#revert!fresh sans

[ask-ray-sans]

[E] Just kidding! We're letting you guys pick through Ray! You don't get anything aside from the names we've chosen to represent the AUs...

[E] We will answer other asks in the meantime but the story itself will not progress until the poll is completed! Please feel free to reblog and share!

[B] More AUs will probably show up later on.

[E] Edit: Whoops, uh BT!Undertale was supposed to be BC!Undertale- uh so yea ...

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Masterlist

[endercreep25]

Muscular revert fresh

I would like to apologize in advance for having put this on the internet /lh

Click to view below cut at your own risk. Warning: Ribcage on display and a.. frightening image

….

Revert!Fresh belongs to @bendyzy

[ask-ray-sans]

They look amazing!! Thank you Meelu!

[E] Ngl I absolutely love the bonus drawing <33

Masterlist

Gift because I love their blog and their characters!! They're so nice and fun to draw! *But dies anyways because Freshy's outfit took way too long* /not mad

Lookit Anomaly, he's so proud of them <3 Lil silly bonus with my oc under the cut

Don't worry guys, Eon doesn't bite! Yes he do

Eon's ref should be coming soon.... it should be lol Ray belongs to @endercreep25 Revert!Fresh/Freshy and Anomaly belongs to @bendyzy Eon belongs to me

[blueparadis]

satoru gets so clingy whenever he is out in public with you, especially knowing that you hate pda. he will hold your hand, and kiss the back of your palm making you cringe, claiming that if you get lost his kiss will protect you, lead you back to him. yeah, he is corny too.

when the relationship is fresh and growing he sometimes used to forget how big he is, as in, he would just casually make you sit in between his legs in a mixer or gathering if there was no seat available but now that he is well accustomed to it along with your tantrums he just makes fun of it.

At a close gathering of friends, he grabs you when you enter the room and gathers you in his lap, as one holds a child. he thinks you will just get flustered, but to his utter disbelief, you just scream,"Put me down Satoru." gaining everyone's full attention now. You sure are brave he thinks, yet once he sees your flustered face he grins saying, "Nope."

"Put.me.down." You repeat; this time putting emphasis on each word.

He softly exclaims, "What? babe are you scared of a little height?" as if this room full of people is talking and would not at all hear him. A series of laughter fills the room. Geto is taking out his phone. Shoko is just holding her laughter watching you two. Gojo notices you bite your lip out of shame and anger. There is also a deft in between your eyebrows. He loves how you get so scared, and so emotional of him, at times.

"Say, 'Daddy please' put me down." He still has the audacity to push your buttons knowing full well he is going to sleep on the couch tonight. You notice that his dearest friend has the recorder on filming both of you.

"is that a live?" Haibara exclaims peeking into Geto's phone. "Are you on live, geto-san?" He repeats in utter disbelief. You could feel how warm your ears are thinking how many are just watching you two at this very moment. Geto just clicks his tongue putting his phone back in his pocket.

"Y/N-san. you can say it." He keeps his hands tucked in front of him adding," I've turned off my phone," Your mouth just falls apart seeing him flip so easily. Just two days ago he was telling that you should not do whatever Satoru asks you to,it is gonna make him so overconfident about himself rather than your relationship with him.

"We will look away," Nanami adds since there is no way Gojo is going to let your feet touch the ground until you fulfill his demand.

"Seriously, you too Kento?" You complain. Nanami shrugs his shoulder, laughing. You do a quick of the room and see everyone is waiting. Leaning towards his ears, you say, "Daddy please, put me down," pouting; when everyone just 'ho's in amusement you leave a little peck on his cheek before he puts you down. He will think of that soft kiss when you grow old with him, because any form of showing his love reverting back stays heavy on his mind, lulling him into a different reality, like a mind high on intoxication as if he is far away from this world regulated with neon lights and numbers; far away where it is just him and you basking under the sunlight hiding in the meadows at some warm winter morning.

[mikimakiboo]

Master post because why not

I wanna keep track of my own stuff lmao

Link to the art masterpost !

Latest update: 26/11

| Toxicity

Introduction post to my OC Toxicity !

@/sleepy-batz made an amazing fanart of him I'm in love + trick by @/mcnotok

Also put him in a pumpkin for Halloween

| Time Travelers AU

This one belongs to me !

A bad sans poly AU where they all come from different time periods and travel through time

Long ass reblog chain with all the lore so far

Backstories: Nightmare • Dust • Killer • Cross • Horror

Some silly thoughts :D ••• Dust listening to Tally Hall • The music they like • them getting drunk • what every friend group does • crossover with G&M AU • Nightmare writing books

First part ( the following parts will be linked in the posts :3 )

Checkpoints:

Part 5

| Incorrect quotes

I'm not not gonna link all of them lol, but you can find them under the "original post" tag or simply the "incorrect quotes" tag with the multiple ones I reblogged

| Some fics

Wheels of misfortune (disabled AU, Nightmare angst)

Muffins (Real Age AU)

Surprise Adoption (Real Age AU)

Just like them (no AU, Nightmare angst)

Tiny Menace - Tiny Steps Forward (Bitty Nightmare AU, related parts)

Your meat isn't dead, it's still moving (Ghost & Medium AU, Horror encounter)

You will be fine, now (16+) (Bitty Nightmare AU, angst)

Two for the price of one (Double Noot / Noot² AU)

Unexpected Visitors (Time Travelers AU)

Happier Somewhere Else (no AU, Nightmare angst)

| Disabled AU

The idea for the disabled au comes from @/unknownchoatic

Paraplegic Nightmare: first and second post that started everything, + wheels of misfortune

Aphasic Horror

ASD/Blind Killer

Schizophrenic Dust

Schizophrenic Error

| Gifts and Collabs

Every gifts and collabs I did for/with @/ancha-aus ! (the AUs all belong to her)

• Real Age AU

An AU in which Nightmare reverts back to his passive form (who is still six years old) and where the gang now takes care of him like their own child

We have two fanfics:

Muffins

Surprise adoption

And two fanarts here and here !

• Ghost and Medium AU

I simply wrote some interpretations of everyone's backstories :) so it's not canon ! (Unless she says so)

Biiiiiig post explaining everything (containing additional links)

+ fic Your meat isn't dead, it's still moving

In this AU you will find: medium Dust, ghost Killer, priest Cross, ghost Horror, demon Nightmare, and god Error

• Double Noot / Noot² AU

An AU in which Corrupt (aka Corrupted Nightmare) gets separated from Nightmare (aka passive Nightmare) who is still a child, turned out Corrupt was holding him without knowing it to give him time to heal

Reblog chain that kinda started it all

Fanfiction: Two for the price of one

| some headcanons

Not all 'cause I did so many lol and there's so much already omg

Holding hands (Nightmare)

Biting (Dream&Nightmare)

General Nightmare headcanons

Nonbinary Nightmare

Dream and Nightmare NSFW headcanon (not explicit but please be 18+)

Puns (Nightmare)

Nightmare's sexuality

Some Dream headcanon

Nightmare's bad eating habits

Fresh's soul

Kisses (bad sans poly/Nightmare)

Looking up to the grown ups

Horror feeding everyone

General headcanons about the mtt as a poly

Dreamtale twins' emotions affected by their aura

Nightmare and animals

Nightmare has automatonophobia

Nightmare's blind spot

Killer the yo-yo master

| Concepts

A weird crossover au idea inspired by HTTYD, featuring the Dreamtale twins as dragons for one and everyone as dragon-riders for the other

A story concept about the Bad Sanses being kidnapped by the Star Sanses

The Dreamtale twins being compared to the Viking Gods (Idunn, Baldr and Loki) + the twins' design

Nightmare trying very hard to cause negativity but it backfires and he creates positivity instead

Video game concept

| song analysis

Lifeline by Thousand Foot Krutch and Passive Nightmare getting corrupted

Take it out on me by Thousand Foot Krutch and the bad sanses

[apathycares]

could you write about Sukuna being bored after he conquered the world again and taking itadori’s girlfriend as his wife cause he always ,,noticed her’’. You know like he kind of liked her when she was with Yuuji and he wanted to experience the same love and warm she gave to Yuuji?

Hola anon, thank you for the request! I sort of explored this concept (sans Yuuji and a little bit more dark) in my multi-chaptered monster I created here, so feel free to tune in if you're interested! Here's a little something for your request though -

※ Warnings: suggestive violence against people and children, Sukuna in general

※ Characters: Sukuna x reader, implied Itadori x reader, Gojo Satoru

Sukuna lives for his pleasure and displeasure alone. Defeat would mean death for him, which is why he was able to conquer his adversaries and ascend to the highest position in the world. No matter how much those sorry excuse for sorcerers were willing to die fighting him, they were not ready to die, leading to their defeat.

