#what a productive day. truly a productive day. i did not a single thing. wow.

[strxnged]

..... I DONT WANT YOU TO KISS ME ON THE MOUTH I WANT YOU TO PHILOSOPHICALLY CHALLENGE ME. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[matan4il]

Hi, I’ve seen some gifs of that Thai show, but are those two actors together in real life too?

Hi lovely Nonnie!

Oh wow, I did not expect an ask about Kinnporsche The Series / Mileapo, but I probably should have since I went off a bit in the tags of that gifset reblog, didn't I? XD Please never take me too seriously whenever I claim two specific individuals have invented love, I'm just joking around. Unless I'm talking about David and Jonathan, because they totally did. ;p

But if I'm to try and answer seriously, I would say that officially, the last time either Mile or Apo have addressed the issue of their romantic status, they both said they're single (Mile in Aug 2022, Apo in July 2021 if I'm not mistaken). Of course, that's also the response I would expect from them if they were together. Because just like there are opposite sex couples who meet on the sets of movies and TV shows, and fall in love or just have an affair, there are same sex couples who go through the same thing. The difference is that society (and the entertainment business even more so) is still so homophobic, that these same sex couples often can't come out. I mean, if opposite sex couples sometimes feel they need to keep it to themselves, and we only find out about their romances decades later, like in the case of Jane Seymour and Christopher Reeve (if we find out about them at all), then imagine how much harder it is for same sex couples who fall in love as co-stars... (or even when there's a same sex celebrity couple, period)

Other than Mile, Apo and the people they trust, no one really knows if Mileapo actually are a couple and have to be closeted, or if they're just truly the best of friends who bonded so much as co-stars on the set of KPTS that their behavior is hard to distinguish from the way lovers act towards each other. We also have to take into account that they're from Thailand, and the cultural norms for how men are allowed to interact can be very different. Especially when we remember that they starred in a BL (gay themed show) together, and the norm for that is heavy fan service. I AM convinced that even then, their bond runs deeper than fan service, especially since the original production of KPTS was canceled, and the production company that was set up instead explicitly said it would not require fan service. Plus, this company was co-founded by Mile to save KPTS and give Apo his second chance to shine as an actor, after he had been previously bullied by homophobes into leaving the acting world. So yeah, I have every reason to believe their connection is real.

And the fact that this is a part of their unhinged story (that they met briefly as models 7 years before they auditioned for KPTS, that they obviously thought the other one is an attractive man and remembered each other all of these years, that Mile watched Apo's shows, that they re-connected at the auditions and seem to have been inseparable since, for over 2.5 years now, that they fought together for KPTS to be made and then gave us on screen an astounding love story, that they chose to go on working together on their next projects, including the upcoming queer film Man Suang, and continue to hang out even outside of their busy schedule together) brings us to what is most meaningful to me about them. Whether their bond is romantic or platonic, it's clearly so deep that I wouldn't hesitate to call them soulmates. They love and care for each other, support one another, and I think they healed each other in ways that make me feel soft and happy to know that such love exists in the world. So I'm going to continue rooting for them, and possibly joke about it like I know that they're a couple, because in a very profound sense of the word, even if it's not romantic, they are.

This was probably way too long, my apologies. Okay, have a Mileapo being in sync gif just to make it a bit better...

Have a good day! As always, my ask tag. xoxox

[ultraericthered]

Terranort Speculation

It is known by now that when Birth By Sleep entered its earliest stages of conception and development (in 2006), Terra's story was thought out first (because Revenge of the Sith), followed by Ven's second and Aqua's last, explaining the recommended playing order. It's also shown in how in KHII FM, released in 2007, every single hook for BBS concerned Terra and his story - those horrendously misplaced scenes with Xemnas, Aqua's armor, Vexen, Zexion and Xigbar, the secret boss fight against Terra's Lingering Will, and the secret ending video where the climax is a close-up of Terra's face as his eyes morph into the "dark" golden eyes, or "Nort eyes." Then in 2008, early on at Jump Festa and later in at the Tokyo Game Show, the beta trailer footage for the former was only of Terra and Ventus while the latter added Aqua to the mix. And this was also the same time we got the 358/2 Days trailer and wow, between these teases and Coded starting up late into the year, 2008 truly was a year spent preparing the KH series for the plunge it was going to end up taking!

But I want to touch on all that early footage because it makes me speculate and believe that there was a slightly different plan set for Terra's story being developed at first, and that Terra himself was conecieved as a far darker character than what we ended up getting. Prior to contributions from Daisuke Watanabe and Masaru Oka, Nomura had every inclination to push as hard as possible with the "Anakin Skywalker" route for Terra, essentially taking what he had at first likely envisioned as being Xehanort's forgotten origin story and rewriting it with Terra in place of a younger Xehanort, making enough modifications to service the end point of Terra losing his heart and body to Master Xehanort, who'd lose his memory soon afterwards.

The thing about the beta trailers is that scenes that ended up occurring in the final product are played out in backdrops that were not intended to be the locations those scenes would actually play in (like, why's Xehanort confronting Ven at Olympus Coliseum? Why's Terra protecting Ven from Eraqus at the Great Maw? Why's Ven asking to be killed on Destiny Islands?) So while Terra's meeting with Maleficent was never meant to take place with thorns all around, what's really notable about how it's depicted here is...well, this:

Maleficent clearly has a proposition for Terra, and Terra gives an evil Xemnas-y face in response. To me this suggests that in the initial plan, Terra at the start of the game was going to be like Riku was in the midsection of KH1: very easily allured by the power of Darkness and willing to dirty his hands while working with unsavory characters towards some goal he believed to be righteous and worth it for him.

Just as interesting, the second trailer has this next scene with Terra and Maleficent, as the latter exposits about the Princesses of Heart.

Literally nothing is different from the final scene except Terra's body language. In the final version, his head is titled towards Maleficent. But in this initial version, his head is tilted towards Aurora. Later in that same trailer, the last scene played sets up Aqua and Maleficent's later interaction different. Rather than ask "what did Master Xehanort tell you?", Aqua (with no Prince Philip there yet) asks "was what you said to Ven a lie?" And then Maleficent answers her straight up:

And yes, Terra's embrace of darkness during his confusion and rage over Eraqus' strict, abusive teachings of the supremacy of light over darkness does happen in the game, but it's framed as him getting tricked into it and extracting Aurora's heart by mistake, which is then later backtracked with Xehanort indicating he'd set up Aurora's heart to be extracted, making him the true culprit. I think in the original pitch, Terra was going to deliberately embrace the darkness and turn his Keyblade on Aurora's heart. He'd immediately regret what he did when he sees Maleficent claim the heart, but it would have been a far more willful mistake, which is why he'd be racked with such guilt over having done it. For a moment, he'd have crossed the line and done something evil, which someone who values heroism and protection of others like him would find completely antithetical to himself.

So then rather than further self-damnation like Riku in KH1, we'd see Terra walking back from the abyss in the next worlds he visits, giving us hope that he may yet avoid succumbing to the darkness within himself. .... And then the events at the Radiant Garden would occur, to set him down a different, even more insidious road to darkness.

