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justauthoring · 10 months ago

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the trees told me about you.

the trees whisper to you and gojo thinks that makes you special.

a/n: i just started watching frieren and i NEEDED something fantasy okay???? also, i love him <3

pairing: prince!gojo satoru x f!elf!reader

The trees whisper to you.

Whisper words that ghost past your ears and leave your eyes sparkling with warmth, staring at the twinkling green leafs that bristle in the wind.

No one else can hear them, except for you.

Some think you're mad, others just don’t like you cause you’re different – either way, you’ve long ago learned not to care.

Because the trees speak to you, tell you secrets of the world and bring you the love you’ve never felt elsewhere. They don’t judge you because you look different, and they make you feel included – loved.

So even though you’re glared at and cruel words are whispered behind your back;

She’s not right. Spending her days talking to trees…

They say her parents abandoned her when she was young… you don’t have to wonder why.

What a lonely life… but no one wants to talk to a girl who thinks trees speak.

You’ve learned that there’s no point worrying and no point in trying to change their minds.

A life of solitude is one you’ve accepted for yourself. And besides, you don’t feel all that alone in the first, shrouded by trees, protected from the small, the feeling of the dirt and grass and earth beneath your fingers as you smile and laugh and talk.

Yeah, you don’t feel alone at all.

At least, until you meet him.

“You know they all think you’re insane, right?”

A moment ago, you’d been positive you’d been alone. You hadn’t heard him walk up, the crunch of his footsteps along the forest floor or even the rustling of his clothing; so when you hear his voice, so much louder, harsher, sharper than the voices that whisper in your ears, it makes you jump.

You’re startled, incredibly so. You lose your footing beneath you, your bum hitting the ground harshly as you turn your head to face the voice, worrying just who it was that had snuck up on you.

It’s a boy. Roughly your age, or at least you assume so. He’s tall. Even though you’re on the ground, you know he’d tower over you. He’s got bright white hair that shifts to a purple hue when the sun hits him just right. And his eyes are a striking blue that rivals even the sky and unlike anything you’ve ever seen.

You’d lived in your small village all your life and you’re positive you’ve never seen this boy before.

“Who… who are you?” Your words come out shakier than you want but then again, you’re not all that accustomed to speaking to others. Most of your time is spent listening… and even you know there’s a difference between listening to trees and real people. You’ve never had someone speak so directly to you before – most of the time, they opt for whispering behind your back even though both you and them are aware you can hear them.

Still, you force yourself to speak; “what are you doing here?”

He’s grinning. Ear to ear. And it’s wide and it’s bright and there’s a twinkle in his eyes that seems some sort of mischievous, yet, the smile feels real and genuine and almost… kind(?).

Then, he’s crouching, moving so he’s more level to you and his head tilts to the right. “Gojo Satoru,” he introduces, saying his name with pride. “And I am going for a light stroll in the woods.”

Gojo Satoru…

Gojo…

That’s… that’s last the name of the king—

Your eyes widen, instantly shifting to meet his gaze while he continues to just smile at you, bright and happy, hands clasped in front of him without a care in the world. You take in his clothes properly then, the detailing and the quality of the fabric, hemmed with laces – clothes you’ve never even had half enough coin to buy.

Clothes you’d never be able to buy.

You’d heard the King had a son but you’d never seen him or any drawings of him either.

A boy that looks like this though? Looks like he could be the King’s son.

“I ventured through the village beforehand,” he gestures over his shoulder. “You are not well-liked.”

You blink out of your daze, frowning at his words.

Shifting, you move so you’re sitting straighter, straightening out your blouse as you glare at him. “That’s rather rude.”

He shrugs, still grinning. “You didn’t deny it though.”

And you frown because you know he’s right.

“Okay, so, what’s the King’s son doing taking a stroll in the woods well outside of the castle grounds?”

He pauses, raising a brow; “so you did recognize me…” He hums lightly, pointing at you.

You nod; “yes, I did.”

You’re well aware that your lack of respect for the King’s son could get you arrested, or worse. But, you don't care all that much. You figure that Gojo would’ve done something by now if he was really bothered by it, and… well, he’s the one who snuck up on you in the first place.

Laughing lightly, Gojo shrugs; “couldn’t stand being there anymore.”

You raise a brow; “the castle?”

He nods. “It’s so… stuffy! Gods, no one knows how to have any fun in there! And I'm constantly getting reprimanded for trying to liven the place up a little.” His words are dramatic, doubled by his actions as he wildly waves his hands around, rolling his eyes as he sulks. “You’d think royalty, with all the money we have, would know how to make things at least a little exciting… but no! They’re dreadfully boring.”

He finishes his rambling with a loud huff, and a second passes before you burst out in laughter.

Gojo blinks at you, once, twice, stunned before he’s grinning once more.

“That’s funny?” He asks, watching you amusedly.

Clutching at your stomach, you shake your head; “sorry,” you gasp. “I just never expected the King’s son to be so… un-princely?”

Chuckling, Gojo’s eyes trail your figure as you continue to laugh; “no?”

“No,” you snort, calming yourself down. Then, a second later, you glance at him; “so you ran away?”

“For now,” he agrees. “And you?”

You blink; “what about me?”

“What are you doing here?”

Your smile fades. “Well… you heard.”

“So, you really do talk to trees?”

You pause, bewildered. “You believe me?”

“Why would you lie?”

And it’s the first time you’ve heard someone say that to you… because, yes, why would you lie? Why would you make all this up?

And yet he’s the first one who believes you.

“I’ve never seen someone like you before you, you know,” he shuffles closer and your breath halts, eyeing him as he leans in. “I thought you all died out.”

Subconsciously, your fingers move to touch the tip of your pointy ears that’s hidden by your hair. “We did,” you whisper, “it’s just me.”

Resting his head on his crossed arms, Gojo fidgets in the spot. “That’s unfortunate.”

You hum, not sure how else to respond. It was unfortunate and sad, but no one else had ever seemed to think so. At least not anyone in your village. Scorned and judged because of your smaller stature and your pointy ears… you were a freak amongst humans in your village and they constantly liked to remind you of the fact.

“You think the trees talk to you because you’re different?”

Wide eyed, you turn to Gojo. “What?”

“I don’t hear them,” he frowns, and he strains his ear, cupping it for emphasis as if that’ll help. “And I’m royalty. They should talk to me… but they don’t. I bet it’s because you’re an elf. Makes you extra special then.”

Lips parting, you glance around, taking in the trees, hearing the whispers that have softened, before turning back to his blue eyes. “More special than the prince?”

He smirks; “I guess,” he obliges, chuckling. “Just this once.”

You smile. A real, genuine smile.

“You shouldn’t hide them, either.”

“Hm?”

“Your ears,” he explains, reaching forward. You barely have time to react before he’s brushing back your hair, the tips of his fingers brushing against the skin of your ears as he tucks the hair behind, revealing your insecurity to his eyes. He doesn’t look away, and panicked, you watch him, overwhelmed by how close he suddenly is, breath stuck in the back of your throat.

But he doesn’t look disgusted or freaked out.

He looks… amazed.

“You shouldn’t hide them,” his gaze shifts back to yours, grinning again but this time it’s softer, more demure. “They’re what make you you.”

“They make me look strange. Different,” you mumble to yourself, lowering your gaze as you attempt to pull your hair back out from behind your ear.

Gojo grabs your wrist, small in his own grasp, halting your movements.

You turn to him with parted lips.

“No,” he whispers and it’s the softest he’s sounded, but yet, it’s still so confident. Like he doesn’t doubt a single word he says. “No, they make you special.”

You stare back at him, stunned. But you don’t pull away and you don’t move. You like it, having him this close. This boy who you've just met. This boy who is the King’s son. The prince. Next in line for the throne.

This boy who’s made you feel more normal than you ever have your entire life.

But then he’s pulling away, despite the disappointment that burns through you, standing up straight as you crane your head up to look at him. He’s grinning, ear to ear again, as he takes small steps back.

“I should go,” he explains, laughing. “My father is probably throwing a fit. But, come back tomorrow okay?”

You raise a brow, tilting your head in wonder.

He just laughs.

“I plan to run away again.”

Is all he says and then he’s turning, offering you a short wave before disappearing through the thick of the trees, leaving you to yourself and the whispers.

You stare at the place he left, undeniably grinning from ear to ear yourself now.

“Yes,” you nod to the whispers. “I think I like him too.”

#jjk #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen x reader #gojo satoru #gojo satoru x reader #gojo x reader #gojo fluff #fantasy au

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mymhameme · 9 months ago

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Some more concrete designs for hero Touya and villain/vigilante Hawks.

Check below for more details.

All I've got so far is that Endeavor sent Touya to the HPSC to train with them to become a hero since he wasn't going to stop no matter what they said. He figures this way, Touya will be safer and preoccupied so he can focus on Shouto. With the Commission's training and support equipment, Touya made leaps and bounds, but none of it seemed to matter to Endeavor who never appeared impressed of interested in his progress. Touya kept at it despite feeling as if he was completely thrown away in favor of Shouto. He began to resent Endeavor instead of idolizing him and worked hard to become an even better hero than both Shouto and their father. After his debut, he quickly rocketed up in the hero charts climbing to the top ten by 20 and settling in at number four by 23.

After Shouto's class was attacked by the LOV, he begins looking into the group in order to capture them on HPSC orders. Shouto asks to intern under him instead of Endeavor, eager to know his brother and not have to deal with their father. He declines, irritated, but the Commission demands he take him in so they can gain more information. Touya does as he is told but is an asshole the whole time, always rushing ahead and not bothering to actually talk or teach his brother anything. Shouto doesn't let it dissuade him and continues to chase after his tail. It's infuriating to Touya since Shouto is actually very good at being a hero to no one's surprise. It almost seems effortless to Touya who had to fight every day and struggle to get where is he now only for Shouto to already be this close to his level.

If it wasn't bad enough, Shouto is attacked again by the League and the HPSC demands he try infiltrate the organization. His contact ends up being Keigo. Touya struggles with trying to balance overtaking Endeavor's new place as number one, still being a hero, a spy, and training Shouto during his internships.

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Keigo's father was never arrested an eventually he and his mother began demanding Keigo go along to commit crimes, seeing how his quirk would be perfect for being a villain and getting them money for drugs and alcohol and anything else they wanted. Keigo refuses and his dad begins screaming at Keigo in public, about to hit him when Endeavor shows up. He asks what is going on and Takami tells the truth, that he's just trying to get his son to do what he's supposed to do. He's trying to look out for his wellbeing, but he just won't listen. Endeavor (who doesn't know there is a warrant for his arrest and frustrated with both Shouto and Touya) tells Keigo he needs to be a better son and do as his father asks; he's just doing what's best. With that, he leaves, completely shattering Keigo. Feeling defeated, he does as he's told and follows his father into a life of crime, hating every second. He's very successful and Japan begins to know of him. It leads to his father becoming more unstable and paranoid, demanding they get into more lucrative crimes that are worth the risk. Keigo does as he's told like always but gets an idea. By doing these things, he's able to get information and access to people who get off on the suffering of others.

He begins working as a vigilante, being very careful to cover his tracks so no one suspects the villain they're all working with to betray them. This leads him into the LOV after they attack the USJ, eager to see where the nomu come from and take them out from the inside. He plays along like he has for the last few years as a vigilante, getting cozy with the members. It's going well until he is found by Touya who insists on joining the league as well. He spins a sad story of his dad playing with eugenics and throwing him away and how he only became a hero to make him proud. Touya says it was all for nothing so why not just tear it all down and expose the hero filth from within? Keigo doesn't buy a second of it but once again, plays along. It would be good to have someone else on the inside trying to take these guys down besides him, especially since doing anything too drastic would fuck up his chances of continuing his vigilantism in the future once this mess is cleared up. As tests, he makes Touya dig up dirt on other heroes so he can expose them later.

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Fucking Christ. Okay, so that's all I've really gotten so far.

If you made it to the end of this, I applaud you. Thanks!

(side note- If Endeavor seems stupid or out of character for what he says to Hawks, it's based on a similar situation that happened to me as a kid- so it's not impossible. Especially for a guy who looks away at the own harm he causes for what he wants and thinks is best.)

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paper-mario-wiki · 2 years ago

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I don't know if you've talked about this elsewhere already but was the break from streaming intentional and/or are you planning on returning to streaming some time in the foreseeable future? no pressure, I just miss your silly antics :o)

felt very burnt out from being someone who people are always lookin at all the time mostly! (and also a lot more reasons)

got a new job that pays just as well as streaming (which is enough to pay for rent in seattle with roommates, buy food for myself, and sometimes buy yet another japanese gamecube via online auction), and have been enjoying the feeling of not relying on anonymous teenagers and young adults who are just as poor as me on the internet for my income. It's something i was extremely grateful for, but it's not only a very infirm way to generate revenue on a reliable basis, but also i always felt an ever-present sense of guilt for it. like, instilling within other people who i know are in my tax bracket (one that is below the poverty line) the idea of "hey if you dont tip me for doing this free service, the quality of which is damningly subjective, I will be homeless. but no pressure haha" is something that i was never able to shake.

also like. performing is quite draining for me! the way i portray myself in my streams is EXTREMELY extroverted while, in my personal life, i prefer to spend 8 to 14 of my waking hours every day by myself in my room with my dog. i like the quiet, and i feel at peace most when i am not being perceived by other people.

lastly, i really dislike having inordinate levels of social power. for a several reasons. like, SEVERAL reasons. this is the longest section of this post.