Japan had not only reverted to the freedom of the Heian Era, but devolved to an anarchist society upon the curse's reign. The rest of the world dubbed Japan a dead country, and refused to partake in any of its affairs. Despite this, they were very much aware of Sukuna's power and wanted nothing to do with it.

They simply lived on his whims alone.

Sukuna had not only conquered and reigned supreme, but he had taken everything that he wanted - he had kept Gojo Satoru alive as a pet, his eyes gouged out and kept in a case among his war spoils. All other sorcerers were killed and returned as cursed spirits, some held in captivity for entertainment and others loose in the world. And his wife?

She was the cherry on top of his possessions.

Not that she was happy about it.

The door to Sukuna's chambers creaked open, allowing a stream of light into the dark yet lavish space. You barely moved from your sprawled form on the massive bed, eyes dull and faraway as the sound of the door closing punctured the quiet of his room and duly reminded you that you were still alive. The inaudible yet heavy footsteps of your captor echoed off of the high walls, in a beat that you could pick out from anyone else’s, as he undoubtedly made his way to you as he always does when he needed to –

“You seem lively.” Sukuna said sarcastically, staring down at your unmoving body before he poked your side. “I’ve been informed of your refusal to eat – are you going to make me go through this again?”

“I’m not hungry.”

Sukuna tilted his head as he watched the minute rise and fall of your back, counting your breaths for a minute before he was satisfied. You were steadily regaining your health back after your last 'emotional lashing'. He had to endure several attempts at you harming yourself in the beginning of your union, up until he could finally enjoy the fruits of his labor and keep you by his side at all times. Sukuna only kept you in his chambers when he needed to take care of some business alone, which was rare.

Taking a moment to run his eyes around the room, he noted the bath water needed to be replaced after your use, and the room needed to be aired out so you would flourish a bit more. He asked if you would like to get some Sun and fresh air with him, sighing a bit when you said no.

“I’m not going to kill myself, Sukuna.” You spoke up suddenly after he sat down on the edge of the bed, pulling his attention back to you when you finally lifted your face off the mattress and cast your gaze at him for the first time in weeks. “My goal is to be just shy of that so you’d get bored of me and let me go back to Yuuji.”

“Impossible.” He shot down, pushing your leg to make room for himself so he could lie down, placing his head on your back and smiling at the ceiling when you made a noise of protest. “Whatever happens, there’s one absolute truth that has remained so since I first saw you – I’ll never abandon you.” Sukuna rolled over on his side to face you, never really able to stop himself. “Moreover, where would you go? All your little friends are either dead or curses.” He laughed a little as he said, completely ignoring the brat's name. “You wouldn’t want me following you into the foreign lands, would you?”

No matter how broken you were, you would never tempt yourself to lead Sukuna into the curse-less, populous world outside of Japan after causing this whole mess in the first place. No matter how much you believed that he kept you as a trophy after you survived Kenjaku’s ritual, morphing into a vessel for his ‘lesser’ emotions when the thrill of killing and fighting wasn’t doing it for him anymore, you wouldn’t doubt that he’d take your escape as a challenge to hunt you down, endangering anybody in his path to get you back by his side, as prideful as you've come to recognize him to be.

He had truly won, and there wasn't anything left to conquer.

Sukuna would hold death tournaments when he returned from his travels around his kingdom, sometimes jumping in when he got too bored or too excited, eviscerating the competition.

On monotonous days, he'd have you around as a spectator, dragging your detached form to his death matches and travels around Japan, laughing in pure ecstasy when you'd betray a small reaction at the carnage he'd hosted.

That's when he realized once again that it was you - you would always quell his boredom and restlessly cultivate his fire for pleasure when he needed you to.

So he kept you closer. You barely ever had a moment to yourself. He'd put you in exquisite kimonos and kosodes and hair ornaments, dressing you up like a doll ready to be shown off at all times. If anyone visited him, they knew to bring along gifts exclusively for you, and if he wasn't pleased with your reaction, he would use the visitor to pull one out of you.

Eventually, you got used to his antics, causing Sukuna to quickly grow bored once again, and so he decided to pull out his best -

"You wound me, wife." Sukuna drawled, clawed fingers reaching down and tracing your spine beneath your kimono as you sat at the foot of his throne. Your empty stare ahead did little to deter him, as he'd gotten used to your acts of rebellion pretty quickly. His fingers trailed down until he turned you by the jaw, leaning down to smile lovingly at you. "What will it take for you to smile for me again?"

Roll over and let me stab you in the ass until you die, you thought, but kept your mouth shut. Time and time again he'd ask you how he could melt the ice from your stare, or show some affection towards him when he was in the mood, and you'd respond with something along those lines hoping to hurt his ego, but all it did was make him laugh and derive pleasure all the same. You've come to find out that what hurt Sukuna the most was your non-reaction, and although it was hard to steal your heart, that's what you would give him until the end of your days.

"Hm, seems like you need a little inspiration."

You perked up a little as he descended from his throne and disappeared from the room, curious to see what he'd come up with next. Was it another death match? Maybe a few more children to skewer and roast in front of you?

Despite teleporting out, he'd chosen to return through the door.

Your heart froze over and dropped straight to your stomach.

"Surprise!" Sukuna tugged the chains in his hands and pushed forward his captives to kneel in front of you, reveling in the hot tears that fell freely from your widened eyes.

A disheveled Gojo stared up at you with empty sockets for eyes, bruises littered on whatever bit of skin that was exposed, and a hefty collar around his neck. His cracked lips parted in a silent plea to free him, before he was shoved out of the way and landed on the ground, the crack of his bones echoing in the large throne room, by a cursed spirit. No matter how deformed and disgusting this cursed spirit looked, you instinctually knew who it used to be.

"Yuuji?" You sobbed, placing your hands on your mouth.

"Die." It said in a cracked voice, reaching out to claw you just as Sukuna reeled him back towards himself. "Die. Die. Die."

"You're correct!" Sukuna dropped to a knee in front of you, holding the cursed spirit of your dead boyfriend back without a sweat as he smirked at you, completely unbothered by Gojo who had obediently sat up again like a robot. "Now, do you want to see them fight to the death, or will you give me a little smile?" He cooed at you, rolling his wrist to better hold on to Yuuji.

With eyes drowning in tears and a chest heaving up and down with a building panic attack, you cracked the most devastatingly broken smile he had seen in his entire existence.

"Beautiful." He mused, his heart fluttering for a moment in nostalgia before he reigned it in again and shot you a wide grin.

Sukuna released them to fight anyways.

I just realized I completely went left from the request. I'm sorry anon LOL might do another part to depict why he chose her and do the fluff bit (as close to fluff as we can get from this man).

[parfumieren]

Aria di Capri (Carthusia)

Years ago, when Facebook still had me in its sinister clutches (I have long since banished it to the shadow whence it came), a friend DM'ed me a tale of grief over a long-lost love. A relative of hers had visited Italy and brought back a bottle of perfume-- an extravagant floral, pure springtime in a bottle, the most beautiful thing she'd ever smelled. Its name was... Flora Capria? Flowers di Capri? She despaired of ever finding this mystery scent again...

A quick search of Perfumed Court's database turned up a "Fiori di Capri" by Carthusia-- a name familiar to me from Perfumes: The A-Z Guide. Therein, Luca Turin waxes eloquent about another Carthusia fragrance called Aria di Capri. He described it as an astringent "iced amaro" scent suggestive of "a delicious drink of Italian bitters called a lavorato, which I had over ice with a view of the Duomo in Milan", and spoke of its ability to bestow the "invigorating sensation of increased clarity". Worded thus, how could it not appeal? Onto the wishlist it went, to remain forgotten until my pal told her sad story.

I found and emailed an image of the Carthusia label to her. Did it look at all familiar? She replied almost instantly with palpable excitement: It did! Now we had a dual mission: to reunite this lady with her long-lost favorite perfume and (I hoped) to gain a new favorite of my own. I duly ordered decants-- Aria for myself, a small sample; for her, a larger-sized spray bottle of Fiori. Done and done.

While waiting for our scent-soulmates to arrive, I read up on Carthusia's history. It was founded within a religious cloister (the Monastery of San Giacomo) on Capri a full two hundred years before Florence's Santa Maria Novella. Its exclusive line of perfumes incorporated essences derived from island-grown rosemary and carnations, resulting in a true local product. According to official apocrypha, production had slacked off over time until even the original formulas were misplaced. After World War II, the monks "rediscovered" the formulas and applied for a papal dispensation to have them analyzed by a chemist. Their cooperative efforts resulted in the relaunch of the Carthusia fragrance line-- five hundred years after its inception.

Alas, sometimes things die for a reason.