Some time well afterwards, after he's come to blows with his friends and is in conflict with his master's agenda concerning him, after he's once again channeled his darkness and taken out Braig's eye, after he's been talked up by Master Xehanort, stirring within him the craving to seek more power, achieve more heroic exploits using that power, and wanting to protect his friends while also prove his master wrong and assert himself as the decider of how the trio should conduct themselves as Keyblade Wielders, and after he's far more willingly indulged his darker nature by working with more villains he'd always be dead-set on backstabbing whenever it's convenient for him and his "noble" goals to do so, we'd be treated to this moment:

This plays much differently than anything we actually got from the stupid "Terra on Destiny Island" scene in the finalized game. To me, this is more like the also stupid first scene of the game with Young Xehanort, standing on the shore in contemplation as the bright sun sets over the horizon. Terra stands in solitude, away from the light, and when he sees the kids play-fighting on the beach, the sun is shining down and bathing them in light. Symbolism is clear; these are innocent hearts who belong to the light. Terra is no longer one such heart. He stands away from that brightness, away from light. This could've been the moment of realization from Terra that he needed to turn back from his darkness entirely, to head towards that light.

But alas. thanks to fucking Xehanort, this would follow instead:

This encapulates everything that Terra's character could've been. In the actual scene, the line is translated as "You may be my master... but I will not...let you hurt my friend!", to the response of "Has the darkness taken you too, Terra?" from Eraqus. But in the beta version, the wording suggests that the unseen Eraqus asks that question of Terra first, and Terra says "I don't care if you are my master! This power... I use it for my friends!" Conveying a full-on disowning of Eraqus as his master and a rejection of all that he'd taught him about light versus darkness, and an embrace of the power his darkness grants him to use for the sake of his friends. As in the final game, I think Xehanort would be the one to come in and kill Eraqus (gotta do the Mace Windu thing, after all), but in this version it would've been more clear that Terra was absolutely willing to kill his master here.

Beta Terra was meant to embody the absolute twisting of every positive value the KH Trinity showed us into a negative for him. "My friends are my power!" "My strength to become a True Hero comes from my friends!", "Our hearts are always connected", "No matter how deep the darkness, there's always a light at the end: keep your gaze towards that light even as you endure and exploit the powers of darkness from your own heart!" - Terra would showcase how you take those in the wrong direction, a callow young man ready and willing to try any measure, no matter how dark, in his pursuit of the "strength to protect what matters", his desire for self-actualization beyond what his master's expectations of him, and his committment to his more altruistic, heroic resolve (woah, major Alain flashbacks here!) We even see a carryover of this idea in Blank Points, where within Terra-Xehanort, Terra's heart tells Master Xehanort's heart that he's willing to get cast down into the deepest darkness and have his heart fully possessed by Xehanort so long as he feels certain that Xehanort will end up being the one to fade away into the darkness while Terra ends up returning to the light, and he does feel certain that this will be so for as long as he keeps sight of the cause he fights for: to return to his friends and make right what he'd helped set wrong, his heroic willpower embodied by that sentient armor spirit he'd left behind. But the follow-through on that is barely existent.

And the result is a man torn between himself: the man with the unbreakable will that desires to do good for the worlds and people he cares for (pure Terra, the Lingering Will), and the man who recklessly and selfishly embraces the heart's darkness for self-empowerment (Terranort, who'd later become a Heartless and create his own Nobody in doing so). By picking Terra to become his vessel, Master Xehanort would've basically ended up getting swept up in Terra's wild ride, as by becoming Terranort, he too became a fractured person, split into Ansem and Xemnas. Terranort was to be the ultimate villain because the "Terra" mattered as critically as the "Xehanort".

Tl:dr: I really like Terra, but at some point in his story's development he could've and should've been far more than a big dumb-dumb!

[doomedandstoned]

Brazil’s PRESIDENTE JUDAS Deliver Damning New Single “Boatman”

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

By Billy Goate

In a sea of acts that multiply exponentially by the day, I was not sure what to expect from PRESIDENTE JUDAS, but wow did this São Paulo four-piece impress me. I've listened to new single "Boatman" on repeat and I'm still mesmerized every time I hear it.

"Boatman" begins with haunting noise and ghostly ambience, truly disturbing if you get a little too high on the maconha. But we're soon glued to the ground with a doomy riff. Dank on the order of a Demon Lung, with a certain southern sludge flavor. The guitar tone is richly downtuned, with a thick buzzsaw tone.

"He knows the way, through the rivers of the underworld," sings Sara Pereira with a sullen, authoritative tone that recalls Haunted's Cristina Chimirri and Odile Boche from Shroom's Circle. Her vocals are cloaked in ominous mystery and travel through the night air as Sara narrates a journey between realms.

It will take you. He will take you.

The one thing that really stands out to me is the throbbing heartbeat that begins at 2:30 (and returns for a triumphal close at 4:07) that includes a deeply pulsing, scratchy bass riff from Felipe Arruda. It gets right inside your belly and shakes you ragged. Added to this the frightening drumbeat of Rodrigo Dias, who sets the fateful pace for this ethereal trip downstream. Nothing short of damning, and a big headbanging moment in the track.

At the last, guitarist Ygor Berçott belts out a screeching emotive solo that sounds like wailing and gnashing of teeth. There's a stark, alarming realization that the end has come. You can never return to your flesh, you are on a ferry to Hades, riding on the river Acheron that is refreshed by the body and blood of the son of Helios.

It's not hype to call this doom at its absolute finest. I've visited São Paulo twice in the last 8 years and it would be tantalizing to see Presidente Judas live. I hear their sound is monstrous. More still to come, as the band is currently writing new songs. Don't rush it guys, aim for this kind of excellence. Stick it on a playlist with Dopelord, Monolord, Haunted, Messa, and Forming The Void.

Check out "Boatman" below and get the track right here.

Give ear...

SOME BUZZ

By Matheus Jacques and Presidente Judas

The ferryman of the underworld. Greek mythology. Charon, son of darkness and night, is the boatman who takes souls across the river Styx, also known as the river of pain, taking them to Hades to be judged. The deceased were buried with gold coins in their mouths so they could pay for the crossing. Otherwise, the soul would wander for 100 years on the banks of the river until Charon granted the free journey to these souls.

The new track by Brazilian stoner/doom metal band Presidente Judas, the powerful single "Boatman," rescues the mythological theme to bring to light a theme that also relates to current times, in allusion to the lost souls that wander aimlessly in the life when the cost is not paid.

Recorded at Estúdio Navimãe in the city of Cerquilho/SP, with production by Naamã Maragno, with lyrics developed by the singer Sara, "Boatman" begins a new cycle for the band and delivers a promising bias with musical influences that come from names such as Electric Wizard, Black Road and Monolord, evoking lysergic and atmospheric nuances, driven by Sara's always magnetic vocals and packed with a visceral and powerful instrumental outfit.

Follow The Band

Get Their Music

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 10/11/22

in which i read a book but completely fail to discuss it

listening Bloody! Bloody! by Junie & TheHutfriends. self-described indie pop, incredibly fun chorus! the same sort of frantic plinky..banjo? undertones that i liked so much in my absolute favorite song of hers, The Consequence of Imagination Is Fear.

very good spooky halloween song. i truly do love this band so much for how fucking Weird it is.

And you’re driving with your hands, not believing all the bleeding, and they’re calling you- Bloody! And the knife sits gleaming in the red back seating, and they’re calling you- Bloody! And they’re all still screaming in your head, and their lips dead, calling you- Bloody!

there are a couple creatives where i'm like "yes i WOULD like a new Frog Detective/twine novel/something every year, where i have a marvelous time for forty minutes and it's a little self-contained experience". this band goes in the same brain bucket, bc it feels like it is as much an excuse to collage and make felt puppets as it is to release a new single once every few months. now i am projecting bc i do not know this lady or her process, but i would like more people to be able to make art where i the art enjoyer get a little thing every once in a while, without the artist feeling the crushing need to be a professional artist hitting it big in order to make the art and any sort of living also.

