#oops my bad guys seems I forgot for two years my b

[caelacanth]

Oooooh the girls are problem solving (the ship is exploding in ten minutes)

Alt below

[heyitsyn]

There Once Was A Man With No Arms-

Goshiki x Manager!Tendou!FirstYear!Sister!Reader

a/n: that was a mouthful

anon request: ahhh i loved your headcanons of iwaizumi dating oikawa's sister!!! this time, can i request goshiki x tendou's first year sis na manager din ng team nila? salamatttt hehe ingat ka lagiii💞

this cute little bowl cut babie

so you are the little baby sister of our favorite red hair cutie and he was the one who offered you the manager position

ofc you accepted bc hello, you get to hang out w your brother and tease semi-semi-senpai everyday

pls let semi live

everyone likes you though bc you are their manager and you do a lot of things for them even though you dont need to

like sometimes, you stop by the store and pick up all kinds of snacks and if its really hot, popsicles and ice cream

ushijima farmer-san is known to be quite stoic and serious but he’s pretty chill around you and even ruffles your hair whenever you make a stupid joke

as a tendou, you are basically like a ctrl+v  with your brother 

the same cute teasing and bubbly personality but the quick change to serious and demeaning

the team gets stressed, especially mom, bc he has to take care of not one red-head freak but two

but he liked you more though bc you were a first year and you were this short little pumpkin and you were so nice and just all around A D O R A B L E

but you just didnt rub goshiki the right way

maybe bc he thought you were just doing this as an act and no person could really be this bubbly and cheerful

or hes just jealous his senpais attention is directed to you

he will DIE FOR HIS SENPAIS

whenever he gets a good spike, you cheer him on and say things like, ‘nice spike, tsu-chan!’ and he swears youre just doing this bc you want to kill him with a heart attack and he doesnt like feeling like this but you like torturing him

boi what is with this logic

even though he lives for praises, your praises and compliments just hits different than his senpais

before he even realized it, he started all out glaring at you and tendou, being the overprotective brother he was, pointed him out on it

‘oi, little kouhai, you got a problem with our y/n?’

at the mention of your name you turned around from talking to the coach and everyone turned to goshiki, expecting him to answer

unfortunately you didnt hear what your brother said so you were just confused

‘hm? i read the room and i am not comfortable with the energy in the gym today’

someone snorted while goshiki turned red at the attention being on him with the topic of you so he just walks away back to the court

‘oh? what was that all about?’ 

semi shushes tendou and gives you a smile

‘y/n, can you help tossing the ball for us?’

you nodded and quickly ran to the chair and waddled over to put it by the net before standing on it

everyone turned red, including goshiki and even shirabu, and busted their uwus

‘okay! let’s go!’

youve always noticed tsutomu and his determination to beat ushijima which youve appreciated bc he was so hard-working and he was talented enough

‘good one, tsu-chan!’

‘t-thanks, y/n-san’

even when no one noticed it, you were always there to give him compliments and he always grows flustered and hes just a big idiot babie and doesnt realize that your praises makes his heart beat faster bc he thinks youre freaking pretty and someone pretty complimenting him in his spikes boosts his ego

but eventually, it grew on him

instead of looking around for any senpai to praise him, he now turned to you and you would give him that adorable smile and he would bite his lip to stop himself from running over and hugging the life out of you

then he remembers who your brother is, well more like how protective the boys were

‘waka-senpai, nii-chan got sick so he wants you to stop by his dorm later today!’

‘okay’

since you were their teammate’s sister, theyve known you for a while and watched you grow from being this little middle school girl to a first year high schooler 

you were practically their sister

goshiki went to a different middle school so he never really realized how the guys treated you so differently but he knew it would be difficult to win them over for your hand

oops wait what

this thought struck him just as he was drinking water and he ended up choking on water causing you to run over from talking to semi so you could pat his back

‘omg, tsu-chan, you need to be careful!’

this was only the beginning of weeks of being weird

like he was so distracted and different that shirabu actually yelled at him and refused to give him any tosses

‘you talk big about being the ace but the slightest distraction could cost you a match. are you really being serious about being the ace or is it all just talk?’

he got all sad and mopey and he had to sit on the bench 

goshiki never got benched

he was too good to be benched!

but he was and he did not like it

you went over to him and sat next to him

‘tsu-chan, can you follow me?’

he looked up from the floor and he shrugged before following you out of the door

the others watched their first years exit the gym and they contemplated following

but tendou, surprise!, actually stopped them

‘my sister can sort him out herself. trust me’

goshiki didnt exactly know where you were taking him to until you stopped by by the baseball field where there was mud

‘y/n-san, why-’

‘you always say my name formally, why is that? im a first year too, tsu-chan’

he looked down

‘um, i-i don’t know-’

‘y/n-chan, tsu-chan. try it out’

‘y-y/n-chan’

you squealed at how cute he looked w red ears and a red face but you refrained from hugging him

then you remembered why you brought him out

‘oh right! come here, tsu-chan!’

you took a branch from a nearby tree and encouraged him to crouch down with you as you began to draw on the mud

‘there was once a man with no arms-’

you started happily singing and this was when goshiki really realized the resemblance between you and your brother

you both were happy and cheerful bc you wanted to radiate the energy to the others to be happy too

and it worked

tendou’s funny songs and jokes always made the others laugh and you did too

goshiki was happy that he was able to absorb that energy and he soon completely forgot about shirabu’s comments

once you were done, you have drawn a dog on the mud and the boy was so amazed at the sudden creation

he looked up at you with wide eyes and you laughed with a wide grin at his expression

‘hehe, its cool, right? nii-chan showed me something like that before when i got sad and it made me happy again. i thought it would work on you too’

he might have questionable feelings around you bc when you mentioned being sad, he felt weird

like he was relieved he wasnt there to see you sad bc he couldnt take it seeing your usual grin into a frown and your bright shining eyes filled with tears

‘y/n-chan, when you get sad, call me, okay? so i can go to you and make you smile like you did with me’

your eyes widened in surprise but you nodded, your grin even wider

‘im counting on you, tsu-chan!’

and he did

when he received a call late at night from you, he easily snuck out from his dorm and ran to the baseball field where he saw your crouching figure aimlessly dragging the stick in circles

‘y/n-chan!’

he huffed and panted after running so fast and you looked up before running to hug him

‘im here now. youre okay’

you didnt release out your problems on him bc you didnt want to burden him

but he understood and just hugged you until you felt better enough to return to your crouching

goshiki hurriedly grabbed the stick and began to do the same thing you did for him before

‘then he jumped onto the lake and got stung by bees?’

he stopped and frowned, realizing he wasnt right

but the frown lifted when he heard your giggle

‘tsu-chan, he got stung by bees first and then he jumped on the lake!’

the corners of his mouth lifted and he chuckled

‘heh, i guess he did. but this is my version so listen closely, okay y/n-chan?’

this might be the reason you got close w the first year

the others noticed it too since you seem to pamper him and take more time taking care of him than them

like you even started wiping his sweat for him while he just giggles when you pull on the long strands of his hair

‘tsu-chan, i want to cut it!’

‘no, y/n-chan!’

‘but-!’

he grabbed your hands and your arms around his torso so he could do the same to you and gently tugged on the ends of your long hair

‘you too then, y/n-chan. your hair is long too’

you pouted then gently punched his chest

‘mean, tsu-chan’

‘heh?! mean?! how?!’

tendou is like the best big brother ever and hes just like ‘yuhhhh get it tsutomu!!!!’

eventually, goshiki began playing even better

his complete spike percentage has increased and his jumping has gotten higher

but the team predicts that this was all because he’s trying to show off to you and your praising and compliments have motivated him to play better

forget being ace, he just wants you to praise him

‘y/n-chan! y/n-chan! did you see that?’

‘wahh!!!! so cool, tsu-chan!!”

bus trips to matches are so cute but yall lowkey annoy the players a bit

yall sit next to each other and are just leaning together as you giggle over stupid cat videos

like we get, goshiki is getting some quicker than us

i feel like before moving on to relationships, goshiki and you would be best friends first and then move on to the dating stuff

tbh, theres no difference bc yall have always been like that but theres just an offical label now

‘hey, tsu-chan, wanna date?’

‘u-um,, sure?’

yall would hang out in either his dorm or yours and yall would be alone bc the team actually trusts you but you dont know that they pass by the door ever 5 minutes and listen in to just to make sure yall are not doing anything bad

smh they so nosy but we luv them

you know of his insecurities about not being enough and his fears of not being the ace and his dreams of playing to the big leagues and his passion to continue playing on the court for as long as he can and how excited he is to be able to spend all those years with you

he knows of your insecurities about the way you look and being associated with your apparent freak of a brother but you didnt care about that and even fought someone when they said something and your deep protectiveness for the boys, especially your brother but it’s all because the boys were the ones to accept you with open arms and treat you like family

yall shared a lot of secrets amongst yourselves and tbh, your communication is just *chefs kiss*

so serious fights dont happen, like ever, just stupid little arguments that are usually resolved like an hour later

since youre also a manager, its also your job to make sure the boys are maintaining their good grades and you know that shira-senpai has given up on tutoring tsutomu

i mean,,, goshiki is smart but he gets distracted easily and ends up spacing out during lessons

yknow?

thats when the little arguments bc youd be trying to teach him the damn phythagorean theorem and hed be distracted at how come your hair was styled like that today

‘goshiki tsutomu, i will leave your ass to fail right now if you dont stop touching my hair’

‘but babyyyyyy’

‘no, ‘dont baby’ me, you idiot! you’ll be crying like a baby when you fail and you’re bench during the next game!’

oof also!

hes a protective little babie and he gets jealous easily so whenever yall have games, he literally hangs all over you 

like he makes a show of putting his jacket over you and kissing your forehead so that the other teams know to stop looking over at your direction and whispering about you

ofc this gets on your nerves but you cant help but think how cute he looks when he gets jealous

he gets all pouty and touchy and youre just like, take my uwus you big babie

even tendou is like, ‘im her brother yet hes more protective than me’

he demands to be hugged 24/7 but thats not appropriate if youre in public so he ltr drags you outside and away from people just so he could hug you

he likes hugging you bc youre shorter than him and it makes him feel all special and soft since you like to burrow your face into his chest and your sweater paws are just like ugggggghhhhhhhhh

whenever he gets nervous, you kiss his fingers and his knuckles bc it soothes him and youre just his good luck charm and he feels like he can take over the world w a single kiss from you

‘baby, didja see that?! i was so cool, right?!’

‘so proud of you, tsu-chan! youre so cool!’

‘i love y/n like a sister but if she inflates his ego more, i will have to tape her mouth’

can you guess who said that?

overall a relationship i strive for and i really want a goshiki now thanks byeeeeeee

a/n: ngl goshiki’s hair lowkey triggered me when i first saw him bc why the heck does it look like that?! but now i actually like it on him and i cant imagine any other hairstyle fitting him

[imnotoverlyobsessive]

Looks Like Someone Picked a Whole Bushel of Oopsie Daisies

Chapter Ten: Shades of Blue

As always, thanks to @edward-or-ford and @pacific-ship!

How can you leave me on my own? Desperate and destitute, these seconds feel like lifetimes without you.- New Years Day, My Dear

Mabel marked off February 1st in her calendar with an X in her pink gel pen with sparkles (was it really even a gel pen if there were no sparkles? Mabel’s opinion was firmly on the side of ‘no, absolutely not’).

Just two hundred and twelve days to go. She was counting the days, the hours, the seconds (okay, maybe just the days, she wasn’t that good at math) till her parents could no longer keep her from her soulmate.

Because on August 31st, 2017, Mabel and her super awesome brother-boyfriend-soulmate combo would be turning eighteen, and there was nothing their parents could do to keep them apart once they turned eighteen.

Their parents had insisted they were monitoring their texts, and that they weren’t allowed to speak under any circumstances.

Of course, Dipper had called Mabel from Grunkle Stan’s phone (turns out their parents had been total liars about that, too, and neither Grunkle Stan nor Grunkle Ford was in any way opposed to the whole soulmate situation) as soon as she got home, and they had both downloaded an untraceable messaging app where they could text, make phone calls, and send pictures.

As one might imagine, they sent a great deal of pictures.

And also videos.

They had a lot of phone sex and sexy texting time, okay? They’d only gotten to have actual in-person sex twice (twice!), so they had to compensate somehow.

In any case, there was nothing they could do about it before they turned eighteen, so they had to come up with workarounds.

Not that it could prevent the withdrawals that were likely to hit if another month or two went by without them seeing each other, of course, but it sure made the days go by easier.

Mabel wasn’t sure what her parents were planning to do once they hit the three month mark and the first of the withdrawal symptoms started. It wouldn’t be so bad at first, according to what Dipper had told her regarding the massive amount of research he’d done. Probably just more of the usual depression she’d been having since she watched him disappear behind their car, and then sleepiness, then headaches and body aches, and then things would get progressively worse until eventually, they wouldn’t be able to function at all anymore.

She didn’t know what their plans were for anything, really. She hadn’t spoken to them since they’d left Gravity Falls. She hadn’t said a word to them on the drive home; just put her headphones in and tuned out. She hadn’t said anything to them since, either. Her parents would try to get her to talk sometimes. Her mom did it more often. She had headphones on most of the time. She wasn’t even home very much.

She didn’t tell her parents when she was going to a friend’s house the way she had before. The first few times, her parents had called the parents of various friends until they found her. After awhile, though, they stopped.

She didn’t care if they were worried. They clearly weren’t worried enough about her and Dipper to let them be together, so Mabel didn’t see any reason to notify them or her comings and goings, despite their protests. Just because they wanted to cherry pick their concerns for her well being didn’t mean she had to let them.

Besides, she came home every few days, anyway. It was usually only for a night, of course. Then she’d go back out again. And yeah, that meant she was out on school nights, but her grades were good, and she always made it to class on time.

She wanted Dipper. She wanted to be in his arms again. She slept in the shirt she’d taken from him every night, and she hadn’t even washed it. It smelled more like her by that point than it did him, and not in a good way, either, but it made her feel a little better.

Plus, whenever she sent him pictures of herself wearing it (sometimes leaving enough of the buttons undone to where her cleavage was visible, other times leaving all the buttons undone), he got all possessive and sexy, and the night usually ended with them panting each other’s names into the phone as quietly as they could.

Mabel stared at the cheery pink gel pen in her hand. She wasn’t feeling particularly pink. She hadn’t felt pink in just over a month, as it happened. Which was strange, because Mabel always felt some shade of pink or purple.

But she could hardly remember what Dipper smelled like. She could hardly remember what he tasted like. What he felt like. If she couldn’t remember those things, she couldn’t make herself feel anything that wasn’t some shade of blue or other.

She hung the gel pen back up on her calendar, grabbed her overnight bag, and opened her bedroom door.

She had her headphones in and was looking at her phone, pulling up a playlist, so she didn’t notice her mother there until she spoke.

“Honey, why don’t you spend the night here? I’ll make your favorite, if you want, and we can watch a movie, and…” tears welled up in her mother’s eyes. “Please, sweetheart, I can barely remember what your voice sounds like.”

Well, Mabel thought, maybe you shouldn’t have decided to separate me from my soulmate, then.

With that in mind, Mabel shot her mother a glare severe enough to make her flinch, and pushed past her, her overnight bag bumping against the hallway wall as she did.

Her friends were waiting for her in their car outside.

Mabel loaded her bag into the trunk and ignored her mother watching her behind the curtains in the living room.

Squeezing into the only empty seat in the car, she grinned at her friends.

Kristin, Eva, and Julie had been total lifesavers. They knew about Mabel’s soulbro situation, and they were, like, super supportive.

“Your ‘rents still giving you shit?” Julie asked over her shoulder as she pulled out of the driveway.

Mabel sighed heavily, her shoulders drooping. “It’s not shit, exactly, just…” she sighed again. “They just, y’know. They won’t let me see him.”

“Yeah, that still doesn’t make any sense to me at all,” Kristin said, adjusting her black lipstick in a compact mirror. “I get that having an incesty-soulmate isn’t, like, ‘socially acceptable’ or whatever,” she did air quotes with her fingers, the motion seeming a bit off due to the tube of eyeliner she had in between her pointer and index fingers that she was using in lieu of lipstick. “But if my parents can handle me being bi, yours should be able to handle your soulmate being your brother.”

“Okay, so here’s the thing,” Eva cut in, turning around to address Kristin and Mabel. “I feel like, if it were me, and they were my kids, at first I’d be all freaked out, y’know? Cause like, they’re your kids, and then it turns out they’re soulmates and have to bang a whole bunch or they’ll get all eeeeuuughh, right? That’d mess anybody up, I think,” she paused for a moment before continuing. “But the thing is, though, I feel like after that initial freak out, I’d be kinda relieved, honestly.”

“Relieved? Really?” Julie was so surprised she forgot to use her turn signal when changing lanes. “Oops, my b,” she said, half to herself and half to the driver who had honked at her. Not that he could hear her, of course.

“Why relieved?” Mabel wondered.

“Well, if you’ve got a kid, right, and your kid finds their soulmate and it’s some stranger you don’t know, how do you know your kid’s soulmate isn’t gonna hurt them, or be a terrible person or something?” Eva reasoned.

“That’s a good point,” Kristin agreed, shutting her compact mirror with a snap. “Soulmates aren’t exactly exempt from domestic abuse and shit.”

Eva nodded. “Exactly, so like, if it were me, I feel like I’d be cool with it once I got used to the idea, because I’d know my kids, right, so I’d know they’d never hurt each other.”

“That makes sense,” Julie said thoughtfully.

“Mmm,” Mabel hummed. “I guess. I dunno. They’re weird about it.”

“Wait a sec,” Kristin interjected. “Didn’t you say your parents mentioned something about their parents being, like, religious fundies or something?”

Mabel nodded. “I think my grandmother on my mom’s side might be. Which would make sense, honestly, since my mom has been so militant about keeping the Dipster and me apart.”

“Okay, first of all,” Eva had a haughty air to her voice, and Mabel raised an eyebrow at her. “First of all,” she said again. “It’s ‘the Dipster and I’.”

The other three girls groaned, and Julie took a hand off the wheel to swat at her half heartedly.

“Ommigod, shut up!” Mabel giggled.

“Whatever, you love me and you know it,” Eva said with a grin.

The others grumbled but did not object.

“FYI, Mabes,” Kristin put a hand on her arm. “You should send him a selfie real quick.”

“Oh?”

“Mhm,” her friend nodded sagely. “You look hot, and it’s a damn crime he doesn’t get to see it in person, so you gotta help a brotha out!”

Mabel smiled and snapped a few dozen pictures of herself.

“Okay, which one’s best?” she asked, handing her phone to Kristin, who scrolled through and inspected each one.

“No, no, no… meh, maybe… no, no… oooo, yes, love it, this one, totes send this one! Look at how much boobage you got in there, just fuckin’ go for it, man!”

Mabel grinned and sent the picture to Dipper, along with a short little miss you <3 text.

He responded with a miss you too and then, two seconds after, fuck you’re beautiful.

She giggled and showed Kristin his response. “Mhm, mhm, told ya.”

“Okay, so, confession time,” Julie said, pulling into her parents’ driveway.

“Spill it,” Eva immediately demanded.

“So you guys know Chad, right?”

“Unfortunately,” Kristin said with a grimace. The guy in question was a bit of a fuckboi.

“No, don’t say that!” Julie whined, getting out of the car. “He’s really sweet!”

”Of course he is,” Eva deadpanned.

“He is!” Julie insisted. “Anyway, so he asked me out.”

Mabel groaned. “Jules, tell me you didn’t.”

“I might have, yeah.”

“Ugh, ew,” Kristin said.

“It’s not ew!”

“No, it’s totally ew,” Eva pointed out, and Mabel nodded her agreement.

“If it helps,” Julie was saying sheepishly as she unlocked her front door, “he’s really, really good.”