Aria di Capri started off crisp, clear, and cool, a benevolent floral-creamsicle accord that turned warm and vanillic as it developed on my skin. I could have forgiven it for being nothing like the promised licorice-bitters accord if only it had stopped there-- but no. Odd things started to occur, the first being a sudden twitch of the steering wheel that sent Aria di Capri into braunschweiger territory.

You heard me: my wrists suddenly smelled like liverwurst.

Lest I be accused of making this up, please know that my husband was offered a sniff of both the opening notes and this latter phase, and his verdict was the same as mine. And while our shared experience with Breath of God's smoked-meat phase proved amusing and edifying, there was nothing here to tempt us into thinking we were having a good time. For no woman wants to smell like the dourest of all lunch meats-- and no man, however enamored of a good sandwich, wants his woman to smell like it either.

But I'm not done. When the liverwurst accord (what IS it? what combination of scent elements is to blame?) was over, a dill accord kicked in. (Pickle with your sandwich?)

Now, I like the scent of dill as much as anyone else, and no one liked it better at that time than our cat. He was a veritable hog for fresh dill. We bought it by the bunch, and the beast positively trembled with desire whenever we cut off a sprig to feed him as a treat. So when he woke out of a sound midday nap and looked at me expectantly, I knew I wasn't dreaming that smell up. It lasted just long enough for me to decide for posterity that dill does not belong anywhere near perfume.

Period.

By the time Aria di Capri reverted back to something presentable on skin (the original floral accord, only wan and unenthusiastic), I'd had about enough. Clearly, whatever Luca Turin was drinking, it was more pickle juice than lavorato. And that wasn't the Duomo in his line of sight-- it was a delicatessen.

Later, I received an email from my friend, to whom I had sent Fiori di Capri via mail. In words of simple dignity, she thanked me for the perfume, even though it was nothing like she remembered. I understood then that no matter how let down I felt by Aria di Capri, at least I had not known it as any other scent than it was when it came to me. She'd known a better Fiori di Capri, once-- and never would again.

Et in Carthusia ego....

Scent Elements: Mimosa, iris, jasmine, laurel, licorice

[xtruss]

Environment: Why We Need Muck to Fight Rising Sea Levels

We’ve starved marshes of their essential sediment—now can we repair them in time?

— By Erica Gies | November 29, 2022

It’s a golden summer day, and I’m standing on a low coastal levee, overlooking a pond at Eden Landing Ecological Reserve that looks positively apocalyptic. Algae paint ruddy swirls in the brown water, its edge crusted hard with sparkling salt. As a breeze eases off the bay, a squadron of pelicans sails by, en route to more appetizing hunting grounds.

This pond is a legacy of a salt industry that has moved elsewhere. A few decades ago, when flying into San Francisco or San Jose, the ground beneath looked like a giant’s Easter egg dip. Ponds of blue, yellow, green, red, purple, orange, and pink ringed the South Bay. People had built low levees in semicircles from the shore, sectioning off portions of the bay to let the water evaporate, leaving behind the salt. The different colors were caused by varying levels of salinity and the types of organisms who could live in them—algae, bacteria, brine shrimp.

MARSH OF TIME: Restorationists are working to transform San Francisco Bay’s old salt ponds (pictured above) into more natural sea-buffering marshes—if they can get enough sediment in time. Photo by Filip Fuxa/Shutterstock.

But today these former industrial sites present opportunity. Reverting more of this coastline from salt ponds and flood-control levees back to natural ecosystems could help protect the San Francisco Bay Area from sea-level rise. The pond I’m standing by is awaiting change. But as I turn my gaze west, toward the Golden Gate, I see something that looks much more natural: Whale Tail Marsh, a low-lying pastiche of variegated greens and tawny yellows whose restoration began 20 years ago. These two areas, side by side, are symbolic of nature’s resiliency, where we allow it, and how much work remains. Now, as climate change accelerates, coastal restorationists are running out of time.

Humans are often inclined to build seawalls to protect coastal communities from encroaching oceans, but those require constant, expensive maintenance. And in fact, the way we’re changing land, rivers, and climate—and even the seawalls themselves—are undermining natural protections, such as tidal marshes, barrier islands, coral reefs, seagrass beds, dunes, gravel beaches, and kelp and mangrove forests. If left intact, these natural communities can slow fresh and tidal water, acting as a buffer, providing flexible and resilient protection for human communities. They provide multiple co-benefits, and even have the ability to sustain themselves. With these abilities, they can reduce by half the number of lives and properties at risk from storm surges and sea-level rise, according to a study in Nature Climate Change.1

Unlike seawalls, tidal marshes have a superpower against sea-level rise. It’s not just that they are a buffer between the water and human infrastructure, sapping energy from storm surges and blocking the highest tides. Marshes can actually grow vertically, keeping pace with sea-level rise by trapping sediment in their vegetation, which decomposes and then regrows. To perform this trick, they need three ingredients: sediment, space, and time.

“Marshes Can Actually Grow Vertically, Keeping Pace with Sea-level Rise.”

“Marshes are in a dynamic equilibrium with the water level. It’s been clearly shown that, even at pretty high rates of sea-level rise, if there’s enough suspended sediment, they can keep pace,” John Bourgeois tells me that day at Eden Landing. A laid-back guy originally from Louisiana, Bourgeois has become a significant figure in San Francisco Bay’s marsh restoration. For nine years he was executive manager of the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project, a public-private partnership that manages wetlands restoration of former salt ponds in Eden Landing and other sites in the South Bay.

Restorers have documented the speed of marsh growth. In the town of Alviso, near San Jose on the edge of the South Bay, a protective marsh accreted more than 6 feet in 25 years. Another long-term restorationist, Letitia Grenier, interviewed local people about this feat. A bright, warm woman who’s been studying the ecology of the bay for two decades, she is now director of the Resilient Landscapes program at the San Francisco Estuary Institute, a scientific research organization that studies water, wetlands, wildlife, and landscapes. Alviso residents told Grenier that where they used to dock their boats along the slough with plenty of draft, there is now marsh. “When natural processes deliver the sediment, the plants grow up through it, and the living marsh stays on top and the sediment keeps accreting,” she tells me when I visit her office in Richmond, California.

Can San Francisco Bay’s marshes even keep up with fast sea-level rise? I ask.

“The answer is yes, if they have enough sediment. Although,” she amends, “when sea-level rise accelerates very rapidly, it’s anybody’s guess, because we’ve never seen that before.”

Restorationists in San Francisco Bay may have the time they need to restore all available coastal land because sea-level rise is happening a bit more slowly on the United States West Coast than on the East and Gulf Coasts for complex reasons. California has seen about 6 inches of sea-level rise over the last century, although that’s still enough for some low spots to start flooding during king tides, such as San Francisco’s famous Embarcadero at the foot of Market Street and parts of San Mateo and Marin Counties.

But there’s not a lot of time. The rate of sea-level rise is expected to accelerate as the century goes on. Levels could rise by as much as 7 feet by 2100, the California Ocean Protection Council estimates, and that would threaten infrastructure, including airports, electricity plants, transportation, and drinking-water facilities—many of which lie low and close to the bay.

Bourgeois and Grenier are part of a vast, loose group of scientists and local government officials who have been working to fulfill a goal set in 1999 to restore more than half the 190,000 acres of marshes the bay had historically. Although precise documentation is lacking, experts estimate that, at the low point in the mid-20th century, just 10 percent of the historic marshes remained.

A Tern For The Better: If marshes are allowed to rebuild, not only can they keep pace with rising tides, but they can also provide habitat for important species, including the endangered California least tern (pictured above). Photo by Elliotte Rusty Harold/Shutterstock.

Today, about 28 percent of the historic marsh area, or approximately 53,000 acres, is marsh or being restored to marsh. In 2016, marsh allies refined their goal, making it an explicit objective to restore as much acreage as possible by 2030 for maximum resilience to sea-level rise. Currently planned restoration projects would add at least another 22,000 acres of marsh for a total of almost 40 percent of the original marsh area. The easiest large tracts of land to acquire and restore have already been slated for repair. Remaining open space around the bay is plentiful in certain areas but is privately owned, and some has subsided below sea level, which makes it expensive and difficult to restore to tidal elevations. Still, the goal is 100,000 acres total, if the group can leverage other opportunities for restoration.

Getting that space, someway, somehow, is one of the critical three ingredients marshes need to work their wonders. But in the heavily populated Bay Area, like in many other water-fronting places around the world, space is at a premium. Just behind the marshes lie freeways, sewage treatment plants, technology campuses such as Facebook and Google, and local neighborhoods. That human infrastructure is problematic because marshes need ​​room to migrate inland and because they are part of larger systems.