-

reading The Man In The High Castle by Philip K. Dick.

i had to think really fucking hard about if i wanted to talk about this book, bc like a lot of older scifi it critiques the problems of its time but is also very much a product of its time. and i then i remembered that i'm going to do what i want forever until i die :) and then i didn't really have time to even discuss this book much at all :)

let's yoink the description straight off wiki

The Man in the High Castle (1962), by Philip K. Dick, is an alternative history novel wherein the Axis Powers won World War II. The story occurs in 1962, fifteen years after the end of the war in 1947, and depicts the political intrigues between Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany as they rule the partitioned United States. The Grasshopper Lies Heavy is a novel-within-the-novel which is an alternative history of the war in which the Allies defeat the Axis.

i do enjoy how scifi, especially older scifi, often refuses to resolve neatly or at all. this one left me unsettled. this is not a bad thing! it is unsettled in a way that is un-fan-ficcable. it is unsettled in a way that even though Philip K. Dick planned a sequel, he couldn't bring himself to write one bc the research for this book was so depressing. i do think i gotta let this one percolate in the back of my brain a bit, bc i don't have any useful thoughts aside from "wow yeah this series of events is totally plausible and plays out in a very 'yup i can see that happening' way". this entry is more setting down a marker to myself that i can in fact read full length books. maybe even do it again

how did i find it: this entry came about through a perfect confluence of events: i read this all in one sitting (rare) after seeing it in a thrift store earlier that day (also rare) and thinking "this probably isn't a book i'll reread, does my library have it" (near-miraculous).

-

watching Ōtomo Katsuhiro, director of Akira, has done three...whatever the animated version of a book of short stories is. is it just an anthology also??? anyway i watched Memories (1995) back in july, adored it, half the soundtrack is on my regular roulette wheel of data entry music, and i finally looped back around and watched the other three anthologies he was part of this week.

didn't like them as much! it is eleven forty three pm as i write this so i will not be going into great detail. overall impressions only.

robot carnival (1987) i did not care for very much at all. i think it is the weakest overall of the four both in animation and in story. it did give me this baller screenshot.

neo tokyo (1987) absolutely off the fucking chain with animation flexes. stories overall were not as strong as memories (i am going to be thinking about the first short in memories until i die probably). i have never seen such a perfectly animated cat that nobody seems to have really giffed? unrelated in a different short, i have never seen fire animated like that and now all other animated fire looks wrong.

short peace (2013) i liked much more both on strength of animation and strength of storytelling. "possessions", wherein a wandering samurai takes shelter from a storm in a shrine to...discarded objects? charmed me the most.

-

playing Card Cowboy by a large assortment of people and published by Luckshot. available PWYW on itch and it's like three american bucks on steam. you're out seeking "Revenge against the Gunman who killed your dad, wooed your mom, and kicked your dog" in a procgen fashion gathering cards board-game-style to progress along a web of little location options. and the little opening animatic has the best royalty-free morricone i've ever heard

this is a very polished game with all the quality of life features and smooth art one expects from a card game. it wants to be a phone game really badly.

this is not a moral judgement or a dig at how fun it is, bc it's very fun, but the whole time i played it i thought about how much fun it would be to play on my phone.

at one point i had three bandits, a wife, a baby, a baby horse (the game did not call it a foal don't @ me), and a gold lasso. the next turn i got Blood Money from sending the foal off to compete in the rodeo.

the below is how i got a baby

the below is how i lost the baby

this game is very easy to tell stories about like "oh yeah did you get the blood money from sending the foal off to the rodeo???" which is always super fucking helpful in both game discovery and selling the damn thing. extremely streamable bc it is procgen. i hope it sells a billion copies.

-

making having a fancy bathroom makes me feel like a rich bitch so i got a new shower head. the shower head of course did not fix the abysmal water pressure in this house but it does have an additional detachable head so possibly i will actually clean my bathtub more often. got to use a big fuckoff pipe wrench to take the old showerhead off which was fun. other than recaulking the little escutcheon to the shower wall (annoying) this was a fairly quick and painless process. suspicious. shower head here except i did not spend seventy five dollars on it, that’s ludicrous, i found a new in box one on eBay for thirty bucks.

in other news, acquired the Perfect double breasted trench coat in the Perfect length, it’s got the belt, the wool lining is intact, it’s in decent shape except for the horrible stain on the front. so it’s at the dry cleaners to see if anything happens. the armscyes are just a hair too tight for me in a thin tshirt to lift my arms over shoulder height without looking stupid as fuck so i may find a tailor if i ever want to wear it with a sweater or something. i cannot stress enough how much it is the perfect cut and the perfect length for me. i am willing to invest some dollars in a good classic trench coat i will hopefully have for the next twenty years.

[vergess]

@autismserenity​ said: Your tags are the most American thing I’ve ever read, we are truly so screwed here   

May I interest you in a more complete, and more excruciating, explanation of what I spent the last 18 months doing?

It is, I need to emphasize, fucking nasty. Don’t feel obligated, especiallly if you’ve already had A Day(tm).

There’s a lot of disease, a lot of worker abuse including sexual and racial abuse, a fine portion of letting people die for not being white enough for real medical care, all leading to homelessness.

For NDA reasons, because my former employer was just as vile as any tech company has ever been, I cannot be super specific about who I worked for. However, I can say that we handled the records and patient contact for all COVID testing for several states, as well as 2 of the 5 largest metros in the US, and several dozen smaller ones ranging from the approximate population of San Francisco, down to little towns, as well as the testing for several public school systems and at least two government agencies that I am not at liberty to disclose.

I tell you this for a sense of scale. When I say shit like, “my boss was more than happy to let thousands or hundreds of thousands die” I am not exagerrating for effect. We handled hundreds of thousands of tests a week.

Again, I need to emphasize, government agencies. Ones you would know if I named them. Ones everyone in the country knows.

And we were in charge of getting their test results from the already over swamped labs back to the patients, who often were not allowed to quarantine while awaiting results.

The fastest we got our turnaround time to on any consistent basis was about 30 hours. Often it ballooned well into weeks.

There were a number of factors for this, but the big one was always understaffing.

The staff we did have were treated like trash. One of the big selling points of this company is how “trans friendly” it is to work there. That is a lie. Every trans employee on payroll had their dead name displayed to all other staff, and until I personally changed the system setup on my arrival, patient facing trans people’s dead names were displayed to patients.

Remember that thing about “hundreds of thousands of tests a week”?

I was able to change the way patient-facing names were displayed. I was not allowed or able to alter the way internal systems displayed trans people’s names. But I was assured that it’s fine, because once you get a legal name change, you’ll be given new system accounts with your new name!

Your old accounts with your dead name would still be displayed and associated with the new ones though.

This is the “trans friendly” working environment. We were allowed to be out of the closet, as long as we were willing to put up with that. And any attempts to get it altered were the result of those nasty little transgender ingrates not being thankful enough.

Meaning that by asking to use our own fucking names we were already in the disciplinary shitter.

Another big selling point is the ~racial diversity~. The CEO was a man of colour, and so were like four other people on staff!! Wow!!!!!!!

This, too, was laughable.

Once numbers started coming in about the care gap for COVID between English and Spanish speakers, and our Southwestern US service area began to have a separate and brutal backlog just of Spanish speaking patients, my employer encouraged me to interview potential hires who speak spanish.

Fair enough! We all wanted to do our part to help close the already massive mortality gap.

So, I found candidates, did interviews, hired them, trained them, etc. But I don’t speak Spanish. As a result, I appointed 2 assistant managers who do speak Spanish to assist me in managing, you know, like the job name.

So when my super contacted them directly, completely skipping me on the chain of command, and told them to stop all of our Spanish speakers from translating helpful simple messages to send to patients, and instead start translating medical and legal documents, they very reasonably assumed I was in the know and went ahead with it.