“Of course he’s really good, numbnuts,” Kristin said with an eye roll. “He’s slept with half the school.”

“So have you!” Julie said defensively.

“Oooo, gotta point there,” Mabel snickered, pointing a glittery blue nail at her friend.

“Yeah, but I’m, like, discreet about it,” Kristin pointed out. “And I’ve actually dated people seriously, too!”

“Anyway,” Julie cut in. “So the consensus is ew, then, huh?”

“Definitely ew,” Mabel agreed.

“Why are Chads always such Chads?” Kristin wondered aloud, opening the door to Julie’s bedroom.

“They really are,” Eva laughed, plopping down on the bed.

“Soooo…” Mabel trailed off. “Cards Against Humanity, anybody?”

———————————————————————Her friends always helped push the separation anxiety to the back of her mind, but with the other three girls asleep, there was nothing for Mabel to do but wallow.

Her phone lit up the dark room, illuminating the air mattress Mabel lay on.

Dipper had sent her a message.

I want you.

Mabel unplugged her phone and scrambled up as quietly as she could, crossing the hall into the guest bedroom and locking the door behind her and turning on the light, typing out a quick okay in response.

She knew from experience that as long as she was quiet, nobody would hear her.

Now? he asked.

Now.

And then he was calling her, and she was hastily stuffing her headphones in her ears and hitting the little phone icon on her screen.

“Hey,” he greeted, and she could hear the smile in his voice.

“Hey,” she said back. It was always such a relief to hear him. “I miss you.”

“We’ve been texting all day,” he laughed.

“I know, but…”

“It’s not the same,” he agreed with the words she hadn’t said.

“Yeah,” her voice was soft, and she heard him sigh on the other end of their call.

“Can I see you?” he asked after a moment.

“Y- yeah, one sec.” They’d done this more times than she could count, but somehow, she was always nervous.

She stripped out of her shorts and unbuttoned his shirt to let it reveal her breasts, pulled her panties down a bit with her thumb and smiled into the camera.

She only had to take six or seven pictures before she had one she was satisfied with. Sending it over and promptly deleting them from her phone, she waited for it to arrive.

She knew when he got it, because he said, “Fucking hell, Mabel,” with a groan, and she could almost picture him stroking himself.

She’d only seen him do that a handful of times, when they’d gotten the chance to do this on the rare occasion she was at their parents’ for the night. She could have watched it for hours.

“You’re so perfect,” he sighed in her ear, and if she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine he was there with her. He’d kiss her neck, maybe, and then squeeze her breasts and pinch her nipples. Mimicking the things he was doing to her in her mind’s eye, she trailed a hand down her body and stroked herself lightly through her panties, listening to the way his breath was quickening.

“I wanna see you, too, Dip,” she sighed into the phone.

A few seconds later, a picture came through of him holding himself, and when she saw him naked… well. She had seen him naked more times than she could count by that point, but it was always breathtaking each time.

“Are you wet for me, Mabes?” he murmured in her ear.

She nodded, pulling her drenched panties off and kicking them to the side, before remembering he couldn’t see her. “Yes.”

“Show me.”

She took another picture, this time of a part of herself she didn’t really understand why he wanted to see, but he liked it so she sent it to him anyway.

“I wish I had gotten to taste you,” he gasped. “I think about that a lot.”

“O- oh?” How embarrassing. She knew she was blushing. She could feel it.

“Are you blushing right now?” Dipper asked. “I bet you are. You’re so cute when you blush.” She giggled a little, and he went on. “Will you touch yourself for me?”

“Mhm.” She brushed her fingers over her slit, dipping one inside slightly, just for a second, and gasping as she did so.

“Pinch your nipples, too, okay? I know you like that.” He did know, didn’t he? He knew all the things she liked. He seemed to know them intuitively. To be fair, though, he’d said she knew all the things he liked, too.

Pinching her nipple and brushing a finger lightly over her clit, Mabel whimpered.

“Does that feel good?”

“Y- yes,” she gasped out.

“I wish… mmmf,” he cut himself off with a groan. “I wish this was your hand instead of mine.”

Mabel squeezed her breast roughly, rubbing a finger back and forth over her clit.

“Me too,” she whined. “God, Dip, I want… I want you inside me so bad, I-“

“I know, Mabes. I know. I’d give anything to be inside you right now.”

She rubbed herself a little faster, and her legs were going to give out, she could tell they were, so she allowed herself to collapse onto the cold of the hardwood floor.

“You okay?” Dipper asked when he heard her fall to the ground, concern evident in his voice.

“Yeah, I just had to… ah!” she gasped. “I had to sit down.”

“Oh, okay,” he murmured, and it sounded like he went back to stroking himself.

“I need you.” She’d resorted to begging. She always did that when she was getting close.

“I know,” he groaned. “I need you, too.”

“Dipper, I- please, I need…” she rubbed herself faster, and her hips lifted off the floor an inch or so.

“I know,” he said again.

“I need you.” She couldn’t stop. It felt too good. “I need it, I want you so bad, please,” she begged. “Please give it to me, please Dip, god, I can’t-“

“Are you gonna cum for me, Mabes?”

“Yes,” she gasped. “Yes, I’m gonna- fuck, I want your cum in me, yes-“ her wrist hurt, but she kept going. She was so close, so fucking close-

“Cum for me, I wanna hear you cum for me.”

“Dipper, ah, oh fuck, Dipper, I’m gonna-“ her body spasmed, and she fell limp.

A few seconds later, he followed her with a grunt.

It had felt so good, and Mabel felt so content for a split second, because she’d forgotten that Dipper wasn’t there with her.

The tears started to fall, and she began to sniffle. It usually ended that way. She couldn’t help it.

“Mabel,” he said with a sigh.

“I’m sorry,” she hiccuped.

“No, no,” he assured her. “I just… I wish I could be there with you.”

“I don’t care where we are as long as we’re together,” she cried softly.

“I know,” he sighed again. “But we’ll be together soon, okay? I’ve got an idea.”

“An idea?” What kind of idea, she wondered.

“Yeah, but it’s a surprise, so until I’ve got everything worked out, just be patient for me, okay?”

“Okay,” she sniffed.

“I love you,” he told her softly.

“I love you, too.”

After a few seconds, he said, “and on that note, I need to clean this jizz off my stomach before it drips all over my bed.”

She giggled. “Okay, I’ll talk to you later.”

“You’ll text me tomorrow, right?”

“Uh, doi, when don’t I?” She sniffed again. It was hard to force the silliness that usually felt natural when she felt so blargh.

“Good point,” he chuckled. “Night, then. Love you,” he said again.

“Love you, too.”

After they hung up, it took several minutes for Mabel’s body to stop tingling from her orgasm, and then several more minutes before she could stop the tears and go back to bed.

Being without him was tougher than she’d imagined.

[trashforhockeyguys]

Wholeheartedly/8/ Auston Matthews

A/N: I HIT 400 TONIGHT SOOO SURPRISE...I was actually able to finish most of this during the drive back home earlier. I’m also getting really excited about what’s happening in the next new parts. 

The boys ran and jumped on Brian and Ema as if they hadn’t seen them in years. You weren’t sure either of them could breathe based off of how tightly your boys were clutching them. Auston couldn’t help but laugh as he watched his parents being attacked.

 The two of you were somehow able to pry the boys off of Brian and Ema long enough to say hello to them. But after that, the boys were right back on them. You found it adorable really. It didn’t matter how many time they saw their grandparents, B and Jakey always did this.

“Well, welcome home,” Brian told you and Auston.

 “It’s good to be back,” Auston replied.

 “Can you cook for us?” Jakey asked Ema.

 Ema glanced over at you and Auston, “They’ve been begging for it since you left,” You told her.

 She smiled at Jake, “I think you and I can make something. B, would you like to help too?”

 B quickly nodded and grabbed her hand, letting her lead them out of the airport. You talked with Auston and his dad, mostly about what your plans were for the summer. Auston’s sisters Alex and Bre were waiting on all of you when you got home.

 Watching the two boys attack them were more entertaining than when they got their grandparents. Jakey tackled Bre onto the ground, which was even better than the time he tackled Mitch.

 Both of his sisters were laughing as the boys clutched onto them. You often felt bad that they only got to see them for a few months out of the year, whereas your family could see them any time during the hockey season. Maybe it made your time together even more precious.

 “Boys, maybe try letting your aunts breathe,” Auson laughed, helping his little sister up.

 “Mommy, how long are we staying?” B finally asked you.

 “Until September, Bubby. We won’t leave until after your birthday this year,” You promised him.

 “Really?” B started bouncing where he was standing, like he was so excited that he couldn’t stand it.

 “Yeah Bubby, we don’t have to leave until hockey starts again,” Auston replied, messing up B’s hair a little.

“Can we sleep over at Grammy and Pappy’s?” Jakey asked.

 You looked over at Auston and shrugged. You knew the boys loved to spend time with their grandparents, and they hadn’t seen them in a while, so you didn’t really have a problem with it. Auston shrugged and then turned towards his parents.

 “Is that okay with you guys?” He asked.

 “Always Pappi. Why don’t we have dinner over at our house, and then you two can just leave the boys with us?” She proposed.

 “That sounds great mom,” Auston smiled.

 The boys ran right to the kitchen when you arrived at Brian and Ema’s house. You attempted to tell them to slow down, but it was no use. You couldn’t help but laugh at the way that they tried to push each other out of the way and fought to get there before the other.  

 Auston smiled fondly at both of his boys as they kept shoving one another. Ema finally told them to calm down and that there was plenty for both of them to help her with. So, they both settled on helping her gather ingredients before she actually started cooking.

 In their living room, Auston, his dad, and his sisters had all settled down and were watching golf, which you should’ve expected. You settled down on the couch next to Auston. The flight had drained all the energy you had, and it didn’t help that somehow both of your boys always remained hyper.

 In actuality, you’d been tried all week. Granted, the week had been long and emotional. The end of the season always was, and then it was stressful because of preparing to come back to Arizona for the summer. Trying to make sure Auston and both boys had everything they needed was always a major task.

 “You okay?” Auston asked, looking down at you.

 “Yeah,” You slowly nodded, “It’s just been a long week and I’m really tired.”

��“You can go up to my old room and sleep if you want,” He suggested, “I’m pretty sure the boys would be okay.”

 “Mmm, you mean in the bed with the hockey sheets?” You joked.

 Auston elbowed you slightly, a big smile playing on his face. Way back when you’d first started seriously dating, and he’d brought you to Scottsdale for the first time, he obviously brought you to his childhood home. Upon seeing his childhood bedroom, the very first thing you’d done was make fun of his bedspread, which had little hockey sticks and skates all over it. You still wouldn’t let him live it down, even after all these years. You poked fun at it every single chance you get.

 “Leave my sheets alone,” He grumbled, still smiling, “They are comfortable.”

 “Can you two stop the love fest over there? I get that you’re all married, but it’s gross,” Bree groaned, chucking a pillow at your heads.

 You stuck your tongue back out at her and threw the pillow back. She caught it and winked back at you. You loved Bree, not only because she truly was an amazing person, but she also reminded you a lot of your little sister. In fact, Bree and Erika had become best friends in the time that you and Auston had been together. Bree stated that she’d almost adopted her as another sister, which made you more than happy.

 “Isn’t your anniversary coming up soon?” Alex asked you.

 “Two weeks,” You replied.

 “So, Aus, do you have anything planned?”

 “Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell either of you,” Auston told his sisters, “You can’t keep secrets.”

 You laughed, remembering the many times his sisters had spoiled something since the two of you had been married. You loved his sisters dearly, they were the only way you’d gotten through your first off season with Auston, but it was no secret that they.. well.. couldn’t keep secrets.

 “One time,” Bree grumbled.

 “More than once,” You reminded her.

 You nudged Auston slightly, causing him to look back down at you, “Can you go check on the boys please? Just make sure they aren’t giving your mom too much trouble.”

 He slowly nodded and shifted you so he could get up. You turned your head enough to watch Auston walk into the kitchen and scoop Jakey up to hug him. You smiled as you watched your boys start to explain what they were doing to Auston. Ema started pointing to various cabinets and food items, seemingly directing Auston in what to do.

 You settled back into the couch, knowing Auston probably wouldn’t return from the kitchen until dinner was ready. Above the sound of the tv, you could hear them all talking in the kitchen. Both B and Jakey were asking all kinds of questions about what things were, and what they were supposed to do with them. At home, normally the boys would be playing hockey in the living room while you cooked, but here Ema had their undivided attention.

 You loved watching them with her though. They loved to hear stories about their dad when he was younger, as did you. They loved to hear about what it was like for her growing up in Mexico, and how you’d met Brian. You had to admit, you still loved hearing those stories too, even after years and years of hearing them.

 An hour later, all of you gathered around the table for dinner. Auston and Jakey both hilariously fought over Ema’s secret sauce. You made a mental note of needing to get more before you left for Toronto in a couple of months. Auston called Ema begging for her to send more all of the time. The boys had gotten hooked on it too, they liked to put it on everything possible.

 Jakey nudged B out of the way to reach for another taco. You laughed as he made a face of pure satisfaction as he took a bite. He even went as far as to sink down into his seat, looking like he was in pure utter bliss. Auston took note of his youngest son and smiled, reaching over to ruffle his hair.

 After dinner, you and Auston hung out for a while. But once the boys started to fall asleep on the floor, you both decided it was probably time to go back home. You helped Brian and Ema get Jakey and B upstairs to Auston’s old room, which was where they always slept.

 After you and Auston got the boys tucked into bed, you said your goodbyes to Ema and Brian and Auston’s sisters. The drive back to your house wasn’t far. When you and Auston had bought it, you wanted to be close to his family. You both liked knowing that they were just a quick call away. You took advantage of that when the boys were babies, you called Ema all the time asking if something was normal.

“I missed it here,” Auston said at a stoplight.

 “I know you did,” You whispered, “The boys missed it too.”

 He smiled and looked over at you. You could see the joy in his eyes. He loved Toronto, and he loved living there, but you knew there was no place like home for him. You knew that these off-season months were some of his favorite, because of where he got to spend them.

 “I love you,” He suddenly told you.

 You looked back over at him. With his hair all messy, and a freshly shaven face, he looked much like he did when you’d first gotten together. Your heart almost seemed to melt at the sight. He was giving you a dorky smile as he reached over to grab your hand. You smiled and leaned over to kiss him. You felt your whole body relax into his, even though you were both awkwardly leaning over the center console.

 You felt him let go of your hand and rest his hand on your back, pushing you just a little closer to him. You threaded your fingers through Auston’s hair. You slowly started to tug on his hair, something that you knew drove him crazy. You could feel him grin against your lips. You both forgot you were even in the car, until another car behind you honked.

 You broke apart quickly and looked up. The light was green, and who knew how long it was green. You laughed and bit your finger as Auston finally stepped on the gas. You’d expected that to happen when you were teenagers, but not now when you were both adults.

 “Oops,” Auston laughed.

 “You are trouble,” You shook your head.

 “Me! No no, you’re the one who kissed me,” He stated.

 “Only because you were giving me eyes,” You argued.

 “I always give you eyes,” He laughed.

 You shrugged and turned to look out the window. The two of you arrived home a few minutes later. Auston graciously took your bags for you while you unlocked the front door and flicked on the lights. Everything was just as you’d left it last summer. Ema and the girls had offered to clean before you got back, despite the fact you’d told them that they didn’t have to. You did appreciate them coming and cleaning though.

 The two of you slowly made your way upstairs. He dropped the boy’s bags that didn’t stay with Ema and Brian in their bedrooms before joining you in your bedroom. You grabbed your suitcase from him and started to unpack the few things you brought back with you. It was always strange having two separate wardrobes that you split between Toronto and Scottsdale. When you’d first started spending the off-season with him, you’d brought everything but your winter clothes with you. But once you’d gotten engaged he started buying you pieces of clothing here and there. You quickly learned that Auston loved to spoil you with clothes and next thing you knew, you had two wardrobes.

 “You don’t have to unpack tonight,” Auston reminded you.

 “No, but I want to,” You shrugged, “It never feels like home until I unpack. I’ve just always been that way.”

 “I know,” He replied softly, hugging you from behind, “I just thought I’d try.”

 You shook your head and leaned back into him. He nuzzled into the crook of your neck and started to kiss random spots. You smiled softly as he held you a little tighter. You knew what he was trying to get at, and any other night you probably would’ve jumped on him at first chance. But you were tired and all you wanted to do was snuggle up next to him and sleep.

 You hummed when he moved his hands up higher. You knew he was testing the waters, because Auston never did anything you didn’t want him to. He was still careful and considerate. He was always looking for the green light. You appreciated that about him, because he’d always been like that. Even when the two of you were just fuckbuddies and nothing more.

 “Auston,” You sighed, “Can we just go to sleep tonight?”

 You felt bad for asking. You wanted him, you always wanted him. But tonight, your longing for sleep was going to win. Auston sighed slightly and pulled away from you. You could feel his disappointment, even though he’d never really show it. You felt awful.

“I’m sorry,” You whispered, turning to face him.

 He shook his head and stepped towards you, carefully cupping your cheeks, “Never apologize for not being in the mood. Okay? Never ever apologize for that.”

 You looked down at your feet. You weren’t sure why you felt this way, but you did. You felt guilty for not wanting to have sex. You almost never turned him down, because normally you were turned on. But tonight, you just weren’t. You couldn’t explain it, you just knew that it was the last thing you wanted to do.

 “Go change,” He said softly, “I’ll finish putting your things away.”

 “Auston-”

 “And then I’m going to hold you until you fall asleep, because I know you like that,” He continued.

 He pushed you slightly towards the bathroom and tossed one of his shirts at your head. You looked back at him, he had a soft smile on his face. Almost as if he was reassuring you that he was okay. You slowly made you way into the bathroom and shut the door. You felt like crying for some reason.

 Even as you changed your clothes, you had to hold back tears. You didn’t understand why. You could only blame it on how emotionally draining the week had been, and just how tired you really were. You normally weren’t like this, except for when you were pregnant. But you’d taken a test yesterday and it had been negative. So, you knew you weren’t pregnant. But that didn’t explain why you were so emotional all of the sudden.

 “Babe,” Auston softly knocked on the door, “Are you okay in there?”

 You snapped out of your trance. You shook your head to try and clear your head a little more. You just felt off, and you didn’t know why. You rubbed your face quickly and grabbed your dirty clothes before swinging the bathroom door open. Auston was standing on the other side, you could see the worry etched all over his face.

 “Yeah,” You replied, “I’m just really tired I guess.”

 “Are you sure?” He asked.

“Yeah, I really am just tired,” You explained as you walked towards your side of the bed, “I just need a good night’s sleep, that’s all.”

 You climbed into bed without another word. You really didn’t know what was up with you, but your mood did a complete 180 in less than five minutes. You could see Auston almost shrug out of the corner of your eye and crawl into bed next to you. He pulled you close to him, tucking your head into his chest. You wrapped your arms around him. Somehow just being close to him made it a little better.

 You felt him slowly stroking your back. He switched between rubbing It and drawing little patterns on it. You fell asleep a lot faster than you thought you would. You stayed cuddled into Auston’s side all night. Somehow you could still feel his arms around you in your sleep.

 When you woke up the next morning when you woke up, Auston was still right next to you. He was already awake and was watching you. You weren’t surprised, the two of you always seemed to watch each other sleep. You always liked to see how peaceful he was in his sleep.

 “Good morning,” You whispered.

 “Hi,” He pushed a few strands of hair out of your face, “Are you feeling any better?”

 You shrugged, “I guess? I really don’t know what was wrong with me last night.”

 “You’ve had a long few weeks. I know playoffs are never easy for you. I have travel a lot, and I know the boys aren’t exactly calm when I’m gone like that.”

 “Auston,” You sighed.

