isn’t afraid to admit it. Thinks the score for Spirited Away is bomb af.

Prosciutto

Prosciutto doesn’t really get it at first either. Honestly? He probably didn’t know the difference between cartoon and anime until you explained it to him.

Unlike Risotto he might be a bit more judgey if you try to get him to watch some with you. So you gotta hit him with the real classics. 

But similarly to Risotto, he at least makes an effort to try and indulge in the things you like. He might not be as patient, but he tries.

Probably wouldn’t do cosplay himself, but would hunt down exclusive seasonal merch to gift you. He’d take careful stock of your collections and do some research to pick out only the finest figurines and posters for you.

Would buy that hella expensive premium bandai apparel for you too, might even pick something subtle up for himself if he really liked the show it came from.

Also back on the cosplay note, if you agreed he’d find the highest quality cosplay possible and have you model some of his favorites for him.

(In particular if you were comfortable in fem clothing, Faye Valentine gets him going)

He loves Cowboy Beebop. 100%, wants to watch it again as soon as it ends. Everything from the characters to the story to the music and the fliud animation that has aged like fine wine appeals to him. Prosciutto is a man who likes the finer things in life. He oozes class. Cowboy Beebop oozes class and prestige.

Also likes Maasaki Yuasa. It was his idea to go see The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl in theaters.

In general his tastes tend to lean towards arthouse type anime or bona fide classics.

Pesci

Pesci knows anime and has been doing his absolute best to keep it a secret from the rest of the gang because they already tease him enough.

He’s one of those secret weebs, you gotta know where to look. Your best bet is to look at his accessories. Is there a watch with a certain symbol from an anime you recognize? A lanyard with a familiar print? Something subtle that isn’t immediately noticed by people not looking for it.

He has a secret box in his room full of blue rays from his faves. He watches them sometimes when he’s home alone. There’s nothing X rated in there obviously, he just doesn’t want people to know.

Thank god he has you.

The two of you probably bonded pretty fast over your mutual love of anime. Hell, you being such an open and proud Otaku probably gave him a bit of confidence in expressing his interests too.

Yall are the weeb couple. Yall definitely go to conventions together. Couples Cosplays, the whole thing.

He’s a sucker for Shonen just as much as he is for the really good heart wrenching painful ones. 

He watches Boruto because he loves Naruto so much.

He would also tear up at Clannad.

Dango Daikazoku triggers almost a pavlovian response of heart ache.

So does Secret Base.

Ano Hana is probably his favorite, although even you’d need to pry it out of him. Its one thing that Prosciutto gives him shit for liking anime, its a whole different ball game if he found out Pesci liked girly anime

Fromaggio

He knows what hentai is. That’s about as far as his knowledge went before yall got together.

He thinks its pretty interesting though, so he’d be down to watch some with you.

Turns out he really likes action shonen. He got really, really into One Piece. Like, instantly. He likes the fact there’s so much to watch/read before he’s caught up too.

Another boy that would couples cosplay and be really into it. Especially if it continued into the bedroom.

He’s pretty go with the flow, so he isn’t picky about what y’all watch. Even if it isn’t his cup of tea he’ll sit through a few episodes on a night with you.

Fromaggio can’t tell the difference between a high quality figure and a shitty one. Its a crap shoot what he buys for you. Its more a process of ‘oh, so likes this character’ rather than checking the seams and paint quality and how dynamic the pose is/interchangeable parts. 

Definitely buys way too much in the dealers room because of this.

He tries his best.

His fave is probably One Piece, liked bleach a lot but never read the manga, Yu Yu Hakusho is another one he really enjoyed. The Dark Tournament arc had him at the edge of his seat and hype as shit.

Illuso

Had a passing knowledge of anime before dating you. Knew what it was, saw a few of the mainstream ones, thought they were enjoyable, moved on with his life.

Your dedicated interest in anime would surprise him at first, because he always figured it was kind of a niche thing.

Would snoop around your collection of manga/figures/plushes in the mirror world while you sleep.

Winds up reading a lot of your manga like that (he’s good at reading in reverse because of his stand)

He finds he appreciates the art style of 80s-90s manga a lot more than he does the modern stuff. He really got into Ranma 1/2 and thinks Rumiko Takahashi’s artstyle is excellent.