TO BE CLEAR, that could have ended my life, theirs, basically everyone involved. Everyone in the company would have been completely fucked. At that point, my subordinates, the people for whom I am wholly responsible, were doing everything from practicing medicine without licenses, to encouraging spanish speaking patients to enter contracts that no one on the fucking executive tier could even read.

The moment I found that out, I and the A.M.s immediately started trying to get actual medical translation services to do our documents. We collected them in a neat folder. We queried translation services. We got quotes. We contacted my super and the CEO, about this over and over again for months. In the late autumn, we received approval for one of the translation services.

The CEO decided at the last minute that having people with no medical or legal training draft medical and legal forms was fine and good actually, and refused to sign the contract or send the documents for translation.

The excuse I received was that the COVID emergency HIPAA relaxations would protect us.

That’s not how that works.

Throughout all of this, Spanish speaking employees were told to either keep doing medical and legal translation work, or lose their jobs.

Oh, did I mention everyone was working between 30 and 80 hours a week, and all of us were marked as “contractors” so the employer could tax evade? Don’t worry, we filed complaints with the labour bureau.

So the entire department was let go, and “rehired” as temps through a temp agency, which because it was a temp agency could keep them marked as contractors regardless of the facts.

This change was presented to all of us, myself included, as the company getting a new accountant to handle payroll.

So if you’re keeping score, we’ve covered racism, queerphobia, medical negligence, fraud, and a frankly uncountable number of deaths.

Let’s talk about the sheer negligence towards employees ourselves. If you’ve worked in near-death medical care before, or any number of emergency services really, you know that the standard benefit suite includes either a dedicated therapist for your staff, or access to peer support groups with other emergency and medical servants through your employer’s benefits program.

Do you know what our mental health benefits were for this company?

The CEO got on a fucking zoom call with us all one (1) time, and said that if we were feeling suicidal or traumatized by the work, to talk to him about it, and he would be our therapist.

Do you know how many people per fucking day we had to contact only to be told they had already died because our understaffing delays killed them? He doesn’t. He never listened when we told him.

But let me put the cherry on the “Oh baby, you can talk to me, oooh” sundae.

Anyone who “looked” or “sounded” female, regardless of actual or assigned gender, was subject to constant flirtations and slimy, overly personal compliments about our appearances. Fortunately, at 3 levels removed from the CEO (Executives > Department heads > Managers > Employees), most of the people under my management had relatively little contact with him.

I was not nearly so lucky.

The CEO of this company has a watersports (urination) fetish. I know this, because he told me so and attempted to get me to join him in it. I have no idea how many other people in the company he did this to. I mean, what the fuck was I supposed to do, risk losing my job to find out? I have a fucking family to support, people.

Not that it mattered.

Eventually, all of these abuses became too much for my subordinates. Productivity fell off a cliff. Delays were getting worse and worse. In a medical emergency like this, delays=deaths.

So, like a fucking idiot, when the department heads reached out to me to ask what they could do to improve productivity, I shot down their frankly insulting suggestion of raffling a $20 amazon gift card to patient facing employees, and instead suggested a very simple, “enroll us with a peer support group, every single person in this department has PTSD from working in this pandemic.”

They were confused by my assertion of PTSD. I was asked to compile a document of complaints, concerns, and weaknesses in our patient facing services.

I and the A.M.s did so. It was roughly 40 pages long, with each page given a known problem, the reasons why it was a problem, and some potential solutions that might inspire further solutions or be able to be implemented. We submitted it. There was no response.

A week passed.

I had been working 80 hour weeks for most of a year. I hadn’t even been able to take weekends. I took my first sick day, in a company with “unlimited vacation days.”

I received a call at 3PM.

I had been fired for “differences in communitcation.” If you’ve ever seen that “Problem Women of Color in the workplace” chart? Yeah.

So had most of my department, including every transgender member of the department, and several of our extremely limited in supply Spanish speakers, who were presumed to be “on my side.”

Some of them, I barely even knew beyond the formalities of the job, and they were punished anyway.

I lost my insurance, and as a result I lost access to my medications.

But the real problem? I lost my house. And not due to lack of payment.

I lost my house, because when I got the job we waited 6 months for stability’s sake, and then readied to move out of the area. I got a mortgage on the basis of my employer’s written guarantee to the bank that I would continue to be employed for the next year at a minimum.

With the mortgage approval in hand, we entered a sales contract on our existing home.

We got and accepted an offer just days before I was fired. To keep our house meant paying a 25,000 dollar broken contract fine. We didn’t have that. We had a 10% down payment for a modest fucking place in a cheaper area, which is less than half that.

But without a job, my mortgage approval was also voided, meaning we couldn’t buy a house either.

All of a sudden, we were homeless during the plague, because my employer wrote and signed a letter to a bank guaranteeing my future employ, and then changed his mind when too many people died due to his own negligence.

Oh yeah, one last thing: the job paid less than Pandemic unemployment Assistance.

...After that, well, it’s homelessness until just last month. I... if you’ve never been homeless it’s.

It blurs. Everything is happening constantly, except for all the ways in which you are endlessly, mind breakingly bored. Bored, overloaded, and always uncomfortable.

Obviously my health would have declined regardless. Malnutrition, stress, everything.

But I was also unmedicated.

It was hell. I was in hell. I don’t know if I can recover from it, to be honest.

I bounced back from being homeless as a child. Children are as resilient as they are stupid, and the monstrosity of homelessness was little more than a vaguely remembered loathing and a panicky fear that it would ever happen again.

A child who is dying is worthy of sympathy, even if it is meaningless coos from passers by. If they have family, they may be able to rely on them too.

An adult with the indignity to die homeless and crippled, according to the average passer by, is worthy only of disgust and perhaps even punishment for being such a worthless waste.

My reward for nearly killing myself in a desperate bid to help stem the tide of COVID was the destruction of not only my life, not only my entire family’s lives, but the lives of every single family of every single employee who worked with me.

And you know what’s worse?

Each one of us still did more to limit the lethal impact of COVID than the entire united states government.

It breaks something in you, going through that.

It makes you realize that hope is a fool’s game.

But, I have ever been a fool, and so, I continue to play.

[book-o-scams]

Ed, Edd n Eddy Series Bible (1996) -Analysis-

You can all finally read/download Ed, Edd n Eddy's official Series Bible right here! Thanks again to Chuckletons for sharing this with me and to Joey/Kongiscool0518 for sharing it in the first place, the Holy Grail of lost Ed, Edd n Eddy trivia!

One of the first posts I made for this blog was the Series Bible page. It was a composite of every source we had ever seen reference the series bible so far-- storyboarders in interviews, CN's old character guides, and the biggest source, an old CN UK posting about the show. Well, I figure now that we have the official source, I better update the old page (so everyone knows it's out of date), and make this new Series Bible post using the official source! Not much new information, but I was intrigued to finally learn the true phrasings of some things we had only heard paraphrased, as well as at least one detail from the movie that I couldn't believe came up this early in conception...

Unfortunately, Tumblr has apparently updated its post system to only let me add 10 images? Gonna try and only use images for what I need since you can read the actual document above, I guess I'll transcribe it too for easier reference and so we don't ever lose some archive of this.

Quickly, let's review what a series bible is:

A series bible is how creators pitch shows to networks. They can be called “pitch bibles” as well. Bibles do not usually get posted publicly, because they are initially under a strict Non-Disclosure Agreement by the network; also the creator may simply not wish to share it because it reflects the earliest stages of development.

The pitch materials typically include early concepts for characters, locations and episodes. Sometimes it exposes secrets, in this case, Ed and Eddy’s home lives, and sometimes the stuff in it is completely abandoned because it’s so early in production, in this case, casual references to school and adults.