“You can’t just think of the marsh,” Grenier tells me—a systems theory lesson the scientists have learned by doing. When they started restoring Bay Area tidal marshes, they thought, “We’ll just breach [the levee creating] this salt pond that used to be a marsh,” she tells me. “We’ll let the sediment come in, it’ll be a marsh again. Boom. We’re done.” As they studied how marshes work, they realized the truth: “These are much bigger systems.”

Thanks to fresh and salt water moving through them, marshes interact with several other neighboring, intertwined ecosystems, both upstream and out into the deeper water of the bay. It’s a mobile spectrum: the subtidal ecosystem, populated by eelgrass and oysters; mudflats where egrets and endangered California least terns hunt; the low marsh with its Pacific cordgrass; the marsh plain featuring pickleweed, a tiny segmented succulent that—surprise—tastes salty; the high marsh with its gum plant; and finally, the transition zone reaching into the uplands, home to shrubs and multiple species of oaks. When free from human-made barriers, the zones exchange critical sediment and nutrients with the help of streams flowing down from the uplands and tides pushing inland.

“If you just have the marsh, it’s not as resilient as if you have the full system because each element protects what’s behind it,” Grenier explains. In their natural state, these ecosystems achieve “dynamic stability”—not an oxymoron, but a resilient state of flux in which they maintain themselves. That’s why marshes need space: They grow upward in part by slowly marching inland. Where they have room to move, they can creep over sediment in the uplands, feeding themselves as they go.

“Marshes Need Space: They Grow Upward in Part by Slowly Marching Inland.”

Marshes aren’t the only borderline between land and water along San Francisco Bay. Historically there were about 27 miles of sand, shell hash, gravel, and cobble beaches along the bay. Now there are hardly any; they’ve been replaced by artificial fill, riprap, or walls of large stones or concrete. But like the tidal marshes, the gravel of days gone by also absorbed wave power, like a football player who rolls when tackled to diffuse force on the body. Because riprap and seawalls are hard barriers, they don’t absorb wave energy but instead push back against it, banking it onto neighboring marshes, eroding them. Other restoration projects around the bay are now seeking to replace them with gravel, sand, or shell beaches in some places.

To find space for these natural cushions, restorationists look for opportunity from the human side, restoring places that have become available because they are now less attractive to people, such as the salt ponds.

But they are also looking to water to guide them. I came to think of the tidal marsh restorationists and other experts as water detectives, because they are all trying to understand water’s agency and processes by asking a rather radical question: What does water want? To answer that question, people restoring tidal marshes rely on the work of historical ecologists at the San Francisco Estuary Institute, who seek to discover what water once did in this landscape before development obscured its patterns. They then create maps showing where water wants to go, overlaid on modern development, that can help people understand where keeping water out may be a losing battle, and where relinquishing acres to nature can have a big impact on protecting adjacent human habitat.

Broadly speaking, human development has erased many of water’s slow phases—floodplains, meadows, forests, and wetlands, such as tidal marshes. For example, humans have eradicated 87 percent of the world’s wetlands. What water wants, say the detectives, is a return of these slow phases, an approach I think of as the “Slow Water Movement.” Slow water approaches are unique to each place, work with local systems, are distributed rather than centralized, are socially just, and empower and engage the local community. They also provide multiple benefits beyond buffering us from flood and drought, including carbon storage and homes for threatened plants and animals.

In San Francisco Bay, the effort by scientists and local governments to restore as much tidal marsh as possible is well underway. But in their ambition, they are coming up against a challenge. They need more of the third and final ingredient that marshes require to heal and grow: sediment. Existing tidal marshes and mudflats are unlikely to receive enough sediment naturally in order to survive sea-level rise this century, according to a 2021 report from the San Francisco Estuary Institute.2 Without supplemental sediment, many will drown by 2100.

In a natural system, fresh water from upstream rivers and brackish and salt water moved by the tides play critical roles in delivering sediment to marshes. But humans are blocking sediment delivery. This phenomenon affects San Francisco Bay, as well as many other river deltas around the world: the Mississippi, the Niger in Nigeria, the Indus in Pakistan, the Ganges–Meghna–Brahmaputra in India and Bangladesh, the Irrawaddy in Myanmar, the Mekong in Vietnam. Upstream dams trap sediment behind them. And leveed, channelized rivers shoot water and the reduced sediment it carries off the land and out beyond tidal mudflats. Depriving the near shore of sediment leaves a delta without enough raw material to keep up with normal coastal erosion, let alone rising seas. That’s one reason Louisiana has been losing land. And hardening the shoreline blocks tide-carried sediment from building land seaside.

If the San Francisco Bay restorationists are to be able to fulfill their plans to revive more of the marshes, they will need extra sediment. The old salt ponds are 1 to 2 feet below sea level for a few reasons. The biggest: Diking them off from the bay blocked tides bearing land-building sediment. Groundwater pumping also caused the land to sink. Dave Halsing, current manager of the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project, tells me on the phone that just opening a pond to the tides and allowing it to accrete naturally might take five to 20 years depending on the depth of the pond. That could be too slow to beat sea-level rise. The need for sediment has restorationists searching high and low for more so they can fill the subsided holes to jumpstart the natural restoration process. But they require a lot.

The lead author of the San Francisco Estuary Institute’s sediment report, geomorphologist Scott Dusterhoff, quantified the sediment required both to maintain existing marshes and mudflats and for additional planned marsh restoration. If sea levels rise by 6.9 feet by 2100—a moderate-to-high-risk scenario in which humanity doesn’t find the will to reduce emissions—they’ll need more than 600 million tons of sediment.

Some could come from upstream. Dusterhoff calculated that by 2100, without intervention, creeks could deliver 176 million to about 309 million tons of sediment to the bay. The variation is due to drier or wetter future scenarios. With less rain, there will be less water flowing down creeks to the bay carrying less sediment. With some intervention, such as removing derelict dams or building new dams that allow sediment to pass, creeks could deliver more. According to Dusterhoff, an additional 353 million tons of sediment could be harvested by 2100 from bay dredging for ship traffic. And another 165 million tons excavated during local construction could be put to use.

Added up, there’s likely enough sediment in the region to make up the deficit. It’s a matter of getting the dirt to where it’s needed. Brenda Goeden, sediment program manager for the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, understands the value of muck. Her email footer reads, in elegant script: “No mud, no lotus—Thích Nhất Hạnh.” She said, “Given what we understand about climate change and what our regional scientists tell us, we have 10 to 15 years to get our act together in the Bay Area with marshes before we see an uptick in sea-level rise.”

— Erica Gies is the author of Water Always Wins: Thriving in an age of drought and deluge, a National Geographic Explorer, and an independent journalist who writes for Scientific American, Nature, The New York Times, and other publications.

References:

1. Arkema, K.K., et al. Coastal habitats shield people and property from sea-level rise and storms. Nature Climate Change 3, 913-918 (2013).

2. Dusterhoff, S., McKnight, K., & Grenier, L. Sediment for survival: A strategy for the resilience of bay wetlands in the lower San Francisco Estuary. sfei.org (2021).

[emeraldhazeidentity]

Ooh, OK.

So I'm kinda toying with the idea that Farmfell/Ranchfell is a post pacifist Underfell.

Frisk has befriended and freed all the monsters, everyone's on the surface now, and everyone is trying to leave behind their "kill or be killed" ways.

But.

The city of Ebott rejects them. Monsters aren't welcomed by humanity (especially because so many of them look so scary).

Now, normally a whole population of Fell monsters would immediately revert back to "kill or be killed" under such treatment. But, Frisk is able to convince them to let it go and move out to the countryside where they can live peacefully away from humans.

So, led by Asgore, the entire monster population sets up their own town on the surface, out in the scrublands where no people want to live. They find that copying practices from old Western films that ended up in the Underground's dump are the best ways to survive out there, so the new town quickly develops an Olde West vibe.

Everyone is trying to make a fresh start on the surface. Asgore takes on more of a mayor/governor role rather than a king. Toriel rediscovers her passion for teaching and opens a school house, which Frisk and Flowey attend. Undyne becomes the town sheriff. Grillby opens a saloon, which Mettaton performs in. Muffet runs the town bank, and Alphys is the local inventor/tinkerer.

Sans and Papyrus choose to make a totally new start as ranchers. They may have acquired their first couple of cows in a... Less-than-legal manner, but they now have a thriving herd and a prosperous homestead.

The town still has a certain lawless, 'wild west' quality to it (they're still Fell monsters after all) but on the whole the monsters live relatively peaceful lives on the surface now.

So, I've been thinking lately about my own version of a Farmfell AU (since farming + Underfell is right up my alley) and I've been hit by a torrent of ideas 😅

I'd basically make it country/western themed (so I'm toying with calling it Ranchfell). Sans' nickname was the first to come to me, and I'm in love with how perfect it is. I've also found great nicknames for Toriel, Asgore and Muffet.