 “No, I should’ve thanked you a long time ago for all of the sacrifices you’ve made to keep our family going during the season,” He stated, “I wouldn’t be able to do any of this without you by my side, you know that, right?”

 “I don’t know about all of that, I think you could manage,” You shrugged.

 “I wouldn’t want to do this without you,” He sat up, “YN, it wouldn’t mean a damn thing without you and the boys. I promise you that.”

 “Auston,” You sat up next to him.

 You tried to think of what to say. You tried to think of how to best express just how much you loved him, even though he already knew. You’d always told each other that if you ever forgot, you just had to look at either of the boys and you would instantly be reminded. You tried and tried to come up with something, but any sentimental words failed you.

 “You’re such a sap,” You joked, shoving him a little.

 “Yeah, I know, just don’t tell the guys,” He sighed, “Oh, and Alex said she’d take the boys for our anniversary.”

 “What exactly do you have planned?” You questioned.

 “You’ll see,” He shrugged, “Let’s go get some breakfast, yeah?”

 “Hey Aus,” You paused for a minute, “It wouldn’t mean anything without you either.”

 “C’mon, I’ll make pancakes now that Erika kind of taught me,” He laughed.

[carlynagisa]

Secret Valentine fic~ I didn’t fall for you you fucking tripped me!

Summary: How to get one Nakahara Chuuya to agree to a Valntine's date: Fall for him. Literally. Or how Dazai Osamu broke his ankle and miraculously healed in the span of an hour.

Pairing: Dazai/Chuuya Rating: G - General Audiences Warnings: no warnings apply :)

Notes: Dear @nakaharali-chan I’m your Secret Valentine and I hope you're happy with this happy fluffy skk piece! Unfortuately you didn't give me any prompts so I kinda winged it? Also greetings to the entire SKK Trash discor server, you guys are pretty damn cool!!

Hope you like it and enjoy!!

AO3

“Who in their right mind thought that class at 8 am in the fucking morning was a good idea?” Chuuya grumbled while basically slumping into his seat, just seconds before the bell rang. His head fell onto the table in front of him with a loud thud, body and mind too tired to lift himself up.

Tachihara next to him only raised his brows slightly before sliding his spare coffee in front of his tired friend. “I much prefer this to Fukuzawa-san’s 8 pm class. Now that’s suicide.”

Regaining his senses enough to smell the heavenly scent of the freshly brewed coffee in front of him, Chuuya dragged his head up, bleary eyes turning to the other redhead while blindly groping for the beverage in front of him. “Okay, who are you and what happened to Tachihara? Did you murder him?” He yelped after taking a generous sip of the coffee, belatedly noticing that it was still quite hot – definitely freshly brewed. At least he was awake now, albeit slightly.

“You’re way too cheery.”

Tachihara’s fingers drummed on his table. “Dude, isn’t it obvious? Today is Valentine’s Day!” He gave Chuuya an incredulous look once realizing that the other wasn’t impressed at all. “Don’t tell me you forgot about this, mister popular?”

Was it already too late to reassign to another class, preferably later in the day? Chuuya could kick himself in the shin for his naivety while deciding on his college classes.

He chugged down the rest of the coffee – albeit it was still too hot and surely burned more of his taste buds than it should – finally able to face his classmate and the rest of what was to come.

“You mean the overly commercialized fake holiday that is supposed to celebrate love but rather celebrates capitalism in all its glory? How could I ever forget about that?”

“So you forgot about it.”

“Entirely.” Chuuya let out a deep sigh before bending down and sifting through his backpack. “Imagine my utter joy when I was nearly jumped by a freshman that tried to shove chocolate down my throat. Or when an entire group of sophomores literally ganged up on me.”

Finally he found what he was looking for. Without a word he threw a bundle over at Tachihara’s confused face. “You can have it.” He rolled his eyes in annoyance at the thought of those stupid hopeful girls that declared their undying love to him without ever talking to him, let alone getting to know him. Was everyone going crazy today?

Unclasping the bundle, Tachihara let out a whistle while studying the amount of chocolate that was wrapped in it. “And imagine that the day only started. Give me some of your popularity?” He said while inspecting a piece of especially colorfully decorated chocolate. “Think I can give this to Gin?”

“You want to ask her out?”

“Yeah.” Poor guy, he’d never stand a chance.

“She’ll eat you alive.”

“That’s why the chocolate! She’ll hopefully be busy with it. And let’s hope her brother doesn’t find out first… He won’t only eat me alive but rather roast and cook me before that.”

Chuuya laughed at the image of Akutagawa Ryuunosuke letting out his wrath because his little sister was being courted. That wouldn’t be the first time, Gin was rather popular these days.

Chuuya snatched a piece of innocently looking chocolate which he held out for the other redhead. “Then you should give her this. Dark chocolate is her favorite.” She’d kill him for the fancy colorful one. “Although. isn’t it pretty impudent giving her chocolate that isn’t even self-made?”

“We don’t want to let it get to waste, huh?” Tachihara winked. He wanted to say something else but the professor used this exact moment to make his entrance. Chuuya knew that he was in for an interrogation later. He slumped on his desk once more and let out a deep huff, this was going to be a long day.

*

“Sooo,” Tachihara began after the two left the room to get to their next class. “Mister popular.”

“Stop calling me that,” Chuuya groaned. He hated that nickname. It wasn’t his fault that the female student body was way too hormone ridden to just leave him alone and became especially obnoxious during this time of the year. He wasn’t even that good looking! And definitely not nice enough to them to warrant such behavior. Why they were so fixated on him was still beyond him.

At least he was not first place on the popular bachelor scale, and yes such a thing did exist. This arguable honor went to a true idiot who might have sported the good looks and the brain but had a rather rotten character. That guy cut a swath through girls’ hearts and completely acted on their foolishly adoration towards him. Chuuya was always very adamant not to get thrown into one pot with the likes of him. Stupid bastard.

Dodging another incoming underclassman who surely wanted to give him even more chocolate, Chuuya hurried through the corridor. “I still don’t know what they want from me.”

Tachihara was hurrying along next to him. Chuuya noticed the bewildered look with which the other fixated him even without turning towards him. “Um, hello? Maybe because you’re quite hot? Ah, no homo, you know?” Chuuya rolled his eyes at that but snorted regardless. “Seriously, you’re one of the best-looking guys here. And it seems like you’re forever single, so you’re not only available but they also want to be the one person to break your unattainable bad-boy status.”

That statement stopped him. Chuuya would like to defend himself for the last part – while he dressed rather scandalous, leather jackets and chokers were among his favorites, and yes, he liked to smoke – he wasn’t a bad-boy by a long shot. He even helped out at volunteering jobs, thank you very much.

But the first part was much more concerning. They stood in the middle of the hallway in front of the stairs now, effectively blocking the way.

“Tachihara… available? Seriously? You do know I’m gay right?” The redhead was pretty sure that the whole college knew about his sexuality by now. He wasn’t keen on hiding it, what was the point of it anyway? Which made it even more surprising that the girls seemingly tended to flock towards him.

Tachihara next to him laughed awkwardly. “Of course I know! I’m pretty sure they also know about this. It’s just…”

“Just what.” It was a growl now.

“It’s just,” and now the other was definitely looking away on purpose. “Don’t explode, Chuuya, okay? It’s just that they have this weird fantasy about you. You know, making the gay man falling for them, being that special girl and all that shit.” What the fuck?! “And then there are the yaoi fangirls of course, who just have those weird fetishes.”

What. The. Fuck.

If Chuuya’s mood was bad before, now it was below zero degrees. “What the fuck? I’m not some fetish come true? What is this Fifty Shades of Bullshit?”

His friend pointedly looked at the ground now. “It’s just what I heard. Apparently people fall for this kind of set-up. B-but I’m pretty sure that people just love you Chuuya, you are pretty awesome. So, just accept some of those Valentine gifts and give them a chance?”

Fuck this shit. Fuck this entire day. He had enough.

He couldn’t help letting out another growl while twirling towards the stairs. Chuuya had enough.

“Fuck this shit. I’m going home.”

“B-but we still have class?!”

He. Had. Enough.

“I don’t give a damn! I’m going home, avoiding this entire Valentine shit. I’m tired of people proclaiming their baseless love and people ‘falling for me’.” Because he knew this wasn’t true. Chuuya had been unloved for his entire 22 years of living and it wouldn’t change just because he was giving chances. So far nobody had really fallen in love with him anyway.

“And for your information-“

“Watch out!!!”

Chuuya’s tirade was cut short rather abruptly by a loud ruckus and an even louder voice yelling before he was hit with what suspiciously felt like a steamroller and fell to the floor with a crash.

Thanking his quick reflexes that supported himself on his elbows, thus saving him from most injuries, Chuuya still found himself face-front on the cold floor which surely hadn’t been properly cleaned in a long while. Absolutely great.

Even better, the heavy weight on his back indicated that whoever had the genius idea of flinging themselves down the stairs a little too fast and therefore tumbling them down instead of using the proper way had landed much more comfortably than himself.

“Oops,” the person on his back laughed. “That’s not the downfall I was expecting.”

“And what did you expect instead?” Chuuya grumbled, still lying helplessly on the ground. The nerve! Whoever this was, they clearly were in no hurry to get up and moving.

The person – definitely a guy – hummed. “If I had landed only a little bit more face-first I could’ve easily broken my neck; if you wouldn’t have stopped my fall that is.”

“What a wonderful thing that I was in the right place and cushioned your fall, huh? And I still do by the way!” If Chuuya was close to erupting earlier, now was the perfect moment to finally let it out. Which guy would be this obnoxious to-

“Wonderful?? More like tragic! You ruined my opportunity!”

Ah. Dazai Osamu then. Just peachy.

Was it something about today or was it just the universe or whatever karma there was that decided it would be fun to fuck over Chuuya completely on this so called holiday? Who else could have done such a stunt and accidentally fallen down the stairs at the exact same moment Chuuya was passing them but Dazai freaking Osamu, school’s resident genius slash lunatic and to the redhead’s begrudging admittance the real number one heartbreaker of their college.

Accidentally my ass, Chuuya thought, this was definitely another one of Dazai’s famous suicide antics. Could he not have jumped down the building instead? And he surely must have seen Chuuya, right? So why not wait until the smaller male had been out of the way.

Oh yeah, Dazai was an asshole, that’s why.

Said asshole apparently found Chuuya’s still lying form rather comfortable, at least he made no indication to move.

“Ah! Is that you chibi?” Another thing about Dazai: Chuuya couldn’t stand him. School playboy or not, his character was just obnoxious and generally off-putting. “What are you doing down there?”

“Obviously I’m enjoying the view. The ground is rather comfortable, why don’t you join me, bastard?”

That finally got Dazai to move. Even if it meant that the brunet was suddenly appearing up close in his point of vision.

Dazai cocked his head to the side, studying Chuuya with a one eyed glance. It seemed like the idiot had hurt himself again, half his face was hidden under bandages and a big plaster. It matched his appearance wonderfully, with all the other bandages around his arms and neck and god knows where else. Either Dazai was the unluckiest person on earth (and that was rather impossible, since Chuuya was positive that he currently took that spot) or he was even more freakish than everybody thought.

The girls seemed to like it at least.

The redhead couldn’t figure out if the other found what he was looking for, but Dazai suddenly shook his head while his gaze finally left Chuuya. “I think the floor is nothing for me, chibikko, but whatever floats your boat.” Still he made no attempt to stand up.

Hushed whispers harshly broke Chuuya’s own stare and brought his attention back to his surroundings. While definitely not a shy person and generally immune and uncaring towards any kind of gossip, it was hard to ignore the whispers about how two of the most eligible bachelors – who couldn’t even stand each other all that much! – of their entire college were randomly lying in the middle of the corridor together.

Shoving Dazai away from him for good, Chuuya hastily rushed back to his feet, brushing off imaginary (or not so imaginary, the grime on the ground was very real after all) dust. Tachihara next to him chuckled. “So now it’s not only the girls falling for you, huh?”

“Oh shut up, you asshole.” It was in good nature though. Tachihara wouldn’t make fun of him in earnest. Hopefully nobody else in the perimeter would. They wouldn’t dare.

All except one.

“Which girl would ever fall for someone that small? They’d have to bend down all the time like they’re talking to a child!” Thankfully Dazai was still in a wonderful position seated on the floor, perfect for Chuuya to kick him in the hip.

“You shut up as well, bastard. What are you still doing there on the floor?”

The other made no motion to move at all. Instead he only raised his arms at Chuuya expectantly, depicting a strange picture of a one-sided hug.

“Waiting for you to pick me up, obviously. I might have twisted my ankle during the fall and can’t walk, silly.”

Chuuya’s ears were growing hot, a clear sign for the upcoming blush that threatened to erupt on his face and that would clash horribly with his hair. He was overly aware of the student body that still watched the scene playing out attentively. The gossip would only grow worse and worse now.

After still not being picked up, Dazai started sporting a very obvious pout. “Since it’s your fault, chibi, you should at least help me up.”

His fault?! What the hell? That idiot had fallen on him!

“You fell on me!”

Tachihara next to him mumbled “Don’t you mean for?” Chuuya gave him a nasty look.

“But Chuu-yaaa!”

“Don’t Chuuya me!” Embarrassment now fully visible on his face, Chuuya hastily dragged Dazai up towards him, ignoring how the other rather tried to hug him. “I’m going to drop ya!”

Apparently the other male had really hurt his ankle in some way, – or he was acting fantastically, this was still Dazai they were speaking of – he heavily winced once Chuuya tried to let go and his right foot gave out under him. “Ouch ouch ouch!”

With a heavy sigh Chuuya moved one of the taller one’s arms around his shoulder. Fucking lanky people. “Stop acting like a baby, it’s your own fault.”

Dazai hobbled rather unsuccessfully on one foot. “I already said that it’s your fault! If it hadn’t been for you I would have fallen on my neck, hopefully breaking it, and I would not have a broken ankle now!”

“Hell, it’s not broken! But I’m still letting a doctor check you up.”

By now there was at least some movement regarding them. Dazai was even more useless than before but Chuuya slowly got them moving, albeit slowly. Not quick enough to escape the ever growing crowd around them. At least nobody would try to give him chocolate now…

He waved Tachihara goodbye, promising his friend to catch up with him once he delivered the annoyance on his shoulders to the doctor’s office.

Except, they did not go there.

Oh no, after half the way freaking Dazai suddenly decided that he would rather not see a doctor at all. Possibly broken ankle or not.

“You even get another stupid bandage for your growing collection!” Chuuya was exasperated. But Dazai wouldn’t budge, weight suddenly slumping around his shoulder, threatening to drag him down like a sack of potatoes.

“Nah. Don’t wanna.” Stupid pouting child! Chuuya should just drop him-

“I know!” Dazai suddenly beamed, picking up his weight again. “Since you hurt me, chibbiko, you should make up for it. You can take me out for a consolation date!”

What the-

*

And that was the story of how one Nakahara Chuuya suddenly found himself roped into a Valentine’s Day date with his worst enemy after falling flat on his face.

He wasn’t sure how Dazai had gotten Chuuya to agree at all. Maybe it was the puppy eyes… maybe it was Dazai acting like a sack of potatoes again. Anyway, he ended up seated opposite of one Dazai Osamu, hesitantly sipping on his coffee while the other happily slurped on an overpriced latte abomination.

Dazai suspiciously didn’t mention his hurt ankle anymore.

Instead, he talked about everything and nothing. After an hour, Chuuya already knew everything about Dazai’s latest obsession with Instagram food blogs (yes, of course the brunet took a picture of their drinks), how boring his latest literature classes were ever since Oda-sensei left to teach grade schoolers instead (Chuuya found their current literature topic, European poets, rather fascinating) and how drowning was apparently a less painful suicide method than asphyxiation via plastic bag (Chuuya had NO opinion on that one).

It was rather fascinating.

At first, Chuuya had felt utterly uncomfortable and wanted nothing more than leave. What was he supposed to talk about with a person who shared none of his interests, moved in entirely different social groups and with whom most if not all his conversations so far consisted only of jarring insults and merciless teasing?

It turned out that there was no need to think up topics to talk about at all. Dazai kept up a pleasant flow of talking, even asking Chuuya questions and for his opinions rather often, initiating a real conversation after a while.

Dazai himself suddenly seemed to bloom, his entire posture was more relaxed than Chuuya had ever seen and the disinterested and cold look in his one visible eye slowly grew more and more warm and cheerful. Chuuya on the other side felt more and more comfortable and dare he say intrigued by the enigma sitting in front of him.

All in all it was… nice.

At least until the implications of the calendar date changed their dynamics in the form of a cheerful server in a dreadfully pink apron.

“Hello you two!” The light-haired server beamed, holding a plate in one hand. “And a happy Valentine! You two make a wonderful couple! Treat’s on the house!” With a beaming smile he placed the plate onto their table, winked and skipped back to the counter towards a disgruntled dark haired male who sported an equally awful pink apron and who hit him on the head after the waiter tried to jump him.

Dazai’s eye became impossibly big as he studied the chocolate mousse in front of them. Chocolate mousse that was shaped like a heart… Chuuya’s stomach suddenly jumped.

Ah yes. He totally forgot about Valentine’s Day. It was rather nice not being flogged by pushy girls for once. But this…

“Say Dazai…” Said brunet raised his head in question after taking more pictures of their dessert. “Did we just go here because you wanted free food?”

Dazai laughed – Chuuya couldn’t tell if it was real or fake. Dazai wasn’t easy to figure out.

“Of course!”

Ah, so that’s how it was. It was too suspicious after all that Dazai would suddenly go on a date with Chuuya and have fun with him without any ulterior motives. Even if those ulterior motives were just free food, the smaller male couldn’t help but feel a pang of disappoint and… hurt?

Pff, as if, Dazai and he weren’t even friends. They were more like enemies, not being able to stand the other for longer than a few minutes. Of course the other was only playing around. And if he got a kick out of playing stupid gullible Chuuya, all the better for him. Consolation date, my ass.

Deeming the pictures he took good enough, Dazai decided to dig into the chocolate mousse, very visibly enjoying its flavor. He even moaned a little in satisfaction.

“Aren’t you eating?” Chuuya didn’t even touch his own spoon. He was not hungry any more.

“No you can have it.” Well, he had taken the other out and even paid for their drinks, that was good enough right? Then he could leave now and let the other be, his ankle seemed good enough to get going.

Standing up, Chuuya reached for his jacket when a hand suddenly gripped his wrist tightly.

“Don’t go,” Dazai murmured, spoon and dessert abandoned.

“Didn’t you get what you wanted?” Chuuya mumbled, trying to drag his wrist back towards him. “You don’t need me anymore, I already paid-“

“I said what I meant.” Dazai’s grip tightened, the look in his eye now determined. Chuuya noticed how its warm chocolate brown color turned dark. “I wanted to go on a date with you. I want to be here with you.”

“Yeah right, you just wanted me to pay for you.” He knew that he sounded bitter but Chuuya had his fair share of disappointing dates so far, guys and girls alike who were either in for his looks or just to use him to pay for all their commodities. “It’s fine, I had fun and this was probably the best Valentine’s Day I had so far. To think that a commercial fake holiday and your company could be fun! Thanks for that I guess. No need to play nice anymore.”

The hand on his wrist finally loosened its tight grip, instead Dazai used it to shield his mouth and chuckled.

“Oh my god, Chuuya’s cute.” It took said person a moment to realize that he had not misheard and he seriously got called cute by Dazai Osamu. And judging by his earnest laughter and again warm eye, he was serious about this. That was quite the step up from being called short or a slug. Cute, huh?

Sensing Chuuya’s surprise, Dazai elaborated.

“I literally fell for you, doesn’t that account for nothing?”

Fell… for him?

Wait a second.

“You didn’t fall down the stairs by accident?” Could Dazai really be such an idiot?