Alright, everybody, it's time to gather 'round and read the Ed, Edd n Eddy Bible!

THE YEAR IS 1996.

YOUR NAME IS LINDA SIMENSKY. YOU WORK AT CARTOON NETWORK. A FRIEND OF YOURS, DANNY ANTONUCCI, IS WRAPPING UP A SHOW ON MTV. YOU GET THIS FAX.

Linda Simensky immediately fell in love with this concept because as a child, she was best friends with 2 other Lindas for seemingly no reason other than the shared name.

I love how Danny decided last second to pencil in the correct names over each Ed, since they're arranged out of title-order.

"They're friends because they have the same name."

-the Logline for the series.

Fun fact: one storyboard artist for the movie observed that the movie is essentially all about challenging the series' original notion that the Eds are friends ONLY because of their name.

"A Danny Antonucci Cartuna"

-the label Danny used to use under announcements of new productions.

PAGE 1:

Ed, Edd n Eddy

They're best friends because they have the same name.

A gag laden, beat generated CARTOON bumper car ride of 3 misfit youths on a cul-de-sac in the suburbs of America.

Through summer vacation, part-time jobs, or just hang'n out at the corner mail box, they want to belong....but CAN'T.

From home chores, helping neighbors or eating jaw breakers, they want to fit in...but CAN'T.

Ed is into "B" monster movies, model kits and is quick to break out into rashes.

Lots of luck...

Edd is into chemistry, biology and prone to crushes.

Later...

Eddy is into pranks, is stylish and flaunts himself to the world.

Ya Right...

Ed, Edd n Eddy is a show about confusion and contradiction, that awkward part of youth, pimples, big feet, oily hair and... girls???.

Puberty is unforgiving.

I was fascinated by the lack of art on this page, it makes the pitch feel very focused. AKA logo in the corner, the title logo again up top, then the logline appears again below.

I really love the breakdown of Danny's vision of the show. "Gag-laden, beat-generated, CARTOON bumper ride." Very accurate, and I think "beat-generated" is the phrase that interests me the most. I typically think of "animation beats" as sort of a give-in-- technically all things fit a rhythm, so all stories are essentially just a montage of beats. But this does make me realize how important the strength of the beats and their rhythm are to the pacing of a cartoon and making you feel like "that was a good one." I feel like the "seasonal rot" viewers feel over the course of a show, and the way that perception differs from person to person, depends on the type of beats you want. Even though I am very into the experimental beats of a show in its later seasons, I can definitely see how season 1's beats are more typically appealing to a wide-audience, and how important a focus on that is to the longevity of a show.

I found it really interesting how the scams are initially conceived of here as "summer jobs." It adds to the sense that adults were originally meant to be present. Honestly a little surprised nobody with access to this bible had ever thought to mention that-- scams are not referenced ANYWHERE. Their image in the Series Bible is that they have summer jobs and help neighbors, which is certainly a much cleaner reputation than the Eds ended up with in the show. Makes me realize though, were some of the early scams, like Ed's Hive Bee Gone and their newspaper routes, supposed to be leaning into this early idea of them with almost legit jobs for unseen adults?

I was very amused by the repeated phrase that the Eds simply CAN'T fit in.

Loved to finally see the official phrasing for the confirmation that Peach Creek is in America. Not much different than I was led to believe, but still nice to have the true quote.

Also love Eddy being described as "stylish and flaunting himself to the world." The bold-print reactions to each micro-description is a cute idea too, I truly wonder who we were meant to picture saying those things in reaction. Each Ed? Kevin?

The "corner mail box" is an oddly specific phrase-- the Eds do hang around mailboxes throughout the series, especially seasons 1-3, and I believe the canon map does have a corner mailbox, but the idea that the Eds hang out at one specific mailbox went the way of Bro's supposed secret treehouses.

PAGE 2:

Ed, Edd n Eddy

Show Description

Gag laden. True cartoon style, inventive, non parody, fast paced, stretch and squash

Beat driven. (even when characters stop they hold with a bounce cycle. Adults never bounce. Music can play important part, not just fill.) But not a musical.

Cartoon surrealism. (viewers see the show as Ed, Edd n Eddy would, less important things tend to blend into the background, while objects of Ed, Edd n Eddy's desires are focused. Premise driven.)

The school year's over, (yeah!!!!) and the long HOT summer vacation begins (gulp). What to do?

Stuck on a cul-de-sac in the suburbs of America is the last place you want to spend summer break, especially when you find life confusing and contradicting.

Ed, Edd n Eddy is about friendship, and serves to remind us that they're no "good ole days," just smelly runners.

You can tackle anything, when your with your pals.

Their days are spent, for knowledge, acceptance and some cash for jaw breakers. Armed with pimples, big feet and oily hair the three amigos trek into the unknown.

Ed, Edd n Eddy are dying to be grown-ups, but they're kids, and attack adulthood as only kids would. Simple situations turn into a manic rollercoaster ride. (Don't forget your barf bag).

They just want to belong, and they're willing to pull off any insane stunt to prove it. First they need to figure out what it is they want to belong to.

Found it interesting that on this page, the show's logo is replaced with the title written in a jumbled font. Seems like the font from the show's end credits.

Hehe, the continued reactions to the descriptions. Allow me to be Double D for a moment and point out the increased use of parentheticals on this page, as well as one wrong "your".

I love Danny's insight that season 1 is framed by the context of how hyped everyone still is just to be out of school, but also the sense of pressure to make use of their break.

I really appreciate Danny getting further into the details of his summary of the show's style on the previous page. It only makes sense that he had this much of a vision that early.

A second confirmation of the cul-de-sac being in America! I'm also really into the repeated focus on the Eds finding the world "contradicting." I always loved how EEnE's inexplicable cartoon antics supported that sense that the Eds are highly aware of contradictions in both societal things and the actual characters.

WOW, so I'm fascinated by this dual reveal. Before the wiggling outlines, which Danny usually calls a "boiling line" and describes as a tribute to wiggling inking in early animation, the series bible instead refers to him wanting the characters to do the iconic Fleischer "bounce," which is a much more commonly recognized rubberhose animation technique. Very interesting that Danny decided not to stick to that. Did it feel too out of place? Or was the overseas team not willing to animate a weight-shifting for every single held pose? Haha, guess I can see why boiling was an easier compromise. I wonder if he had any other ideas for how to make it more of a 1930s cartoon.

The other reveal to me here is that the movie's choice, that adults don't always wiggle in the show, was an idea from the very beginning! I guess I can better understand now why it's just too difficult to communicate a stylistic choice like that overseas-- no point making Bro not wiggle, that'd just create confusion.

Also, really disappointed that my wish for a musical is officially squashed in the series bible itself. That's a tragedy. The show's over, ya couldn't let me dream, Danny!? Conversely, I love Danny's forethought to say "non parody," I definitely noticed and appreciated EEnE's avoidance of derivative parody humor.

My spouse had to point out to me that Danny probably means sneakers here, lol. Canadianisms!

The comments about the Eds wanting to grow up but needing to figure out what they want to belong to are so great and relate to the movie so well. I've heard those comments before, but the correct phrasing was cool to see.

PAGE 3:

Ed, Edd n Eddy (image of Ed in right corner)

Character Description

Ed

Attention deficiency syndrome.

He has trouble...

He can't....um...

OK, he draws all day in class.

When Eddy gets a bright idea...Ed's in.

Ed is easily talked into doing Eddy's "hard work". He has great physical strength.

Ed's happiest with his Model kits and B-monster movies. He draws his knowledge from his movies.

Ed smells. Flies are attracted to him.

Ed has sayings for all situations

ED: "you can change your shirt, and Bingo was his name..."