If you asked him to watch Inuyasha with you he wouldn’t say no.

Probably wouldn’t want to do couples cosplay, but he definitely has an appreciation for you in cosplay.

You could talk him into going to a con if you caught him in the right mood. It’d be a hard sell though.

Has a surprising enjoyment for J-Rock. 

Inuyasha is high on his favorites list, as is Ranma 1/2. Also a fan of Ghibli movies although its pulling teeth to get him to admit it.

Melone

This man has watched so much hentai in his life.

He probably actually knows them by title honestly.

He enjoys anime too, and is not ashamed unlike Pesci. Everyone already knows he has unconventional tastes there is nothing to hide here.

Melone enjoys traditionally feminine anime, especially Sailor Moon. That one has a special place in his heart as he has memories of his sister watching it with him when he was much younger.

Its more of a decompress thing than anything else, so he doesn't tend to favor heavy anime with dense plot and more mature subject matter.

He likes Maid Costumes. On you, on him, it doesn’t matter.

Doesn’t know a whole lot about merch and what makes something higher quality but he learns fast. Between you and him the Dealers Room at cons won’t know what hit them.

Is the type to preorder a figure he knows you’d like. And maybe one for him.

Buy him this and he’s putty in your hands for a month straight (SFW don’t worry) https://www.amazon.com/Bandai-Sailor-Moonlight-Memory-Locket/dp/B00UA9XB48

Sailor Moon is his favorite as I’ve said before, his favorite sailor scout is Rei. Is also a fan of Ano Hana, Violet Evergarden, and Toradora although he needs to be in the right mood to watch them.

Ghiaccio

He went down the Fate rabbit hole and we haven’t seen him since.

The gender bending grates as his soul but he is addicted regardless. There’s just so much dense lore that he can’t seem to stop going.

But also seeing how much care and attention is paid to the historical background of a lot of the servants is intriguing to him. Its the perfect blend of accurate and harem trash that infuriates him but also leaves him needing to know more.

He hasn’t played every game but he has Grand Order on his phone and has sunk an ungodly amount of money into the gacha trying to get his favorite (Its Jeanne Alter, in case anyone was wondering) and has seen all the anime (His favorite is the cooking spin off because its surprisingly calming to watch)

Fate Zero is probably his favorite ‘serious’ Fate adaptation. He enjoys the gravitas of the Holy Grail Wars (and hates how it was tossed out the fucking window in UBW/Stay Night/Heavens Feel) and the ritual aspect to the summoning and foreshadowing of future events as well as hints at a deeper magical lore in the universe hit all the right spots in his lizard brain.

The fact every fate anime has a different version of Saber (or a Saber Clone) pisses him off too.

He really loves Fate. And will scream about it for hours at you.

Getting him to watch or talk about anything else is like pulling teeth but he eventually relents because he loves you.

Its difficult to get through a single episode without him grumbling about something or another, but he tries once he sees its important to you. He does his best not to outright insult your favorite anime.

Can appreciate high quality merch as well, probably collects Jalter Figures himself.

If you’re comfortable in fem clothing, Cosplay Jalter for him and he will literally ascend then and there. Keeps pics on his phone. Would probably make it his background. He’s weak

Outside of Fate he finds he enjoys high fantasy shows. Historical fantasy pisses him off too much, and straight up historical drama would also have him grasping for inaccuracies.

Full Metal Alchemist is a non-fate series that he really loves because of the world building. The movie Maquia was one he enjoyed as well. Likes every Miyazaki film, don’t tell anyone. Cried (and raged) when Ushio died in Clannad.

In general he just likes really good world building. It has to be good otherwise he’s going to spend the whole time picking it apart.

[theseneschalxin]

🎮

🎮- Favorite video game(s)?

I think I’ve spent the most time overall with League of Legends

I remember as a kid sinking SO MANY hours into Civilization 3 and Tropico 3. Like, an ungodly amount of time. I’ve sunk over 2k hours in Civ 5, over 1k hours in Civ 6 as well. Rimworld is another time sink, one of which I am currently playing as I type this out

Probably, overall despite not actually getting to the end, nor having sunk as many hours into it, I’d probably say Darkest Dungeon is my favourite game. It’s just so aesthetically pleasing. It’s a beautiful game.