“Of course not! I already told you I did it on purpose.” He was really such an idiot. “I just didn’t do it to try to kill myself for once though, it’s rather that I saw you standing there and was like ‘why not?’”

Why not? What. An. Idiot!

“You flung yourself down a staircase just to get a date with me?”

Dazai even had the nerve to look proud. “I sure did!”

“And you couldn’t just have asked me out like a normal person?”

The proud smile faltered. “… I could have?”

With a deep sigh, Chuuya slumped back down onto his seat, finally taking his spoon in his hand. Deliberately ignoring his opposite’s gaping stare, Chuuya dug into the rest of the previously abandoned chocolate mousse, letting out a small moan himself when the sweet taste exploded in his mouth. This was heavenly! He decided to let Dazai hanging until he finished off the rest of the dessert on his own, not even throwing as much as a glance at the more and more restless brunet.

Only after he dropped his spoon and licked off the leftover chocolate on his lips (Dazai’s eye followed his tongue; Chuuya did do it deliberately of course) he turned towards the hopeful male.

“Maybe. I probably would have said no, who knows. But your plan was not really nice.” Chuuya raised an eyebrow, Dazai’s hopeful look did not falter though, he knew the smaller one well enough to know that he wasn’t serious.

“I’m sorry!” Dazai whined, playing along.

Hook, line and sinker.

With a big grin on his face, Chuuya stated. “If you’re really sorry, you should prove it.” His confidence was finally back and it felt good.

Dazai was sporting an equally wide grin now. “How?”

“Take me out on a real date. No stupid Valentine’s Day, no scheming and lying.” Chuuya motioned towards Dazai’s now clearly fake ankle injury.

“And you’re paying. I have expensive tastes.”

Everything today had tried to piss him off as much as possible. Chuuya deserved some piece after such a day – who knew that Valentine’s Day might turn out to be more than a fake commercial holiday?

“Who would’ve thought…” Dazai mumbled under his breath, still not low enough not to be picked up by Chuuya.

“Last chance,” Chuuya shook his head. “How about Friday?”

Dazai slowly held out his hand, with that warm smile on his face again that made Chuuya’s stomach flutter.

“It’s a date.”

[callie-the-snarky-geek-blog]

RvB16 Episode 1 Review: The Shisno

(Old Blog Repost)

Season 15, to put it lightly, has had mixed reception. Some liked it, some didn’t. Some like parts of it, others like different parts. Regardless of where you stand, I think we can all agree that it wasn’t a perfect season. Personally I enjoyed it, but I was also a newcomer to RvB so… you know, I’m biased. Regardless, Joe did well enough to be given the reigns once again and it looks like he has some MASSIVE plans.

So finally, here we are with the sixteenth season. With only one episode, it’s still too early to determine if this season will be an improvement or a disappointment. But the first episode is supposed to draw us in. Did it succeed in doing so? Lets find out.

Overview

The introduction is… weird. We saw the medieval scene on Twitter.. well the first few seconds anyways. It being a medieval version of the famous ‘ever wonder hwy we’re here’ scene can’t be for no reason. I guess it MAY be a hint at the time travel aspect coming up, but for now it’s just baffling. What is even mroe baffling is the vortex and the voice following it. We now know that the voice belongs to a being named Muggins as he speaks of things being provoked by humble actions and briefly going over the end of S15. Some kind of prophecy has been triggered due to the time drill thing and even with it gone, it still fulfilled it’s purpose. Which leads us to…

Fighting over food! So first, Joe wasn’t kidding about this whole thing beginning as a quest for pizza. I need to rewatch that tease later to see what other hints are in it. But regardless, with the Blues and Reds defeated and Dylan offering to talk to the cops since they’re still wanted (and I imagine this leads to her and Jax’s final scene in S15), our guys have earned some R&R. It was honestly a nice welcome back to see them just bickering over something as ridiculous as where to go out to eat. It fits them so well and feels like a very nice welcome back after all the insanity last season. Things are slowly tingeing back to normal… at first.

Simmons notices that Donut is missing, so Grif sends Caboose to go find him. Honestly the fact that SOMEONE realized that Donut wasn’t there is a sign of improvement since it’s always kind of been a running joke that no one. Sure, sending Caboose probably wasn’t THE best idea, but it’s a sign of improvement! Then we get the… body horror scene… dear God that looked painful. It was still funny due to how oblivious to it Caboose was, but still… MAN. It wouldn’t have been as bad if it weren’t for Donut’s screams of pain. Man, Dan Godwin nailed it… and I imagine that had to HURT so kudos! So yeah… Donut vanishes to I assume the same place the time drill went since they use the same sound effect. I guess Donut will then ascent not Godhood since he is beyond the plain of space and time now. We’ll see~

So Cabosoe comes back empty handed and at first everyone considers going to find him… except Grif. He wants to get the Hell off the island before the cops get there. We’ll talk more about this in a little while but man do I have thoughts! So the Reds and Blues all agree on pizza with Sister tagging along. Carolina and the lieutenants meanwhile head for Chorus, Carolina to go check on Wash and the lieutenants to get back to what Jensen calls ‘interesting things’. So I assume that we’ll get some kind of B Story involving Chorus hijinks. Maybe if we’re lucky, a certain green mercenary will show up… I can dream!

This is where things get interesting as we then see two tiny balls of light. Muggins, who we already heard, and a female-voice done named Huggins. He is apparently a rookie as Muggins sends her to keep watch over the Reds and Blues and to both not lose them and to not be spotted. He meanwhile shoots across space and we get a REALLY cool intro sequence showing all the cast and the main crew members… though they forgot Geoff’s name for some reason (the Youtube version has it, so I assume it’s an error). Oops. They also don’t have Becca listed, though Sister isn’t technically a main character so I guess that’s why. Maybe in the future. But it’s really cool and the alien-esque soundtracks sounds so perfect.

Muggins arrives at what we can assume is the villains lair. IDK if this is an original set piece designed by RT Animation or if it’s an actual Halo map. Either way, it looks awesome. Dark, with a lot of red and black, but epic in scale. A proper villain lair. We get a glimpse of a green-armored soldier with a British accent golfing… weird. Anyways, Muggins reports to their leader who we only see partially. They have black armor and while they only say one word, it’s a… pretty damn intimidating voice. Muggins informs the leader that the ‘pizza quest’ has begun and therefore triggered the last part of the prophecy, ending the episode.

Review

While the episode is only nine minutes long, BOY HOWDY did it leave PLENTY to talk about. I guess we’ll start with Donut though. I have no idea what the Fuck just happened. It’s clear that the blast from the drill caused… whatever the Hell happened and we can assume form the earlier narration, that this was meant to happen. So this is definitely going to be important. Going off the promo material, where Donut’s in a kind of meditative pose, it seems like he’s going to become a God-like figure. My guess is that he now exists outside the realm of space and time, which is where I believe the drill now is. What will this do to Donut? I have no idea, but this is definitely going it be a lingering plot thread. And hey, Donut deserves the focus.

Something I also liked is how the Reds and Blues DID notice that he was missing. Look, they do not have a good track record of remembering either Donut or Doc. So the fact that Simmons relied it is a massive improvement. And I do like how after Caboose said that he was gone, Sarge and Tucker DID want to loo for him and not leave him behind. Grif convinces them not to, but still it is a HUGE sign of improvement compared to normal. And while they DID ultimately leave, I think it’s good that they at least recognized that Donut was gone and considered looking for him. It’s a good sign that they are growing.

Next lets talk about Carolina and Wash. So it looks like, at least for now, they won’t be in on the main plot. I assume that they’ll be given a B Plot revolving around Chorus, considering Jensen’s line about the going-ons there, but it’s too soon to tell. But yeah Carolina and Wash will likely be on the sidelines at least for now. Honestly… I an good with this! I love them both, don’t get me wrong. But lets face it, both have had a LOT of focus and attention ever since their respective introductions. Freelancer has been running the series for a long time now, and for good reason. But I really want to see the Reds and Blues on their own for once. S15 showed that, when they get their act together, they can operate and be formidable on their own with minimal Freelancer help. I want to see them have to deal with a massive situation without just having Wash or Carolina deal with it for them. I did like that Tucker plans to get Wash his own pizza though, just showing how much he cares for his teammate. You’ve grown up Tucker!

The biggest thing I want to talk about before we get to the villains though is Grif. Because his lines here are… interesting. It is clear that he wants to avoid any adventure, insanity, and dramatics as much as possible. When Jensen starts talking about Chorus, he says he wants to avoid the subject before trying to take it back. Then there’s the entire pizza quest thing. He doesn’t want to call it a quest. He doesn’t want to look for Donut because it would mean staying around and having to talk to cops. He calls out the others on how everything always has to be treated like a major production. He outright tells Sister that they’re not getting into anything crazy when she is clearly enthused about the idea. Now this could just be because he’s ‘hangry’ and also doesn’t want to chance getting arrested, but… IDK. To me, adding in the ‘new science’ line, it all paints a very clear picture: Grif wants things to go back to normal, just like he did last season… and it makes sense.

Some may say ‘wait, shouldn’t he be over this after last season?’. No. No he should not. Last season had Grif regret quitting because he didn’t like being alone and in the end, he DOES care about the others. And yes, he did willingly get into the thick of things when he joined back up. But here’s the thing, he did so because the others were in trouble and they needed him. But now that trouble is over.  Now there is a chance for him to FINALLY go back to a level of normalcy with the others again. It’s why he’s trying so hard to avoid talking about serious matters or refusing Sister and Caboose’s replies about ‘adventures’ and ‘quests’. He never got over wanting to be done with that. We never had any kind of scene where he comes to terms with the insanity that is his life, only of him having regret abandoning the others. So it makes sense that this is still a thing with him like it was last year. The only difference is this time, instead of quitting, it seems like he’s going to try to actively attempt to keep them out of any insanity. Will this go anywhere? We’ll have to see. But since the promo art just has him facepalming, I think this may be his character arc for the season. And since Grif is my favorite character and I loved his development last season, I am all for it!

That leads us to our ‘villains’. And I say that lightly because while they ARE clearly the antagonists, I… can’t really tell if they’ve evil. Going off Mugigns’ narration and report to the leader, it sounds like they are trying to prevent some kind of horrible catastrophe that the Reds and Blues unknowingly started. As for WHAT they are… well they aren’t human, at least not fully. It’s way too soon and we still know way too little. But I am going to assume that they are aliens and some kind of high cosmic order. One that makes the head of it essentially a God. Heck the names Huggins and Muggins seem to be based off Huginn and Muginn, ravens who act as the eyes and ears to Odin in Norse mythology. Going off that… yeah, we’re going full Thor here apparently.

The leader we can assume is the equivalent of Odin, the king God in Norse mythology. IDK if we’ll get a Thor and Loki equivalent…. unless the green guy is meant to be one or the other. But yeah, this means that this guy is scary news. It’s too soon to say who he may be, though I saw one person speculate that it may be Donut. And with the time travel stuff, it IS possible. But again, too soon to say. Though if not I guess that Donut becoming a God will be the key to beating this guy. Either way, the goal is unclear other than that a prophecy has been provoked. Whether they’re going to try to stop it form coming to pass, or make sure it comes to pass is unclear. We also don’t know what the prophecy is other than that the time drill’s activation was the first sign and the pizza quest was the point of no return.

So here is my current theory. As I said, I don’t think that the ‘villains’ are actual villains. Or at least they aren’t evil psychos like Felix or a well-intentioned extremist gone mad like Temple. I think that this ‘prophecy’ is going to make them see the Reds and Blues as the villains. So they are going to attempt to wipe them out in order to prevent the prophecy from being fulfilled. It makes them the antagonists by default. How that will cause time travel to factor in unless an attempt to kill them goes horribly wrong IDK. Still, that’s my current stance. Will it get cleared up? Probably and it’ll lead to the true villain showing up. Bu it’s still WAAAAY too soon to say, but going off Muggins’ worry it doesn’t feel like he and Huggins at least aren’t antagonistic. But we’ll see as things unfold.

All of this of course leaves a LOT of questions. What is the prophecy exactly? What is the catastrophe? How does time travel equate into it? How does the medieval scene fit into it? Is this based on any of the alien stuff we’ve had in the past? Is it something completely different? How does Donut’s current situation equate into this? What kind of aliens/interdimensional beings are these guys? Who is the golfing guy? Who is that four armed guy that we saw in the trailer? Is he with these guys? Or is he a different antagonist? Is he an antagonist at all? How do the Reds and Blues end up caught up in it? Are we going to learn the definition of shisno? There’s a lot of questions man! And that’s okay, it’s the first episode, we’re supposed to be asking questions. Gotta give Joe this, he left us with plenty to think about.

So the way that things currently stand is the Reds and Blues are going for pizza (and I assume that the ship crashes since we see them in a forest area in the trailer), Carolina is heading for Chorus, and the villains are beginning their own plans. What’s going to happen next? I honestly have no clue. I assume that we’ll be following the Reds and Blues still next episode and maybe they’ll discover Huggins, but I honestly don’t know. Way to keep us hanging Joe.

Final Thoughts

This is how you do a premiere! The episode leaves a LOT of questions, but plenty of laughs in classic RvB fashion as well. It uses it’s time effectively and while it was only nine minutes long, it sure didn’t feel that short. The scenes all serve as a nice welcome back, opens up new possibilities, and sets up things for our heroes nicely. Sure the medieval scene is kind of out of place, but normally in animation a scene like that is there for a reason, so we’ll see later. But the machinima and original animation were solid, the acting was good as always, the humor and banter were on point, and we have plenty of mystery to look forward to down the road. It also sets up potential character development for Donut and Grif, which is very much appreciated. It was very well done and I am absolutely craving for more! Great episode!

[sonatanotwo]

SO! Imma talk more about Flame Out... More coherently this time. XDb

Yeah, I like... re-read my original post and realized a bunch of my typing wasn’t even really readable... in my defense, it was 4am and I was on a rather old and slow tablet. XDDD

Oops.

ANYHOO. Let’s try this again. :D With caps and stuff this time. 8Db

I am still all GOSH THIS EPISODE. And still all super OMG SEE? I KNEW IT. I said Virgil was a giant, lovable, cute, dork. So adorkable, my gosh. (I also have never really gone into detail, but I kinda headcanoned Virgil could get shy and stuff around like girls he likes and such. I never spoke much of it since I didn’t really have much in the way of evidence WHY I thought he might act that way... WELL. THANK YOU, EPISODE. I feel like this really could be a thing now. XDDD)

Boy, his brothers must not have paid any attention ever to his bookshelves if he has books and even an action figure of Kip. XDa

So, of course, I’m wondering when/how Virgil found out about Kip. Did Kip know Jeff? Seemed like it, given him noting Virgil looked like their Dad (Which I’m like OMG YES, to. People say Scott looks like Jeff, but my gosh, look at Virgil and Jeff in TOS. There is even more resemblance there, eyebrows, set of the eyes, nose, cheeks (chin and dimples are then more what Scott got.) Gosh, I can’t wait to see what TAG! Jeff will look like.) in a way that seemed more than just knowing a little about Jeff to feel Virgil was ‘a chip off the old block.’ (Man, this ep was so chock full of oldish and very American sayings. XD)

Did Jeff introduce Virgil to the guy’s existence? =Oa

BUT yeah, as I tried to type, but mangled... It’s exciting and interesting that it seems like Virgil had influence on him doing what he does well beyond simply his father. Obviously Kip was a huge one! And someone who does more what Virgil does than what, from what we can tell, Jeff probably did. Jeff’s about technology and space, but Virgil is definitely more mechanical, engineering and stuff like fires and explosives etc. *chinhands*

Man, it could potentially even fit together nicely... If it was even older teen Virgil who found out about him... if he still went to college in Denver... I mean, Colorado is still VERY the westerny. (I lived an hour south of Denver for 7 years. XD So, yeah. XD) LMao Maybe that’s where he got the action figure. XDa Man, I wonder where Kip was meant to be from... it was definitely a southern accent---don’t think quite Texas... at least, not some parts of it. (...Oh, his actor was a UK one. GOSH. I wouldn’t have guessed THAT. XD Same person who’s played the balloon Dad and Dr. Peck XD)

ANYHOO.

Side note... did anyone notice Grandma when she descends into the seating area?

LOOK AT HER, smoothing her hair. XDDD Man, I missed Grandma. <3

I flailed a lot about Virg being ambidextrous, so I won’t flail much again. Just a little. <3

...TANGENT TIME.

It’s always interesting to see how things have been moved or outright changed. I keep wondering if they have a second Tracy Island or are they able to film where they display the house for the tour? o.Oa THINGS I WONDER when I see changes. ( But yeah. Look at the shelves here:

Then here’s in EOS:

Then this old shot from the website, where clearly it was a WIP or something, cause books are falling off and backwards. lol

Just... interesting. XD From what I can see, it was the same setup as EOS in season 2 as well, but yeah. The books have changed in S3 and that one statue on the top there has gone completely MIA. (Also can actually JUST make out the spine of one of the books! =O Bottom shelf, far left... It appears to say “Catching Fire” ...which could possibly be Hunger Games reference, since I gather that’s the name of book 2? lolol I’m sure all those books are references. lmao)

Also that one statue over near the pool table?

I was pretttty sure it was Mozart.

WELL.

NOT ANYMORE. Thiiiiink it MIGHT be Aristotle? Bye Mozart. ;A; The other statue is gone too. Sadness. And yeah, these books have been changed up too. I wonder why. =Oa Well. If it isn’t a secondary set anyways. 

In fact that whole side is a bit different (other than being shot at a different angle XD)

ANYHOOOOOOOOOO... wow that really was a heck of a tangent.

Uh.

Where was I. 

RIGHT.

Oh gosh, Virgil, you are too cute. That look he’s giving, Scott, gosh. XD That’s a pleading look if I ever saw one.

I just love how it looks like Gordon is plotting Virgil’s utter DOOM...

...Then doesn’t actually do anything, since Virgil is embarrassing himself without any help what-so-ever. XD Poor, poor Virgil. He must have been kicking himself. (The “I’m meant to be helping you!” line definitely suggests it. lol)

BUT I JUST. It’s so strange even in a way to see Virg just... absolutely freeze up.

Since Virgil like... so rarely loses his cool. Man... I wonder how he’ll react to seeing Jeff again. =Oa

Man, does Kip not board aircraft much? Most do have wheels, Kip. Even the GDF flyers do. XDa Taxi-ing is a thing they do. lololol Though I suppose TB2′s are sorta hidden...ish.

Poor Virg. YOU KNOW, this might be the first time a note about Virgil that was in the annual might’ve actually sorta been a thing. =Oa It said sometimes he forgot his own strength... We’ve really never seen it used in any way, making it seem like a bit of out-of-date marketing. (Especially since being an artist and piano player, Virg is pretty good at being gentle. ^.^) But a distracted Virgil can seemingly cause some problems lolol

Gosh, I laugh at Gordon’s line still all ‘I’m not messing with them, they’re messing with me!’ lolol

And Virgil finally pulls himself together. \o/

I just really like how Kip’s leaning on TB2′s dash there to look out the windshield.

...I also really like how Kip’s stubble looks...

Like, gosh, this season so far has had some really nice new character models.

AND THEN KIP JUST PULLS OUT SOME OLD SCHOOL TNT. lmaoooo

Remember, Virg is their demolition specialist... he uses explosives, but he doesn’t just carry around random sticks of TNT. lolol AND they just kinda ran away from a HUGE explosion and gas. And. Kip had this. On him.

...

Yeah.

I’m with Virgil here.

AND YOU CAN JUST SEE IT IN HIS FACE. I look up to you and I trust you...

But those are sticks of dynamite right there and they could have exploded earlier.

CONFLICTED FEELINGS HERE.

Ugh, can I just side note that the animators are doing so amazing in general this season so far? Just all the faces and emotions Virgil goes through in this sequence alone. GOSH.

Aww Virg. He wants to do the thing.