The one I'm struggling with at the moment is Papyrus. I'm thinking along the lines of gun-related, but names like Bullet, Trigger or Pistol don't really seem to fit a Fell Paps...

If anyone has any suggestions (or just wants to hear more 😅) I am all ears.

[aro-aizawa]

im going to be 21 in a month

....

no thank you please

[amjustagirl]

Chapter 9: rebuild from the ashes

chapters: 9/15

pairing: miya osamu x f! reader

genre: romance, angst, fluff, inarizaki shenanigans

word count: 4.6k

summary: miya osamu does not dare set fire to his heart. it burns anyway.

(prev / next)

It ends before it even begins. 

Smoke without fire. Clouds without the ensuing snowstorm. All your daydreams constructed  beneath the yellow forsythia shrub in Kita’s farm collapse into shrivelled twigs and burnt out husks. 

It’s no fault of anyone’s but your own. 

Osamu’s within his right not to find you worthy, to find that you’re not good enough for his love. You saw that as a very real possibility. You’d already tried your best to soften the blow from the rejection you saw coming from a mile away (as much as you hate it, Suna Rintaro was right, you owe him an apology) by telling yourself again and again that Osamu won’t see you that way, and that it’d all be alright, you’d move past this embarrassing blip, smile at him blithely and continue your friendship as if nothing ever happened. 

But when it actually happens and you’re staring rejection in the face, you can’t.

Like a coward, you rewind your life back to the way it was pre-Osamu. You revert to your hermit-like existence to lick your fresh wounds, hiding away on your snow-capped mountain, hunkering down as a blizzard rages outside. You leave the apartment only for work, avoiding any street that might conceivably bring you even close to Onigiri Miya. He doesn’t reach out to you either - not that you’re checking your phone every few minutes to see if it buzzes with a message from him, so you stamp down your cravings for onigiris, trying your best to satisfy yourself with inferior substitutes from the combini instead. 

You wish you could set loose all the ugly emotions clawing at your insides but really, you’re just numb. Unable to cry, unable to scream, anguish just trapped in your throat, threatening to cut your airflow off. You can’t even take a deep breath to clear your lungs, on the verge of choking at all times - 

Your phone lights up. 

“Show yourself or I’m gonna do a wellness check.”

A text from Suzuki-san. When you don’t reply, an avalanche of messages from everyone jams your phone. Morita and Ishida start flooding your inbox with jokes and memes and half-meant threats to keep delivering onigiris to your apartment until you’re sick of them. A sweet text from Miyamura-kun, who offers a listening ear, a brief text from Murata-san, who just wishes you well. 

Kombu-chan looks at you like you’re dumb when you tell her you’re surprised people care about you. Her sentiment is echoed by Suzuki-san when you’re bugged into agreeing to meet for dinner (not at Onigiri Miya). 

“Why would you even think that?”, she scolds, before flagging down the waiter in a bid to stuff you full of food. “Just cos the boss is blind doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t see with our two eyes.” 

You don’t have an answer to that (or at least one that isn’t self-flagatory) so you shut up and eat fried chicken. If you end up crying into your beer when she passes you the little gifts from the crew (scribbles and stick figure drawings from Ishida and Morita, pastries from Miyamura-kun, a bottle of ginseng from Murata’s grandma), Suzuki-san and the bartender are kind enough not to remark on it, patting your back and calling for another round of drinks (since yours is contaminated with salt). 

The blizzard starts to die. Your wounds start to scab over.

You realise you do not regret meeting Miya Osamu. 

If he didn’t choose to barge into your life, you wouldn’t have left your cave, hidden from the world. If he didn’t insist on being your friend, you would never have met Suzuki-san, Ishida and Morita, Miyamura-kun and Murata-san. You wouldn’t be fast friends with Kaiyo (who’s caught up in some family emergency but darkly promises some consequences to you know who when it’s cleared up - she doesn’t respond when you ask if she’s okay), you wouldn’t have opened your heart to Kombu-chan, watched sunrises in a little seaside town nor sunsets on a mountain farm. 

You look back. It’s clear how far you’ve come from before. You’ve moved forward with your life, you have friends now, adopted a cat (or rather, she’s adopted you). Being in the kitchen no longer spooks you, the ghosts that haunted you are exorcised, your inner demons caged up, unable to claw you down. 

There’s progress. 

There’s nothing stopping you from moving further on. Or moving in a different direction. 

You call your property agent. You put your apartment up for rent, quit your job and book plane tickets immediately after the lease. It’s a mad rush to get things in order, pack up or disposing of decades worth of your parents’ belongings that you never threw away, arranging Kombu-chan’s care with your neighbour, notifying your friends that you’ll be away for a while (be safe, they all chorus, shoving charcoal pills and neck pillows your way). By your calculations, you should be able to rely on the rent from Osamu’s shop and your apartment to be away for at least half a year without digging into your savings, so everything should be okay - it should be -

You fret until your feet touch the tarmac. 

It’s freeing to explore a new land, thrusting yourself amongst people who don’t speak the same language as you. You land in Bangkok first, disembarking off a budget flight since it was the cheapest out of Osaka, and you’re immediately overwhelmed. Scooters honk at you. Tangled wires hang overhead. You trip when trying to climb into a cab, scraping your knees and dropping your phone in a puddle where it dies a watery death, wiping your contact list clean, leaving you with no way of contacting anyone back home in one clean swoop.

You don’t cry over it. You don’t cry over easily over the cards life deals to you (because if you did - well, you’d never get anything done) so you just buy a cheap phone in a combini - a convenience store here, and just put the numbers that you remember by heart into its address book -  your neighbour, so you can check on kombu-chan, your property agent (thankfully she’s called you enough times to know her number) and there’s another number that your fingers itch to type but you don’t, because that’s exactly who you’re trying to leave behind.

This trip is already starting on a terrible note. But then you check into a little inn owned by an older woman who reminds you of both Suzuki-san’s kindliness and Ichika’s effusiveness. It’s an unassuming little bed and breakfast with peeling walls, sitting atop a simple diner that the innkeeper and her daughters run. You can’t seem to help yourself, but you’re drawn towards the kitchen, full of bustling, good natured women singing to Thai songs, and you’re invited in without hesitation when you peek into the diner’s kitchen one hot, humid afternoon, gesturing an offer to help her prepare food. 

At first, just like in Onigiri Miya, they feed you instead of letting you help, but once you arm yourself with a knife and start chopping fine, uniform pieces of garlic, they relent. The innkeeper obviously has no formal training in the kitchen, but she has years and years of experience cooking for the constant stream of guests, so she opens your eyes and tastebuds to new techniques and ingredients - you soak it all like a sponge, entranced. Lemongrass, galangal, curry powder (you’ve burnt your tongue, greedily slurping down a bowl of green curry), a variety of dangerously spicy chilis, dried and fresh, red, yellow and green, plump and large to tiny, like peppercorns (the smaller they are, the spicier - they remind you of Kaiyo), cilantro, pandan - you have so much fun just experimenting and learning new things in the kitchen under the tutelage of your innkeeper (she asks you to call her mâem, your smile doesn’t falter when you learn it means ‘mother’).

You learn even more when she insists on sending you to her sister who has a homestay of her own up north in Chiang Mai, though you have to put up a fight to insist on paying the going rate for your accommodation. The children in particular are fascinated when you willingly squat on the kitchen floor to pound herbs and spices for the salads - pomelo, papaya, green mango, and they all gang up to teach you how to ride a scooter, screaming with laughter when you topple over, landing unharmed on soft grass. 

After spending three months in Thailand, you startle when you hear a smattering of Japanese, spoken by a stranger, short and slim with wild hair and bright eyes. “Konichiwa”, you bow, the words suddenly foreign in your mouth but he lights up, barrelling towards you with a warm wave and a wide grin. He introduces himself as Noya, and chuckles when you insist on calling him Noya-san, saying that it reminds him of his friends back home. 

“I’m gonna ride through the Mae Hong Soon loop, wanna join me? It’ll be great having someone who can speak Thai.”

You speak rudimentary Thai at best, enough to order food perhaps, but he seems convinced you'll be an asset, so a call to a bike rental shop later, you bid your landlady a temporary farewell, and set off on the windy roads from Chiang Mai to the northernmost frontier of Thailand. 

Noya-san runs a travel-related blog and youtube channel for a living, you learn. 

“To fund my endless travelling!” he crows, and though you’re camera shy at first, you eventually pop in and out of his vlog, waving hi to his viewers. 

Fortunately, the weather is pleasantly cool in the winter months, and riding a scooter around the mountainous towns and cities isn’t as scary as it initially seemed - even the roads in Chiang Mai are a million times less chaotic than the traffic in Bangkok where it seems anything goes. Noya-san whoops and laughs and chatters about the things he’s seen, the people he’s met, and you enjoy his company as much as he claims to appreciate yours. 