8 years ago, i got way more famous than any 16 year old should ever be when i got tens of thousands of followers overnight for doing undertale shit. and i think it really fucked up my ability to make friends at a time where my only experience meeting new people was at school or at church, and i lived far enough out in the woods that i couldnt just go outside and hang out with the neighbors cuz the neighbors lived a mile away. my socializing skills in general are way more stilted than i'd prefer for someone my age. in private settings ive got my foot in my mouth a lot. and sometimes in public settings too! im sure if youve seen streams ive been on, youve seen plenty of "chase you really shouldnt have said that" moments. and youre probably right, i probably shouldnt have! my moment-to-moment gauge for what i should and shouldnt say is very slow to catch up cuz ive got like. advanced mental illnesses. like, im not joking when i say ive been formally diagnosed several times over by different doctors with shit ive never heard anybody ever talk about, online or otherwise.

i dont think that's an excuse to say heinous or cruel things by any means of course, but i also think that i should not rely on a job where there's constantly a microphone in my hand and an audience listening intently to what i say. im not at all pulling the "its okay that i say mean things because im mentawy iww" card. as a matter of fact i think it's not okay that i say them! and i feel very embarrassed when i do! the filter that separates "normal healthy thoughts" and "intrusive unhealthy thoughts" is thinner and more flimsy in my brain than in others.

ive only gotten this far because i surround myself with very smart, patient, and kind people, and by trying to be understanding and patient with others too. and ive begun apologizing to people a lot more. i dont like it when people are mad at me, and i dont like that for a long time i had professionally painted myself into a corner where im typically always the "heel" in comedy settings, because the "heel" is the guy everyone shits on all the time. i got this reputation not because i actively enjoy being mean, but because i learned to adapt to the aforementioned "clinically unreliable intrusive thoughts filter" by realizing i would say things that came across as mean, and in real time exaggerating that it into a character that people could shoot back at without feeling guilty while still having fun. theres nothing that ruins a good time quite like someone who is constantly apologizing for doing something wrong, and then continuing to do that wrong thing anyway. dont misunderstand, i absolutely adore dunking on weenies when everyone can get a good laugh out of it (like tumblr anons, who i think should be classified as prokariyotic invertebrates and not people (no offense)) but even though it's a joke it still feels very bad when that's expected of me when i walk into a room. because if i walk into a room, and everyone expects me to be an asshole, everyone is on the defensive before i say anything, and sometimes they take shots at me when im not trying to "play". even worse, if im a heel in a setting where it's expected of me and someone cant really keep up with "the bit" then that just means im being an asshole to someone who cant or doesnt have the energy to fight back. and not just any asshole, an asshole who has had nearly a decade of professional experience being a paid asshole.

if im being frank, i dont know if i'll come back in a full capacity. i might! im not ruling that out! and you'll probably still see me pop up in my friends streams, because i did LOVE what i did for a very long time! but after i took my "break" in december after being more stressed than ive ever been, and i knew it was no longer financially necessary for me to livestream, i had the thought "i will go back to streaming when i find within myself a desire to do so" and ya know what? i havent yet.

and DO NOT FUCKING BOTHER MY FRIENDS ABOUT THIS. if you post a fucking "hey have u heard what chase said" message in their chat or in their DMs or anything, im not joking when i say you are actively being the kind of person i changed my career to avoid! fuck you, for real! stop trying to interface with them to get some new piece of information or opinion about me you fucking weirdo! they'll talk about me if they want to, but going to someone who is doing their own thing and asking them to instead comment on someone else it is ALWAYS fucking annoying. if you want to think about me, do it by yourself! or ask me directly! or do it in the comment section of a video im in! or write a fanfiction about me and then throw it away!

but if ur not that kind of person then ur cool dont worry.

anywho! im sorry if this is a bummer to read. but that's the full skinny.

im still posting regularly on twitter (clown_depot)! and if i DO go live, either on my twitch channel or on a friend's stream, it will be posted there!

thanks for watching :^]

im not goin radio silent, im just gonna turn off the electric window that lets people see me for a while.

#the man with no face

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sammylkcho · 20 days ago

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"Drowning in the Waves of Time"

Chapter one (Childhood)

Warnings/Notes: not proofread, ooc sebastian, seb shows up near the end of the chapter

Translations: Por el amor de Dios! - For heaven's sake!

Since you could remember, it had always been difficult for you to relate to others, from strangers to family members you might have seen when you started becoming aware of your actions and surroundings.

It wasn't simply because you didn’t like people at first glance and didn’t want to relate to them for no reason. No, quite the opposite, you had always wanted to connect with the people your mom introduced you to.

Sometimes, some of your mom's friends would come over to chat with her and bring along their "little ones" so they could play with you while they talked.

The children you interacted with never managed to form a close friendship with you due to their explosive personalities. They always wanted to climb on any high place in the house or touch the fragile glass things your parents had told you many times not to touch because they could break very easily.

Perhaps it was the constant "no" you were given or the fear of being scolded for doing something wrong that made it difficult for you to make friends. They had so much energy, were hyperactive, and always knew what to do, while you stayed just a few inches away from your mother, clinging to the fabric of her shirt, not wanting to take a single step away from her.

You never felt bad about not having any friends to play with because you entertained yourself at the park near your house or at home, where you spent your time drawing or playing with the various toys you always brought with you everywhere.

The ones that always seemed attached to your hand were a small blue shark and a manta ray that were bought for you when you visited an aquarium, and they agreed to buy you two stuffed animals from the gift shop. You didn’t let go of them for a single second; they were your treasures among the huge collection of stuffed animals on your bed.

And of course, you never let any other kid's hands touch your two favorite stuffed animals! No way were you going to let marine animals be touched by destructive hands! That would be unforgivable.

Once, a girl in preschool took them from you because their colors caught her attention. She snatched them from your hands, and when you tried to get them back, a thread tore as she pulled harder than you, leaving a small "wound" on your little manta ray.

That day, when your mom came to pick you up from preschool, she found you crying your eyes out, holding your blue shark in your left hand while tightly hugging your injured manta ray with your right hand.

Luckily, you were able to stop by your grandmother's house, and she sewed the place where the threads had torn. You thanked her through your tears when you saw your manta ray had survived the "operation".

In the following days, you spent your time playing in your room with your stuffed animals, going on a small underwater adventure, where your manta ray and blue shark would be the animals encountered on that journey. During your little story, your mom would come into your room to show you backpacks and lunchboxes to see if you liked them. You didn’t know why she had you choose, but you didn’t worry about it for the rest of the day.

The week ended, and the start of another meant going back to school, but this time you were entering primary school.

You were at the entrance of your new school, crying your heart out, refusing to let go of your mom’s pants. Your grip trembled from holding her so tightly, unwilling to let go.

She called your name as she knelt down to your level, giving you a smile full of love in an attempt to calm your tears.

"I know it’s hard and new for you, but look, I’m sure you’ll make new friends and find someone to play with. See, over there," she pointed at a group of girls who looked to be about your age or close to it, proudly showing off their dolls to other girls, "they seem to be in your grade. Why not give it a try, hmm?" she encouraged, taking your hand, which had been gripping her pants just moments ago.

You looked at the group of girls for a moment, taking your eyes off your mom for just a few seconds. You noticed the girls had Barbie dolls and baby dolls dressed in different outfits. None of it interested you.

You turned to complain to your mom, but when you didn’t see her beside you, nor any sign that she was still there with you, panic set in.

Tears threatened to return as fear gripped you at the thought of being alone, just you, your Nemo backpack, and your blue shark stuffed in your bag, in a place you didn’t know with no one you were familiar with.

"Sebastian Jax Solace Gonzales! Stop being such a brat and let go of your sister, por el amor de Dios!"

The shouts of a woman caught your attention. The tone and accent she used piqued your curiosity because it sounded strange. You wiped your tears with your sweater sleeve and grabbed the straps of your backpack as you walked toward the voice.

As you got closer, you were lucky not to encounter any rowdy kids wanting to play with you until you were overwhelmed. When you could hear the woman's voice more clearly, you noticed there were more kids, older than you, but you tried not to focus on that too much.

You observed a woman standing with her hands on her hips, her skin a dark brown, her blue eyes, and her black hair messily tied back with a clip. She had a frown on her face.

You followed her gaze and saw a boy clinging to a girl who was definitely older than you and him, maybe in a higher grade than yours. She had the same features as the woman (whom you guessed was her mother), with the slight difference that her hair was a very dark brown, easy to mistake for black.

Finally, there was him, who seemed to be "Sebastian" if you remembered correctly. He was an identical copy of the woman, with dark brown skin, wavy ash-colored hair, and he seemed taller than you.

His blue eyes turned toward you, and the grip he had on the older girl seemed to loosen for a few seconds.

Before any further interaction could happen, his mother scolded him again for his bad behavior, grabbing all his attention.

You didn’t want to keep watching the poor kid get embarrassed, so you headed off to find your classroom. You found one that said "1st grade" on a small sign next to the door, sat down at one of the desks, and waited as the classroom filled up until the teacher gave a brief introduction and welcome.

The first class consisted of small introductions, subjects they would be teaching, and first improving reading and writing.

The first bell rang, and all the kids from each classroom ran to the designated playground for each grade. Many of them quickly started playing and talking, making friends with each other.

You decided to head to a more distant spot on your playground. You started playing with the manta ray and blue shark you had brought, showing them the various things you came across.

"You can show them this."

A sudden voice made you yelp in surprise. You didn’t know someone else was there with you, and instinctively you clutched your stuffed animals against your chest.

Your eyes met a pair of blue ones, and the owner of those eyes was happily holding a small white rock.

"Maybe they like rocks" he spoke again, getting closer to you until you were face to face. He respected your personal space and didn’t bombard you with questions or things to say.

You looked at him doubtfully, unsure of what to say or do. Social interactions were definitely not your thing.

"The name's Sebastian. What's your name?" he asked with a small smile.

You told him your name with a bit of a stammer, still unsure of how to proceed after all this.

His eyes seemed to light up at this, his gaze shifting a few times between your face and your stuffed animals, but he said nothing more about them.

Your lips trembled as a small smile began to form. You didn’t know why, but you had a good feeling about Sebastian.

"This is my manta ray and my blue shark. They like white and gray rocks." You explained, pointing at each one as you introduced them.

Sebastian listened attentively and nodded excitedly when you finished your short explanation about your most precious stuffed animals.

You told him more about your treasured plushies, and he listened with full attention, not interrupting your sentences or pushing your boundaries.

The bell rang, cutting your conversation short as it was time to head back to the classrooms once again. Sebastian told you that you could meet there the next day since the school had a short schedule that day.

At the end of the day, you spent your time listening to him, making a mental note that the girl he had been with earlier was his older sister, who was about to graduate from elementary school, and that the woman yelling at him earlier was definitely his mom.

When they came to pick you up, you said goodbye to him, and with the small fin of your blue shark, you made a little wave to say goodbye.

Your mom smiled when she picked you up, holding your hand as she asked how your day had gone and if you had made a new friend.

A small smile reappeared, and you told her about your new friend named Sebastian.

Your mom’s eyes widened at the mention of a friend, but she quickly recovered, telling you how happy she was and that she could make some cookies for you to share with him tomorrow.

You liked him. He didn’t overwhelm or push you. Hmm, your first friend.

#sebastian solace fanfic #sebastian solace x reader #pressure x reader #sebastian solace x you #sebastian x reader #sebastian solace x yn

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canmom · 9 months ago

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The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere, 000-012

Or, what if that mural was the heart of a web serial.

I'm reading The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere, thanks largely to the enthusiasm of @azdoine and @lukore on my dash over the last few months.

This is absolutely not gonna be a liveblog in the level of detail of the great Umineko liveblog project. Rather I'm gonna be aiming at something like the comics comints series or those occasional posts on anime. Or indeed what I wrote about Worth The Candle last year. I must create a robot whose purpose is to watch to see if I start writing detailed plot summaries and hit me with a stick labelled 'remember you have a job now'.

That outta the way, let's talk flower!

youtube

No, not that flower!

I will start with an anecdote. When I was at university, I ended up attending a talk by court alchemist senescence researcher Aubrey de Grey, who at that time did not yet have a 'sexual harassment allegations' section on his Wikipedia page. The main thing that struck me at the time was his rather spectacularly long beard. But I did listen to his talk about ending aging.

de Grey's schtick is that he, like many people in the transhumanist milieu, believes that medical technology is on the cusp of being able to prevent aging sufficiently well to prolong human lifespans more or less indefinitely. He believes that the different processes of aging can be understood in terms of various forms of accumulating cellular 'damage', and that these will begin to be addressed within present human lifespans, buying time for further advancements - so that (paraphrasing from memory) 'the first immortals have already been born'. He has some pretty graphs to demonstrate this point.

At that talk, one of the audience members asked de Grey the (in my view) very obvious question about whether access to this technology would be distributed unevenly, creating in effect an immortal ruling class. de Grey scoffed at this, saying he always gets this question, and basically he didn't think it would be a big deal. I forget his exact words, but he seemed to assume the tech would trickle down sooner or later, and this was no reason not to pursue it.

I'm sure de Grey is just as tired of being reminded of how unbalanced access to medical technology is in our current world, or the differences in average life expectancy between countries.

So, I was very strongly reminded of de Grey as The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere laid out its major thematic concerns and characters. I was also put in mind of many online arguments in the transhumanist milieu about whether it would be a good thing, in principle, to end death.

In particular, of course, comes to mind transhumanist Nick Bostrom's short story The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant, in which death is likened to a huge dragon that demands to be fed trains full of humans every day. In the story, humanity's scientists secretly build a giant gun to kill the dragon. Naturally, despite all the doubters and naysayers who foolishly feel obliged to justify the existence of the dragon, the gun works. Bostrom's imagery is incredibly heavy-handed (particularly the trains à la Auschwitz), but just in case you didn't get it, he also spells out the moral explicit at the end: basically, every day not spent putting resources to abolishing death is adding up more and more bodies to the pile of people who don't get to be immortal.

So far, Flower seems to be shaping up to be a critical intervention into that milieu, with a much more grounded view of death and a much stronger model of society - admittedly not a high bar but it's going good so far!