“I’m meant to be helping you...” ...Yeah, he’s feelin’ bad for being a wee bit useless earlier, I think. 

AND...

That face. ;A; He doesn’t want to say it and seems to be guilty for thinking it. I mean, and Virgil knows better cause I mean... GRANDMA and all. BUT STILL, he feels like he should still. ;A;a

Ugh this isn’t nearly all the faces he even makes. SO many feels.

“By not getting blown up?”

He’s still totally thinking about the dynamite.

:>

ANYTHING. My heart. 

My heart, guys. Just. Look at this sweetheart. Look how lovely and everything he is. I knew what I was talking about all this time!

GRANDMA! ...you know, I have a feeling she really might be the Grandma type who’d go and whip out baby photos. She is so unbothered at embarrassing her grandsons. XDDDD I do so love her.

OKAY. TIME FOR ANOTHER MOMENT OF ANIMATION APPRECIATION. RUNS. They’ve been animating them REALLY well so far this season too. Sometimes we’ve seen Virgil’s run be a litttle, uh, stiff. But his run down to the seating area earlier and this... Very nice. +o+b

You can really feel the weight and all the motion has such nice follow through and stuff. Just. Hrrrg. It’s good guys.

Oh my goodness, eyes. VIRGIL. ;A;

Of course, Kip’s fine and Virgil assumes the pose he borrowed from his puppet counterpart. X3b

OKAY, ANOTHER THING ABOUT THIS SEASON... animation errors have been so few and far between... they’ve got John in the loop and their IR insignia’s are properly glowing.

A+ Also some very nice texturing and stuff on the truck.

Nothing really. Just it was a nice cap. *chinhands*

Oh Grandma, your boys oh so love you. Virgil’s face. ahahaha but he’s asking. XD

And Gordon’s backing him up. Aww Gordo. <3 Like I said, I love my Big Brotp, but these two have a place in my heart too. ^.^

“Just do us a favour? Leave the dynamite at home.”

He was really thinking about that. XD

This is a dinner I wish we could see. lololol

Is this my longest episode post ever? ...it might be. It won’t surprise me if it is.

UM.

CONGRATS IF YOU MADE IT THIS FAR. :DDD

SO. Now to wait for who knows how long. o.o; I’m kinda wondering if they’ll break the season into three parts... 9/9/8 (or 9/8/9) It would make the waits between possibly smaller... I guess we’ll see. =Oa Hopefully won’t be too long, especially with their teaser. lol

I’m on the fence about who it is, except no, I REALLY don’t think it’s Kyrano. It’s all in the accents... Kayo and the Hood are decidedly from the UK so I rather doubt Kyrano would have a decidedly American one. lol That just would seem... odd. Part of me is wondering if it’s Jeff, but obviously it’s a bit... not rich enough to seem quite like Jeff, although it is pretty heavily radio distorted, but still. Erf. It also might be a bit TOO accented compared to the boys... ANYHOO, I guess we’ll see, anyways.

SO YEAH. Uh. tl;dr? I LIKED THIS EP A LOT AND VIRG IS ADORBS. 8Db

(Boy, I hope this’ll actually post and not error or something...)

[rennyji]

about party schools and proof and effect of their reputation...

May 27th tweets...

The reputed party school wants to spend 11 years wondering why “I don’t go out” in the sense of bars/partying. For their personalities or the kids they’re used to, from the low grade requirements for their school(nothing against anyone for getting admission there), -

-I suppose it’s to be expected. With my grades at Iona Prep High School, I had scholarships with free laptops at some decent private schools. But I chose to go to the Harvard of the SUNY’s: Binghamton University. -

-I transferred out, because I wanted a fresh start with a new major, late in my academic career, after an attempt at electricalEngineering. The only place that’d take me is a reputed party school. Theyre probably like F* you in reading this, but being the truth, it’s undeniable.-

-And at that point in my academic career, I thought, what's in a name to a school or its reputation. But look what happens when you go to some places. Leaving Binghamton was the worst decision for so many normal/abnormal reasons. -

- i mean, for one thing, your grades reflect on the kind of person you are. it can say your hard working, or equally smart but just want to take it easy and do things like party and alcohol and drugs all day. but different story, moving on...-

-I used to spend a lot of time in computer science lounge and in the faculty department common room, at said party school. Despite me being there almost everyday, and at the Starbucks in Colonie, NY for networking, where this location is at the center of multiple Universities,-

-the professors who had a role in this, sided with random kids they don’t see in that area often. I guess it’s because they partied and I studied. “Sided “in that they listened to random kids who don’t know me, rather than talk to the guy in their vicinity on a daily basis. -

-Such is the reputed party school. While in the common area, I heard one of their professors say, they take as many kids from a local community college: Hudson Valley, to boost their graduation rates. -

-I guess they don’t get the kids they need for that in normal admissions at a reputed party school. As I hear them talking sometimes, while making me look crazy for it, you should have heard their astonishment at the Binghamton common computer area in comparison to what they-

-have at their reputed party school. It says a lot about reputations. The orchestrators try to make it seem like, the way I am in a ridiculous situation(probably filmed or the equivalent all day), while living with my parents, is how I am. -

- They’ve been doing this for 11 years, after robbing me of my opportunities for 11 years. I had a life before this, and I intend to continue to, after, with my own network, family, etc, away from these orchestrators and their craziness.-

- &another thing, regarding the party school, think im just saying things? check the books. and are their graduates or students going to get mad at me, despite the school's clear role and for calling the students equally smart, a number of tweets ago? well, oops, OK..moving on.-

moving onto addressing something else...-

-The orchestrators are always misusing people under the pretense that I’m a picked on kid. I’m a successful, grown man. -

-Not because I’m conceited,  but from life experience, I wrote 11 yrs ago: “I’m not the last person people harass, but I’m also far from the first.” When it happens, with my image (while chubby, and not handsome now), I know somethings up. -

-Try me, and be direct about it, rather than do something ridiculous from afar. I don’t waste time on idiots. -

-The orchestrators perpetuate and take part, and make official and global, a small rumor of a girl I don’t know or knows me (or her misguided teenage friends who also don’t know me nor do I know them-big theme in this, with all involved) from 11 years ago.-

-The only thing that ever harmed me, abused me, or robbed me of health and opportunities, is the orchestrators. -

-Teenage kids have no power. Whatever effect they have dies down. It takes something big or reputable (like adults of a particular standing) to give their ideology power. -

-These adults...I don’t know them, they don’t know me...I don’t understand their 11 year project/vendetta/-whatever this massive lie is, against me. Maybe it started with just wanting to make money off of me and my life and my lifestyle. -

-In trying to address this 11 year problem, my true focus: my career, gets hidden, and you end up thinking I’m taking part, or after the cr*p-ola of the orchestrators. I’m big on what’s natural. -

-Anywho, I wrote this 1st in the “Notes app” on my iPhone yesterday, to publish on Twitter & tumbler today, in case I forgot. - in case todays posting was seen earlier...think it happens to emails sent to myself and other things...-

-Focus on what’s 4 each day on Twitter &tumbler, despite what cannot be helped i.e. the random relaying of everything @ any time, since no 1 helps me stop it by talking 2 me. Imagine what would happen if you told me-the power to save myself...what a great thing you'd be doing...

about that party school? before things escalated, as soon as I noticed the potential for a problem behind a situation occurring without telling me, I went to their Conflict Resolution office at their school and told them about my concerns and what I noticed-

- the next day, the guy that spoke to me, walks in a different direction, from a small distance, forces a head turn, and gives me a retarded smile. -

-Despite my "reporting things" like one does to the police in the face of a problem, that school went crazy against me on the day of my 2012 finals. can you imagine a school allowed to go nuts on the day of a student's final exams? -

-once again, goes back to the talk about reputations from several tweets ago - this morning. Ur reputation is who you are and reflects in your actions...and here we're dealing with a reputed party school...while they slander my reputation by putting me in retarded predicaments.-

- so many bad experiences with students and faculty at that school...in the first dorm suite i lived in, 5 guys pushed me into my room for pushing them back alone, by myself, for telling them to pitch in cleaning-

-&one of them - a stupid fraternity idiot - rushed to tell on me, saying i punched him. in a part time job, i told  the guy i was working w/to teach me the trade or get the phone in my cubicle working in an area with no cell reception. he just responds nastily and it culminates-

- on another occassion, i locked myself out of my room in a different dorm suite, b4 going to my next part time job, which was in their down town. took the highway to get there. went to the faculty and told them my problem - that i had work, can't be late, need to get in my room-

-they tell me that i have to wait 2 hours b/c that's when their services are officially available. what if it was class & i needed my backpack? when they eventually agreed 2 help me, the woman i was speaking with, probably saw me going to my dorm building, -

-& she drives around &past me w/a nasty look to spite me 4asking them, when saying she'll go to my room and unlock it. when i think i went back to their office &told them about it, she claims she went to my building &waited, but i didn't show up. i saw her drive in a circle.

- and that second part time job...to prove myself useful when things weren't busy with a computer job, i would, alone, move big shelves, i think desks, &other furniture, down a floor or two. It was a gesture on my part after hearing them talk about no one clearing their office-

-after the things i did for them, i emailed them if they knew anything about this, &never a response. -

this is the party school now wondering about why i'm not out, socializing, getting laid all day/everyday, hitting the bars, or whatever. To the orchestrators: leave my life alone. They're so much proof to all this...i guess amidst everything else, maybe they can see memories...-

- i mean would it kill these people to go the conventional route and use a lie detector with all involved? It's so easy to clear this up. Based on what I truly want for my life, all of this is a mess.

- based on tech they use, in claiming 2 help me(when i need no help aside from telling me whats happening), they try to justify lies 2slander me or try to get me 2write all day. They perpetuate nonsense 2get me 2write, 2 I guess, see if they can predict it-to put it another way.

and going back to conflict resolution at the party school? there was one thing i forgot to mention. not only did he allow this to transpire without telling me. -

-on the day of my exams, when the sounds projected 2 me, made threats 2 a relative of mine, there, by saying "maybe we should help him too", I called Conflict Resolution @ party school several times. They wouldn't pick up. I think I left messages, but no call back. -

- in the face of harassment, threats, evolving to what it is today, under a false impression by people of power, such is the party school.

- U gotta wonder amidst yrs of this mental strain, especially at party school, where was cr*p flowery Amerian psychology/counseling system, what was the school's Conflict Resolution doing. -

-at that party school, failures all around..at the time I was there, academic departments were closing like i think their French department. but whatever. orchestrators are people in power, parading as those of quality, when they're not. 11 years of torture attest to that.

and one normal tweet for when we can move past this...-

love the @onepeloton (peloton). love #leannehainsby (cycling trainer) for her appearance, personality, and training.

[nardaviel]

Part 3 / ?, wherein they go camping, much to Kinshirou’s dismay.

This is a long, image-heavy post. I’ve had it ready since like December but I never bothered to post it until now because I stopped playing the game for a while and I’m lazy. If you’re reading this on my blog and it’s done the obnoxious thing where it doesn’t show readmores, just click the date <3

You probably don’t remember where we left off because it’s been ages since the last post. I didn’t remember either. En had just gotten his second promotion in a few days; the game continued to insist on sending him home from work in an awkward outfit on promotion days. Kinshirou had just published his etiquette manual, and I had finally learned how to keep Atsushi from being miserable when he got home from work. However, En and Atsushi’s work schedules still kept them from spending much time together as a group.

En’s latest work of art is a beautiful, subtle masterpiece. I know that because I, an ignorant philistine, see the art of a 6-year-old, but an art gallery was interested enough to pay $50 more than he usually gets for large paintings.

This is kind of sweet, but he and En aren’t even engaged yet. Calm down, Kinshirou. It’s amazing how well the game knows them asd;lfk

Atsushi has been promoted to caterer!! A $10/hour raise so that his hourly wage is no longer a pittance, a $368 bonus, and a coffeepot. His work hours start an hour earlier and end two hours earlier, which still isn’t very good :\ but look, he’s so proud of himself.

To get to the next level of his career, he has to start learning to mix drinks. I’ve dreaded this moment because the last time I bought someone a bar to level mixology, they never wanted to do anything else again except mix drinks. I took it away in the end.

Kinshirou wakes up, sees that En’s gone, and goes to find him in the bathroom just so that he can kiss his cheek.

Since he’s awake now anyway, En paints an Enatsu painting and then a Kinatsuen painting, one after another. I can’t bring myself to sell either of them. The Kinatsuen one is going to stay where it is, but I’m putting the Enatsu one in Atsushi’s room, because it’s kind of bare at the moment.

En’s suave kiss is different than Kinshirou’s was. I assume it’s because he and Atsushi aren’t boyfriends yet? But Atsushi still seems charmed.

And now that they’ve drawn my attention to that oversight, Atsushi asks En to be his boyfriend.

You can imagine your own dialogue here. You’re all so dirty-minded.

En is into it, though.

He immediately kisses Atsushi on the cheek. I’m glad all the Sims think that’s as cute as I do.

Now they can all go on a much-deserved(???) vacation :D En and Atsushi have to take some vacation days to do it, but they want to spend some time together as a triad.

They’re going camping! For four days. It’s cheap, and they’re still a little broke. En and Atsushi are nervous, but willing to give it a try. Kinshirou...

..yeah.

Their home away from home. There are cabins and houses you can rent, but... like I said. They’re broke.

Kinshirou decides to start his vacation by practicing horseshoes. If this is all they have for entertainment, he’s going to master it.

But En doesn’t like that attitude.

En: Come on, cheer up, it’ll be fun. Kinshirou: Hmm... Maybe so, then.

Kinshirou: ...but I’ll still win at this game. Move.

As you can see behind them, Atsushi has been setting up their tents.

He’s also the only one to introduce himself to the park ranger. In other words, he continues to be the only useful Sim.

En is a miracle worker wtf

Once Atsushi’s done the boring stuff, he can join his boyfriends and spend his time being cute and flirty, as was the point of this vacation.

Kinshirou lights the fire for no reason. You’d think after part two, he’d have seen enough fire.

En... get up. What if Atsushi drops that horseshoe?

He does get up, finally. He has important painting to do.

Yes, I did add the easel to the lot before I brought them here. This vacation is costing $3 more per night than it otherwise would have.

So much excitement for a mediocre toss. And Atsushi can’t pretend to be impressed because he’s besieged by bugs.

Maybe En is trying to develop a style reminiscent of a young child’s?

Meanwhile, Kinshirou is still struggling with horseshoes.

So it’s easy, but you’re still bad at it? Got it.

Atsushi reassures him until he’s not embarrassed anymore...

...so now snobbish boredom is his dominant emotion. Look at that face. Why does anyone tolerate him?

If you’re wondering where En went, he’s taking a shower in here.

Atsushi’s first attempt at grilling!

En is drawn back by the promise of Atsushi’s excellent-quality(!!) baked potatoes. They’re sparkling! Atsushi’s so happy :D

Happy boyfriends, although Atsushi is again plagued by bugs.

Help him

Kinshirou wanders off in the middle of a conversation and goes to sleep. En is glad to have an excuse to do to the same.

Atsushi goes to the bathroom, but doesn’t return. When I check on him, I find him like this:

He’s stargazing. <3 But that’s not the spot I would have chosen, myself.

The next morning, Atsushi happily makes breakfast. He seems to be moving past any fire-related trauma from his near-death experience in part two.

Kinshirou also goes to the bathroom and doesn’t return. When I find him, not only is he making unnecessary food, he’s making exactly the same thing as Atsushi, except

wth a lot less skill behind it.

He burns himself. :c Just go eat breakfast with the others, Kinshirou.

Kinshirou: En, isn’t Atchan wonderful? He makes the best food, and he’s always so kind...

En: Yeah, you’re right. Atsushi’s great.

Atsushi looks so embarrassed... Change the subject, guys.

They’ve ventured out to the national park! They’re learning how to fish in case Atsushi ever wants to use fish in a meal.

They keep gaining friendship with each other and with this girl, even though none of them have said a word. Maybe words aren’t necessary when you’re fishing buddies.

Kinshirou catches two fish before either of the others catch anything. So when Atsushi catches one...

...he’s super excited.

Finally, to En’s incredulous annoyance, it becomes clear that he won’t catch anything in that spot.

Poor En-chan.

...poor En-chan.

There, back to normal.

Before they give up altogether on En learning to fish, they’ll try this one other spot. I just really want En to learn how to fish a;lskjf ...but the fish are too crafty for him here, too.

This is the face of a man who no longer cares.

Catching the fish made Atsushi confident, so he decides that En will be real impressed if he shows off his muscles. ...It’s sweet of En to humor him.

I see you back there, bear man. Fuck off.

I said fuck off.

If the last screenshot had you wondering, Kinshirou is telling an unbelievable story.

God damn it they’re all tense now

Kinshirou mocks the bear costume because I’m annoyed he’s annoyed about the situation. Then the three of them leave, so that they aren’t tense anymore.

Atsushi cooks his fish while En entertains them all with an adventure story :D

He follows up with a ghost story. Atsushi hangs on his every word.

Kinshirou chooses to find it amusing.

................ I forgot that ghost stories summon ghosts.

Oops.

He doesn’t stay long, though. The ghost that haunts the picnic table...

What has En done?!

En: Holy shit, my bad. Kinshirou: Well done, En. Good job.

Atsushi, in the background, is preoccupied. He’s exposing himself to the source of his fears in order to lessen the fear. No ghosts will get in the way of his exposure therapy.

They go back to their campsite, where the ghost is not. Kinshirou hopes that if he goes to sleep, he’ll be less freaked out about the ghost in the morning. En has other ideas for how to dispel his tension. Atsushi never even noticed the ghost to begin with, but he’s happy to go along with En.

...at which point I remember that this is the first Enatsu WooHoo! Congrats, guys. They get a happy moodlet from good WooHoo, as well, like En and Kinshirou did that once (except theirs was from “spectacular” WooHoo but ok whatever).

Kinshirou and Atsushi have never had a WooHoo so good they got a happy moodlet. I guess En is just really good at WooHoo.

Morning activities c:

Atsushi made this meal twice and it was poor quality both times. Fish tacos 2.0. At least he’s not so heartbroken about it this time.

This screenshot has no narrative value. I just thought it was cute.

The food was so bad it made them all feel sick... Oh, well. Atsushi is still learning.

En... I know you’re a slob, but there are limits...

“From the moist depths of the trash, En has recovered: 1 baconite.” Congratulations, En. Was it worth it.

It wouldn’t be a Kinatsuen Sims post without a screenshot of Atsushi looking distressed. This is why I put you in your tent to relax, Atsushi!! Just rest for a little while, you’ll feel better soon.

He takes it out on the bugs instead. I guess that works too.

This is the moodlet Kinshirou got after he and Atsushi WooHooed:

But this is Atsushi’s:

Kinshirou, you worry too much. Atsushi liked it, see? It looks like I spoke too soon about no happy moodlets from Kinatsu WooHoo, although it’d have been nice if they’d both gotten it.

But Kinshirou must not be too mortified, because he accepts Atsushi’s offer to be BFFs.

...and only afterwards did I realize that you can’t have multiple BFFs, and there’s no mod to make it possible. I guess it doesn’t matter too much, but poor En.

This is the only couple that hasn’t WooHooed in a tent yet. They should have a turn.

...but really that’s only an excuse to get them doing something else so that Atsushi can wander off and harvest wild things guilt-free. I want him to learn herbalism.

He identifies things by eating them, which makes me nervous. But the WooHoo back there seems to be going well.

lol.

Kinshirou now has two concurrent WooHoo moodlets. I’m proud of him.

Desperate for culture and civilization, he decides to view this big statue. But the bugs have other plans.

Dont look so resigned, En. Maybe it’ll go better this time.

(It did go better! He caught a fish. But I was following Kinshirou around in his herbalism journey and missed it.)