[aeori-o]

2018

Which will be behind us in a matter of hours. For the fifth year in a row, here’s my Stuff I Did Done Try To Do.

I want to start with what I really feel good about. So here’s reading:

I was hitting it out of the park until something happened in October and my reading fell off. If I can get every single month solid next year I’ll be so happy with myself. Full disclosure: I do allow myself to “catch up” so if I missed a day or two if I read more than an hour on one day any hours read surpassing the first can go back toward a previous missed day. It would probably be better to get into a solid habit but right now that doesn’t work for me, besides, life happens.

Sadly I did not read any new books this year that hit me as much as some of the books I read in 2017 did. But I did read some excellent books. Finally read some Tamora Pierce this year, Hank Green’s debut novel was a lot of fun, I read more by V.E. Schwab and continue to adore her writing. To my delight it seems more and more common for non-straight folks to be creeping into YA fantasy novels. I haven’t read many where the protagonist isn’t straight, but there are definitely more side-characters popping up, so it’s only a matter of time.

I read 76 books this year until I decided to set up a separate counter for comics/graphic-novels/manga and read 11 whole comics/mangas for a total of 87 books, but I don’t log most of the manga stuff on goodreads so, after bumping my goal a few times:

Which, feels pretty great, the last time I read this many books was four years ago in 2014 when I read 70 books. After that my reading declined sharply which I really don’t want to happen again. I’m going to try to read 100 books next year. I kind of want to push myself. I want to see if I can. Though I do think 50 is more than enough for a year, I hear about a lot of book-reading folks who do 100 in a year and that would be cool as heck to do. 100 not counting manga, not that manga and comics don’t take time to read, but they take such a small amount of time to read that it almost feels like cheating to include them, to me. That said, I do want to re-read a lot of the manga I own, get rid of things I’ve out grown.

Always love the ‘your year in books’ thing that goodreads does, as well, which they actually update as the year goes on! I noticed that this year when I went back to look at 2017′s and saw I could click through to 2018 long before December rolled around.

Always really enjoy seeing the shortest vs. longest and most and least popular books read. 

Let’s move onto the things I did super badly this year. Like Yikes levels of super badly.

I don’t know what happened. The only thing I drew this year was Qelvi. And I did some writing for a D&D character’s backstory but didn’t log it (I think I just forgot about this). Not really sure what I can do to change this going forward other than just... doing it. I’m real bad with time management and planning, guys. Real bad. I want to do better next year, which I probably said last year and proceeded to do worse, but I’m going to try and that’s all I can really say for myself.

Good lord those two calendars are embarrassing.

Next year I’m going to track exercise again, too, because I’ve been getting back into the swing of making my body do body-things and not exclusively potato-things (like, sitting around, forever) and seeing how much you did something is really cool. Also I want to keep some sort of gaming journal so I can remember what I played and how I felt about it. I look back at the games on my shelves and it’s like yeah I played that. I know I spent an ungodly amount of time playing that, but I remember so little about it. And that’s kind of terrifying. I’m sure I had fun, but it’s freaky to me that so much time can be sunk into something with virtually nothing to show for it. And I discovered how fun journalling can be when me beeb​ came up and we decided to journal each day we hung out (except for the days we forgot, also there’s a Ready Player One rant in there somewhere, because we watched that awful movie).

I want to be in a different place this time next year, not physically, I’m fine living where I am for the time being, but I want to get on some sort of track where I can make enough to live away from everyone except those I really want around me. I’m extremely grateful for my current living conditions. Extremely grateful, my mental state has improved vastly now that I’m out of the toxic environment I spent most of my life, but now I’m kind of tentatively hoping for more. I have no idea how to make that happen, but I hope I’ve figured something out by this time next year.

Here’s hoping for a great 2019! Time will tell!

[monstersandmaw]

okay so I know you play Skyrim, so what if a Argonian or lizard man losses his tail while defending the reader, and then they're really upset by his loss, but he grow it back and he have like this lil stump and the reader think its adorable? I dunno but I was thinking about lizards growing they tails back and this made me think about Argonian and they tails you know?