At the time of writing this commentary, I have read the prologue and first two six-chapter arcs, namely Mankind's Shining Future (1-6) and Pilgrimage to the Deep (7-12).

the general shape of things

We are introduced - from the perspective of sardonic, introverted Su, who is going to be the protagonist of our time loop - to a group of brilliant young medical wizards, who have just been invited to visit the headquarters of a secret society whose mission is precisely to abolish death. Su's grandfather was some kind of controversial luminary who was expelled this organisation, and he also did something to her, which is giving her some kind of ulterior motive to find her way into this society.

We know pretty much from the outset that this is a time loop scenario: Su has been explicitly given the opportunity to replay the scenario in the hopes of find an alternative outcome, by some kind of presently mysterious parties. This first part is the 'control' loop, i.e. probably more or less how things went down 'originally'.

I believe Umineko is an explicit inspiration for this story, and the influence is pretty evident. But parallels with the Locked Tomb series, especially Gideon the Ninth, are also quite noticeable. @lukore spoke of it as the STEM to Locked Tomb's humanities, and I can already kinda see it, although we haven't got into the real meat of the scenario yet. This story began serialisation four years ago, making the two works roughly contemporary. The latest chapter was published in the last couple of weeks - no idea if I've arrived just in time for the ending!

Stylistically, it's generally pretty heavy on dialogue and long asides. The characters are a bunch of mega nerds who love to have big philosophical and political discussions, but their dynamics are well enough realised and their dynamics clear enough that it can double up as naturalistic characterisation. So far, the discussions have been interesting to read.

Below I'm going to make some notes and comments on various elements of the setting and story. In a followup post (because it got too long) I'm going to talk a lot about entropy. Perhaps you will find this interesting!

the world

The first few chapters are dedicated pretty hard to exposition. We find ourselves in a distant-future setting - one in which it seems reality has totally collapsed and then been rebuilt using magic, creating a somewhat oddball universe which lacks things like the element iron, and also electromagnetism. This seems like it would have pretty severe implications for just about everything!

However, the 'ironworkers' have, after producing a series of trial and error 'lower planes' that didn't quite get it right, landed on a fairly close approximation of how things used to be on the old world. Though by 'fairly close approximation' I mean like... it's a bowl-shaped world and the sun and stars are artificial lanterns. But still, there are humans, and they seem to work more or less like we're used to humans working, apart from the whole 'magic' thing.

So, an alt-physics setting. Praise Aealacreatrananda, I love that shit.

While electromagnetism might be out, the more abstract physical principles like thermodynamics still apply, and the humans of this universe have managed to find analogues to a number of things in our world. Instead of computers, they have 'logic engines' which run on magic. Horses seem to have made it in, so we get delightful blends of historical and futuristic concepts like a self-driving computer-controlled horse-drawn carriage taxi.

The biggest difference is of course that in this setting, magic - more on that in a bit - has solved most medical problems and humans routinely live to around 500. The setting is ostensibly a semi-post-scarcity one, although a form of money exists in 'luxury debt', which can be exchanged for things like taxi rides, café food and trips on the space elevator.

Politically, we are told that the world has enjoyed a few hundred years of general peace, broken in living memory by a revolution which put an end to a regime of magical secrecy. There are lots of countries, and an alliance overseeing them.

There's a few other oddities in this world. Something called a 'prosognostic event' can happen if you see someone who has the same face as you, and whatever this is, it's bad enough news that everyone is constantly reminded to veil their faces in public and there's some kind of infant 'distinction treatment' to mitigate the risk. Given that, in the regular world, nothing particularly bad would happen if you ran into a long-lost identical twin, it suggest there is probably something a little fucky about how humans work in this world!

There's evidently a fair bit of effort put into the worldbuilding of fictional countries and historical periods. The important elements seem to be roughly along the lines of:

our world is currently in what they call the 'old kingdoms' period, which is poorly remembered;

next up comes an 'imperial' period of high transhumanist shenanigans in which society was ruled by 'gerontocrats' who got exclusive access to the longevity treatment, but this all somehow led to a huge disaster which destroyed og earth;

the survivors built the Mimikos where humanity currently lives using magic and created some kind of huge iron spike that holds the universe together; there was subsequently a 'fundamentalist' period in which a strict cutoff point was put on human lifespans and a lot of the wackier magic was banned;

now we're onto a new era of openness following a small revolution, while the major political structures remain largely intact.

Writing a far-future setting is hard, because trying to deal with the weight of history without the story getting bogged down with worldbuilding details is a fiddly line to walk. The Dying Earth series of Jack Vance might be a relevant point of comparison. Vance leaves the historical details vague - there are endless old kingdoms and strange artefacts and micro-societies for Cugel and co. to stumble on. Far more important than the specifics of history is establishing the vibe of a world that's seen an unimaginable amount of events layered on top of each other and is honestly a bit tired.

Flower makes things a bit more concrete and generally manages to make this work decently well. I do appreciate the asides where Su talks about, for example, the different architectural styles that layer up to make a place, or the way a technique has been refined. It establishes both that Su is the kind of person to notice this sort of thing, and also helps the world feel lived-in.

the names

The story doesn't do a lot with language. The story is written in English, and the narration will occasionally make reference to how things are phrased (e.g. how divination predates the suffix -mancy). We can probably make the standard assumption that this is all translated from $future_language, with the notional translator making a suitable substitution of whatever linguistic forms exist in that language.

The characters are named in a variety of languages. Our main character's full name is Utsushikome of Fusai. We're told that this is "an old name from Kutuy, and means something like 'mysterious child'" - so Kutuyan is one of the languages spoken in this world. It's blatantly got the same phonotactics as Japanese, and indeed if I search up 'Utsushikome', I find an obscure historical figure called Utsushikome-no-Mikoto, wife of the Emperor Kōgen; she has no article on English Wikipedia, but she does have a brief one on Japanese wiki. Just as Su says about Kutuyan, 'Utsushikome' is written 欝色謎 in Japanese, but it relies on archaic readings of those characters and wouldn't read that way in modern Japanese. We could perhaps assume a good old translation convention is in effect where Kutuyan is replaced with Japanese.

A lot of characters have Greek names, as do various setting elements. One exception is Kamrusepa, or Kam, who is named for an ancient goddess of medicine worshipped by the Hittites and Luwians. I know basically fuck all about Hittites and Luwians but it's a cool little nod to mythology, and it won't be the only one!

I'll run down a list of characters and my comments about them in a bit. But many are named after gods or other mythological figures.

the magic

Most of the divergences come from magic existing. Certain humans are 'arcanists', who are able to use the 'Power', which is a magic system with a highly computational flavour. Thanks to Su's expositional asides, we know that an incantation is something like a short program written in cuneiform with the ability to gather information, perform maths, and manipulate particles. An example we are given is a spell called "entropy-denying", which is the following string of cuneiform:

"…(𒌍𒌷𒀭)(𒌍𒁁𒀭)𒅥𒌈𒆜𒈣𒂠, 𒋢𒀀𒅆𒌫𒃶,𒈬𒊹."

We're told that spells always start with phrases ending in 𒀭, and end in 𒊹. Beyond that, I'm not sure how far the author has actually worked out the syntax of this magic system - probably not in too much detail! Seems like the kind of thing it's better to leave vague, but also she seems like kind of nerd who would (positive). It's conceptually a reasonable magic system for a world where more or less realistic physics applies.

The use of unusual scripts for a magic system isn't that unusual - the old European occultists who wrote the [Lesser] Key of Solomon loved to write on their magic circles in Hebrew, and in modern times we could mention Yoko Taro's signature use of the Celestial Alphabet for example - but the specific use of cuneiform here seems like it might be a little more significant, because a little later in the story the characters encounter a mural depicting The Epic of Gilgamesh, which of course was recorded on cuneiform tablets. Remains to be seen exactly what these allusions will mean!

The magic system is divided into various disciplines defined by the different ways they approach doing magic, with the disciplines breaking down broadly along the same lines as the modern scientific disciplines. For example, our protagonist is a thanatomancer ("necromancer" having become unfashionable), which is the discipline dealing with death; she's specifically an entropic thanatomancer, distinguished by their framework viewing death as the cessation of processes.

Magic relies on an energy that they refer to as 'eris' (unknown relation to the Greek goddess of strife and discord). We are told that eris must be carefully apportioned across the elements of a spell or shit blows up, that it can be stored, and it accumulates gradually enough that you don't want to be wasteful with it, but so far given little information about where it comes from.

Magic in this story generally seems to act as a kind of 'sufficiently advanced technology'. It's very rules-based, and used for a lot of mundane ends like operating computers or transport. Advancement in magic is something like a combination of basic research and software development. But the thing that makes it a magic system and not merely alt-physics is that it's at least a little bit personal: it must be invoked by an individual, and only certain people can operate the magic. We're told a little about how wizards are privileged in some societies, indoctrinated in social utility in others, and expected to be inconspicuous in the present setting. It's not clear yet if you need some kind of special innate capacity to do the magic, or if it's just a matter of skill issue.

With one exception, our main characters are a gaggle of wizards, and exceptionally skilled students at that. They're at an elite institution, carrying high expectations, even if they are themselves fairly dismissive of the pomp and ceremony. They have grandiose plans: Kamrusepa in particular is the main voice of the 'death should be abolished' current.

the cast

We're entering a cloistered environment with high political stakes hanging off of it. Even if I hadn't already heard it described as a murder mystery, it would feel like someone will probably be murdered at some point, so lets round up our future suspects.

Su (Utsushikome) is our protagonist and first-person POV. She's telling this story in the first past tense, with a style calling to mind verbal narration; she'll occasionally allude to future events so we know for sure narrator!Su knows more than present!Su. She's got a sardonic streak and she likes long depressing antijokes, especially if the punchline is suicide. She will happily tell us she's a liar - so maybe her narration isn't entirely reliable, huh.

Su is more than a little judgemental; she doesn't particularly like a lot of her classmates, or people in general, and generally the first thing she'll tell you about a character is how well she gets on with them. She introduces the theme of 'wow death sucks' in the first paragraph, but she is, at least at this point, pessimistic that anyone will manage to do anything about it for good.

Her magical specialisation is entropic thanatomancy, roughly making processes go again after they working coherently.

Her name is a reference to an obscure Japanese empress, as discussed above.

Ran is Su's bestie from the same home country. She is generally pretty on the level. She likes romance novels and she is pretty sharp at analysing them. She will cheerfully team up with Su to do a bit or bait someone else when an argument gets going.

Her magical specialisation is Divination, which is sort of a more fundamental layer of magic, about gathering information by any means. In medicine it's super advanced diagnostics.

Her name is too short to pin down to a specific allusion. Could be one of a couple of disciple of Confucius such as Ran Geng, or a Norse goddess of the sea.

Kam (Kamrusepa) is the de facto class prez and spotlight lover. She's hardcore ideological, the story's main voice of the de Grey/Bostrom death-abolishing concept so far - I think she straight up calls someone a 'deathist' at some point. She loves to tell everyone what she thinks about everything, and getting the last word.

Her magical specialisation is Chronomancy, so time magic. It's described as secretive and byzantine, but also it can do stuff like (locally?) rewind time for about five minutes. No doubt it has something to do with the time loop.

As mentioned above, she's named after a fairly obscure ancient deity of healing and magic.

Theo (Theodoros) is a fairly minor character. He's scatterbrained and easily flustered, he has a similar background to our protagonist, and he's not great with people. His name is shared with a number of ancient Greek figures, so it's hard to narrow it down to one allusion. I don't think his magic school has been mentioned.

Ptolema is a cheery outgoing one, someone who Su dismisses as an airhead. And she is at least easy to bait into saying something ill-considered. Her specialisation is applying magic to surgery. As a character, she tends to act as a bit of a foil to the others. Bit of a valley girl thing going on.

'Ptolema' is presumably a feminised version of the renowned Greek philosopher Ptolemy.

Seth is the jock to Ptolema's prep, and our goth protag Su doesn't particularly like him either. ...lol maybe that's too flippant, I may be misapplying these US high school stereotypes. To be a little more precise then, he's pretty casual in demeanour, flirty, likes to play the clown. He specialises in Assistive Biomancy, which revolves around accelerating natural healing processes.

Seth is named for either the Egyptian god (domain: deserts, violence and foreigners) or an Abrahamic figure, the third son of Adam and Eve granted by God after the whole Caim killing Abel thing.

Ophelia is someone Su describes as 'traditionally feminine' - soft-spoken, demure etc. (Gender in this world appears to be constructed along broadly similar lines to ours). Indeed we get a fairly extended description of her appearance. Her specialisation is Alienist Biomancy, which means introducing foreign elements to healing (not entirely sure how that differs from the Golemancy mentioned later).

Ophelia is of course a major character in Shakespeare's Hamlet, best known for going mad and dying in a river.

Fang is the only nonbinary member of the class, noted as the most academically successful. They're not on the expedition, but the characters discuss them a little in their absence, so maybe they'll show up later. It seems like they have a bit of a rebellious streak. Their magical specialisation is not mentioned.

Fang is a regular ol' English word, but I gave it a search all the same and found there's an ancient Chinese alchemist of that name. She is the oldest recorded woman to do an alchemy in China, said to know how to turn mercury into silver.

Lilith is the teenaged prodigy in computers logic engines, and Mehit is her mother who accompanies her on the trip. They've got a big Maria and Rosa (of Umineko) dynamic going on, with Mehit constantly scolding Lilith and trying to get her to obey social norms, though in contrast to Maria, Lilith is a lot more standoffish and condescending to the rest of the gang. Lilith specialises in 'Golemancy', which means basically medical robotics - prosthetic limbs and such. She spends most of her time fiddling with her phone logic engine, and will generally tell anyone who talks to her that they're an idiot. Sort of a zoomer stereotype.

Lilith is named for the Abrahamic figure, the disobedient first wife of Adam who was banished and, according to some Jewish traditions, subsequently became a demon who attacks women at night. There may be some connection between Lilith and the lioness-headed Mesopotamian chimeric monster Lamashtu, which I mention because Mehit is an Egyptian and Nubian lion goddess.