Ed's perpetually a slave to his younger sister's whims and whines.

Ed may have to baby-sit his sister, or let her watch whatever she wants on TV, or let her dress him up in mom's clothes.

Ed breaks out in Rashes. He's allergic to practically everything, especially Guinea Pigs.

Ed's Mom xerox's his sketches and doodles for her therapist.

Ed's Dad hopes to pass on to his son, his knowledge on "pre-owned" auto sales.

Very cute bit wasting the space at the top of the page. Danny seems very invested in Ed's personality already. The old sources we used to have definitely tried to condense these down to simpler blurbs.

Weird how Danny wants to essentially diagnose Ed with ADHD here (phrasing it very poorly, but it was the 90s and... Canada?). I don't know enough on the subject to debate it, but I still gotta point out Ed's canonical cracked skull!

Interested in the comment about Ed being most allergic to Guinea Pigs. I don't think that animal was ever even mentioned in the show. Eddy mentioned an old gerbil once....

Neat to finally have the real phrasing of the official word on Ed's parents! I saw someone comment earlier that this seems to be hinting Ed's Dad is selling stolen cars. I've never thought to question the legality of his apparent second-hand-car dealership (I imagined he works with Eddy's dad, who has received a legitimate award for his salesmanship), but those quotation marks are certainly making Mr. Ed's practices questionable! Best case scenario, Danny meant that more like italics or something, but maybe Ed's dad IS up to no good...

PAGES 4 & 5 (Ed's turn sheet and expression sheet)

PAGE 6:

Ed, Edd n Eddy (image of Edd in right corner)

Character Description

Edd

is really smart.

is really quiet.

Edd is unnaturally-- polite.

Edd hasn't been allowed to take gym ever since the Dodge ball incident. He's been excused to free study time in the library.

Edd doesn't like it when people touch his things.

EDD: "You may enter in my room, but don't touch my Lego robot. Thank you."

Edd's learning to play Peddle steel guitar. (his Mom makes him)

Edd's prone to "crushes". Girls in School, in his neighborhood, TV, anatomy books. He mails "true loves" his socks.

Edd is always ready for action, even though he can calculate the implications.

Edd constantly mumbles.

No one ever sees Edd's parents. They both work nights. They communicate to their son solely through Post-it notes. Edd's not allowed to touch anything in the house while they're gone. Anything.

Interesting how Danny slightly differentiates the barely-used space at the top here from Ed's description, to characterize Edd as more quiet and mumbly, adding an awkward "--" mid-sentence, perhaps to create the impression that Edd halts to choose words carefully.

Everything on this page feels familiar, from the character guides and other old sources. The most interesting thing to me here is that Edd's Mom forcing him to practice Pedal Steel Guitar is established this early, don't think I knew that, but I had noticed that it existed in his room from ep 1.

I love how the explanation in the beginning for why Edd goes along with their dumb schemes even though he's smart is basically just "he's always ready for action." ?!? I guess in a way???

That weirdly phrased Edd quote amuses me because it references Lego, just like the original concept background for his room before somebody nixed the copyright-namedrop.

Edd's prone to crushes thing has been reaffirmed over and over in character bios even though it really doesn't come up outside of the cupid magic in HPH and the pilot-episode heart eyes at Sarah that are barely canon. Still, I've always loved the truly disturbing statement that he mails "his true loves his socks" and how that managed to make it into canon with a comic book example, a cel animation example and a digital era example.

PAGES 7 & 8 (Edd's turn sheet and expression sheet)

PAGE 9:

Ed, Edd n Eddy (image of Eddy in right corner)

Character Description

Eddy

Exhibitionist.

Megalomaniac. (quote from his report card)

Eddy is the unofficial leader of the trio.

He's always got a plan, a stunt or a weird noise.

Eddy's the "class clown". He loves showing off. He loves being the centre of attention-- no matter how stupid the reason is.

Eddy is the only kid in his grade to have been expelled for aw hole week from school. It was his turn to set up the video for science class. He switched "Our Friend Yeast", for a video he "borrowed" from his parent's room.

Before Eddy's brother went....away, he enlightened Eddy with the "legends" of the neighbourhood. Eddy knows where all the abandoned tree houses are, which sewer pipers are safe to spelunk, and the secret recipe for the "El Mongo Stink Bomb" (it's been in the family for years).

He is the one who is most able to pretend that he knows it all... and doesn't care what anyone else thinks about him.

His genes are working the fastest.

Eddy's Dad is constantly concerned that Eddy may grow up to be a ...figure skater.

Eddy's Mom never believes his little darling was involved in such a heinous act.

Funny choice that Eddy's wasted-top-space is just two one-word descriptions, and allegedly lazily swiped from his negative report card.

Wow, we knew the report card quote and the "Our Friend Yeast" story from the UK show guide, but now we also know Ed's page says that Ed draws in class, and now I realize that Ed and Eddy have series bible school blurbs to match Edd's classic dodgeball incident blurb. Anyway, it's great that Eddy's showed his entire school some sort of sex video his parents have.

Very interested that the phrasing for the Bro/El Mongo Stink Bomb blurb even seems to suggest it's a family recipe. Eddy's Dad did have prankster stuff in his closet in JJJ... did Bro learn his prankster ways from Dad?? The neighborhood's secret tree houses have come up in other descriptions (at best, I'd say this could be related to that creepy shack the Eds found in the woods), but I think it's new info that Eddy personally learned the sewer routes from Bro. Interesting...

Thankfully, I had already heard about the Bible's awkward reference to Eddy being the most pubescent as "his genes are working the fastest," lmao.

Once again the Double D in me comes out to point out that the description of Eddy's Mom seems to switch to the Dad's pronouns.

PAGES 10 & 11 (Eddy's turn sheet and expression sheet)

PAGES 12-14 (Sarah, Jimmy, Rolf, Jonny, Nazz, and Kevin lineup of all 6, then 2 zoomed in lineups of the first 3 kids and last 3 kids)

(Funfact: the kids' designs were allegedly freelanced to an outside studio, hence why their refined later-season designs are so different from these lizardy starting places, lmao)

PAGE 15: (images of Sarah and Jimmy next to their blurbs)

SARAH

Ed's baby Sister.

It's her way or the Highway.

She has everything done for her, if NOT she'll "make" them do it.

She can be quick to judge.

Whinney.

A tatrum for every occasion.

More than a handful for Ed...or Edd and Eddy.

Thinks Edd is kinda cute.

Wants Eddy to MOVE...to another planet.

JIMMY

Sarah's best friend

He is always playing with girls, boys are just too tough.

He is accident prone, when ever we see him he has a different affliction, ie: band-aids, patches, casts, lumps...etc.

He is very clean.

The Ed's frighten him, "They're such brutes".

I'm surprised how much of the UK guide was accurate to what was really in the bible for them! Also surprised Danny misspelled "whiney" and "tantrum," one right after the other. Is this how Sarah spells them? ...Sorry, Danny, I yam what I yam.

PAGE 16: (images of Rolf and Jonny next to their blurbs)

ROLF

First generation of a landed immigrant family.

Nationality not important.

He's proud of his heritage.

He has peculiar traditions and/or customs.

He eats "weird" things.

He has hair on his back..... "yuck".

He confuses the Ed's to no end.

He confuses the other kids to no end.

JONNY 2x4

He is a wanderer and very inquisitive

From early morning to supper time, he is always outside playing, with his buddy, "Plank".

"Plank" is a wooden board that Jonny drew a face on with a crayon.

Jonny has wonderful conversations with Plank. ...Plank is a piece of wood.

Jonny makes himself very "accessible" to the Ed's.