“What makes you travel permanently?” you ask on a trek up Doi Inthanon, Thailand’s highest peak, aptly nicknamed the roof of Thailand. “Don’t you miss home?” 

“I miss my family and friends sometimes”, he admits, leaping over rocks, dancing lightly over fallen twigs. “But I go where life leads me, and I’m always looking forward to what’s next! It’s exciting that way. I like it!” 

Doesn’t it scare you, not knowing what comes next, you want to ask next, the words on the tip of your tongue though you hold yourself back, fearing you might overstep. 

But he reads the doubt in your expression as clear as day. “I used to be a huge crybaby y'know”, he says conversationally, still grinning. “The coward. My grandpa shocked that out of me-I do not recommend his methods, but I see his point from him now. Life is too short for us to keep looking back. I'm gonna keep moving forward, keep doing the things that make me happy - that's all. It's as simple as that.” 

“Is that what you tell your followers online?” you ask drolly, though he laughs, taking no offence at your gentle retort. 

“It’s what I truly live by”, he declares just as you reach the peak. “C’mon - isn’t it a waste to hang back cos you’re scared of what life has to offer? Look at all of this!” 

(a waste, he says) 

This time, you take a look. Beyond the swarms of tourists and convoys of honking buses, past the royal pagodas that glint gold in the sun, you find yourself gazing at gauze-like clouds, peering into lush valleys and forested ridges. 

“It’s pretty”, you say. 

The terracotta steeped canyons, the leaf-green of the rainforest foliage, the clear blue of widening skies, the land before you humming with life. “It is, isn’t it?”, he exclaims, bouncing on his heels. “Don’t waste life when it has so much to offer!”

Yet - yet. You can’t help but look back. Even after you spend the rest of the afternoon trekking through waterfalls and admiring ancient trees, you can’t help but think of a little seaside town, with nothing more noteworthy than a little hill overlooking the vast blue sea. Though you’re sure there are prettier sunsets out there in the wider world, more colourful, more vibrant, but that particular sunset where the blue-silver world turned pink-gold, aflame with the light of the dying sun - 

You try your best not to, but you still think about Miya Osamu once in a moon.

You ruminate on him quite a lot at the start of your trip, wondering if he only befriended you because he pitied you, if you ever stood a chance with him or if it were all wishful thinking, if you’d perhaps been someone better - less of a waste, less of a burden. Maybe then he might’ve looked at you as more than just a friend. 

(a waste, he says) 

Loneliness sweeps over you, drowns you with longing, a cruel tidal wave. You’re soaked to the bone, cold and gasping for air. 

“Is something wrong?” Noya-san asks, when your gaze grows distant. 

You have no right to look back to what you've been running from when you have every opportunity to keep moving forward. Everyone you've met here is kind and generous and gentle, taking you into their hearth and home even though you barely speak their language. Thinking too much about Osamu slows you down ( not that you're sure of your next destination though that's something you're figuring out slowly, one day at a time ) so you redirect your thoughts to the adventure you've impulsively set out on . 

You pull yourself back together. “Nothing’s wrong”, you reply. 

Still, still. 

Once in a while, once in a moon, little things slip by your defences, reminding you of him. 

The discovery of onigiris in the combinis here, wrapped in fluorescent green and orange plastic. The silhouette of a broad-shouldered stranger makes you double take. The smell of cooking rice leaves you lightheaded sometimes. It’s not something to be surprised about. You let him graze the edges of your soul. That’s not easily forgotten. 

(It’s pretty, he says.)

(You thought he might’ve been looking at you.)

You think about the what-ifs and the could-have-beens a little less each passing day, a little less caught up in your dreams and fantasies. But once in a moon, you wallow in self pity for reaching out to someone who doesn’t dream of you. Sometimes you buy a postcard, sit yourself down at some cafe with a piping cup of tea. You put pen to paper, addressing letters to Osamu that you have no intention of sending, wringing out the jumbled mess of thoughts and feelings from your system. 

So when you reach northernmost city of Mae Hong Son, heading to the night market at Noya-san’s behest, because he claims that he has a craving for pad see ew and oyster omelette, you buy a hand drawn postcard depicting a snapshot of rural Thailand (with a marked resemblance to the Kita’s farm in Hyogo), laying on your bed on your belly to write ‘til it's past midnight. No one needs to know that you’re still embarrassingly lovelorn, so you tuck the postcard deep into your backpack with its cousins, stowed away from the light of day. 

But Noya-san seems to have an uncanny knack for seeing right through you. “What about you?” he cheerfully asks during a pitstop for coffee. 

“Where is life taking you?” 

Sunflowers dance in the field, waving at you. 

“Where is life taking me?”, you echo blankly before frowning. “I…don’t know?”  

He chuckles, sprite-like. “S’okay. I get it. I’m the same too! I just let the wind blow me to the next place, as long as it’s in the general direction of my goal to see the world and do things I haven’t done before. As long as I’m moving forward to my next destination, I figure I’m on the right track.” 

“Huh.”

“Yep!” you marvel at his ability to carry the weight of a conversation all by himself. “It’s what I admire most about my friends - something they all had in common besides volleyball, even in high school. They’re the best - Asahi and Ryu and Chikara and Hisahi and Kazuhito, cos’ even when they weren’t sure about stuff, even if they were scared or on the verge of defeat like coach said - volleyball is a sport where you’re always looking up! - and they’d get up, keep chasing the ball, moving forward even though everyone else counted us out. Super manly of them, y’know?”

“Uh huh”, you reply, confused. “I guess that’s how you guys made it to Nationals from nowhere?” 

“It’s not volleyball”, he says. “I mean - it is kinda about volleyball, but not volleyball - if you get what I mean. In hindsight, it’s so cool what volleyball ended up teaching us all about life. Like - there’s no point running away from things, you’ll just regret it. Or if you’re not moving forward, you’re just gonna get left behind. Volleyball’s just a game we all played in high school, but it’s so cool that it’s taught us so much.“

“It’s a waste I never played it in school”, you reply, your tone light. “Maybe I’d have learnt those lessons a little sooner.” 

“Never too late to start”, he cheers, smile bright. “I can teach you!”

He doubles over with laughter when you backtrack immediately, moaning about your back and the fact that you'll probably fall on your face in the dust if you even tried slapping a ball over the net ( we can just try passing, he chuckles ) and when he magicks a ball out of thin air when you reach your accommodation for the night in Pai, you make sure to hide until he's distracted teaching the village's children how to bump a ball high in the air. 

You sit in the shade of a banana tree, away from the gleeful squeals from both Noya and the children, your hidden postcards to Osamu spread out on the sundrenched grass. This trip is good for self-introspection, you think wryly. Not quite the cliche of an eat pray love journey, because strictly speaking you’ve only achieved the first of those goals, stuffing your belly full with exciting new foods, but it’s been good for you nonetheless.

Because you realise pre-Osamu, you’d been frozen in place, going into a deep hibernation alone in a dark, cold cave. All your life, you’ve been told by your parents who you are, what you must do yet you fail miserably at doing precisely that after they pass, leaving you alone in the world to the wolves. Critics ravage the restaurant once it’s in your hands, sneeringly writing how sad it is for a daughter to tarnish her family’s good name even though you were already steering the restaurant solo once your father took ill. A lone woman can’t take on the culinary establishment whilst struggling to keep afloat. 

It’s easier to bail. 

So you did. Rented out the shop (to Osamu, as it turns out, it’s better anyway in his hands), took up a job at the combini which isn’t too taxing, which was adjacent to what you’ve been trained for (everything but taking up your father’s knife). You hunker down, barely living life, not knowing how to step out of your prison cell even after the doors are unlocked and you’re free to go because you were never allowed to live for yourself before.  

It’s Osamu who tried his best to teach you. 

He taught you to be brave, to take the first baby steps out of your cave into the great, wide world. He taught you to bask in the sun’s warmth, to be comfortable and happy to be around people and accept that sometimes, surprisingly, people might like to be around you too. It’s because of him that you no longer shy away from the heat and fire of a kitchen stove despite your scars from the past. 

You have him to thank for all that. 

But now you also realise that even as you look forward, moving towards the horizon, you’re still keeping your scars under wraps, still running away from the skeletons in your cave, the ghosts of your past. It weighs you down even as you’re pushing to move inexorably forward, drags you back under the waves. 

It's time you learned to make peace with what you've been trying to leave behind. 

(a waste, he says) 

(he’s right)

You can cook. 

Good food, not mere sustenance but food that nourishes, nurtures. Onigiri Miya is testament that food binds a family together, brings a community close. It’s a skill that was a curse to learn, but it’s now a blessing you can share with others. 