'Golemancy' is probably playing on the popular fantasy idea of a 'golem' as a kind of magic robot, but given the Jewish allusion in Lilith's name here, I do wonder a little bit if it's going to touch on the Jewish stories of the Golem which inspired it - a protective figure with a specific religious dimension.

There are some other characters but they're not part of the main party on their way to the function, so I won't say much about them just yet. Also it's entirely possible I went and forgot an entire classmate or something, big whoops if so.

the events

In true Umineko tradition, the beginning of the story narrates in great detail how the protagonists make their way to the place where the plot is going to happen.

To be fair, there's a lot of groundwork to be laid here, and the characters' discussions do a lot to lay out the concerns of the story and sketch out the setting, not to mention establish the major character relations. A murder mystery takes a certain amount of setup after all! There's plenty of sci-fi colour to be had in the 'aetherbridge', which is a kind of space elevator that lifts you up to a high altitude teleporter network. (It's technically not teleportation but 'transposition', since teleportation magic also exists in the story, with different restrictions! But close enough for government work.)

They go to a huge space citadel, which is kind of a transport hub; some cloak and dagger shit happens to hide the route they must take to the mysterious secret organisation. They find a strange room with a missing floor and a mural of the Epic of Gilgamesh, albeit modified to render it cyclic. What does it meeaaaan?

The idea of a secret society of rationalists is one that dates back to the dawn of ratfic, in HPMOR. It was kinda dumb then, but it works a lot better here, where we're approaching the wizard circle from outside. The phrase 'Great Work' has already been dropped. I love that kind of alchemical shit so I'm well into finding out what these wizards are plotting.

the dying

A lot of the discussions revolve around the mechanics of death. Essentially the big problem for living forever is information decay. Simple cancers can be thwarted fairly easily with the magic techniques available, but more subtle genetic slippages start to emerge after the first few hundred years; later, after roughly the 500 year mark, a form of dementia becomes inevitable. It's this dementia in particular that the characters set their sights on curing.

One thing that is interesting to me is that, contra a lot of fantasy that deals with necromancy (notably the Locked Tomb series), there appears to be no notion of a soul in this world whatsoever. The body is all that there is. Indeed, despite all the occult allusions in the character names, there is very little in the way of religion for that matter. Even the 'fundamentalism' is about an idea of human biological continuity that shouldn't be messed with too much.

Su distinguishes three schools of thought on death, namely 'traditional', 'transformative' and 'entropic'. The 'traditional' form attempts to restore limited function - classic skeleton shit. 'Transformative' sees death as a process and uses dead tissues together with living in healing. Su's 'entropic' school broadens this 'process' view to consider death as any kind of loss of order - a flame going out as much as an organism dying. At the outset of the story, Su has discovered a 'negentropic' means to restore life to an organism, which she considers promising, even if for now it only works for fifteen minutes.

This is an interesting perspective, but the devil is in the details. Because processes such as life or flames, necessarily, result in a continuous increase in the thermodynamic entropy of the universe. And yet this idea of death-as-loss-of-order does make a kind of sense, at a certain level of abstraction.

Elaborating on this got rather too long for this post, and I think it can stand alone, so I'm going to extract it to a followup post.

the comments

As is probably evident by the length of this post, I am very intrigued by The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere. The setting is compelling, and it seems like it's got the willingness to bite at the chewy questions it raises instead of acting like it has all the answers, which is I think one of the most crucial elements for this kind of scifi. I like how unabashed it is at having its characters straight-up debate shit.

Of course, this all depends where they go with it. There's so many ways it could be headed at this point. I hear where it's going is 'dark yuri' and 'Umineko-inspired murder mystery', so that should be really juicy fun, but I do end up wondering what space that will leave to address the core theme it's laid out in these first few chapters.

Overall, if this and Worth the Candle are what modern ratfic is like, the genre is honestly in pretty good shape! Of course, I am reading very selectively. But this is scratching the itch of 'the thing I want out of science fiction', so I'm excited to see where the next 133 chapters will take me.

Though all that said, I ended up writing this post all day instead of reading any other chapters or working, so I may need to rein it in a bit.

#fiction #web serials #the flower that bloomed nowhere #tftbn #sff

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adventuringblind · 9 months ago

Text

Mend Me

Lando Norris X Reader

Genre: Magical Realism via Superpowers (kind of), A mix of fluff and angst

Summary: After a long history of being running and hiding, she finds someone who isn't afraid of her. Enough to risk it all for him. Feat Oscar and Carlos being a chaotic duo for once.

Warnings: A tad dehumanizing (if you really squint), mentions of hospitals, mentions of blood/wounds/weapons/bruises, reader literally bring someone back to life,

Notes: This is incredibly experimental. I like these kinds of AU's that incorporate racing still. It's fun to see different concepts come to life in a normal world! I'm currently working on a few A/B/O fics and a few other experimental things :)

Side Note: and another request! I had so much fun writing these two and this story in general! I'm hoping to write more like this, or for these two specifically, in the future!

Masterlist // Request Form // My Website // buy me a Ko-Fi

This is not the life she envisioned for herself. The running, hiding, forging papers to try and keep herself safe.

Stupid unnatural abilities that she never asked for. A danger rating that started at three and moved up steadily as these abilities expanded. Classified within a unique group that tends to be more isolated due to their nature.

A healer is what her new papers say, a danger rating of five. Her armband required across the globe remains the same color. Unassuming and weak, which is how she needs to be perceived.

Powers, abilities, magic, auras, whatever you want to call them, manifest in different ways. Some are element based, some a material, some deal with things like the mind and soul. Smaller groups include shapeshifters, psychics and mediums, shadow work, and her own group.

Those who deal in life and death are not to be messed with. The healers and the reapers. Which, you would think wouldn't be dangerous. She was lucky enough to not be sentenced to a life in captivity. The reapers can decide who dies when, if they are strong enough. Usually prompted by the healers if they person is out of reach. It's a peaceful passing. Yet that doesn't stop people from fearing that kind of power and control.

No, she's a healer. Lower levels are kept as doctors and nurses. Knitting wounds together, feeling the pain of others, being able to x-ray a body without a machine, are all useful.

Raising people from the dead? yeah, that tends to freak people out.

Her wound transference started small. A scraped knee on a friend became her own, but without a mere itch. Soon it progressed into deep lacerations which bled less on her and healed faster. Then it was bigger injuries like broken bones and concussions.

Training was required for anyone with abilities. In order to see where they fall in rating, where they can be utilized, and make sure they have control over the chaos.

She spent ample time in the local hospital with the other healers. The paramedics had rushed inside. The body nearing death. They flatlined, mangled in different ways, yet she still managed at the age of sixteen to bring them back.

The amount of pain she was in was nearly unbearable. She'd almost killed herself in the process.

Her rating shot up to seven after that and she was whisked away to a facility for people like her. They moved her up to nine after another year. She'd managed to bring back someone who'd been dead at least a day.

She's a necromancer.

Whatever she is, they all knew they couldn't stay in that place. Inevitably escaping with their combined powers. She'd never run so fast. She was provided new classification papers and sent off to a different country.

Which is how she found herself here. Traveling and healing despite the prior adversity. She likes this job, specifically because she's strong enough to manage drivers and personnel in the paddock who hurt themselves with their own abilities, but not enough to look conspicuous. Which is a fine line she's toeing, but she makes it work.

She has regulars. Max Verstappen frequently asks her to come around. Metal tends to slice him when he's not grounded and specifically more agitated. Lando has a tendency to hit himself in the head with things when he's excited and the telekinesis decides he needs something right that second. Carlos shapeshifts into a bear, which comes with its own set of problems (she didn't know she'd have to be a vet, also). Then there is Alex, who always seems to be summoning feral street animals.

The year she started; she was nineteen. Lando and Carlos were teammates then. The Brit a in his sophomore year of the sport. The number of bruises on both drivers was ridiculous due to Lando randomly pushing and pulling random objects was ridiculous. Carlos even joked he might have been doing it on purpose at the time.

It was 2021, and the encouragement of Daniel, that got him to ask her out. An invitation she accepted. It was nice, but there was that lingering fear in the back of her mind that he would figure her out and turn her in.

A night out in 2022 is what changed everything for her. The ability to trust and a longing for connection driving her to spend the night with him.

Now, her suppressor band is strong enough that she's only supposed to wear it for twenty-four hours maximum. She'd put it on when she woke up the morning prior and hadn't taken it off sense. Lando had asked if she wanted to take it off, let their energies meld together. A privilege only people like them have. But she'd declined and he hadn't pushed.

She slept in. The best sleep she'd had in a while, mind you. Yet the pain firing through every nerve of her body had her crying. She hadn't cried in pain in so long. This was entirely new to her, and if she's honest with herself, terrifying to experience.

~~~~~

Lando stirs beside her. His hands cup her face and eyes scan her body as he attempts to understand what's wrong. She's unresponsive and he panics. Enough to call Carlos and ask if it's something to do with her classification of power. She could've overdone it, or it's the residue of a different injury she took on herself. Whatever the case, he needs help.

"Lando, mate, she's a five right?"

"Yeah? why?"

"Suppressor bands for five and up tend to be stronger than four and below."

Lando pauses for a second. "Aren't you a seven?"

"And I take mine off in intervals." Carlos' explanation makes sense. Enough for Lando to calm himself and locate the chain on her wrist. "Just take it off and see if it helps. It might not be immediate though so give it about ten minutes and then call me back."

"Thank you, Carlos."

"Not sure what we'd do without her. Maybe kill ourselves? So, you better keep her alive, mate!"

Lando ends the call. Her body seizing in his arms in a scary kind of way that makes him want to vomit.

The chain doesn't come off easily. The second he manages to unclasp it; she becomes deadweight in his arms. But he doesn't get the kind of relief he is hoping for from it.

The aura she has around her is strong and intense. The kind he's never felt before. It's not nauseating like when Carlos or Max is high on emotion, this is serene. Like he's never felt better in his entire life. Which is strange, considering how strong it is...

He calls Carlos back. This cannot be normal for a five. The fact he has it off, but she's sweating and gripping his hand like she's in turmoil makes him wonder.

"Did it work?"

"Uh - possibly?"

There is a brief pause. "What does that even mean?"

"Okay, so, energy of a five healer, is it supposed to be this intense? Cause I feel like I'm on cloud nine and she's still in pain." He wishes he could reverse it, just get her to settle and not look like she might die until he can help her.

"I'm coming over."

It takes Carlos too long to get to his room. His anxiety is getting worse by the second. She's finally exhausted herself enough to fall asleep, but her energy is still permeating the room in a way he can't describe.

Carlos nearly falls over when he steps inside the door. "You like this?!"

"I feel fantastic!"

"Well good, we know you have a soulbond now. We'll talk more about that later. I'm going to pass out if she doesn't have a suppressor on."

Lando whines, but he knows Carlos won't last like this. He just hopes something reset and bought them time to figure it out. He puts the chain back on her wrist and Carlos immediately looks better.

"Verdict?"

"She's not a five, that's for sure." He inspects the chain and her arm band. Carlos' own brown band is still around his bicep. The shapeshifter colors. Lando's is yellow for the energy category, Max's is red for the secondary elements, and Alex's is brown with a green stripe in the middle for the animal handlers. Her band is white with a black ring in the middle, the reapers are the opposite. The number attached to her band is a five. It's the same as a legal document.

Lando snatches the band off of where it lays next to his own. Sure enough, when he flips is around, A different number is crudely patched over enough that nobody could make it out unless staring for an obscene amount of time.

Lando hands the flipped band to Carlos. "She's a fucking ten."

Carlos hums and examines the elastic in his hands. He then fishes a suppressor ring out of his pocket and switches hers for the one he brought. The energy is still there, but the Spainard doesn't look like he's going to be sick anymore. Lando claims this as a win.

On the other hand, he can't fathom why she didn't trust him enough to tell him. "I don't understand-" The crack in his voice is embarrassing.

Carlos gets him to sit down next to him on the edge of the bed. He places Lando's hand on her shin and they watch the tension she was holding in her body disappear.

"Have you ever seen how the treat anyone six and above?"

"No... you never talk about it."

Carlos sighs. It's a pained one; eyes distant as he recalls memories. "Fives toe the line of being stronger than the people deem safe. These universal numbers used to classify us aren't just for the amount of energy we exert, it's what we can do as well. I shapeshift into a bear, which can be destructive, but I can also do it with fewer breaks and for longer stints."

"What does that have to do with any of this?" Frustration now evident.

"Relax, I'm getting there." Carlos gives him a pointed look and quiets himself. "Six and above tend to have more restrictions. They want to make sure we can't cause any chaos or start wars or something. Reapers are immediately labeled as tens. Healers start small but increase depending. I met a good few back in school that ended up being taken away for some unknown reason."

"So, she's a ten, meaning she can do what?"

"I'm not sure... but she is definitely at risk if anyone were to find out."

Carlos stays with him. Explains to him what is probably happening due to the extreme suppression of this kind of energy. He explains this soulbond thing. How their energies mesh well together which is what was giving him that euphoric feeling earlier. It's not rare, Lando is only a three himself, but for her it is because of the intensity.

It's around midnight when she wakes up, panting and drenched in sweat. Whatever these higher energies are, the seem to communicate for them. Carlos gets next to her and switches the suppressors again. He's giving her the familiarity in a stressful situation with no words.

"Fuck - Lan, I'm so sorry!" Her voice is hoarse and cracked. He wants to tell her that he's fine, that he understands, but words aren't there. Not when she looks this sick.

He opts for the physical contact route instead. The gentle kind, so he doesn't scare her. This hug feels different than any he's had before, but he assumes it's because his aura is actively seeking hers. "We have a soulbond. Our energies mesh together quite nicely."

"So, you know now? You're not going to turn me in?"

"Absolutely not! Carlos has been giving me a crash course and everything. I'm sorry that you are treated so horribly..."

She grips onto his shirt and sobs harder than she has in her entire life. It's broken, and Lando can't help but wonder when the last time somebody cared for her and her abilities alike is. "I'm not leaving you, okay? I might be a three, but I'll do my best to keep you safe." And he means it. He has every intention of keeping her out of the clutches of those who would see her locked away.