This again... If they can’t learn that every time you poke a fire with a stick, the stick catches fire, maybe they should just stay away from fire.

Because En is a lazy Sim, he doesn't jog when he has to go long distances like the other two do. As a result, it takes him a million years to go places. They all started to head back to the campsite at the same time, but Atsushi has already cooked and eaten dinner, and Kinshirou has burned a stick as well, by the time En deigns to show up.

After dinner, Atsushi asks Kinshirou to go stargazing. <3

There aren’t many screenshots for the next day because they don’t do much of anything interesting. That’s largely because they sleep very late.

Kinshirou, pls

This is not the time to hit on Atsushi. Atsushi is fighting the eternal battle against the bugs.

Or so I would have said, but whatever En does here, he manages to get Atsushi’s attention.

...then he turns and starts talking to Kinshirou asldjkf

Atsushi: Hey... En-chan... I’m still up for... you know... you didn’t forget already, did you?

They all keep rolling whims to get married to each other but hey don’t have enough money or friends for a nice wedding yet asdl;jfk and they would be sad in the end if they had the quick, boring type of Sim wedding. They’ll have to daydream quietly about it for a little while longer.

En ends the trip with another story. Not a ghost story this time, though. He learned his lesson. This is a fairytale. Soon afterwards, when he and Kinshirou are stargazing, Kinshirou gets homesick :C Poor baby, he’s not meant for camping.

The next day, without fanfare or screenshots, they head home. I think their vacation was good for them, but Atsushi has no vacation days left, so lets hope he doesn't set himself on fire again before he earns another one.

Will they ever get to see the community lots built and chosen especially for them? Will they get a cat? Will I, in fact, pick up The Sims again at all? When in the world will En and Atsushi have compatible work schedules so that they don’t have to run away into the wilderness to be together? Only time will tell.

Epilogue:

The lion is En’s idea of a painting that inspires confidence.

[pinkmilkyblue]

Sonnet 34: A Rotten Prequel (Nick's P.O.V.)

Hello everyone! I hope you enjoyed the previous chapter… Now here’s the second one! Sorry if anything is ooc or inaccurate (especially the play scene that I’ll talk more about later). Please feel free to leave any comments or suggestions! It would help me a lot. This is the fun and silly chapter so enjoy!!

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 2

Soon enough, it was morning. The skies were clear and the birds were chirping; a great way to start the day. I got up and I was instantly greeted by our newest member. “Good morning, Mr. Bottom!”

“Morning, William. How was your sleep?” I asked, still trying wake myself up. “It was fine. Didn’t really get much sleep. I was too nervous for my first day in the troupe.” he confessed.

“You’ll do fine.” I reassured him, despite not being the best at advice. He seemed to take it though. Once Nigel woke up, we had a light breakfast and headed downstairs to the theatre.

After a couple of minutes, the rest of the troupe arrived. They all gathered around me as I passed a copy of the script to each member. Then, I cleared my throat so the troupe could settle down. It worked. I had their full attention.

“Hello everyone. I’m glad you could all make it today.” I said. “As you can see, we have a new member.” I added before pointing to Will who was standing beside me. All eyes turned to him. “He will be part of this production from now on, so I think it would best if he introduced himself.”

William took a deep breath. He flashed a confident smile and said, “Hello, fellow actors. I am William Shakespeare, but you may call me Will. I come all the way from Stratford-upon-Avon and I am now sixteen years old. It is an honor to be a part of your troupe and I cannot wait to begin rehearsing.”

The actors started whispering, mumbling and even nodding in approval. They took turns to shake Will’s hand as he grinned before joining their circle.

Once that was over, I began to assign roles. The play was in two weeks, and we had to get started. We were doing a little play that I wrote called, The Tale of Thomas and Celeste. The two main roles of Thomas and Celeste went to Will and troupe member Robin respectively. Both actors were thrilled to hear they got the leads.

Then, we started reading lines. Nigel sat on a chair to watch while playing with some of the props.

As expected, the entire troupe gaped in awe of William’s acting. Though, what I didn’t expect was how much they would admire him. It was only his first day yet it seemed like he’d been acting for years.

Everything was going well so far. At this rate, we would surely be ready to open in two weeks time.

We took a lunch break at around noon. Nigel joined us on stage to eat. He went up to Will and commended him on his first reading. The young actor smiled and told my brother it was nothing.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. “I’ll get it.” I said, leaving Nigel with Will before answering it.

I opened the door and in front of me was a man carrying a huge crate. “Delivery for the Bottoms.” he announced.

“That would be us.” I led the man inside.

“Please sign here.” he said, handing me a quill and a piece of parchment which I took and signed. The delivery man thanked me and left as I returned inside.

The rest of the troupe, on the other hand, noticed the big crate in front of me and began to gather around. “Our costumes are here!” someone shouted, causing everyone to crowd around the box. 

Immediately, all the actors were passing and throwing their costumes around. It was like a marketplace! I had no control whatsoever. Whatever title of leader I possessed was ignored completely. I just stood there and hoped none of the costumes would get damaged.

Once everyone finally had their costumes, I let out a sigh of relief. The troupe settled down and started trying them on.

To my surprise, I spotted Will near the crate still searching for his. I approached him and said, “Is something wrong?”

“I can’t find mine.” he frowned.

Then it hit me. I forgot to let the tailor know that we had a new member! But, I couldn’t just tell him, “Hey, Will. I forgot to get you a costume because you didn’t exist before. Oops!”

I didn’t want him to feel bad. The poor guy had only been here one day. He needed a proper welcome. So instead, I turned to him and said, “Actually, your costume isn’t here right now.”

He raised a brow. I had to think of something and fast. Since the rest of the troupe obviously had no plans of continuing rehearsal any further, I decided to dismiss them. Then, I went back to Will and smiled, “Come on, William. We’re going shopping!”

“I want to come! Please!” Nigel exclaimed, tugging on my sleeve. I laughed, then carried the child.

“Wait. Shopping?” Will asked, confused.

“Yes. You heard me correctly.” I answered. “Since you’re new here, I thought it would be best to let you choose your own costume.”

William’s face lit up. He grinned widely and happily skipped upstairs to get his jacket. Nigel also hurried to our room to retrieve his satchel, while I reluctantly grabbed some of our theatre savings and got ready to leave.

We proceeded outside with Nigel on my back. The three of us strolled down the streets of London. It was a nice day. Last night’s storm seemed like it never happened. The weather was just perfect. Nigel even got off my shoulders to chase a butterfly. Will and I ran after him too until we eventually reached the store. It wasn’t too big, but there was still a lot to choose from.

“Hello, Mr. Bottom. How may I help you?” the store clerk greeted.

“We need a costume for this young man.” I said, gesturing to William who was beside me. The clerk brought us to the fitting room and offered various outfits.

William seemed to enjoy modeling and posing in front of us. Nigel enjoyed this immensely. So did I. Will came out with a different look each time. From a jester, King, peasant to even a witch, he certainly entertained us with all his goofing around. It had been a while since I let myself have fun for once. I was on all fours laughing when he came out with a donkey’s head. Our laughter was so loud, that we may have annoyed the clerk…

Finally, William chose a costume. It was a black Prince outfit with a matching crown. We spent nearly an hour joking around and it was unfortunate that we had to go. I paid the clerk and thanked him for his service.

However, before exiting the store, I spotted a collar on one of the shelves. It was made of white lace and it was very frilly. In fact, it was really quite silly. I never understood why most people chose to wear one…

The other two exited the door as I stayed behind for a while. I quickly purchased the collar and caught up to them outside. Nigel was now on Will’s back and they were still laughing about what happened earlier. I called out to them. They turned around and stopped to wait for me. “What took you so long, Mr. Bottom?” Will asked.

“I bought you a little something.” I replied, handing him the collar.

He laughed. “You didn’t have to buy me a… um… silly looking collar.”

“Exactly. This should remind you of all the silliness we had to go through just to find you a costume.” I grinned slyly.

Nigel put it on his neck and giggled. “It looks perfect!” he concluded.

“Yes it does.” I agreed, laughing slightly.

Will smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Bottom. This means a lot.” he said, stroking his new collar fondly.

“Seriously?” I frowned. “I just gave you a present… How many times do I have to tell you to call me Nick?” I rolled my eyes.

Will did the same. “Fine. Thank you, Nick. I’ll cherish it forever.” he smiled. I smiled back. With that, we headed home.

Will and I began to get along from then on. The next two weeks were tiring, but still fun. Will started to gain lots more confidence being in the troupe. Maybe it was all their admiration, or constant praises. Who knows? But all rehearsals went smoothly and Will was part of it all.

However, the day before opening night, I entered the theatre with the troupe in chaos. Everyone was either panicking or complaining to one another as I stood there, very confused. I could barely hear myself think. To settle this, I stepped on a stool and shouted, “QUIET!”

The room went silent.

“Thank you.” I said, relieved. “Now, can somebody please tell me what on earth is going on?”

Then, a member of the troupe stepped out of the crowd and said, “Nick, I’m afraid Robin is ill. And no one else can replace him. Nobody knows his lines.”

Great. Now what? Where are we going to find another actor? I thought to myself.

Suddenly, from behind me, as though he read my mind, I heard Nigel say, “Nick can do it!”

My eyes widened and darted to Will, who was just as shocked as me. “Wait. What?!” we both chorused.

“I said, Nick can do it! He wrote it, so he memorizes every line.” my brother repeated.

“B-but, I-”

“The play is tomorrow! We don’t have time to look for another actor.” another member pointed out.

I thought about it for a while. From the corner of my eye I could see Will. I could only imagine how uncomfortable he was with the situation at hand. I looked back at him, but he quickly turned the other away to avoid eye contact. The show had to go on, right?

“Alright, I’ll do it.” I groaned.

Everyone cheered.

“But,” I added as the cheering immediately stopped. “Only if it’s okay with Will.” I finished.

They all stared at William who now had to make a decision. After a few seconds he sighed in defeat and shrugged, “It’s fine with me.”

We both exchanged looks. What had we just gotten ourselves into? “Alright then. Let’s do this.” I said reluctantly to the troupe’s delight.

We first rehearsed the scene where Prince Thomas and Princess Celeste meet. The lights dimmed and the background set twinkled to represent the evening. William got into his costume, while I put on a curly blonde wig along with a periwinkle gown and some make up. I had played women in plays before, but this was all so sudden. And I was paired up with someone who I’d only known for two weeks. Sure, we were much closer than the rest of the troupe, but was that really the problem?

Nigel gave the signal, and both of us entered the stage to start rehearsing.

I bumped into Will after supposedly running from thieves.

“Madame, why art thou running?” he asked me in concern.

“Good sir, thieves desire to taketh my things. Will thou help me?” I asked in a high-pitched voice.

“Of course, fair….er….maiden. Follow me.” William offered, trying very hard not to break character. Then, he took me by the hand and we rushed off stage.

After the set changed, we entered the stage which was now the palace garden. “Thou may stayest with me o'er here in this sweet rose garden.” said William.

“What is thy name?” I asked him.

“Prince Thomas. And what is thine, fair lady?” he charmed, kissing my hand.

“Celeste. Princess Celeste.” I replied.

“Thou art more beautiful than all the stars in the sky.” he declared.

“Thou art too kind, sir.” I said, pretending to blush.

“Will thou give me the pleasure of a dance?” William asked, offering me his hand.

I froze.

“Sorry, what?” I said in disbelief.

“Will thou danceth with me?” he repeated, trying to keep the rehearsal going.

“N-No!” I refused, completely ignoring the girly-act.

“Nick! It’s part of the script, remember?” Nigel whispered loudly from the wings of the theatre.

I soon realized he was right. “Sorry… I just panicked a bit.” I apologized, scratching my head in embarrassment. What was wrong with me today? I never messed up that bad.

“It’s alright, Nick. Just continue when you’re ready.” my brother smiled encouragingly.

“Alright.” I said as I turned back to Will who was laughing. “Stop it.” I frowned.

“I hope you know how to dance.” he smirked.

“The question is, do you?” I smirked back.

We got into position and he repeated his line, “Will thou give me the pleasure of a dance?”

“Most certainly.” I answered with a slight grin.

I took his hand, curtsied and began to waltz around the stage. We spun, twirled and danced to the music. Luckily, no toes were stepped on. He was quite the dancer. Finally, the last note played and we stopped.

“That was most delightful.” I panted, grinning widely. Will smiled.

Then, to my complete and utter shock, he leaned in closer. And closer and closer until his face was only a breath away from mine. I could feel my face turning red. 

A smile crept up his face as he softly whispered, “Indeed it w– Nick! Are you blushing?” Will pulled away incredulously.

I blinked several times to get myself back together. “N-no I’m n-not.” I stammered nervously.

“Yes, you are!” he teased.

I punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Whatever. I freaked out alright!” I defended. “Why didn’t anyone warn me?!” I asked.

“It’s in the script!” he snickered.

“No it wasn’t!” I argued.

“T-Technically, it was Nick.” Nigel pointed out.

“The lights were supposed to turn off the moment I said my line, but I guess some people,” said Will, glaring at those in charge of lighting, “thought it would be funny if I kissed you.” he explained.

“Thanks a lot…” I said sarcastically. Will laughed again for before ruffling my hair and walking away looking very pleased.

“Let’s take a break.” I sighed, still very shaken by the whole thing. The troupe agreed and began to disperse from the stage too.

After the break, the rest of the scenes went pretty well. That’s probably because this time, I actually re-read the script. I couldn’t understand why I had forgotten it all in the first place! No more surprises. Except for the final scene.

Will was lying on the floor, ‘stabbed’ by a jealous suitor, while I rushed to his aid. “Thomas!” I cried, kneeling beside him.

“My love, thou must leave. Thy safety is far more valuable.” he coughed hoarsely.

“I cannot. Thou will die.” I told him.

“I shall not die in thy heart. Spreadeth our love where it may live for eternity.” he smiled weakly.

“I will.” I promised.

“I love thee.” he said, before closing his eyes.

This was the time where I supposedly cried and kissed him on the forehead. So I bent down slowly and kissed his forehead lightly. Suddenly, Will woke up with a start. He stared at me in astonishment.

“Is that supposed to happen?” I asked in confusion.

“I-I didn’t think you’d actually k-kiss me!” he flustered, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. I laughed. So did Nigel. “Well, now you know how I feel.”

Will rolled his eyes and said, “Whatever. Let’s just end this rehearsal.” before lying back down to his original position.

Once he was ready he repeated, “I love thee” again and closed his eyes. I bent down once more and kissed his head then said, “I will always love thee,” before hugging him closely.

The curtain fell and the lights went out. The second the curtains touched the ground, Will and I separated instantly.

“We did it!” I cheered.

“That wasn’t even the final play…” he groaned.

“But we did it!” I grinned happily.

“Yeah… I guess we did.” he grinned back.

“We should really have backup actors.” I pointed out. “Actually, I think all theatres need them.”

Will nodded profoundly.

From out of the wings, Nigel ran towards us and wrapped us both in a big hug. “You two did great!” he exclaimed excitedly. “I mean Nick could’ve tried harder at first, but it was still great!”

“Thank you, Nigel.” we smiled.

“You did well today, Will.” I told him.

“You weren’t bad yourself.” he replied with a grin. “Not bad at all, Nick…. Or shall I say, Nicky.” he added, smirking.

“Nicky?” I raised a brow.

“Nicky the sweet fair maiden.” he laughed.

Nigel snickered too. I rolled my eyes. “Don’t ever call me that.” I frowned.

“Too late, Nicky. I think making you blush has just become one of my greatest achievements as an actor. Sorry!” he teased.

I sighed in defeat. There was nothing I could do about it, so I just let him be. I thanked the rest of the troupe as they all left the theatre. It was very late. Almost midnight actually.

I yawned. “We should probably head to bed… ” I told Nigel. But when I turned around, to my surprise, he was already asleep on Will’s lap.

“Oh.” I said.

“He just fell asleep immediately.” Will chuckled.

“Sorry ‘bout that.” I whispered.

“It’s not a problem at all.” he replied.

“Why don’t you stay at our place again? I’ll bring the sleeping bags and mattress down here. We can camp on the stage.” I shrugged.

“That would be wonderful.” he agreed.

I rushed upstairs and brought down the mattress and sleeping bags along with blankets and pillows. Carefully, we placed Nigel on the mattress and tucked him in. Then, Will and I got into a sleeping bag each and gazed up at the ceiling.

“Will?” I whispered.

“Yes?” he answered quietly.

“Thanks.”

“For what?”

“For being here. It has always just been me and Nigel. He’s all I’ve got. But now, at least I can count on someone else to take care of him when I’m not around.” I replied with a smile.

“Anytime, Nicky.” he smiled back.

That night, I fell asleep with a smile on my face, knowing I had found my best friend. I could tell this was the start of a new friendship. One that would last a lifetime…

NOTE: So a few notes… First, I clearly don’t have the best knowledge of Renaissance plays and the Renaissance period in general. If I were to use an actual Renaissance play, I wouldn’t be able to write the scenes well due to my limited context and background… So I made up a random little play (The Tale of Thomas and Celeste) to make up for that, but it probably isn’t all that historically accurate and stuff (especially the dialogue lol idek what I was doing anymore hehe). I hope it still made sense though! Besides, what matters is they had a show together and it was adorably hilarious :)

Which brings me to my next point: that entire part can be seen as romantic, platonic or whatever you want! It’s completely up to you. I personally read it as platonic with a bit of implied Bard Romance, and maybe even some intimidation, but that’s just my view! You can view it all sorts of ways…

Finally, before this gets way too long, thank you again for reaching the end of this chapter! There’s one more left to come so get ready for that. It’s the last chapter, but I’d love to hear your comments on this one! Tell me what you think, talk to me about my precious sons and don’t judge me too hard on the play part… I really tried T_T

Thanks for reading again!!

[rebeccahpedersen]

Does Drastically Under-Pricing Still Work?

TorontoRealtyBlog

Does anybody still read the newspaper?

And no, I don’t mean online.  I mean does anybody get up in the morning, head to the front door, bend down while holding a cup of coffee, and pick up that beautiful roll of newsprint, curled inside a blue plastic bag?

I’ll admit, I stopped subscribing a while ago.  There are always those moments when you think you don’t need a subscription, and yet you still don’t cancel, for some reason.

When I got back from my Honeymoon in 2013, our front door had fourteen newspapers laying on the footstep.  Oops, I guess I forgot to pause the subscription?

But the real kicker came when I switched gyms.

For years, I read the newspaper on the stairmaster – the one with the upright handles and the curled plastic edge that made it easy to fold the paper into quarters, place it over the screen, and read even while hitting the top of the “hill” in the workout.

You know every gym has its cast of characters?  The guy that screams with every rep on the bench press, the woman that makes a “shoosh” noise with every step on the treadmill, or the guy that never touches a piece of equipment and is always talking?  Well, I was “the guy that throws newspapers.”

A 40-minute workout on “fat-burner plus,” and a full copy of the Globe & Mail meant that I was feverishly shuffling papers, and when finished, my attempt to gently place the paper on the ground often resulted in a sweat-covered newspaper being flung three machines to the left.

But I read every word, every section, every day (except for Wheels; I have no interest in cars), five days per week.

When I left Goodlife, and started CrossFit, my newspaper subscription was no longer needed.

And yet I still long for that first whiff of a fresh newspaper on a Saturday morning.

A friend of mine still reads the paper, every day (and does the crossword like he’s twice his age…), and will often say, “Hey did you read the article in the paper today about…,” and go on as though I also wake at 6:15am every day to check yesterday’s news.

My response is usually, “No, but I did read that article last night, on my phone, before bed.”

This past weekend, the article that was the subject of our back-and-forth was about under-pricing in the Toronto market.  Although it wasn’t really about under-pricing, but rather a simple “snapshot” of the market that introduced the topic of under-pricing, but didn’t really offer any analysis, or take-aways.

The article?