Found it interesting that Rolf's bio is less clearly phrased than the UK bio set it up to be-- there they made it sound more like he mixes up who the Eds/kids are, here it's unclear whether it means that or (more likely) just means the obvious statement that everyone finds him confusing. If it's that, what a lame hollow bio Rolf got. This kid's based on you Danny, show some of that personal side!

Always loved Jonny's description, his life sounds so cute. Playing outside literally all day. Interesting to have it confirmed that Jonny drew Plank's face, I preferred to think the Eds drew him and sold him to Jonny, but whatever.

"Accessible" has always been an important vague description of Jonny to me. It really only applies to how chummy they could be with him in season 1, but it still sorta applies to his personality throughout the series as well.

PAGE 17: (images of Nazz and Kevin next to their blurbs)

NAZZ

She's cool, calm and assertive.

She is the most matured of the kids, or so she thinks.

She's into make-up and fashion magazines and Boys.

Sarah thinks she's awesome, wants to be just like her when she grows up.

When she enters a scene, all activity stops... boys freeze, they sweat, their hearts beat faster and faster. They lose their ability to talk. When she leaves, they recover and conclude it was something They ate.

She thinks the Ed's are funny.

KEVIN

He is cynical and sarcastic.

He thinks he knows the "routine". That's because he watches "60 Minutes".

It got a big laugh out of me that Kevin's description is only 2 sentences long. Nazz even has a more detailed character description from inception than Kevin. Love this for them.

Who's the Eds' rival? Well, he's cynical, sarcastic and he watches 60 Minutes, doesn't that tell you enough!?

I love the "mature... or so she thinks" remark about Nazz, a grounded flaw for her to have, being a little overcommitted to being mature like Eddy. It also perhaps suggests naiveté that makes it a little more reasonable that they didn't notice they were dumbing her down at the end of the series, but I do think the movie version of her better reflects the Bible's concept.

PAGE 18:

The Other Neighborhood Kids

Lineup of May, Lee and Marie.

The Kanker Sisters

These gals are tough. They bother, bully, provoke and bewilder everyone.

They live in a motor home park on the other side of the Cul-de-sac. The other kids have never been there.

They are proud of their Tammy Faye Baker memorabilia.

Their project "Cooking with Ketchup" closed down their school for a whole week.

No one likes them, especially the Eds.

They are determined to marry the Eds. They want them to do their dishes.

Amused that the Kankers are essentially being labeled backgrounds characters here, the role they mostly fell into in season 5. "Other" neighborhood kids...

I love that the Kankers have a school blurb to match each of the Eds', and that theirs has similar destructive-intentions to Eddy's video premiere story.

I believe all of this was all known from the UK guide as well, but still, neat stuff!

PAGES 19 & 20 (zoomed in Kanker lineup and their height chart with the Eds)

PAGES 21 & 22 (early promo art that used to be on CN's old Eds webpage, the art of the Eds eating jawbreakers at the end of ep 1 with the overhead text "Ed, Edd n Eddy love JAWBREAKERS!!!", and the art of the Eds all running with overhead text "Ed, Edd n Eddy see something shiny...."Jiggers." That weird "jiggers" statement at the end was normally edited out and I don't know what it means. Looked it up and it seems to be Chinook jargon (like when Ed said he was "skookum at X's and O's") usually said in the same sense as "CHEESE IT!")

PAGES 23+:

The rest of the pages in that bible download are from a 2004 storyboard test. The storyboard sample "It's Raining Eds," which we've seen some submitted samples of before, interpretations with Ed attempting to fly or chew gum and Edd making radioactive gum, I was surprised to find out the outline is just the original outline for the opening sequence to season 3's 'For Your Eds Only', seemingly Jonny was not written into the original outline (or was excised for easier testing purposes) but Kevin's brief cameo was. Now I wonder if they knew this would be used for a test when they wrote it, and if they would've come up with a less random way to include him if weren't forced to be a concise bit for testing's sake. (Your limit is typically 40 storyboard pages in my experience.)

I also noticed that in the included background references, the anonymous adult neighbor house next door to Ed's is officially just referred to as a "generic house."

My analysis ends here, but be sure to download that sometime and enjoy all the raw storyboard sketches at the end of the document!

[sabraeal]

Ok so i made stats for your AO3 works and, as of March 28 2022, you have published 1,306,634 words on AO3. On average, your chapters are 3047 words long (excluding outlier Seven Suitors Georg, with 10,000 words/chapter). I did this for an essay on the concept of intrinsic human laziness. Basically i'm using fan communities as an example of how people can work hard on stuff just because they like it / for praise & a sense of community. So ye ur awesome ily & if u want more detailed stats just ask

Oh wow wow wow, I'm extremely touched that you used me for this! I don't talk about this as much on my tumblr anymore (I now just stump hard in the obiyuki discord about it), but I was misdiagnosed in grade school with what at the time was called a "processing problem." It took me about 20 years to find out-- after researching it myself-- that what that truly meant was "you have ADHD but it's the 90s and you're a high-achieving girl." So I had more than a few decades to internalize a lot about my inherent "laziness," and only about a quarter of that time to start unlearning it.

I started writing for fandom as a whole-- and AnS in specific less than a year after that. I wrote a lot before that-- all original stuff, things that generally didn't get shared because they were unfinished, and no one's really interested in reading an in-process novel. Part of it was that I needed a break from being in my own box, and part of it was that I knew if I wanted to do writing as a career long term, I had to both get used to scheduling time to write, and feel LESS performative pressure doing so. Seven Suitors was the first thing I've finished since high school; a huge achievement for me, since I always assumed that I couldn't finish things. That I could never write enough think to his the 200K that the genres I typically read required. SS by itself was under that, but it was definitely a huge day for me to hit that number...and it took a lot less time than I thought.

I hit 1 Million words right before the end of 2020, which was a huge milestone for me, especially since I spent a good part of that year either hospitalized or in recovery. There are days where I definitely feel like I'm not getting as much done as I used to; I used to be able to turn around 1.5K fics in a single day, and although I enjoy my process and my product more that I don't, it's hard to not compare to when I was younger or healthier.

In any case, it means a lot to me to be thought of someone who is productive-- when you spend so much of your life being the lazy one, it's hard to realize when that isn't true (and sometimes that it never was). I've been STARTING to get into looking at my statistics by trying to track my year-by-year counts-- AO3 kinda borks those by not tracking by chapter and rolling over whole fics-- so I would LOVE to see any other stats you've done!

[anambermusicbox]

September 29 Day Countdown (26/29): 2016-2018 Radio Interviews on 动感101《小畅翻牌》

2016/12/20

(2:00) Interviewer, knowing Ukraine has renowned music schools, thought Zhou Shen went to Ukraine specifically to study music before she found out he actually was in dentistry and then switched to music; she asks why he went to Ukraine to study.

Zhou Shen: Simple! Because it’s cheap. (T/N: it’s extremely extremely cheap compared to studying abroad in other countries, and Zhou Shen’s family was quite poor)

(3:00) How did you win your parents over?

ZS: I didn’t. I told them, “Hey, I don’t think I can do this” and they were like “What?” I said, “I really can’t do this.” At first, they didn’t really understand what I was going through at the time. They said, even if I had to retake a year or two, they wanted me to keep going. They said, then take some time to improve in the language. I said, “I really can’t do this anymore,” they said no, and later I went against their wishes and applied to the music conservatory anyways.

(7:30) ZS talks about how he didn’t talk to his parents for months after switching schools, until finally his parents told him, “Then in the future, whatever you do is no longer our concern” and then hung up on him. 