~~~~~

Lando convinces her to quite working under the FIA and let him take care of her instead. She still attends to the drivers since she can, because she wants to.

It's never a surpise when she receives a phone call from across the paddock asking for her assistance. It's more fun this way, not having the constant pressure of people watching her for any semblance of too much power.

Carlos keeps a close eye on her when she looks on the verge of overexerting her power or suppressing for too long. He had her and Lando set alarms for when to take it off and put it on again.

2023 comes around, and both her and Lando are more relaxed this year. Car wide, the Brit would rather die, but otherwise, he's fine.

Oscar is a rating six water manipulater. Carlos makes sure he knows where to find him if he ever needs anything. The FIA tends to get on the case of higher ratings.

It's because of that rating that Oscar manages to figure out she's not what she says she is. Lando gets wildly defensive when the Aussie brings it up. She just laughs when he threatens to throw his teammates dinner into his face.

They all get along nicely. Lando manages to not send random objects at Oscar despite various threats, and she still finds herself in every garage.

Then Vegas happens, and everything changes.

The crash replays on the screen, but she can't hear it over the sound of her heart. Their soulbond had only gotten stronger, she can feel his pain and discomfort now because of it.

As an established healer, Jon lets her tail him to where Lando is. The medical team only lets her go so far.

But it's worse than anyone is letting on. She can feel his heart slowing, the internal bleeding more than they originally thought.

He's still alive when the race ends, but he won't be for much longer. They won't let her inside. Oscar and Carlos can barely get past the front desk to where her and Jon are sitting outside the door. Doctors are still working away at a problem they haven't found yet.

"They won't let you in?" Carlos gives a look of utter confusion. "Wouldn't it be helpful to them?"

"Yes, but I'm too emotional to be in an operating room as a five."

Oscar's face lights up. "How far does your energy reach?"

"Decently, why?"

"If me and Carlos take our suppressors off, then we can blame the energy on that."

The three of them take off their suppressor in unison with Jon watching the end of the hall in case someone comes around the corner.

The wall makes it hard to navigate. But she knows Lando's aura like it's her own. She's mapped his entire body, healed him more times than she cares to remember.

The flatline of the moniter rings through her ears.

She finds his heart. Where he's bleeding out, where his ribs are cracked and splitting him open.

And she fixes it.

Lando sits up on the table, heat beating erratically, but he's alive. The doctors don't know what to do with themselves.