“Cricket Club House Gets 13 Bids; Sells $605,000 Over Asking”

First and foremost, we really see how a person that only reads headlines will never truly understand what’s going on out in the world.  This headline offers only absolute numbers, but no relative ones.

But the article goes on to describe how a house that was essentially worth $2,000,000 was priced at $1.4M, and ended up selling for, you guessed it – around $2,000,000.

The agent said, ““I knew we’d probably get $1.9-million to $1.95-million based on a couple of recent comparable sales nearby, but I priced it really low to bring people to its door.

Then added, “I see some homes in the area take multiple offers, but at most you’ll see a handful, so to get 13 is a big deal.”

Perfect.  This leads exactly into what I want to talk about today.

So first and foremost, is this agent suggesting that had the property been priced at fair market value, that it would have sold for $1.9M to $1.95M, and that the “under-pricing” by $600,000 strategy was responsible for the $50,000 – $100,000 premium?

Secondly, is producing 13 offers, on a house that’s under-listed by 40%, an accomplishment?

I’m not knocking the agents here.  These are top dogs, not just in that location, but in the GTA.

What I’m asking is: can you measure the success or failure of a massive under-pricing strategy by the number of resulting offers?

Or to take that a step further, can you actually apply a failure to the strategy if you obtain a certain number of ridiculously unacceptable offers?

I’ve written blogs before about the “strategy” involved with over-pricing, then under-pricing, and how I think it’s so incredibly see-through.  Of course, I’m putting the word strategy in parenthesis, because it’s usually anything but a strategy.  More often than not, the practice stems from inexperience, and even desperation.

Picture this: a house is listed for $1,200,000, with “Offers Any Time,” and it sits on the market for 30 days.

The listing is terminated, and the property comes back out onto the market for $999,000, with “Offers Graciously Reviewed On Thursday, October 25th At 7:00pm.”

Can this strategy really work?

Are buyers that naive?

Show me the buyer that sees the listing and says, “Wow, $999,000?  That’s a great price!”

This buyer doesn’t actually exist, right?

This strategy would never work, would it?

Well, if it didn’t, then this blog post would be going nowhere.

Late in the spring market, a colleague of mine had a listing that was rotting on the market at $1,299,000.  Four weeks, no bids, and the seller was getting anxious.

So what’s the move?  For all you armchair real estate agents, do you reduce to $1,279,000?  Does that reduction move the needle at all?  Probably not.  Wait, that’s being generous; definitely not.  Any buyer who was interested in the home anywhere near that $1,279,000 price would have come in with an offer when the property was listed at $1,299,000.

Would a reduction to $1,249,000 move the needle?

I suppose it depends on value, doesn’t it?

But in the end, my colleague decided to terminate the listing and bring the property back out at $989,900.

It was absolutely, positively, ludicrous.

What kind of buyer in 2018 would be fooled by this?  What kind of agent would bring his or her buyer through the house and allow the buyer to believe that the property was attainable at $989,900, or $1,100,000, or even $1,200,000?

What kind of buyer?  What kind of agent?

All kinds.

This strategy actually worked, and this time, I’m not putting the word strategy in parenthesis, because although it was a Plan-B, and it was borne of desperation, it worked.

It worked, really well.

Because the property didn’t just sell for “around” the original list price, ie. the $1,250,000 that the seller might have accepted, when the property was on the market for a month at $1,299,000.

No, the property sold for $1,310,000.

(gasp)

I know.

And in between being shocked at the stupidity of a buyer who paid more than the previous list price, and far more than what the buyer could have purchased the property for just ten days earlier, you’re also hating the game.

To be fair, you’re probably also hating the player.

But be honest with me for just one moment.  If you’re going to apply “fault” to this situation – that a buyer paid $1,310,000 for a house, listed at $989,900, that was listed for $1,299,000 ten days earlier, which probably could have sold for, say, $1,270,000 with ease, to whom, or what would you apply that fault?

It’s easy to blame the system, or lack thereof.

It’s easy to blame the listing agent for the tactic, er, strategy.

But isn’t it the naive buyer’s fault in the end?

Of course, that situation I just described is rare.

I just came out of a similar circumstance the other night with a very different result.

An east-end property was listed for $1,698,888, again, with no takers.  This property as well was listed for just shy of four weeks.

Low and behold, it was re-listed….wait for it……for $998,888.

Yes.  A $700,000 price reduction, now with an “offer date.”

It was the talk of the industry, for both good reasons and bad.

Cynics were staying “it’s stupid,” without straining for a deeper argument, and yet some were saying, “The agent has balls for trying this!”

Now what do you, the general public, make of this?

Would it work?

Would buyers really line up to bid on a $998,888 list-price, when the house was just listed for close to $1.7M?

No.  Not a chance.

Couldn’t happen, wouldn’t happen, should never happen.

Except that it did.

This property received thirty offers.

Thirty.

And while I’m not privy to the contents of the two-foot-high stack of offers, I would hazard a guess that there were a whole slew of $1.1’s, $1.2’s, and $1.3’s.

In the end, my buyer clients purchased the property.

That’s right, my clients “out-bid” twenty-nine other people.

Except, did they really?

They bought this house for a paltry $1,562,000.

Almost $140,000 below the original list price.

A cynic might point out that they paid almost 160% of the list price.  But does a list price really matter in this case?  The property was effectively put up for auction at $1, and we won the auction, which, I might add, was well, well below our pre-determined reserve price.

And when I say that my clients “out-bid” twenty-nine other people, and add the cynical and rhetorical question, “Did they really,” what I mean is that we were really only bidding against two other buyers.

Twenty-seven of the thirty offers were never in the game.

And how many of those thirty offers were absolute garbage?

So do you blame the listing agent and the seller for wasting the time of those buyers who submitted “garbage” offers?  Or can we buck the societal trend in 2018 and actually hold people accountable for their actions?

Sorry.  I always bring politics into it…

As far as the “drastically under-list” strategy goes, specifically after the property has already been listed once before, you can see that these situations can go either way.

Sure, I chose to write this blog after I personally represented a buyer when the situation went my way.  But the story is as fresh as your grandmother’s apple pie, so the timing seemed right.

As for the buyers out there, you now (finally!) have access to sold data, but you don’t have access to previous listings.  Make sure you know everything and everything about the property, including the listing history.

I know this is like telling somebody to wear their seat-belt in a car, but as is the case both in real life, and in real estate analogies, not everybody does the smart thing…

The post Does Drastically Under-Pricing Still Work? appeared first on Toronto Realty Blog.

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[yahoo-puck-daddy-blog]

NHL Power Rankings: Oilers suffer another setback

It might not be happening this season for the Edmonton Oilers. (Getty)

Hey everyone, we here at Puck Daddy are doing real power rankings for teams Nos. 1-31. Here they are, based on only how I am feeling about these teams, meaning you can’t tell me I’m wrong because these are my feelings and feelings can’t be wrong. Please enjoy the Power Feelings.

31. Vancouver Canucks (Last week: 28)

No wins in the last week, and everyone else near the bottom of these here rankings actually had surprisingly decent, or at least decent-for-them weeks.

Over the last week or so, there have started to be some rumblings about the possibility (perhaps probability) that Jim Benning gets a new contract outta management. This doesn’t strike me as a particularly great idea, but if the referendum is going to be “Look how he’s finding talent at the draft,” then Brock Boeser’s pretty much gonna get him that extension by himself. And I would say Benning has to return the favor in that case, but it’s starting to look like Boeser’s first non-ELC contract is gonna have a lot of zeroes on it.

30. Buffalo Sabres (LW: 26)

You gotta call it at this point. They’re not the worst team in the league but they can’t win under any circumstances. You gotta be able to find one (1) top-four defenseman this summer, right?

29. Arizona Coyotes (LW: 30)

28. Detroit Red Wings (LW: 29)

The Wings’ only loss in the past week was to Tampa, and man they played pretty damn well in that game. Just ran into a brick wall named…. Louis Domingue?

Domingue made 34 saves but wouldn’t you know it, the Wings bled scoring chances and really only got the offense looking good on the power play.

Also, their two wins were against Ottawa and Florida, so who cares.

27. Montreal Canadiens (LW: 21)

Saw this weekend where Marc Bergevin says the Habs haven’t thrown in the towel. They’re 12 points back of a divisional playoff spot, and seven back of the last wild card spot.

Even if you haven’t thrown in the towel, you might wanna get a bullpen session in sometime this week, just to get the arm warmed up.

26. Ottawa Senators (LW: 31)

The Sens scored 12 goals against the Sharks and Lightning in the past week. But also lost 2-1, to Detroit, in overtime. Oops.

25. Edmonton Oilers (LW: 20) 

Peter Chiarelli’s “This is all part of the plan!” interview yesterday was all too reminiscent of a certain cartoon dog and a cup of coffee and a room that’s on fire and the dog melts at the end.

What’s pretty cool, though, is that the knives from local media are coming out and pointed at Chiarelli. Would have thought they’d back coaching change over regime change, as is their wont, but maybe the fact that Eberle rules and Ryan Strome does not was the tipping point.

24. Calgary Flames (LW: 24)

23. Philadelphia Flyers (LW: 21)

22. Colorado Avalanche (LW: 24)

The Avs are on a bit of a tear here lately, which is really encouraging for someone who had a couple “Jared Bednar is a good coach” takes last summer. I love Nathan MacKinnon like he is my son and to see him so high in the league scoring stats is, to me, a gift.

But they’re still the Avs, y’know, so while they won a bunch of games in the past week, they also had the worst CF% number in the league over that stretch. Win some, lose some.

21. Florida Panthers (LW: 17)

Hey remember how the Panthers had that nice little winning streak headed into the new year? They got their 2018 off to a 0-2-1 start, and boy if that doesn’t sound just about right.

20. Carolina Hurricanes (LW: 20) 

19. Anaheim Ducks (LW: 22)

18. Minnesota Wild (LW: 21)

It’s weird. This team keeps winning at an okay rate despite having the actual worst possession number in the league over the course of the whole season.

Like, what goes on? It can’t all be the injuries thing, right? How is this team virtually tied for a playoff spot right now? How are the teams it’s tied with Colorado and Anaheim? Man, what a weird year.

17. New York Rangers (LW: 19)

16. New York Islanders (LW: 13)

Is anyone surprised this team is 1-3-0 since New Year’s Day? Their only win in six games since Dec. 29 was in a shootout to a sliding New Jersey team. Yikes.

15. Chicago (LW: 15)

Corey Crawford is basically the only reason this team is any good at this point in the year. So let’s see where him being out INDEFINITELY gets them!

14. New Jersey Devils (LW: 12)

13. Pittsburgh Penguins (LW: 16)

I don’t want to get too far out in front of anything here so I’m keeping the Pens relatively low here, but the Pens are now: a) in a playoff spot, b) regularly blowing out bad teams, and c) beating good ones.

Of course, they also got shut out 4-0 by the Hurricanes, so stuff happens I guess, but if the offense is coming alive at this point in the year — they have 15 goals in the last four games — and Matt Murray can keep things under control for once, I gotta say: Uh oh, the Pens might be back.

12. Los Angeles Kings (LW: 11)

11. St. Louis Blues (LW: 10)

Y’know I’m just not sure relying on a career backup to be The Guy while Goalie Of The Future Jake Allen only gets spot starts is a recipe for success going forward. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

10. Dallas Stars (LW: 12)

No matter what you think of the Stars, their blowout win over the Oilers seems to be the thing that made even the staunchest Organization Defenders in the Edmonton media go in on Chiarelli, so that’s funny and deserves a lot of credit.

Plus they have a comfortable hold on the first wild card spot in the West, so that’s nice.

9. San Jose Sharks (LW: 8)

8. Toronto Maple Leafs (LW: 9)

The Leafs have problems and everyone freaking knows that about them but it took a white-hot run from the Bruins to even pull into Toronto’s neighborhood as far as the playoff race goes. So yeah they shouldn’t be giving away as many points as they do (eight in the last five games) but for now they still control their own destiny.

If only someone would get them some help though…

7. Columbus Blue Jackets (LW: 6)

6. Boston Bruins (LW: 7)

Tuukka Rask didn’t have a great night against the Pens as the team in front of him played a back-to-back and I guarantee that was more than enough for some dummies out there to be like, “Sure he went .950-something in December but the Penguins are the reigning Cup champs so if he can’t perform in these big-game situations you gotta trade him.”

Rask isn’t exactly a Vezina guy right now (for my money it’s Vasilevskiy and no one else is close) but this team is in a playoff spot because he’s .920 on the year, full stop.

5. Nashville Predators (LW: 2)

4. Vegas Golden Knights (LW: 5)

3. Winnipeg Jets (LW: 4)

Man I forgot they signed Steve Mason at $4.1 million AAV for two years to sort out their goaltending situation. Connor Hellebuyck is playing insanely high-end hockey in a contract year, and this is a budget team. Are they gonna have to spend like $9 million on goalies next year? That’d be funny.

Anyway the team is good. Bless ’em.

2. Washington Capitals (LW: 3)

It is truly wild to me that this team leads the Metro again. Especially because their best defenseman missed 14 games.

And Holtby hasn’t even been that good this year! Ovechkin, Backstrom, and Kuznetsov are true wonders. Bless them too.

1. Tampa Bay Lightning (LW: 1)

The Bolts lost two games in a row then got outplayed in a win against Detroit. And yet, if you don’t think this is the best team in the league, you’re gonna want to consult a doctor.

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All stats via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)

More NHL coverage on Yahoo Sports: 

[rassasassalin]

So, I suppose this is a way to start the show.  Nice to see that it was just a mistake on thrusday to play out Ziggler’s theme.  And by nice, I mean awful.  I know it’s supposed to get under my skin, and it works.  Just play the damn theme.

Interesting that Baron’s seeming to start a trend of going shirtless now.  I’d be okay with him tearing his tank off each match, honestly.

Still haven’t decided if they added Ziggler in so that Bobby doesn’t have to eat a pin, or so Baron doesn’t have to.  All I know is that someone’s being protected, and it ain’t Dolph.- I SAY AS DOLPH PINS BARON??? WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL JUST HAPPENED HERE???  Ahaha, glad I don’t ever actually place bets on these things, holy shit, wow, okay, you got my attention, Clash of Champions.

Shane’s custom made Ref shirt.  I want a special referee shirt that customized towards my own themes.

SHANE YOU’VE BEEN IN MATCHES WITH TWO REFS AT THE SAME TIME WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT.

Aiden’s looking nice.  I love his jackets.  I want his jackets.

Omg listen to them chanting Rusev Day I’m so happy what a good Bulgarian.  What a happy Rusev Day to us all!  AND WE GET ALL OF THE SONG!!!!!!  A whole month or Rusev, how exciting!!!  Fuck me sideways we’re Actually Getting The Whole Song, What voodoo magic has Aiden done to allow himself to go uninterrupted?  YES I WANT AN ENCORE!!!!!!!  Oh, oh ok, i see how this is.  Gable and Benjamin running for heel tagteam of the year.  I get it.

Those fucking pancakes.  I can’t even.  They make me feel emotions that I simply don’t have the capacity to parse through and understand.

Baby boy, no, ain’t no one singing about Christmas you sillies.  Rusev Day. (good crowd interaction though i’m impressed)

(Also don’t worry Simmon in the first row, we’ll see the Ascension tonight, I almost guarantee it.  Undoubtedly when they cost Breezango a win tonight.)

This is gonna be fucking chaos, but of the impressively athletic variety.  Wonder how long it will be before Xavier gets involved, considering it’s a No DQ.

“No it’s not, it’s Training Day”- Chad Gable, 2017

Things I just realized that I would kind of enjoy- the Usos and New Day getting twin pins, and them being forced to share the Tag Team Belts.  Co-Belt defenders makes for all kind of fun shenanigans.  I look back fondly on when Jericho had to share the Intercontinental Title with Chyna.

Rusev’s face when Aiden’s super sexy pin didn’t work.

Holy SHITE GABLE that’s beautiful, rolling bridging german suplexes That’s what I signed up to See.

...Aw......  Well, it was a damn good attempt Chad.  Like that they’re letting him go out looking strong at least.

And speaking of chaotic matches.  Kinda see Natti stealing a win outta this one, but also Charlotte does have a damn good record at PPVs, soooo...  anyone’s game I guess.  Also when did we stop calling it lumberjill matches???  Did I miss the memo?  I’m cool with it, don’t particularly care either way honestly, just find it kind of odd.  Maybe because they’re afraid it’ll remind people that Jillian and her really bad pop singer gimmick was a thing.  Can’t blame you WWE, those were dark times.  Not as dark as the time that the Boogeyman ate a mole off her face, but still dark.

Fucking love Ruby’s theme, it’s great.  Also I like how all the “teams” have like, taken their own sides of the ring.  Y’all can’t do that.  There’s not enough of you to fully circle the ring, so you gotta plan smart and like, circle around it where Charlotte and Natti are gonna be.

Come on Corey, Charlotte’s not totally surrounded by enemies.  Naomi’s out there.  ehehe, nattie has 12000 cats.  best quote from corey graves of the year.

Don’t call my riot squad jackals.  They’re more like... hyena’s.  Just probably without pseudo-dicks, but definitely with all of the viciousness.

Interesting that the Riot squad’s let Natti get hit, but got a couple of little licks in on Charlotte.  Hmmm.

Yep, okay, things are about to get messy.  Carmella’s gonna be the first to be murdered.

Thank you for the Eddie quote, Corey.  Amen.

“Boo...”- Byron Saxton 2017

I can’t believe it took this long to- ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING- oh my god, thank you Ruby.  No cashing in money in the bank tonight, thank you.

Things I kinda enjoy about wrestling- when a wrestler gets a wedgie and then they try to sneakily pull it out while acting like they’re super in pain.

Not how I thought that match was gonna end, but not bad.

...Nat, you were already a heel, you’d already had your back turned to the crowd, I don’t know how that’s supposed to work???

BREEZE I AM TRYING TO BE WORRIED ABOUT YOUR HEALTH AND SAFETY HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO DO THAT WHEN I AM IN SHOCK AT THE SHORTS YOU’RE DARING TO WEAR INTO THIS RING???  Never, In ALL OF MY DAYS...!

RIP in Peace, Breezango.

Seriously, I thought for sure the Ascension was going to come out and fuck things up for them.  Or fuck them up. ...On tuesday, then.  They’ll either keep talking Breezango into trying and fight the Bludgen Bros, or they’re going to try and “defend their honor” by going up against them themselves.

How’s it gonna work with two refs, babe, honestly.  WIth Shenanigans.  It’s gonna work with shenanigans.  Also who was Sami trying to seduce at the start of this match???  Also hello again like 2013 Randy Orton Hair.

Byron “I’m a very confused boy and that makes me grumpy” Saxton.

I’m sorry, I just can’t be intimidated by heel Sami, like he’s so cute when he he’s all smug and shit like he’d have to do something seriously villainess shit to get any actual heat from me.  I’m talking like, spitting in the direction of someone’s baby level of assholery.  And I just can’t see him doing it.  So he’ll just continue to b my cute lil’ heel that could. “I think I can be bad, I think I can be bad, I think I can be bad!”

Dramatic Ref DB is great.  I love him.  I love when rasslers go in and take the Referee role, like they’re always so expressive with their gesticulations, like their such drama queens I love it.

Great camerawork, thanks, I love it when I don’t actually get to see the triangle locked in and jst get to hear about it.  After all, it’s not like I watch wrestling to actually see the moves or anything.

Honestly, if Shinsuke gets pinned tonight I’m gonna be annoyed.  I know he’s going to lose, because obviously, but like, it’s not going to hurt Randy any to eat a pin.  Wont kill his momentum.  But I feel like it could do some serious damage to Shinsuke.

Goodnight, sweet table, I knew ye well.

Ok, that was a hot powerslam by Randy, ngl.