After all, it’s a waste not to.   

“Noya-san, may I cook dinner for you?” you ask. It’s Noya’s last night in Thailand and you’re back in Chiang Mai, bunkering down in the homestay where you know the kitchen is always open to you. 

“You can cook?!” he exclaims, excited.“That’s so cool! Please! Of course!” 

He chatters at you as you bustle around your host’s kitchen. You’ve offered to cook for the entire family tonight, and though the matriarch of the family hovers around to keep a watchful eye over her domain (lest you burn the whole place down accidentally), everyone oohs and aahs when you present the fruit of your labour, slaving over charcoal fires, pounding away to create the fresh fruit salad, spicy curries and perfectly grilled meats that you’ve spent the last few months learning. 

“It’s still a work in progress, but I hope you enjoy it”, you tell everyone, because you would never dream of being presumptuous enough to claim you’ve learn a whole other culture’s cuisine in a mere matter of months, but you’re happy with what you’ve produced, almost proud even, especially when your host (you call her bpaa, or auntie) pats your arm and takes a second helping. 

“It’s so, so good, I can’t stop eating”, Noya says, looking like a demented chipmunk, cheeks bulging with food. “This sucks - I should’ve stayed longer here so I can eat more of your cooking.”  He stops to shovel another spoonful of curry and sticky rice into his mouth, laughing you off as you remind him to stop and swallow, or he’ll choke. “Gods, I’m gonna be dreaming of this for a long, long time - ”

“The next time you’re in Osaka, I’ll cook for you.” 

Impulse takes over before you realise you actually mean what you say, and he seals the deal by grabbing your hand, pumping it up and down enthusiastically, and he doesn’t even deny it when you lament that your short friendship seems now to be wholly based on food. 

When day breaks, your paths diverge. Noya-san he hops on a bus headed further north. “To infinity and beyond”, he cheers as you wave him off. You hunker down, returning back to Bangkok under the tutelage of mâem, who welcomes you back with open arms and you’re determined to learn as much as you can, formulating new recipes, new ideas, new concoctions with every passing day, returning to Osaka when she declares she has nothing left to teach you and shoos you off with the air of a mother bird shooing her offspring out of her nest. 

You return to Osaka in spring just as the cherry blossoms burst overripe, white and pink. You keep your return under wraps, picking Kombu-chan up from your old neighbour (she slinks around your ankles, sniffing you suspiciously until she decides you’re alright and she forgives you for not being around), renting a tiny studio apartment, reserving whatever scant courage you have to reach out to some of your father’s old associates - suppliers, vendors, fellow chefs, those who were friendly and kind to you before. You intend to start small with a home dining business where you’d venture out to people’s houses as a private chef, whipping up dishes inspired in equal parts by your childhood and your travels abroad. 

As it happens, people are kinder to you than you expect. 

Word of mouth spreads like wildfire once one of your father’s old friends drops your name with a food critic contact of his (dear, almost deaf old Masahiro-san), and you impress him with your sixteen-course omakase meal that featuring a hodge podge of perfectly marbled otoro and yellow curried soft shell crab handrolls, pearls of orange ikura served with fruit - and before you know it, you’re booked out for weekends on end. You barely even need a website, your phone number circulating through Osaka’s food aficionados. Your father’s knife in your hands, you make a splash in the local food scene. 

Before you know it, it’s summer. Hot and humid and muggy, the back of your shirt sticking to your skin uncomfortably, and you’re dreaming of leaving the city once more when your phone rings. 

“Hello!” Ichika sings. “It’s been a while!” 

She scolds you for being so hard to locate (I dropped my phone and it broke, you try to explain), and after exchanging pleasantries, it turns out she needs a well-trained chef to feed some exclusive guest that booked a week’s stay at her guesthouse (for whatever reason, they seem to want to get away from it all, but they’re so SO picky about food, and there’s no way obaa-san or I can cope with their demands, let alone satisfy them). You can’t turn down an offer to escape the searing heat, so you pack your bags and board a train for the cooler plains and ridges of Hyogo again. 

You come full circle by returning to Hyogo. 

Obaa-chan greets you with a pat to your cheek, more wrinkles in her weathered face. Ichika’s trio of daughters are older and no less shy, clustering about you when you give out candies and cakes. Kita-san seems almost taken aback when you arrive, though you later learn it’s because Ichika surprised him with your arrival. “Do first, ask permission later”, she says breezily. “Shinsuke doesn’t mind you coming one bit, though maybe he’s just a little surprised - but it doesn’t matter! We need your help anyway - c’mon, we can head to the market together to make sure you get what you need.”

You retrace your steps. Ichika puts you in the same bedroom you had last fall, facing the forsythia shrub you hid beneath though it’s now lush and green. The sunrises are just as glorious as you remember, the sunsets no less majestic. Though you’re here for work, spending hours prepping in the guesthouse’s kitchen, it almost feels like you’ve rewound time by almost a year back to the happiest week of your life. 

Osamu’s mixed up in those memories too, and you still think of him once in a moon. Sometimes you expect to see him sprawled out beneath the sun-yellow forsythia shrub, sometimes you still long to drink the honey in his eyes. But these thoughts no longer drag you beneath the waves, you savour the sweetness of them, like fresh summer plums, allowing the bitter tang of disappointment to fade. 

You’ll make fresh memories here of feeding your guests, nourishing them with the skill of your hands and delighting them with your flavour concocted with the power of your imagination. You’ll make friends with Ichika and Obaa-san and Shinsuke again, delight in the antics of their daughters, relearn how to watch the sun rise and set with a smile. 

Life can be good. Life is good. 

You’re happy. You’re okay. 

a/n: hello my bbs, i'm back!

[ask-ray-sans]

So um what soul are u (u don’t have to pick just one don’t worry)

"Ya good, lil brah?"

"Yep. Yep! Fine! Why would something be wrong?"

"Alright... Whatev..."

[E] We weren't entirely sure how to respond to this so we forwarded it to them two...

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[quirrrky]

IT'S NOT WHAT I'M USED TO — TSUKISHIMA KEI

𖧵 gooey sensitive tsukishima x reader 𖧵 tsukishima thought that your date is going perfect 𖧵 fluff; inspired by hey, stupid I love you - jp saxe 𖧵 for >3< nonnie! poison #5 (sensitive) for my blog's 3rd bday event! ♡

Tsukki didn't know how it all went wrong. He planned this date right from how was he going to ask you out to how he's going to kiss you good night. He thought of the perfect words to say, the perfect places, the perfect restaurants, until it all fell apart.

"Hey lovely, I hope your brother wouldn't mind if I share a seat with you." A stranger charmingly asked you in front of Tsukishima.

"Brother?" Tsukki questioned the guy knowing fully well what the jerk meant. The dumbass' audacity to flirt with you in his presence.

"Ah, I see. Are you not?" The asshole chuckled, leaving a jab at your vexed boyfriend before he went away. "It's just that...you don't look like a couple at all."

For whatever reason, he stood there, frozen. He didn't expect that a backhanded comment like that would bite him so hard.

You probably wanted the hearts and flowers kind, Tsukki thought. Perhaps, someone who would tell you sweet nothings like Sugawara-san or kiss you out of nowhere like the pain-in-the-ass Kuroo-san.

But Tsukki had never been a very affectionate guy. Heck, it wasn't his nature. He knew this all too well. It kinda' stabbed him that all this time he was acting just like a brother and not as a lover who's meant for you.

"Tsukki, are you okay?" You asked, concerned. Ever since, that encounter, you invited him outside for a walk to get some fresh air and release tension, but he fell really silent and a bit lost in thoughts.

He reverted his glance at you. This was what he was talking about, but was he just going to accept that he wasn't doing good enough.

Seeing that he might not be feeling well, you started walking away, "Let's just head home if you don't feel fin-"

But Tsukki couldn't just let you go. Not ever.

"Hey, stupid." He grabbed your hand to stop you from walking, surprising you. He wrapped his arms around your frame, your back leaning against his chest as he snuggled close to you in a tight embrace. "I love you." He whispered against your ear.

Your eyes widened and you couldn't believe what you just heard. "It's the first time, Tsukki." You pulled away to see his face and your heart felt the good kind of heavy when you saw the moon shining on his own right in front of you.

He held your hand and laced your fingers together. "It's not going to be the last." He's just stating a fact, because he knew that there's something about you that always made him do silly things just like this one.

♡ 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠

© quirrrky 2021 - All rights reserved. No work shall be reproduced, reposted, modified, translated in any form or by any means. ✧ DAYDREAM MUSEUM ✧

[thepagemistress]

Suptober21 Masterlist

Day 1: Harvest - Team Free Will 2.0 | Teen | 1,959 words

Jack has been reading Peanuts and has been taking it to heart. Which finds Dean and the family sat in a pumpkin patch on the night before Halloween.