They open the door. The only one there is Jon, teary-eyed, but not from sadness despire what he says.

~~~~~

Lando is high on painkillers. Though he wishes his human healer were here to make it better. He just wants to meld with her, thank her without words.

Jon had filled him in on the details. It's not safe for her at the moment, but his teammate has her, and Carlos is on his way back to Lando after helping get her settled.

The Spainard drives him back. Even stopping for food on the way since none of them have eaten and Carlos has this perpetual need to store food for the winter. Lando always gets him honey as a joke.

"When you see her, don't panic. There's blood we have yet to clean up from the incisions they made. But it's mostly just pain and exhaustion."

Lando nods and opens the door. The sight is odd, more so than scary. She's on the bed, pale, and covered in different fluids. Her mouth is open, and Oscar is dripping tiny water droplets inside. Her supressor bracelet has been ditched, but her ring is on so the other two can be around her.

Her eyes drift towards him the closer he gets. "Lan!" She tries to sit up but fails after two seconds and yelps in pain.

"If you'd just take the water and stay put, then you might not be in as much pain." Oscar scolds her, but she just rolls her eyes.

Lando crawls onto the bed next to her. His hand drifts over where he heart is, and he places her hand over his. "I'm alive because of you. I can't - I just - I don't understand why they didn't let you in. You're not dangerous. You saved me."

"Lan, it's okay... I'm happy being considered dangerous as long as I have you around."

"Ay! What are me and Oscar then?!"

"Rivals, according to the media." Oscar muses and drops another bead of water into her mouth.

"That was planned and executed well, okay, we make great rivals." Carlos nearly jams some kind of pastry into Oscar's face, but he opens his mouth just in time. "What am I going to do with you three?"

Lando doesn't have the energy to ponder the question. Him and his lover end up falling asleep at some point. Both of them are still in pain and in desperate need of rest.

He wakes up to a call the next morning from Jon. His trainer is adamant about speaking to all four of them.

Yeah, they all get lectured about how he had to go get tested and was humiliated by the hospital staff when they laughed at Jon's own ability. "Aparently, making people sneeze isn't an ability. But I'm happy you're okay, Lando. I would've missed you, buddy."

"I second that!"

"And a third."

Everyone looks at her expectantly. Some kind of response swirls around in her head. Maybe witty or sarcastic with the way she's smiling to herself.

"If you died, Lan, I would've never forgiven myself." Her energy taps on his. It envelopes them, warm and comforting. Their bond still growing stronger as their souls dance together around them.

"Gross, you two should get a room."

"This is our room!"

"Your point?"

Carlos and Oscar can't stop their laughing fit. Delerious from the long night they had previously and little sleep then managed to get. Still, Lando goes back to being in his own world.

He's wrapped up in her, and she's wrapped up in him. Exactly as it was intended to be.

"Reckon you could make an undead army?"

"Osc - I swear to god-!"

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csuitebitches · 8 months ago

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What do you think about consumerism in relation to the "hypergamous" lifestyle?

Great question. I'm going to be honest with you. There’s no point in sharing my opinion, I’d rather share my observation.

there is this perception that you have to spend crazy $$, wear designer, go on expensive holidays, be a part of exclusive member-only clubs in order to bag a wealthy guy. The thinking is, “if I look the part, I will fit right in.”

let me break it to you. If you’re Asian, Middle Eastern - you come from a culture that basically defines marriage as something between two families and not individuals - you could live the above lifestyle, live way beyond your means but your chances of bagging a wealthy guy are low. If you do not have the family background or education level to support your lifestyle to be with a rich guy, it’s going to be very difficult, not impossible. You could bag someone who is upper middle class, but definitely not the 0.01%.

While it’s true that the rich do spend like crazy - you have to understand that (especially in Asians) the level of spending is completely different. They can book a first class emirates flight without caring about rates, they have access to concierge services, the circles are small but tight. It is extremely difficult to break into these if you don’t have the money or are extremely good friends with someone who is in this circle. To keep up with this circle is another financial headache.

The consumerism is crazy, it is high yes, but often it’s for things you might not expect. “Silent luxury”, investing in jewellery, properties, experiences, hobbies, drivers, PAs, 24/7 staff to take care of your home, having personal managers at the banks that have your accounts, seeing the top CEOs, politicians, actors etc as regular people - keeping up is not easy. Even if we look at normal stuff, like shopping for clothes - they’re able to blow this thousands of $ on a simple Hermes tea cup set, break it, and buy another one very nonchalantly. Not to mention the constant social gatherings, the clothes (god forbid you repeat), your life’s experiences etc etc. Women here don’t work to maintain their lifestyle, they work to enjoy what they are doing. Even if they stop working tomorrow, they will be financially taken care of by their families or husbands.

hypergamy here is completely different and obstructed. Let’s take my own example. I date boys that my family picks out for me - boys whose families own massive conglomerates, who are cultured and sophisticated, etc etc. I ended things with my last boyfriend because of multiple things, but what mattered most was that my father felt that he wouldn’t be able to provide for me the way I was used to all my life. (Even tho my ex came from a wealthy background too). At every social gathering that my parents organise or take me to, I’ve got my parents friends asking my parents if I’m single, if I’m interested in meetings their sons, etc etc. Dating and marrying hypergamously in Asian and Middle Eastern cultures is very much a family affair. There is a lot of talk that happens in these circles - who married who, whose kids are dating who, did you hear that A’s son fell in love with some middle class girl he met in college - not to your face, but behind your back.

What I’m trying to say is - you could look the part but still not bag the guy. You could dress nice, you could wear expensive perfume and make up but in the end, backgrounds are vetted extremely carefully. Especially in today’s day and age where looking the part has become easier than ever. So now when you tie this to consumerism, you can see why it can be difficult to keep up with this level of consumerism and spending. And even if you can - that may not guarantee anything. Unfortunately life isn’t like kdramas and some rich guy isn’t going to take pity on you and transform your life when he could just be with someone who has a similar upbringing which is more comfortable.

I’m not sure if I answered your question correctly, but I assumed that you were basically asking me if looking the part can get you any points in the hypergamy scene.

#q/a

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wsknbfanaccnt · 18 days ago

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Gurl I love your account!! Knb fandom is low-key dead so it's refreshing to see ppl who still like the show 🔥🔥

I have a request which (I think) is very diffrent from what you usually do? Basically your own headcanons about Akashi. But not NSFW or stuff like that. Just random headcanons you often think about, maybe some of his quirks, his favorite something...etc...

Anyway girl make sure you don't die cuz then who will post this delicious Akashi content ??😔

AAAAAAAAAA THANK YOU SO MUCH YALL I GOT A COMPLIMETN ON MY BLOG ASDHFKASJDHFLKJ HOOLY SHIT

YESSS i'd love to do that omfg

and you literally just gave me motivation to live HELL YEAH IMMA KEEP POSTING AKASHI CONTENT

i do have some already on this post that ive made so feel free to read that, but ive written more down below

i hope you like it AND THANK YOU FOR REQUESTING!!!

feel free to request more<3

tw! suicide and self harm at the end

(i hope this doesnt count as nsfw but i have a few strong headcanons abt this for him)

Akashi Random Headcanons

he was taught at an early age to put his pinky up when drinking or picking something up and he always gets teased by his friends for it

he plays Shogi with Bokushi in his head when he's bored (he literally plays blind chess why tf wouldnt he be able to do this?)

also argues with Bokushi a lot

he is secretly a metalhead and an ELITIST because his opinions are absolute (duh)

he talks to Shiori's grave when he's in a rough patch

he switches personality randomly throughout the day sometimes just to mess with people

he has online friends he plays chess with (NEEERRRRDDDD)

his name online is (this is more or less canon) Red Emperor

his hands are a bit calloused (from basketball, violin and stuff) and he's a lil insecure about it

when he needs to rant he takes Yukimaru out for a ride and rants to his horsey (with expletives)

his violin is a fucking Stradivarius (a brand on the same level as a Ferrari sports car)

fluent in many languages including, but not limited to, Spanish, Chinese, French, Italian, Arabic, Latin, Russian, German

he likes driving at night, it's so serene and calm for him

he HATES HATES HATES waking up in the morning and will willingly sacrifice a lecture session with Masaomi just to get 5 more minutes of sleep

sometimes he still eats popsicles from the convenience store to reminisce his time in Teiko

he is NOT a touchy person, he's gonna stay away from as much touch as possible (but he doesn't mind hugs)

he still has his first basketball that his mother gave to him as a kid and it's in his closet

he's never been to a supermarket lol and he does want to go inside one (he can and probably will buy every little flavor of everything that he sees interested)

when he does something slightly wrong he has an Internal panic attack and starts hearing Masaomi's voice yelling at him

uhhh he loves Sevonne (me) and considers her his wife <3

after everything that happened, he still keeps in touch with Midorima often and hangs out with him a lot

TW!

has thought about comitting suicide at one point in his life

not sure what point but one point

also has very faint scars on his upper thigh

#kurokosbasketball #akashi seijuro #knb #kuroko’s basketball #kurokos basketball #akashi seijirou #the basketball which kuroko plays #kuroko's basketball #akashiseijuro #kuroko no basket #kuroko no basketball #kuroko no basuke #kurokonobasuke #seijūrō akashi #knb akashi #akashi seijuurou #seijuro akashi #akashi headcanons #akashi hcs

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what-even-is-thiss · 1 year ago

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Someday when I have a more consistent schedule I really do wanna have a YouTube channel. And I’ve wondered about sponsorships. I’ve gotten offers on this very blog before to participate in one of those stupid ads for drop shipping crystals that project your birth sign or whatever that I’ve turned down.

I’ve wondered though. Because on one hand sponsors pay good money and money is a thing that is required to live in this day and age. But also I feel like if I ever took a sponsor nobody could ever fully and completely trust my opinion on anything again.

There’s this YouTuber I love whose channel is called Swell Entertainment. And she comes across as being very honest but also she takes sponsorships. And a big part of her channel is review content. So sometimes I wonder if she’s pulling her punches slightly because she still wants to be marketable. But I don’t hold that against her because she’s living in LA for god’s sake and sponsorships provide much more reliable income than other methods.

It’s kinda sad that advertisement is almost required to make a living creating internet content.

I pay for YouTube premium not just because I wanted to get rid of ads on my smart tv, but because creators get more money per view from YouTube premium subscribers. I can’t afford to subscribe to a dozen patreons but I can afford one cheap subscription.

I hope if I ever have a channel big enough to have sponsorships I either take them extremely rarely for stuff I actually care about or don’t take them at all. Because I want to be able to just have opinions about stuff openly. But the sad truth is that money can be an issue. So. Who knows? I certainly don’t hold it against people who take sponsorships. That’s just how the industry works nowadays. They need money to live. And if you have adhd which many creative types do contractual deadlines can really help you get stuff done. And sponsors can get you experiences like vacations and luxury hotel stays and free reviewer copies of books and video games. Who can blame them? There’s so much stuff available to you from sponsors that can improve your quality of life and help you make your business better. Money to hire editors and voice actors and writers and animators, buy better equipment, rent out a sound stage.

But. Idk. A lot of those sponsored products aren’t that good. And a lot of people are susceptible to advertising. It works on a lot of people. Especially when it comes from a face they trust.

The tradeoff to take sponsors or not is a difficult one. Honestly and truly. And it’s very probable that I’ll never be popular enough to actually have to make a decision on these things. But I still think about it every time I see a sponsored segment. What levels of calculation have gone into that? None? A lot? I’ll never be allowed to know because that would be bad for business.

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alevolpe · 4 months ago

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Do you think Ami's love is something that helps heal Mako's loneliness? Or will she have it all her life?

Well hello there Satan. 😂

Let's see, I think it definitely depends on the way you see the characters and their pasts.

For me and the way I see and write Mako and Ami, both together and separate, yes, Ami does help Mako feel better in some ways.

I try to focus less on Mako's loneliness and more on her trauma and survival guilt. Mako is a very friendly and outspoken girl, so I honestly don't really buy that no one ever tried to approach her before Usagi, even with her being labeled a delinquent. I make her and Mina childhood friends, so she's not so much lonely as she's an extremely traumatized girl, suffering from post-traumatic stress, at times extreme anxiety and frequent night terrors.

Ami helps her, but I think Mako will never 100% fully heal from her trauma, but that is also ok. She learned to accept that some days might not be as bright as others, but she won't let that get in the way of her happiness or her relationships.

People really underestimate how supportive and loving of a person Ami can be, mostly because she's so private, but she never does shy away from showing her loved ones how much she cares in her own unique ways. In a way, both her and Mako are caretakers, with Ami having some problems of her own also (don't they all tho lol).

I've expressed before that I see Ami being an extremely stressed person and how, even in her happiest self (where, tbh being with Mako is as close as she can get, I rlly think so) she doesn't live as long as the others and starts showing signs of aging earlier. That doesn't mean she's unhappy, but just that Ami's anxiety is self-fueled and no outside factors can stop it, only being able to ease it at best.

I think their relationship really does help them, both in supporting each other and fulfilling their own "needs" as caretakers in a natural manner. With Mako is pretty straightforward, she cooks, she cleans, she cares for Ami's health and well-being when Ami herself forgets or is too tired or busy to do so. This process makes Mako happy on a subconscious level with making Ami feel loved and happy in turn.

With Ami is a lil more subtle, like most things Ami, but I see her as almost a chameleon, she adapts to her partner's comforts and needs (with Ami I think is also an extension of her being an extreme people pleaser, where she finds the best ways to please people around her, as long as it doesn't breach her own comfort level.. most times). With Mako, I think Ami realizes pretty quickly how important physical affection is to her, so Ami, almost subconsciously, makes sure to engage physically with Mako on a regular basis. Other than that, I think Ami understands Mako extremely well. When Mako needs something, Ami does it, all this with no words spoken. Mako really appreciates this, and not only from a "thank for helping love" perspective, but also cause Mako understands Ami spends a lot of time trying to make sure she's happy and the thought of someone doing that for her makes Mako happy, because Mako wants to be loved and cared for.

The basis of Makoami for me is how these characters work so incredibly well at making each other happy in such a natural and almost effortless way. There are other things I love about them obv, but this warm feeling of pure love is so important to me.

#sailor moon #ask me stuff #makoto kino #ami mizuno #makoami #i feel like every time I try to talk about them I'm just so overwhelmed I can't really put down my words properly #but if you ever doubted how much I love them #halt your fears

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hellenhighwater · 2 years ago

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i'm sure you've probably been asked this before but i'm new here and very curious: how did you come into ownership of your house and how are you paying for it? i recently moved in with my boyfriend and the housing situation is... dismal. and we're eventually moving into another house with a friend but we barely make enough money combined to support ourselves. i'm just curious as to what it takes to be content because you are living in such a dream house to me and i would love to achieve that one day. ty and have a great day!

I'm not going to pretend that my homeownership is some kind of one-man bootstraps success story; it's not. I got lucky in a lot of ways. It's a combination of stuff.

I haven't owned my house for long--it'll be two years this August. When I started saving for a house, I was lucky enough to be able to live with family and basically eliminate the majority of my living expenses, which allowed me to save a much higher percentage of my salary than I would otherwise have been able to save. I was driving an hour and a half for my daily commute, but it was worth it to not be paying rent. Having a bunch of roommates prior to that also helped. I have almost no debt--I did law school on 100% scholarship, and picked a cheap undergrad university. (This actually backfired--my credit score simply did not exist until waaaay later in my life than is recommended if you want a mortgage. I struggled to find a lender that would work with me even though I was stably employed and had a cash down payment ready.)

I also bought a home in a non-urban area; I live in a fairly small town. My house is also not very expensive; it was between $150-$200K when I bought it. That's due, in part, to the location (small town), the tiny lot (less than a quarter acre), the age (120+ years), and the need for a lot of superficial updates and repairs. It's structurally sound for the most part, but it's dated.

I'm a lawyer. It's easy to miss, since I post like an idiot, but I am regularly reminded that sometimes even morons pass the Bar. I don't make the kind of crazy money most people assume lawyers make, but for a single-person household I'm okay. I was able to make a fairly sizeable down payment--more than was strictly necessary, actually--so my monthly mortgage is actually less than $1k, which is still mindboggling to me. It's good, because this house DOES need work.

But with all that said, it still wasn't easy. I got my first job when I was a freshman in high school and I have been continuously employed since then. Between the ages of 18-28 there was never a time that I held less than two jobs; most of the time I had three, and it...sucked. It was fun, a lot of the time, but mostly that kind of unpredictable schedule is just exhausting at a subconscious level. I remember the week before the Bar, still working two jobs, being in the library at 3 am, my brain melting out my ears, and cruising Zillow listings for bombed-out houses in Detroit being sold for pennies on the dollar, thinking that if nothing else, I could buy one of those and make it work one repair at a time. I went to law school because I wanted to be able to buy my own house. I moved out of the city so I could buy my own house. I shaped a lot of my life around the need and want to have my own space. I have spent years sitting up late at night and looking at real estate listings I couldn't dream of affording.