Whoopsidaisey, here we go.  I thought it’d be Shane pushed into Daniel, but this works too.

Gasp!!!  Shane!!!!  You brought that fast count upon yourself.

Yep!  Yep!  Yep!

FUCK MY LIFE I forgot about the AJ Jinder match I turned off the app after the last match oops, ahaha, came to the realization just in time and turned it back on right as the match started ahahaaaaa says a lot about how I feel about this ppv that I totally forgot about the actual main event....

Welp, this is the best heeling that I’ve seen Jinder do so far, so respect for that.

Just noticed that the announce Desk got put back together.  That bothers me.  If it’s broken guys, leave it be.  Let it be a reminder of what happened earlier in the night, even if it was only one match earlier.

Way better ring psychology going on in this on than I thought there would be.  Ribs and legs, it’s good stuff.  Everyone came out looking better for it.  It’s nice.  Not a bad ending. -seriously hope AJ’s ribs are okay though some of those bumps looked really fucking nasty-

[beacon-of-chaos]

Defenders of Aura 2 - A Battle Century G Sequel

Session 5 We dock in the Argo's hanger. Fauna's plant mech, Wyrdwood, sends her a message: one of her passengers is dying (something I forgot from the last session: the dropship was shot down by an enemy mech during the last fight, Fauna was able to rescue the passengers before the ship crashed). Fauna focuses her magic through Wyrdwood and is able to heal the worst of the damage, allowing the injured girl to heal, though it will take time before she'll make a full recovery. Crew members arrive to put our mechs in harnesses to prepare for a warp jump. The GM describes the jump to the Nauls thusly: GM: This feels very different to how Naul warp technology works. Naul ships operate by finding etheric currents in space and riding them to their destination, much like a sailing ship using the wind to gain speed. Human ships seem to grab the currents and force them in the direction they want to go. It feels very strange. We all disembark from our mechs. Fauna immediately has a group of teenagers surrounding her, thanking her for saving them and marvelling at her magic powers. Fauna goes bright red in that very anime way. Just then we are approached by a certain man wearing a flowing red scarf. It's Juyon! He was able to avoid capture when the Argo was boarded. He's now been made the chief security officer. On the way to the bridge he tells us that after we were captured the remaining crew hidden on board were able to take back the ship and warp it away to another planet where they were able to get repairs and upgrades. We quiry how exactly they got the funds to this, but Juyon just says there's someone here who can explain it better than he can. And as we arrive on the bridge a short alien in a really big hat turns to greets us. Eric rushes to Spectre, hugging his leg. Spectre: I knew you'd be okay! Eric: I'm sorry I wasn't able to be there to help your escape. Spectre: I'm just glad you're safe. We catch up with Eric for a bit before asking about the situation. He mentions that our mysterious benefactor is on board and waiting for us. There have also been reports that the Chinese army on Aura have been subject to many hit and run attacks by a fleet of ships apparantly commanded by... Fiona. This is pretty surprising considering A) She just wanted to save her wife and kids and then leave the system and B) She only left with a couple of modified mining robots and David Washington, who was heavily drunk at the time. We head to a meeting room to meet with our benefactor. We realise we've met him before. This man was the President of Camelot, before his actions in our war got him convicted of treason. He fled capture and aided the Argo using what wealth of his he was able to escape with. The coup was started by Grand Duke Edgar Malukah, Supreme Commander of the Camelot Defence Forces (And, if memory serves, Lucis' brother, but don't quote me on that) and happened very suddenly, with many informants and supporters of the president and the Queen vanishing without a trace and many bank accounts being stopped; most likely this had been planned for a long time. The President officially asks for our help in taking back Camelot. We all agree, though Spectre seems reluctant. Sinclair tells him that saving Camelot will making finding his father easier for us in the long run. Fauna makes it clear that she is a pacifist and will help us but won't kill. We leave and now have some time to ourselves. Eric informs Spectre that a message from his father has arrived. The two quickly depart to watch it privately. The following is paraphrased: Victor: My Son. You have come so far and learned so much. I had always hoped you would be just as great a scientist as me and you have done just that. I'm proud of you. *Spectre squeezes Eric's hand a little tighter at this point* I understand you are helping to save Camelot now. This is a worthy goal and I'd like you to continue with it. We will meet again, soon enough. My research will soon be completed and I'd like you to be there when it is. Together we will change everything for the better. See you soon. Spectre also receives an encoded file from his father. None of the rest of us have seen it yet but Spectre's player was grinning when he read it. OOC: We're pretty sure it just says "Kill your friends". A message for Sinclair comes from Ajihra. She apologises for not getting a chance to catch up back on Camelot, but she would like to invite Sinclair to talk in the VR Net. The GM explains that the VR net never really took off on Camelot, so it's a safe place for us to talk. Sinclair plugs himself in and finds himself transported to a city. The buildings are old but clean and in the distance a space elevator stretches into the sky. The streets are deserted, save for one young woman: Ajihra, looking a few years older. She walks up to Sinclair and giggles. Sinclair looks down to see that he doesn't appear to have any textures yet and his entire body just has the words "Image Not Found" written over it. Sinclair: I guess I'll try and construct a body quickly. What do I roll? Intellect? Resources? GM: Charm *Sinclair rolls well and creates a slick new body made of silver* Ajihra: Looks good! Sinclair: Thanks. You too. You're looking pretty different. It hasn't been that long, has it? Ajihra: Oh, no, well, maybe in a few years this will be me. Ajihra explains that the city they are in is her home city in Uganda, back before the Chinese attacked. She asks how Sinclair is, considering his recent treatment. He admits that he's not entirely sure how he's functioning at this point. He seems to be running on will alone. Ajihra mentions her implants, a chip in her brain linked to cybernetics in her hands that give her immense control over electronic systems of all kinds. The line between flesh and machine is blurry. Perhaps Sinclair is evolving? Suddenly, time seems to stop for Sinclair, and his mysterious friend approaches. Space Face: You notice how she strives to improve herself with technology? She wants to be more like you. Tell me, what do you want to be? Sinclair: I... suppose I've never really thought about that. I've always thought of my life in terms of what my purpose and goals are. Space Face: These things are not too dissimilar. What do you want to do? Sinclair: I want to help my friends and save my home. Space Face: Think about how you can achieve those goals and what you need to be in order to do so. Sinclair: Who are you, really? Space Face: I am just a man who wants others to reach their full potential. Did you know the gods you met were once ordinary Nomads before they evolved? You have great potential... Meanwhile, in the medical bay, Fauna is acquainting herself with the medical staff when the President approaches her and asks about how she came to be arrested. She replies that she was living in an enclave of nature worshippers when she grew suspicious of the elder's activities. When she investigated him, she found that he had been selling Naul bio-tech to the humans for "experiments". It was not long after this that she was arrested and she believes the elder was behind it. President: That bio-tech is almost certainly the same that Jemiko's people were experimenting on in that base you found. It seems like your enclave will be the next place we need to investigate. Are you prepared for that? Fauna: I'm willing to help out but I'm not an expert in investigation or stealth or anything- President: I mean emotionally prepared. Fauna: ...I think so. Lucis is looking after his student rebels when Alan asks to speak with him. He apologises for his actions back in the hideout (oops, forgot to write about that too: he suggested surrendering to the enemy, claiming he wanted to keep the girls safe. Katari headbutted him. Also I'm not entirely sure that Alan's his name) though he was only doing what he thought was right. Lucis accepts his apology, though declines Alan's offer to punch him, as Katari did more than enough pain last time. Speaking of Katari, he is in a training room giving some combat lessons to some of the crew. When he asks for a volunteer it's Juyon (with Fauna temporarily back in control of him) who steps forward. What happens next is an absolutely awesome exhibition match in which Juyon runs circles around Katari, dodging nearly every attack and getting many good hits in himself, such as a jumping knee to the face (causing his player to exclaim "why weren't you this good when I was playing you!?"). Katari takes it in his stride and uses this to explain to the crew how Juyon is using his opponent's strength against him, and even lets Juyon pin him to show them how it's done, though he then shows them how to break free. Spectre is watching on the sidelines and, feeling bold, decides now would be a good time to jump Katari, despite warnings from, well, everyone. The science guy pits his mighty 2 fitness against the muscle-bound warrior's 10 and the end result is Spectre getting hung upside-down by his ankles as though he was being shaken down for his lunch money. We all have a good laugh. After Spectre has recovered we are called into the briefing room by the president. There's an incident happening on Camelot, near Fauna's enclave. A group of mechs are using chainsaws and flamethrowers to destroy the nearby forest. This seems like a great opportunity to jump in and put ourselves in good stead with the enclave members for our investigation. We are to drop soon. And by 'drop' he means that because the Argo can't afford to land or stay in orbit long enough for a dropship to drop us off, we'll be making reentry with our mechs. Sinclair and Spectre point out they've done it before and it wasn't fun. The others get a quick crash course in the VR simulators. Katari will be staying inside Fauna's mech until landing as he doesn't pilot Razorinth- he rides on top. Sinclair: I feel like riding your pet into a mech battle is a bad idea. Katari: He's not my pet, he's my partner. The time comes. The Argo drops out of hyperspeed, drops us down, and warps away again before the defence forces can track it. We land exactly on target, right near the mechs tearing the forest apart. Lucis' scanner detect that these are unmanned mechs being controlled from somewhere not too far from here. At least we don't need to feel guilty about breaking them. Fauna uses her plant magic to trap two of the mechs with vines (getting a good bonus due to home terrain advantage), setting up Spectre who unleashes a mighty blast from his rail bazooka, vaporising them both. Fauna (to us): Please try not to destroy my home. Sinclair unsheathes his melee weapon, a chainsword, as he falls from orbit. The bonuses he gets are insane and he slices a mech in half, though he ends up hitting the ground so hard that Nova ends up trapped up to its elbows in mud. While Fauna attempts to extricate him, Lucis and Katari deal some heavy damage to the remaining two mechs. Once Sinclair is free, he and Spectre combine their attacks, a machine gun and a flamethrower respectively, to finish the fight. After the dust settles, we see shapes approaching us from behind the trees. They look not unlike Wyrdwood, though larger and heavily armoured. Lucis exits his mech to stand on its hand as he hails the Naul mechs with a loudspeaker, tellin them we come in peace and have rid their forest of intruders. The leader of the Naul group replies. He offers us the hospitality of his home in thanks, though we notice that he seems ill at ease, even slightly angry. We try to make the excuse that we should be looking for the pilot of these drones, but the Naul tells us that they are taking care of it. We debate as to whether we are walking into some kind of trap, but Katari asks the man to swear on his horns that he will not harm us and he agrees. Satisfied, we follow him into the enclave. We are told we will meet with the village elder. Fauna is understandably worried about what will happen, but we're with her and we'll keep her safe. The elder greets us and thanks us for our help. He speaks to Fauna, apologising for what happened. He felt he was doing the right thing in sharing knowledge with the humans, but they have turned that knowledge against the Nauls. He also says it was the humans that arrested her, not him, and that he didn't know until it was too late. Fauna is skeptical but accepts the apology. The elder asks one of his people to take us somewhere we can get food and we follow along. As we walk, however, Katari falls behind as his attention is drawn by something. He turns a corner to see a figure in the distance, a Naul wearing red. "YOUUUUUUUU!" he bellows, and races after the man. To be continued... This session was quite talky, lots of good roleplaying from everyone, hence more dialogue this time. We're on hiatus for a few weeks due to various holidays, so session 6 will be next month some time. Bonus quotes: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...&postcount=544

[rebeccahpedersen]

Does Drastically Under-Pricing Still Work?

TorontoRealtyBlog

Does anybody still read the newspaper?

And no, I don’t mean online.  I mean does anybody get up in the morning, head to the front door, bend down while holding a cup of coffee, and pick up that beautiful roll of newsprint, curled inside a blue plastic bag?

I’ll admit, I stopped subscribing a while ago.  There are always those moments when you think you don’t need a subscription, and yet you still don’t cancel, for some reason.

When I got back from my Honeymoon in 2013, our front door had fourteen newspapers laying on the footstep.  Oops, I guess I forgot to pause the subscription?

But the real kicker came when I switched gyms.

For years, I read the newspaper on the stairmaster – the one with the upright handles and the curled plastic edge that made it easy to fold the paper into quarters, place it over the screen, and read even while hitting the top of the “hill” in the workout.

You know every gym has its cast of characters?  The guy that screams with every rep on the bench press, the woman that makes a “shoosh” noise with every step on the treadmill, or the guy that never touches a piece of equipment and is always talking?  Well, I was “the guy that throws newspapers.”

A 40-minute workout on “fat-burner plus,” and a full copy of the Globe & Mail meant that I was feverishly shuffling papers, and when finished, my attempt to gently place the paper on the ground often resulted in a sweat-covered newspaper being flung three machines to the left.

But I read every word, every section, every day (except for Wheels; I have no interest in cars), five days per week.

When I left Goodlife, and started CrossFit, my newspaper subscription was no longer needed.

And yet I still long for that first whiff of a fresh newspaper on a Saturday morning.

A friend of mine still reads the paper, every day (and does the crossword like he’s twice his age…), and will often say, “Hey did you read the article in the paper today about…,” and go on as though I also wake at 6:15am every day to check yesterday’s news.

My response is usually, “No, but I did read that article last night, on my phone, before bed.”

This past weekend, the article that was the subject of our back-and-forth was about under-pricing in the Toronto market.  Although it wasn’t really about under-pricing, but rather a simple “snapshot” of the market that introduced the topic of under-pricing, but didn’t really offer any analysis, or take-aways.

The article?

“Cricket Club House Gets 13 Bids; Sells $605,000 Over Asking”

First and foremost, we really see how a person that only reads headlines will never truly understand what’s going on out in the world.  This headline offers only absolute numbers, but no relative ones.

But the article goes on to describe how a house that was essentially worth $2,000,000 was priced at $1.4M, and ended up selling for, you guessed it – around $2,000,000.

The agent said, ““I knew we’d probably get $1.9-million to $1.95-million based on a couple of recent comparable sales nearby, but I priced it really low to bring people to its door.

Then added, “I see some homes in the area take multiple offers, but at most you’ll see a handful, so to get 13 is a big deal.”

Perfect.  This leads exactly into what I want to talk about today.

So first and foremost, is this agent suggesting that had the property been priced at fair market value, that it would have sold for $1.9M to $1.95M, and that the “under-pricing” by $600,000 strategy was responsible for the $50,000 – $100,000 premium?

Secondly, is producing 13 offers, on a house that’s under-listed by 40%, an accomplishment?

I’m not knocking the agents here.  These are top dogs, not just in that location, but in the GTA.

What I’m asking is: can you measure the success or failure of a massive under-pricing strategy by the number of resulting offers?

Or to take that a step further, can you actually apply a failure to the strategy if you obtain a certain number of ridiculously unacceptable offers?

I’ve written blogs before about the “strategy” involved with over-pricing, then under-pricing, and how I think it’s so incredibly see-through.  Of course, I’m putting the word strategy in parenthesis, because it’s usually anything but a strategy.  More often than not, the practice stems from inexperience, and even desperation.

Picture this: a house is listed for $1,200,000, with “Offers Any Time,” and it sits on the market for 30 days.

The listing is terminated, and the property comes back out onto the market for $999,000, with “Offers Graciously Reviewed On Thursday, October 25th At 7:00pm.”

Can this strategy really work?

Are buyers that naive?

Show me the buyer that sees the listing and says, “Wow, $999,000?  That’s a great price!”

This buyer doesn’t actually exist, right?

This strategy would never work, would it?

Well, if it didn’t, then this blog post would be going nowhere.

Late in the spring market, a colleague of mine had a listing that was rotting on the market at $1,299,000.  Four weeks, no bids, and the seller was getting anxious.

So what’s the move?  For all you armchair real estate agents, do you reduce to $1,279,000?  Does that reduction move the needle at all?  Probably not.  Wait, that’s being generous; definitely not.  Any buyer who was interested in the home anywhere near that $1,279,000 price would have come in with an offer when the property was listed at $1,299,000.

Would a reduction to $1,249,000 move the needle?

I suppose it depends on value, doesn’t it?

But in the end, my colleague decided to terminate the listing and bring the property back out at $989,900.

It was absolutely, positively, ludicrous.

What kind of buyer in 2018 would be fooled by this?  What kind of agent would bring his or her buyer through the house and allow the buyer to believe that the property was attainable at $989,900, or $1,100,000, or even $1,200,000?

What kind of buyer?  What kind of agent?

All kinds.

This strategy actually worked, and this time, I’m not putting the word strategy in parenthesis, because although it was a Plan-B, and it was borne of desperation, it worked.

It worked, really well.

Because the property didn’t just sell for “around” the original list price, ie. the $1,250,000 that the seller might have accepted, when the property was on the market for a month at $1,299,000.

No, the property sold for $1,310,000.

(gasp)

I know.

And in between being shocked at the stupidity of a buyer who paid more than the previous list price, and far more than what the buyer could have purchased the property for just ten days earlier, you’re also hating the game.

To be fair, you’re probably also hating the player.

But be honest with me for just one moment.  If you’re going to apply “fault” to this situation – that a buyer paid $1,310,000 for a house, listed at $989,900, that was listed for $1,299,000 ten days earlier, which probably could have sold for, say, $1,270,000 with ease, to whom, or what would you apply that fault?

It’s easy to blame the system, or lack thereof.

It’s easy to blame the listing agent for the tactic, er, strategy.

But isn’t it the naive buyer’s fault in the end?

Of course, that situation I just described is rare.

I just came out of a similar circumstance the other night with a very different result.

An east-end property was listed for $1,698,888, again, with no takers.  This property as well was listed for just shy of four weeks.

Low and behold, it was re-listed….wait for it……for $998,888.

Yes.  A $700,000 price reduction, now with an “offer date.”

It was the talk of the industry, for both good reasons and bad.

Cynics were staying “it’s stupid,” without straining for a deeper argument, and yet some were saying, “The agent has balls for trying this!”

Now what do you, the general public, make of this?

Would it work?

Would buyers really line up to bid on a $998,888 list-price, when the house was just listed for close to $1.7M?

No.  Not a chance.

Couldn’t happen, wouldn’t happen, should never happen.

Except that it did.

This property received thirty offers.

Thirty.

And while I’m not privy to the contents of the two-foot-high stack of offers, I would hazard a guess that there were a whole slew of $1.1’s, $1.2’s, and $1.3’s.

In the end, my buyer clients purchased the property.

That’s right, my clients “out-bid” twenty-nine other people.

Except, did they really?

They bought this house for a paltry $1,562,000.

Almost $140,000 below the original list price.

A cynic might point out that they paid almost 160% of the list price.  But does a list price really matter in this case?  The property was effectively put up for auction at $1, and we won the auction, which, I might add, was well, well below our pre-determined reserve price.

And when I say that my clients “out-bid” twenty-nine other people, and add the cynical and rhetorical question, “Did they really,” what I mean is that we were really only bidding against two other buyers.

Twenty-seven of the thirty offers were never in the game.

And how many of those thirty offers were absolute garbage?

So do you blame the listing agent and the seller for wasting the time of those buyers who submitted “garbage” offers?  Or can we buck the societal trend in 2018 and actually hold people accountable for their actions?

Sorry.  I always bring politics into it…

As far as the “drastically under-list” strategy goes, specifically after the property has already been listed once before, you can see that these situations can go either way.

Sure, I chose to write this blog after I personally represented a buyer when the situation went my way.  But the story is as fresh as your grandmother’s apple pie, so the timing seemed right.

As for the buyers out there, you now (finally!) have access to sold data, but you don’t have access to previous listings.  Make sure you know everything and everything about the property, including the listing history.

I know this is like telling somebody to wear their seat-belt in a car, but as is the case both in real life, and in real estate analogies, not everybody does the smart thing…

The post Does Drastically Under-Pricing Still Work? appeared first on Toronto Realty Blog.

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