Haha, yes! I love this. And yes, Skyrim is a game I’ve sunk an ungodly amount of hours into. I’ve never played as an Argonian, or as a Khajiit, but I have played as a human (Nord and Imperial, just for balance), and as an Orsimer, and as a Dunmer. Currently playing as a hunky orc boi on the Skyrim remastered edition. 

An Argonian that loses their tail while defending the reader would be inexplicably adorable. They’d be a bit upset - it would affect their balance for certain - but not devastated, and I’m sure it would be super sensitive while growing back, if you catch my meaning… 

[shysweetthing]

Terrible guessing game

If you haven’t seen it, Chapter 2 of Undiscovered Country is here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11941542/chapters/27172404

Also if you haven’t seen it, I’ve been holding a terrible guessing game, described here, and in my defense I did say it was terrible from the beginning, and that people were unlikely to guess, but people kept guessing anyway. Thank you for humoring me.

I’m going to put stuff about the Actual Answer below the cut, so please don’t read unless you want to be spoiled as to Why Victor’s Skates are Gold In My Fic.

I’ll explain how I got to gold skates, and since nobody guessed the reason exactly, I’ll be awarding glory to those who got closest in various ways.

I realize that you all don’t know me very well, but for the future *whispers*guess dorkier. Guess much dorkier.

I want you to know that I entirely blame Yuzuru Hanyu for this. I was watching this documentary on him a while back, and they mentioned at that point that he kept a notebook where he recorded every jump that he’d ever done with color-coded results and some notes. Every jump. In every practice. (Notice that I have given Yuzuru’s notebook to Victor--this seems like something that basically all world champions probably have to do to be competitive.)

At some point much later, with YOI under my belt, I started thinking about that notebook again. What is there to record about a jump? What do you put in the notebook? Why is this data valuable? How do you use it to refine your skating plan?

There are some answers I could come up with on my own, but having never tried a jump or asked people who tried jumps, they lacked verisimilitude. When I started thinking about Victor as a character who might potentially have such a notebook, I started thinking about what would actually go in his notebook. So that meant I started googling what sort of metrics actual skating coaches thought about for jumps, and I started seeing people talk about minimum air times for jumps and stuff like that.

My thought process:

1. Huh, air times, I bet that’s an important metric to measure. I wonder how people measure it?

2. Gah, some people take video and examine it frame-by-frame? And then figure airtime by multiplying frames by the time per frame? That sounds like it would take forever. You couldn’t analyze every jump that way even if you wanted to.

3. Oh, someone made an app. That’s good...but you still have to identify the starting and ending frames, so you’re still doing frame-by-frame analysis. Surely there’s a way to automate this. You’d need an ungodly amount of money, though.

4. Hey. You know who has an ungodly amount of money. Victor Nikiforov has an ungodly amount of money. Hmm.

5. Okay, here I am, looking at a bunch of frames of skaters lifting off/landing on the ice. In order for a computer to identify the frames in which a skater lifts off and lands, it needs to be able to (1) Identify the skate that is on the ice, (2) identify the ice, and (3) precisely distinguish between the skate and the ice. This is so easy for humans to do, but it’s incredibly difficult for computers. We can recognize skates from a variety of angles; we can also identify that a skater is a skater whether that skater is in a Biellmann spin or an Ina Bauer, even though the silhouettes are entirely different. How does a computer differentiate between a dark shadowed rectangle on the rink floor and a skate? And if there are multiple skaters on the rink, how does it know which skater is the right skater? I mumbled to myself about this for a while before realizing that skates of a different color would make the skate/ice identifying problem substantially easier.

6. OH MY GOD VICTOR WEARS GOLD SKATES HE HAS ALREADY SOLVED THIS PROBLEM IN CANON. I LOVE YOU, VICTOR.

7. Added in force-feedback wristband because additional data from various sensors on the wrist + force-feedback actually seemed super useful and since I had the Victor Nikiforov fictional development budget, I thought why not? I thought about just making it a smart watch of some kind but figured that wearing a watch while you do jumps is a bad idea--hit your wrist wrong and you could smash your wrist between your watch and the ice, which is extremely dangerous. You don’t want to wear anything dangerous on the ice.