I don't know if that helps. I guess the only advice I could give is that if homeownership is a big priority for you, maybe look for areas where real estate is affordable(ish; I know what it's like these days) and see what it would take for you to be able to live there. A lot of the time, if there's good bones to work with, the rest is just what you make of it.

#i often tell people i'm live in ______#and it is not unusual for them to bring up various concerns about crime rates in areas like mine #and my fine friends: believe me i am aware of the crimes #its fine #what are they gonna do murder me??? only if i dont get em first #but the unfortunate reality is that for a lot of people under 35 its simply not possible to live in a major city without renting #which is insane #the system is broken but we still have to live in it.

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rogersevans · 2 years ago

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she’s just not that into you

Summary: You were never one for parties, so how did you end up at the biggest frat house on Saturday night?

18+ Content Below the Cut, Minors DNI

masterlist

Parties. Something you’d never gotten the hype over. In your opinion they were filled with alcohol and bad decisions. You’d been to the odd few house parties in high school, you were the person that always found the animal, spending most of the night on floor with them or quietly observing everyone getting shitfaced, whilst also keeping a watchful eye over your best friend. College parties were different, or so your friends had told you, something about them being ‘next level’. The comment alone had piqued your interest which is how you ended up spending your Saturday night in the house of the biggest fraternity on campus, the music so loud you could feel the vibrations under your feet.

Your roommate, and best friend, Robert, had convinced you to come with him. You took pity on him after he’d spent the best part of 5 hours following you around the apartment begging, pleading you. He took great pride in the fact that it only took him that long to convince you, knowing how stubborn you are. That smug smile hadn’t left his lips since you said yes.

It wasn’t like you were a recluse or had no friends. You had plenty of friends, some days you were hardly at home. You’d just never seen the appeal of getting shitfaced at a party with people you didn’t really talk to or plan to talk to in the future. Although, watching people make idiots of themselves was somewhat amusing to you.

“Having fun, flower?” Robert husked in your ear, his hands resting firmly on your hips, holding you close to him and giving them a reassuring squeeze.

“Tons.” You deadpanned, leaning your head back against his shoulder to speak into his ear.

“Come on, flower.” He tried, gripping your chin and turning you to face the crowd of students dancing and having what seems to be the time of their lives. “You’re tellin’ me, this doesn’t look like fun?” His chin resting on your shoulder, turning to look up at you flashing his pearly whites.

“Oh yeah,” you sarcastically started. “Getting shitfaced with a bunch of strangers, who don’t understand personal space seems like a great way to waste our Saturday night.”

Guilt started to build up in the pit of your stomach when you heard Robert huff in annoyance and his face drop slightly. You remembered him telling you that he’d signed up for formal rush with this fraternity, which is why he dragged you along tonight and why going was so important to him. He wanted to make himself known to the guys.

“Sorry, Robbie.” Turning to face him in his hold, cocking your head to the side. “Come on, let’s go get a drink.” Taking his hand in yours you began to lead him through the house, pushing your way through the sea of bodies and various rooms.

Jesus, how big was this fucking house?

“Whatcha drinkin’, my flower?” He husked against the shell of your ear, his hands finding your hips again as he guided you over to the counter were all the alcohol sat in tubs filled with ice to keep them cold.

To anyone looking in from the outside, your friendship looks like something more. You’d both lost count how many times people would assume you were a couple or would insist that you crazy kids should admit your feelings and date already! Robert always joked that if he had a dime for every time someone made that assumption, he’d be able to buy you the world. You’d both given up going out of your way to correct people a long time ago. But you and Robert were purely platonic, with a capital P. You’d grown up together, your fathers were best friends and business partners, and his mother took you in as her own when yours left.

The dynamic of your friendship often intimidated guys, which explained why you were still painfully single at the ripe age of 19. Downey was the biggest walking cock block around.

It wasn’t malicious though, not in the slightest. Robert was protective of you and guys often didn’t believe that two people of the opposite sex could be that close without sleeping with one another. But you were like his baby sister- he's older than you by three months, a fact he never lets you forget. Someone has to vet the guys you date, look out for you. As Robert always phrased it.

“Surprise me, handsome.” You hummed as he moved around you, your eyes catching the sign taped to the cupboard above the drinks: ‘Flavour Station’, making you snort.

“You really not having fun?” Robert eyed you as he poured your drinks.

“Ask me in an hour.” You couldn’t help but wince at the amount of vodka he put in the red solo cup before adding lemonade. “Jesus Rob! Are you trying to get me drunk or give me alcohol poisoning!?” Your high-pitched squeak caused the brunette to roll his eyes in response.

“Don’t be such a party pooper.” Jutting out his bottom lip before leaning over the counter and tapping your nose with his index finger. “Maybe you’ll actually get laid, show off the girls.” His right eye dropped into a lazy wink before dodging your clenched fist, which was aiming for his shoulder.

“You’re a pig.”

“What?! You have a great pair of tits, and you should be proud of them, I know I am.” Rolling your eyes as he continued his rambling about your chest, plucking the red solo cup from his grasp and lifting it to your lips. “They really came into their own, it was touch and go for a short while. But they really pulled through.” Before taking a sip, you leant forward again to flick him on his forehead. “Ow! Hey!” He huffed out, rubbing the spot you’d just flicked. “Ask any guy at this party, they’ll say the same.” He now leaned in, his voice lowering as his spoke. “They’ve been starring at your tits for the past hour, flower.”

His words going straight to your cheeks, them now deepening in colour slightly. You couldn’t stop yourself from wrapping your jacket tighter around you, covering your chest from the view of everyone.

You knew this top was too revealing.

“Oh no you don’t!” Robert protested loudly, smacking your hands away and then pointing at you. “Don’t be such a priss.” He instructed firmly. “Or I’m takin the jacket.” Nothing but humour in his tone, he’d never go out of his way to make you feel uncomfortable, knowing how you’re already out of your comfort zone just being here.

That was the amazing thing about Robert, you could be feeling the worst you’ve ever felt. No bra. No make-up. Clad in sweatpants and an old top. He’d still build you up like you’ve just jumped off a runway. Now, whenever you doubted yourself, his words would echo through your mind. “Honestly, flower, take it from someone who adores the female body in every sense of the term... Believe me when I say, I’d do anything for those tits.” Was by far your favourite. Sure, his delivery wasn’t that of a gentleman. But you knew he meant every word.

“Johansson.” Chris called, his gazed fixated on you from across the room. When he was met with no response, he let out a low whistle, snapping his fingers in the general direction of his best friend and her date. “Johansson.” He sang now, his eyes finally leaving you before falling to the blonde who currently had some guy whispering something in her ear. Chris didn’t need super abilities to understand what he was saying, the look in Scarlett’s eyes said it all.

His blue eyes fell back onto you, his pulse jumping at the sight of your cheeks tinging in colour at something the guy you’d been clung to since you arrived said. Not being able to control the jealousy that oozed off him at the memory of you pressed against his front, as he whispered something in your ear.

He remembered you, how could he not? You’d approached him when he was in the middle studying for a test he had that morning, leaving it to the last possible minute. As usual. He remembered the flustered look on your face, your cheeks warm as you blew a stray piece of hair out of your face. You’d asked him for directions to the library, a small pile of books tucked under one arm whilst the other clutched the strap of your bag on your shoulder. The baby blue sweater you wore displayed the curves of your upper body perfectly, your jeans clinging to your thighs deliciously. It took him a few seconds to gather himself before answering, standing to his feet and pointing you in the direction of the library, standing closer than he should’ve. Your perfume clouding his senses when you moved to look in the direction he was pointing, the very existence of you had the front of jeans tightening.

He felt enamoured with you in those brief seconds, resisting the urge to follow you.

The memory alone had him salivating. “Scarlett.” His tone a lot harsher now, tugging on her elbow not caring how impatient or annoying he was being. “Oi, Cassanova. Detach yourself for a hot minute, yeah?” His stare hard on the stranger, whilst his grip stayed on Scarlett’s elbow.

“Stop being a dick, Evans.” The unnamed date sneered in Chris’s direction; Scarlett probably did tell him his name, but he didn’t care enough to remember. He’d be gone by morning anyway.

“Don’t even think about it.” Scarlett finally piped up, pushing herself off her date, moving to stand next to Chris. “Go get me a drink, I’m thirsty.” She dismissed him with ease with a simple flick of her perfectly manicured hand, her tone void of emotion. All it took was for her bottom lip to poke out slightly and his shoulders relaxed before delivering a quick peck to her lips, leaving to get her that drink.

The beauty of Chris and Scarlett’s friendship, no one came between them. Ever. No matter who they were. If Chris required her attention, he’d get it. If Scarlett needed help to ditch a date, Chris was always the fake ex-boyfriend who’d show professing his love for her. No stone was left unturned in their friendship, every part of their lives, they shared.

“I’ll never understand how you can be such a raging bitch and still have them at your beck and call.” He watched as she pulled out her pack of smokes, tapping the box against her palm before opening it.

“All straight men are pussy whipped my friend, even you.” Plucking a fresh smoke out of the box and resting it between her lips, fishing out her bright pink lighter from her pocket. “Oh please,” she started when he grimaced at her statement. “I bet when that one girl comes along, you’ll be so pussy whipped, you won’t even realise it.”

Silence fell between the two friends and Scarlett took the time to light her smoke and take the first puff. Chris found his gaze drifting back over to you, now you were laughing. A noise he couldn’t currently hear due to the loudness of the party going on around them, he felt robbed, he wanted to hear your laugh. When you scrunched your nose, your head falling back and the corners of your eyes crinkling slightly, he swore he could feel his heart hammering against his chest.

What the fuck was wrong with him? Was he having a heart attack?

“Now, what was so desperate that you needed to disturb my fun.” Scarlett caught Chris just before his eyes flew back to her, his cheeks flushed the tiniest bit. “Oh! I know that look! Who?” Suddenly giddy, the smoke now resting between her fingers as she scanned the room.

“Her.” Chris moved closer to the blonde, his fingers gripping her chin and turning her head in the direction of you.

“Oh,” she muttered quietly, more to herself. Instantly struck and speechless at your effortless beauty.

“Shes mine Johansson.” Chris warned, letting go of her chin and folding his arms across his chest.

“Relax caveman, I have my entertainment for the night.”

“Just shut up,” shaking his head he huffed out a laugh. “Who is she?” He asked carefully, his eyes falling back to you, again. Not even ashamed of how obvious he was being.

“She’s a freshman. Works at the campus Starbucks, makes a mean iced coffee. Her best friend is Downey, your newest, wannabe pledge.” The beauty of Scarlett Johansson, she could effortlessly give you a three-page report on everyone in this room.

“Downey?” Chris asked suddenly, his brows knotting together in confusion.

“You know that kid who told Billy to go fuck himself after he found him sniffing around her.” Now pointing her manicured fingers at Robert’s back, his head thrown back in laughter to match yours. “He’s a baby pledge.”

“Oh shit, that was him?” Chris was impressed, not everyone had the balls to stand up to Billy, at least not when they were trying to get into the fraternity.

Which meant one thing to Chris, he’s protective. Which also meant he’d be attached at your hip. Making it difficult for Chris to make his move.

Over the years Chris had become known for his reputation around campus. Ladie’s man. But in the most respectful way, he would never lead a girl on, but he would never commit to one either. Every girl on campus wanted to be the one to change him, swearing they can squash his commitment issues.

It’s a long running bet that Scarlett and Anthony had set up secretly at the start of junior year of college. A bet Anthony was currently winning. There had been a close call a year back, when Chris had spent half a year dating the same girl. But that swiftly ended when she asked him to meet her parents over Thanksgiving break. Putting Anthony back in the lead.

“Yup. Remember Billy’s face?” She snickered, taking a puff of her cigarette, blowing the smoke out in front of her. “That shit was hilarious. Billy nearly shit his pants.”

“Yeah, yeah. What else do you know about her?”

“Well, she’s friends with Lizzie’s younger sisters. I’ve seen them around campus together.” Chris inwardly cringed at the thought of you running in the same circle as his ex-girlfriend, the only one he’s ever had.

Elizabeth Olsen. The only girl to ever pin Chris Evans down. They dated for 3 years, breaking up the summer before junior year. They met through Scarlett and Chris turned into a lovesick fool within seconds of meeting her. The only girl Chris Evans had loved. But things had become stagnant in their relationship, becoming more like friends than lovers. When things ended it was friendly, both still wanting to maintain a friendship.

“I don’t really see her at parties.” Scarlett continued, stubbing her cigarette out in the ashtray on the table next to her. “Must be her first one.”

“Yeah,” Chris mumbled more to himself than anything. His eyes fixed on you, a soft smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he watched you scrunch your nose up in distaste at a couple in the corner all over one another.

“So, see anyone you like?” You ask, leaning across the counter and resting your chin on your palm. Your eyes going wide as you spot a couple in the corner devouring each other, your nose scrunching up at the view of her leg hitched up and wrapped around her date's waist. “Jeez.”

“Jealous?” Robert asked, smirking down at you. “Poor flower.” Reaching over to pat your head condescendingly, “want someone to ravish you like that?”

The snort that follows his question is loud and obvious, shoving his hand away from you and moving to stand up straight. The alcohol you’ve consumed has made you relax significantly, even if the drink is 90% vodka, 10% lemonade. “Jealous?” Scoffing at Robert’s shrug of his shoulder’s. “Please, he’s practically licking the inside of her mouth. She’s a girl, not a washing machine.” It was Robert’s turn to snort with laughter.

It was like a sudden blip had happened. He wasn’t there, and then he was. His bright, blue eyes a striking contrast to the black t-shirt he had on. The sleeves stretching delightfully around his bulked out biceps. You couldn’t help but focus on the St Christopher pendant that rested just above his collar bones, it swayed as he moved-

Wait. Was he walking towards you? Shit.

Your eyes locked onto his, the smug smirk that was greeting you was a dead giveaway that he’d clocked you shamelessly admiring him.

“Downey!” Chris suddenly cheered, bypassing you and holding his hand out to the brunette at your side. “Our newest pledge...” He trailed off; his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes but crinkles formed at the corner of his cobalt's nonetheless.

“H-hey, Chris.” Robert stuttered nervously, taking his hand and giving it a firm shake.

“This is my friend, Scarlett.” Chris nodded towards the blonde that was stood in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe and looking incredibly intimidating. You don’t know if it was the way she was starring you down, her green eyes bright with, excitement? Or the way her blonde hair, which was shoulder length, flowed perfectly with a simple twitch of her head.

“Best friend.” She corrected smugly, a twitch of a smug smile pulling at the corners of her lips. You couldn’t pull yourself to look away from her, your eyes widening slightly when she took a few steps closer to you. “You got a name, little one?”

You felt your lips move but you couldn’t remember any sound coming out of them, but you must have because you watched as Scarlett repeated your name, her head cocked to the side. “That’s a pretty name. Do you smoke, little one?” You felt your cheeks heat up at her close proximity, watching as she reached into her jacket pocket to pull out her pack of smokes.

“Depends on what you’re smoking.” You startled yourself at how confident you sounded, your eyes looking over her shoulder to find Robert and Chris, pouring four shots.

“Oh!” The blonde perked up even more, her eyes lighting up in excitement, the green twinkling under the dim lighting of the kitchen. “You’re more of a green smoker!” When you nodded silently, she continued. “Well colour me surprised! You don’t give off pot head vibes.”

“I give off vibes?”

Scarlett opened her mouth to respond, her new cigarette resting between her middle and index fingers. But was interrupted by the boys making their way back over to you both, Robert and Chris flanking either side of you. Chris’s cologne filling your senses, his hard chest rubbing against your arm.

“Hi beautiful.” He rasped in your ear, the nickname making you visibly tense.

You couldn’t stop your nose from scrunching up in distaste, shuffling back and pressing your back against Robert’s chest. “What did you just call me?”

“Shit,” you heard Robert curse under his breath. “Flower, he’s just being nice, have a drink?” He tried to calm you, his voice soothing in your ear. He held up the shot glass in front of you to try and tempt you, but you were too irked by Chris’s tone to listen.

Robert liked to pride himself on looking after you, making sure no harm came to you under his watch. But he knew that you could handle yourself, the number of times he’s witnessed you putting guys in check when they’ve crossed that line. He remembers how close you were to ripping that dick, Billy, a new asshole when he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“Beautiful?” Chris asked, his brows knotted in confusion.

“Hmm,” you started, tapping Robert’s arm to lower the shot. “That work on all the girls? Let me guess, you deepen your voice, invade their personal space and flash those pearly whites and they’re putty in your hands?” Your head now cocked slightly, and your hip jutted out as you rested your hands firmly on them, narrowing your eyes in on him.

You tried to ignore the way his eyes drew you in, the way they glinted in excitement as you questioned him, not even hurt that you’re smart enough not to fall for his usual tack ticks that would have girls clinging onto his arm at this point. His lips looked so inviting as they stretched into a wide grin, the way his grin turned into a smirk within seconds had your head spinning.

“Let me guess,” he handed Scarlett the second shot which they both knocked back with ease in unison, placing the empty shot glasses on the counter. “That’s not going to work on you?”

“Bingo.” Now it was your turn to smile and Chris swore he felt the world stop turning at the sight.