Day 2: No Vacancy - Young Sam & Dean | Teen | 1,785 words

After a particularly gruelling hunt, John leaves Dean and Sam so he can get ‘patched up’ and Dean has to find somewhere for them to stay for the night.

Day 3: Rainbows - Dean/Cas | Teen | 2,828 words

Dean wishes that he could see Castiel’s wings again, even if they are just a shadow against a wall. Cas comes up with a different solution.

Day 4: Secrets - Dean/Cas | Teen | 2,538 words

Cas is keeping something from Dean. Dean is determined to find out what it is (even if he truly doesn't want to know...)

Day 5: Nostalgia - Dean/Cas, Sam | Teen | 2,408 words

There’s not much from Dean’s younger days that he’s nostalgic for. But Cas seems so eager to indulge him; who is he to deny him?

Day 6: Cemetery Boys - Dean & Sam, implied Dean/Cas | Teen | 2,239 words

Dean is struggling to cope with losing Cas to the Empty and Sam's suggestion of getting him a headstone to help with the grief is not well received. But Dean also can't shake the idea.

Day 7: Young At Heart - Baby!Jack, Dean/Cas, Sam/Eileen, Charlie, Claire | Teen | 2,413 words

When Jack reveals his intention to give up his godlike powers and revert back to the three year old he truly is, it is left to Dean, Cas and Sam to try and tap into a childhood none of them ever had to ensure he has a better one.

Day 8: Leather & Lace - Dean/Cas | Mature | 2,282 words

With the bunker to themselves, Dean finally gives into a fantasy he’s been harbouring for too long.

Day 9: Body Mods - Gabriel & Loki | Teen | 1,028 words

Gabriel seeks out Loki’s help after fleeing from Heaven and deciding to take him up on his offer.

Day 10: Crossover - Dean, Sam, Cas, the Hammonds, Eric Bemis, Gary West | Mature | 4,261 words

After the Winchesters visit Charlie in San Diego during Comic Con, Sam catches wind of a grizzly discovery in Santa Clarita. It might not be their "thing" but since they're in the area, they figure why not take a look?

Day 11: Pizza Delivery - Sam/Gabriel, Dean/Cas | Teen | 2,892 words

During summer break from Stanford, Sam is staying with his brother back in Kansas and helping out at his pizzeria with deliveries. One particular customer starts ordering more pizza than is probably healthy...

Day 12: Hellbound - Dean/Cas | Teen | 652 words

Dean’s never believed in Heaven. But now that he’s bought his one-way ticket to the Pit, he’s starting to wish he did.

Day 13: Ladies' Night - Dean, Charlie/Jo | Teen | 2,613 words

Dean lives two different lives in college. He’s a jock; captain of the baseball team, in fact. He’s also handmaiden to the Queen of Moondoor. Aka a nerd. He has two best friends, Charlie and Jo. They can never know the other exists.

Day 14: Stardust - Dean/Cas | Teen | 1,040 words

Dean is still struggling with adjusting to being out of Hell. He still feels smothered by it. Cas offers a comforting word. In his own way.

Day 15: Blue Skies & Apple Pies - Young Dean & Sam, Bobby | Teen | 2,125 words

When John takes on a dangerous hunt, he leaves the boys with Bobby to look after for a couple of days. A couple of days stretches into four. They’re restless. Bobby’s had enough and drags them out into the fresh air.

Day 16: Delightful D-bags - Dean/Cas, Sam/Gabriel/Rowena, Claire, Charlie, Crowley, Jack | Teen | 2,428 words

Dean’s not sure when it happens or how he missed it, but apparently the Bunker has become the popular hangout spot for all their friends and acquaintances (and Crowley) to take advantage of.

Day 17: Last Supper - Dean/Cas, Sam | Teen | 4,128 words

Cas is glad to have his grace back. Truly. But boy, does he miss the taste of food. Dean takes it upon himself to rectify some wrongs.

Day 18: Inferno - Dean/Cas, Sam, Benny | Teen | 2,504 words

It’s 1:37am and the fire alarm in Cas’s building is going off. An Inferno rages several floors above him and, once the attending fire crews have dealt with it, his eyes fall on one fire fighter who slinks off to the side of the building, gait unsteady. He decides to follow.

Day 19: Eighty-Sixed - Dean, Sam, John, Gordon, Jimmy, Chuck | Mature | 1,812 words

John will track down the demon that killed his wife, no matter what it takes. With Sam’s visions providing them with a supernatural hit list, Dean’s only job is to protect the family by any means necessary. But when Sam has a particularly vivid and violent vision centering around some tax accountant, the younger Winchester begins to question if this is what his visions are for.

Day 20: Library Hours - Dean/Cas | Teen | 2,801 words

Cas somehow forgot all about his English Lit essay and now it’s due tomorrow. He’s been in the student library since it opened and the fourth cup of coffee is starting to wear off. Cue one attentive not at all stalkery library assistant!

[guerrerense]

ATSF 5704 - EMD SD45-2 at Kansas City, MO por Zach Pumphery Por Flickr: Basking in the sun on a beautifully warm morning is Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway SD45-2 #5704, fresh out of the paint booth at Mid-America Car. This locomotive was built 5-1973 at EMD LaGrange, IL with a builder and frame number of 72642-18, delivered in the blue and yellow warbonnet scheme. 5700-5704 were repainted at San Bernardino in January 1976 into this paint scheme commemorating the American Bicentennial that year. The Santa Fe had the largest Bicentennial locomotive fleet of all major U.S. railroads. These units saw service on priority freights and supported the American Freedom Train when it was operating on the ATSF. After the nationwide festivities, it reverted back to standard Santa Fe paint on 6-15-1978, and was overhauled as an SD45-2u in September 1986 at the San Bernardino shops becoming ATSF 5834. It was assigned to MK maintenance in 4-1994. The unit passed to BNSF Railway with the merger in 1995, and was renumbered BNSF 6484 on 1-31-2000. In storage pending retirement the unit was renumbered GN 6484 in 2013, and stored in various locations around the system including Temple, TX and Topeka, KS. The unit was moved for scrap, getting as far as Memphis, TN and was literally in the deadline a day from being cut up when it was given a reprieve and donated to the Southern California Railway Museum in Perris, CA. Soon the locomotive will be moved to California by BNSF, and mechanically restored to operation at the SCRM, replacing electrical components and returning the diesel prime mover to service. Many of the skilled volunteers at the museum are former Santa Fe employees from the San Bernardino shops that worked on the 90 SD45-2's that Santa Fe once rostered. Thanks to everyone at BNSF Railway, Mid-America Car in Kansas City, Sherwin-Williams Paint, Eagle Graphics in Wichita, KS and Class-One Model Works for donating the locomotive, time, labor, paint, decals, and design work to the project. Growing up the bicentennial was a recent enough memory for a lot of people that its commemoration was commonly referenced. My grandparents had all kinds of stuff around with the star logo. The insignias developed for the occasion were still evident in some unlikely places. My elementary school was one of those. I used to look for bicentennial quarters in my change and collected them. It was a fascinating period in American patriotism, and it's amazing how many railroads went out of their way to honor it in such eye-catching representations on locomotives and railcars. The ATSF Bicentennial scheme has always been in my top 5 list, probably second to the Mo-Pac's, but I'm biased since that was my hometown road. I've gotten to see the N&W 1776 in Roanoke, the SD45 restored to its own bicentennial paint by the Virginia Museum of Transportation. I never imagined I'd ever lay eyes on one of these, even a year ago when I shoved it into the 3000 Yard at Argentine on a pilot-herder job in 2021. I already knew at the time what was in store, and it was hard to keep a secret. As I looked up at the informational placard taped to the front window while tying the handbrake, I couldn't help laugh to myself thinking about what the future held for weather beaten "GN 6484". This was especially after seeing it earlier that day at the DSF, thinking how funny it would be if we had to go take it somewhere. Turns out, that was our next move. The 5704 is simply an outstanding looking locomotive. Thank you to all of those that worked hard to get it done, and thank you for letting me drop by that morning to have a look. Locomotive: ATSF 5704 3-1-22 Kansas City, MO

[morguemaw]

WOWAH.. Seeing CentaurTone rlly blasted me @-@ Ill be happy to inform im going to be updating the lore and such for the AU! I plan on slowly reverting it back to a closed AU since i have some redesigns planned, so feel free to ask me which CT you would like to see first! Currently i have these babies in plan; Ink Sans Error Sans Dream Sans Lust Sans Fresh Sans UnderSwap Sans SwapLust Sans (Personal/My AU) SwapFell Sans Outer Sans Their Papyrus's will also be good to request, but im just apart of that tiny pinch of UT Fans where they prefer drawing Sanses xD