8. Then I spent time making sure I could embed these systems on some kind of a flexible-ish structure. It turns out you can. Victor didn’t mention that there was a 3D gyroscope in the thing, too, but there is, I just didn’t want to make the fic too much into tech specs and the like. I had to take out some stuff that I decided on because I wasn’t trying to write a white paper on my magical new app + hardware solution that doesn’t exist because we don’t have Victor Nikiforov kind of money.

9. This kind of a data-driven solution would explain Victor’s dominance. Competence requires you to repeat the things you’re learning, over and over, with feedback until you get it right. The better your feedback, and the faster the correction, the quicker you can learn.

10. I mean, Victor can also just be the best. HE IS THE BEST WITH OR WITHOUT AN APP. I wanted that to be clear, too.

11. I got really hung up on these particular 500 words of this chapter, and I’m sorry I took you all along on that ride. I hope you enjoyed being strung along.

12. The thing that will bother me forever: That I had Victor blithely suggest removing the paint with turpentine without checking what that did to the structural integrity or surface of the skates. If I were doing this properly, I would have figured out exactly what solvent to use but at this point I’d dumped like 20 extra hours of software pseudo-development into the fic and had to pull my brain back before it went down the rabbit hole again. BAD BRAIN. BAD. If anyone offhand knows the answer of what solvents you can use on skates, I’d love to hear it.

13. The parts for the wrist band are pretty inexpensive--maybe $30 since Victor isn’t buying in huge bulk with labor for assembly? So “not that expensive” in Victor’s mind is like $150. He probably has a ton of these because my guess is the build quality isn’t great and also, they do get bent/screwed up/borked by falls.

14. Miss and Miss Not Direction Appearing In This Fic are the two engineers, hardware and software, who are in Victor’s employ. I don’t know anything about them except they’re both women, they’re both smart as hell, they’re lesbians, and they are really, really into each other. Don’t argue, it is law.

The real cost is the sunk cost--the money he’s put into app development--and that’s probably ~$400K-ish, and only that cheap because there are Russians in need of work.

Okay, now on to the brave souls who guessed into the abyss of shysweetthing’s mind and inexplicably managed to do well.

CLOSEST GUESS:

Anonymous, who guessed that gold blades showed up better on camera.

I argued with myself a lot over whether this counted, because it is close to the truth. But ultimately, the problem the gold blades were intended to solve wasn’t with the blades showing up on camera--they showed up fine to the human eye--but with a computer algorithm being able to easily distinguish blades from non-blades, and to identify Victor’s blades from any others potentially on the rink.

RIGHT ABOUT THE WRONG PART OF THE GUESS

This anon, who guessed that Victor painted his skates by himself. He did for a short period! Also, Yuuri paints his skates by himself! It’s true! It’s not the reason he does it, and Victor’s skates are (by now) actually gold-plated and not painted, but this is like 900% more correctness than in most guesses.

RIGHT BUT WAY TOO VAGUE TO COUNT GUESS:

This guess by @torikabori: “[T]here's some kind of Science behind it and he got gold blades because of Physics Reasons. Either they glide better or they last longer...”

Yes, there’s some kind of Science behind it, and yes, there are Physics Reasons, but they do not glide better or last longer. First half of guess is correct, second half incorrect.

WEIRDLY RIGHT BUT TOTALLY WRONG GUESS:

This guess by @rogovich, which is wrong in particulars about the skates, but weirdly right, in a strange way, about the scene in the fic! Victor isn’t trying to tell Yuuri anything moral, but he is (inadvertently) disrupting him from his self-loathing. Victor did not have a disastrous finish in his youth, but he did go from winning to not winning, briefly (and that’s disastrous to Victor, of course). The gold blades were a part of how he picked himself up--not because they served as motivation, but because they were part of the application.

You all get glory, and what that means is that from here on out, if someone is a jerk to you, you get to look at them and say to yourself, “Ha! I have glory!” and then sweep away majestically and/or clumsily, because you are glorious.