“Oh shit, dingus.” Scarlett snorted, now stood by Chris’s side, her small hand gripping his forearm as her eyes danced between you both, waiting with bated breath. “I like her! I like you.” Pointing at you with a wide grin.

“Can I get you a drink, sweetheart?” It was like the confidence had come surging back into his body, never had he been rendered speechless by a girl. Not even Lizzie could do that to him, he always found a quippy comeback.

“Try again.” You tsked, taking a step closer to him.

“Princess?” He tried, a smug grin now on display. “Gorgeous?”

“How are you so bad at this, my guy?” Jutting your bottom lip out and taking another step closer, you don’t miss the way his eyes carefully watch as you reach out to rub his arm sympathetically. “Don’t worry champ, some people are just meant to be single.”

In the moment Chris knew he had to have you, no matter what. Everything about you was so intoxicating and he could practically feel himself falling head first. The urge to lean into your touch had him come crashing back down to earth. Your hand still resting there on his arm, creating a warmth through the fabric of his t-shirt. His mouth suddenly dry.

Ignoring the snickering from Robert and Scarlett, you gave Chris a sympathetic, but smug smile, giving his bicep a quick squeeze before stepping around him to leave.

“Is she always like this?” You heard Scarlett ask. “I just thought she was some shy freshman.”

Robert took a couple of seconds to compose himself before he answered with a simple yes, nothin’ shy about her. Both now holding their stomachs as they continued to laugh.

“Wait, firecracker.” You heard Chris call after you, stopping you dead in your tracks before turning on your heels to face him. “Better?” He asked in surprise when he noticed your brows shoot up.

“Surprisingly so.” Was all you said, folding your arms across your chest. You watched as Chris fought with himself internally to not let his eyes drift down to your cleavage and that filled with you an odd sense of pride, your chest practically blooming with it.

He nodded his head towards the drinks behind him, his hands now stuffed into his pockets as he bounced on the balls of his trainers. “Let me get you that drink.”

“He’s not going to give up, is he?” Robert whispered to Scarlett, his eyes never leaving the pair of you.

“Not a chance.”

“What makes you think I’m not capable of getting my own drink?” You quipped back.

“I never said-”

“I couldn’t possibly know how to pour a drink, right?” You insisted, watching him start to fumble over his words which only encouraged you to continue your torment. “Let me guess,” you quickly added, stopping him from speaking. “You’re just trying to be a gentleman?”

It was like he’d suddenly turned into a mute, like his tongue had been pulled out of his mouth. He couldn’t speak.

“Tell me, Chris...” You trailed off, now standing in front of him, your chests almost touching. “If, and that’s a big if, I allow you to get me a drink, do I have to spend the entire night glued to your side? Laughing at everything you say? Twirling my hair around my finger? Holding onto you and telling you how funny you are?” Your voice now low as your spoke, your adrenaline was running at an all-time high as you reached for his pendant, twiddling it between your thumb and index finger.

Chris’s breath hitched when your eyes met his, looking up at him through your lashes. He knew he was stood there like an idiot, but he couldn’t find it in him to move. It was like he was cemented to this one spot, everything else around him a blur, the music now fading into the background and all he saw was you. Like time had slowed down.

Your throat dried up when you saw his tongue poke out and wet his lips. Not even noticing how your hand now rested firmly on his chest, the pendant cool under your palm. Soothing your hot and flushed skin. It was like you couldn’t pull yourself away from his eyes, watching how they searched yours, flicking between each eye.

His touch was so light it took you a couple of seconds to realise it was there, his fingers ghosting over the exposed skin of your hip. Pulling you back to reality. “That’s what I thought,” you cleared your throat, your cheeks flushing at his smirk. “I’ll pass. Good effort though.” Giving his chest a couple of pats before spinning on your heel and disappearing into the party.

Leaving nothing but your perfumed scent in your wake.

#chris evans #chris evans fic #chris evans x reader #chris evans x y/n #fratboy!chris evans #chris evans x female!reader #chris evans x fem!reader #chris evans x female reader #cevans #cevansedit #evansedit #chris evans smut #chris evans fluff

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bluelocksource · 2 years ago

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Hiori Yō’s trivia (src: twt & Egoist Bible 2)

"Exposing yourself is only one aspect of ego."

☆ Character color: Light Blue.

☆ Weapon: Inspiration's Pass/ Supply of Inspiration.

☆ Birthday: 30th November.

☆ Current age: 16 (source) (2nd year of high school)

☆ Zodiac: Sagittarius.

☆ Birthplace: Kyoto.

☆ Family: Father. Mother. Himself.

☆ Current height: 183 cm.

☆ Dominant foot: Left foot.

☆ Blood type: B.

☆ Motto: "Life is not a game, but games are fun."

☆ Starts playing football: At age 0. "I was given a soccer ball the moment I was born."

☆ Team before joining BLUE LOCK: Bambi Osaka Youth (same team as Karasu).

☆ Hobby: Gaming.

☆ Favorite football player: Mesut Özil.

☆ Favorite animal: Sheep. ."My name is Yō (羊 = sheep), so I feel a sense of affinity with it. Meeee—*."

* He's imitating a sheep's bleat.

☆ Favorite season: Rainy season. "Can’t play soccer in the rain → stay at home → can play games → I like it."

☆ Favorite food: Sanma no shioyaki (Salt grilled Pacific saury) he even like the bitter parts. "I can handle bitter parts too."

☆ Food he dislike: Cotton candy. "Don't you feel cheated? It's just sugar."

☆ Favorite song: NieR: Automata soundtrack. "Let's try this game." "You should try this game, it's really great!"

☆ Favorite manga: Level E. "I like the scene with the smiling bug."

☆ Favorite movie: Ready Player One. "My otaku heart got excited."

☆ Favorite TV show: Monday Late Night Show. "I like how Murakami adds a good flovor to it."

☆ Favorite celebrity: Erika Toda "Congrats on your marriage!"

☆ Favorite brand: "Somehow, Square Enix."

☆ Magazines he often read: Jump and Young Jump.

☆ Frequently used app: Taiko no Tatsujin. "The one you play with your fingers."

☆ Mushroom shoots vs Bamboo shoots: Bamboo shoots. "They're crispy and delicious."

☆ What goes best with rice: Nagatanien’s (brand name) ochazuke. "I always have it with me. It’s a must!"

☆ What makes him happy: Being left alone.

☆ What makes him upset: Interference.

☆ What he thinks his strength is: Able to see things from a broader perspective.

☆ What he thinks his weakness is: Playing too much leads to a lack of motivation for other things.

☆ What made him cry recently: "I cried at the ending of 'Kaze no Klonoa'."

☆ Favorite/best subject: Computer.

It's written as パソコン (pasokon) which means Personal Computer, but it's just referring to Computer subject.

☆ Weak/least favorite subject: Physical Education. "I already play football, I don't see why I need to move around a lot."

☆ Ideal type: Someone who can leave him alone.

☆ Number of chocolates received from previous Valentine: About 4. "One was from a guy, so I was surprised."

☆ At what age he experiences first love: At age 10. "I was into Erika Toda from 'SPEC'."

☆ The first time he got confessed to: "A senior in middle school, one year older. They said they had been watching me, but I didn’t know them at all, so I turned them down."

☆ Fixation: Girls with broken bones (Influenced by Erika Toda in "SPEC").

☆ Average sleeping time: 7 hours. "I don't sleep when I'm gaming, though."

☆ How he spend his holiday: "Games. Games. Games."

☆ When taking a bath, which part he washes first: His neck. "I've heard it's full of nerves."

☆ What he usually buy from the convenience store: Yakult. "The health of intestinal environment is important."

☆ What will he do if he received 100 million yen: He would like to invest in gaming company.

☆ At what age he stops receiving presents from Santa: "Probably at 10 years old. My birthday is on November 30, so I was getting presents twice within a month."

☆ What was his last wish from Santa: "PS4 (now I’d ask for a PS5) and Nintendo Switch."

☆ What will he do during his last day on Earth: "Play as the killer in "Dead by Daylight" and get a complete wipe."

☆ Favorite historical figure: "All the people who created interesting video games. They are my saviors. Thank you!"

☆ If he hadn't encountered soccer, what will he be doing: "Probably other sports; either way, I think my parents would have made me do something."

☆ If he could only take one thing to a deserted island, what would it be: A tent. "It’s important to have a place where you can be yourself."

☆ If he had a time machine, would he go to the past or the future: The past. "I’d like to see my parents when they were active athletes. Maybe then, I could understand some things better and make peace with them."

* The crossed words are the changes made from twitter’s answer to the answer from Egoist Bible.

note: i want to apologize in advance for any mistake made in the translation!!

Last updated: 06/01/2024 05/06/2024 23/10/2024

#blue lock #hiori you #trivia: hiori you #hiori yo #source: twitter #trivia #trivia: profile #admin han #our translation

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tia-amorosa · 4 months ago

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Sunset Died - Michael & Peter

Trip for two (Part 4)

The trip is something special for Michael. What he had always experienced with his father, he was now experiencing with Peter. And slowly their hunger started to kick in. "I'm curious to see how this combination tastes. Garlic, paprika and tomato…"/ "Believe me, it tastes fantastic together. And the good thing is, we'll both stink…"/ "hehe, definitely".

After the first bite, Peter wasn't quite so enthusiastic. "mh…hm, maybe we should have fished somewhere first"/ "And where? All the lakes here have practically been filled in"/ "hmm…"/ "See… Oh man, I miss our beach. We really had a lot of fun there"/ "Yes… And there was good fish"… Even though he wasn't necessarily thrilled with the taste of the roasted vegetables, Peter ate everything anyway, after all, he was hungry too.

After dinner, Michael didn't want to lie down in the tent straight away. Instead, he lay down on the blanket in front of the tent and looked up at the night sky. Peter joined him a short time later "Are you OK?"/ "mhm. It's so quiet out here. Even though there are no more cars in the city, everything is still somehow… loud."/ "It is. There's hammering, drilling, people are trying to get their houses warm for the winter".

"Do you think everything will be a bit more normal here again one day? I mean… I've got used to all the walking, it's not wrong that there are no more cars, but… there's just so much missing. In summer it was always nice to be on the beach or at the fairground…"/ "mhm. Now we have to provide entertainment here ourselves".

"I'm not just talking about entertainment. We used to be able to just go into a store with our pocket money and buy whatever we wanted. A magazine, or lemonade". Peter thought for a moment and smiled. "Or a bag of potato chips, man, that would be great now"/ "hnhn, yes, or cookies…"/ "hehe. No, they should first make sure that we all have a working heating system. You know… I think there's something going on in the background…" Peter's voice became more serious.

"Do you think…they're deliberately not giving us any help here? It's been almost a year now… They should have asked about us a long time ago. I mean… Three people came back, they found a way back here…"/ "Exactly… Actually, someone from the military or some other aid organization should have turned up here a long time ago".

"Do you think they've forgotten us? Or think we're all dead?"/ "It's possible. Certainly not forgotten… But you've experienced what happened here yourself. Maybe no one wants to look… but I still have the feeling that someone here knows exactly what's going on."

"I think … that the Altos know something. I mean… Have they ever helped us in all this time? We kids in particular should have been given better support. I don't know what I would have done if Xander hadn't turned up on our doorstep one day…" Peter nodded in agreement. "Yeah, even if he screws up now and then, he takes care of you guys…hmm, do you think he might know something?".

"I don't know, I don't talk to him about his work and I don't think he would tell me anything. Besides, he's often pretty exhausted when he gets home, so I don't want to bug him…"/"hhh, oh man. ". Peter rubbed his eyes, he'd been up a long time and it was quite late. "Let's go to sleep now, shall we? " / "mhm."

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While Peter and Michael are already in their sleeping bags, Xander is a little surprised that evening. "hm. You do realize that this is my bed, don't you?"/ "I know that. But if Michael's not there, I don't want to sleep alone in the room"/ "ah… OK, then… Shall I read you something again? But the three little pigs are not for the night, that's an explicit instruction from your brother"/"hm, then another story…".

A children's book, appropriate, but not quite age-appropriate. Bella has long since outgrown the level of knowledge she gains from this book. She knows that herself and she's sure Xander knows that too. But it's something light, something that doesn't strain the mind too much, but also tires you out at some point because of all the colorful pictures. "Well, and that was triangles, circles and lots of other shapes."

After the girl fell asleep, Xander was in his own thoughts. "I got used to you guys really fast. Maybe… I should go check on her after all? I'm off tomorrow… Finally. And I haven't had a chance to check downstairs to see what's going on. Nick has the key. But a locked door isn't necessarily an obstacle, hnhn. Sleep well, girl".

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End of this Part

@greenplumbboblover ☺

poses partly by @justanothersimsblog (I don't know if I have chosen the right simblr to mark, unfortunately your Sims 3 Poses download page is not accessible?)…

#sims3 #simsstories #sims3 story #sunset died #post apocalyptic #sims3 gameplay #michael bachelor #peter/parker landgraf #xander clavell #bella bachelor

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rrrawrf-rewrites · 1 month ago

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Winn yanked his front door open. He’d talked to his landlady, and she’d given him three days to get this figured out, but Jackie wasn’t answering his calls. Fucking of course she wasn’t, but that didn’t fucking matter, Winn would just hunt her down -

He stormed up the stairs to street level and stopped short a split second before he ran into -

Fucking Rembrandt.

Winn stared at him, his heart rate spiking even while he suddenly couldn’t breathe.

Rembrandt smiled back at him. Like always, he wore a suit, this one a dark red and completely out of place on the city block. There hadn’t exactly been a lot of options for an ex-con fresh out of prison to rent once he’d gotten out of the transitional housing; the neighborhood here was a little shabby and rundown, maybe a step above the worst parts of town.

Except, with Rembrandt standing here in front of him, smirking and holding a folder stuffed with papers, this was now the absolute worst part of the entire continent.

Winn’s gaze darted down towards the papers he held, and he recognized the flier that his landlady had shown him. Something clicked into place, and his gaze darted back up as he snapped, “What the fuck are you doing!”

“Good morning to you, too.”

Winn snatched at the folder, but Rembrandt took a step back. “Are you fucking putting these everywhere?” Winn demanded. “You fucking liar, you’re gonna get me kicked out -”

“Oh, what a shame that would be,” Rembrandt said dryly. He held up one of the fliers. “I’m just a concerned member of the community.”

“The fuck you are,” Winn seethed. His own bloody (literally) mugshot was on the damn flier, right under the bright red words: SEX OFFENDER. “You don’t even fucking live here!”

Rembrandt hmmed, glancing up at the apartment building. “No, I don’t,” he said, then added, “Not yet.”

Not yet?

“But,” Rembrandt continued smoothly, “I still think your neighbors should be aware that their downstairs neighbor is -”

“I’m not a sex offender!” Winn shouted without meaning to, far too loud. Rembrandt, barely able to repress a smile, arched an eyebrow, and then glanced to one side. Winn followed his gaze, and his face reddened as he spotted one of said neighbors, a middle-aged man holding the hand of his ten-year-old daughter. He was holding one of the fliers.

Winn bit his tongue so hard he tasted blood. With an effort, he lowered his voice and hissed, “I’m going to fucking kill you.”

“Oh, we’re making death threats, now,” Rembrandt remarked. “I’m sure that will do wonders to convince everyone you’re an upstanding, reformed member of society.”

“Society would be a lot fuckin’ better without you in it,” Winn bit out. He wanted to punch that smug look off of Rembrandt’s face, but there were other people on the street, and he knew immediately how Rembrandt would spin it. “Shove those fliers up your ass, then go tell everyone you’re a fucking liar, you piece of shit.”

Predictably, Rembrandt didn’t move from his spot. He tucked the folder under one arm, and gave the apartment building another long look. “This isn’t a bad place, all things considered,” he said, ignoring Winn’s fuming. “You should count yourself lucky they even let you in. One of my buildings wouldn’t have let you within a thousand feet.”

“Lucky for me it’s not your building,” Winn sneered. “If you don’t get the fuck outta here, I’m gonna tell the landlady you’re trespassing.” Not that he thought she would care.

A slight smile crossed Rembrandt’s face. He tucked one hand into his pocket, rocking back on his heels. “Maybe I’ll buy it, then,” he said thoughtfully. “Sink some money into the neighborhood. It clearly needs it.”

He gave a pointed look around them. “It would take some work, but I’m not above getting my hands dirty.”

Winn snorted. “The fuck you aren’t,” he muttered sourly, hating the smirk on Rembrandt’s smug face. The man continued as if Winn hadn’t interrupted.

“We’d need to repaint the building, and do some renovating,” Rembrandt said, head tilted thoughtfully. He flicked his dark gaze over Winn, and his smirk broadened a touch. “Clean up some of the filth.”

“You son of a bitch.” Winn decided he didn’t care that there were people nearby, several of them shooting him suspicious looks. He lunged forward, but before he could hit Rembrandt, his power picked up on the motion of Rembrandt’s free hand, the little knife slipped out of a pocket, clicked open -

Winn hissed in pain when it sunk into his side, just above his hip. Rembrandt looped his other arm around Winn’s shoulders, still holding the file, and kept Winn close, pressed up against him.

“We both know this isn’t long enough to really hurt,” Rembrandt murmured into Winn’s ear, as Winn grabbed his shirt and his wrist, trying to push him off. He flinched when Rembrandt twisted the little knife. “So it didn’t hurt. Understand me?”

His grip tightened, Winn’s face in his shoulder. Blinking back tears of pain, Winn took a shaky breath, then thought better of it and didn’t say anything at all.

“Good.” Rembrandt kept Winn in some perverse kind of one-armed hug. “Don’t bother moving, Winn. I like knowing where you are, and I can tell you now, there isn’t another soul in Boston who will let you under their roof.”

He dug the knife in a little deeper, and Winn strangled down a yelp of pain. Letting go, Rembrandt left the knife lodged in Winn’s side; Winn immediately put a hand to it, as if his own touch could make it hurt less.

He stumbled back when Rembrandt shoved the folder of fliers against his chest, automatically grabbing it before it could fall. “I’m sure your probation officer can clear it all up for you, Mr. Yale,” Rembrandt said archly, straightening his suit jacket. He tipped his head back, a small smile playing about his lips as he viewed the expression on Winn’s pale, tear-streaked face. “She should be here soon. Someone tipped her off about you having a weapon in your possession.”

His gaze lingered on the knife. Winn clenched his jaw, blinking back tears.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked, his voice breaking.

Rembrandt shrugged. “I’m bored,” he said plainly. Tucking his hands into his now-empty pockets, he gave Winn a nod. “I’ll see you around, Yale. Enjoy the fresh air while you still can.”

#winn #rembrandt #writing #my writing #superpowerverse #this has nothing to do with anything #i also am just bored at work #ill write something besides remy beating up winn someday

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