ZS: (8:10) They said, okay we’re not giving you money for school, you figure it out yourself. But parents are like this: they say things but don’t go through with it. So they gave me money for tuition but nothing to cover living expenses. (*laughs*) (Interviewer: They said, whether you eat or not is no longer our concern) Yup. (*laughs*) They said they’d give me money for living expenses only if I studied medicine or language. So I had to borrow money from a classmate for food. I held out for 2 months, starved for 2 months before they said, okay since you’re this persistent, even though we’re still against this- (Interviewer: They still don’t want their son to starve to death) Right, they didn’t want to lose a kid. (*laughs*)

Interviewer: (9:00) When did their attitude finally soften towards your decision? 

ZS: After the Voice. (T/N: ZS didn’t tell his parents before he competed on the show; they found out along with the rest of the public when it aired) [...] They thought, ah okay he’ll be able to take care of himself now, he knows what he’s doing.

Interviewer: (9:50) Are they proud of you?

ZS: Oh yeah, they’re absolutely embarrassing. (*laughs*) After the episode aired, my parents- they run a small business, and customers who came by, my parents would be like, “Look :) who this is :)” and the customer would be like “…??…uuhh who is-“ “ITS HUAN YAN, OUR SON SANG IT!!!” (*laughs*) and then the customer is like “uuhhh ehhrmm….” I wanted to die from the embarrassment oh my gOD, it was so awkward. So awkward. Afterwards, I started avoiding being with them when they were with people. (*laughs*) They- they’re parents; they were happy, and then they started to worry. (*laughs*) This career... how long would I be able to do it for...

(11:50) ZS talks about how surprised he was by how popular Big Fish was; after only a few days, a lot of covers started appearing online. The singers for Big Fish and Begonia’s other OSTs were very big names, Eason Chan and Lala Hsu.

ZS: At first, they planned to have another very big name singer to sing Big Fish (T/N: it was supposed to be Faye Wong!), but because of reasons, their plan never came to fruition. The song’s lyricist, Yin Yue, she’s really too good to me. She kept insisting to the director, “Zhou Shen can sing this song, you should let him try,” but the director honestly didn’t care. The production company and the director, they wanted someone had enough influence to promote the film. (Interviewer: But congratulations to them, they ended up choosing the right person for the song! :D)

(19:30) ZS: “[After Masked Singer], my parents, they posted a WeChat moment they was quite touching—they said “Our son sang so well and seeing him work so hard—we want him to continue singing.” (Interviewer: Oh so they go online often?”) Yeah, only because I spent years teaching them.” (*laughs*) 

(19:45) ZS: “Every time I come home, my parents play my songs non-stop. I asked them, aren’t you sick of listening to it? Later I asked my sister, and she told me they play my songs all the time everyday. I felt like, wah (Interviewer: “All these years of being a host, and my own parents are the most avid viewers of my program.”) Wow… auntie uncle, I’m very sorry… (T/N: LKJNASFDFA THIS MADE ME SPIT OUT MY FOOD I WAS EATING HAHAHA) they’re gonna hate me. [...] I think, being a parent is really such hard work.”

2016/12/17

(5:30) ZS talks about how he didn’t sing at all during in his middle school years. Interviewer asks whether he ever tried to conceal his being different from everyone else.

ZS: Actually, when you listen to me talk, I- all these years I’ve already gotten accustomed to making my voice lower, it’s a force of habit. I’ve forgotten what my regular voice is supposed to be like. If I relaxed my throat while speaking it would sound like this—thinner, higher. But now I can’t go back.

(7:50) Interviewer asks whether he’ll try out different styles of music:

ZS: I think right now, people don’t know me well yet. I want people to first know who Zhou Shen is, what kind of songs he sings, and then try other genres, and only then will people want to listen. If release a song, people will be like, who’s Zhou Shen and won’t try listening to it—and if they listen and it’s a genre I’m not good at? Wow, no one’s going to listen.

2018/02/03

(1:50) ZS: “Well for one thing, I really hate my voice. (Interviewer: Why?) A male with this kind of voice is really weird. (Interviewer: It’s unique! It’s memorable. Can you find other people with this kind of voice?) Yup. My dad. (*laughs*) One time, my manager called my dad and he- “Hello?” “Oh hello auntie-” I was like “wAIT WAIT WAIT that’s my dad” (*laughs*) (Interviewer: Can he sing too?) No way, he scares people to death when he sings, he can’t sing. (*laughs*)

(7:45) After Big Fish was released:

ZS: Everyone seemed to like it, it felt- Eh? This is great. After about two weeks though, comments started to appear like: “just found out a man sang this and I feel like vomiting, I deleted this song immediately.” And it wasn’t just this one, there were many comments like it. It was extremely upsetting. I felt like, one of those characters in a sad drama, the kind that gets abandoned and they’re crying like “what did I do to you to make you treat me like this? TT^TT”

Interviewer: It’s like, even if there’s a whole pile of positive comments, if there’s one negative, that’s the one you pay attention to. Even if there are 100 nice comments—

ZS: —if there’s one hurtful comment, that’s the one that sticks with you, exactly! Everyone has this tendency.

(7:20) ZS talks about his duet with Guo Qin again (see translation from another interview talking about it here), how he was just as nervous as he was in his own blind audition and how he would’ve blamed himself if she had lost: “She’s 17—super young, makes me so mad—and she was sitting so calmly; meanwhile, I was standing there, all my limbs trembling—like, who’s supposed to be helping who here?” (*laughs*)

(14:45) About how he’s grateful that he didn’t get popular overnight: 

ZS: If I got popular overnight, I think it would’ve been over for me. Because my singing really did need improvement. Also, I think my album is really important in that in helped me get through a bottleneck period. At that time, I felt like, no matter how I sang it didn’t sound good. I felt like, can I even sing? But the process of recording this album helped me to see where I needed to improve. 

So if I got popular overnight, it really would’ve been over for me, because my singing wouldn’t have improved. It would’ve stopped there. (Interviewer: And you would still believe that you’re really good.) Everyone around you is praising you like (*rapid clapping*) “You sing so well!! You sing so well!! Look at how everyone wants to hire you to sing, you sing super well!!” It’s over- it would really be over. […] I quite like progressing one step at a time.

(18:10) Zhou Shen talks about how, when he got eliminated on the Voice, he wasn’t crying because he lost, but because suddenly going from spending so much time together as a team and having such camaraderie to all but four eliminated was too heartbreaking.

ZS: (20:20) When I got eliminated, I was actually really happy. I don’t like competing, and I felt I didn’t have any pressure on me anymore. I felt bad for Li Wei because I knew there would definitely be a lot more pressure on him now, because now he has to represent our entire team in the future competition. 

After our PK, he—because we both cried so hard—he said (*shrill crying voice*) “Zhou Shen I’ll carry your name and compete to the end!! TT^TT” (*Interviewer laughs*) and I replied, (*shrill crying voice*) “You shouldn’t give yourself so much pressure, don’t carry my name just sing TT^TT” (*laughs*) 

You don’t understand how hard we were crying. After the PK, there had to be a 25-minute intermission because Na-jie had to cry too. So she’s there crying in the mentor area and I’m crying in the eliminated area and Li Wei’s crying in the advancement area. [...] During the blind auditions, every single person earned their place in the team one by one, and now all of them are being taken out one by one—it was quite brutal.

2018/02/10

(1:30) Zhou Shen talks about how he has a longer process to be accepted compared to other singers, because they first have to get over the fact that a man has this type of voice before they truly listen to him sing. Some people react like, WOW amazing!! while others are on the other end of the spectrum:

ZS: Once, I was at a restaurant and at that time, they were broadcasting the blind auditions of the Voice. The restaurant owner just happened to be watching it, and when I appeared, he was like “Eh? Who’s this- WAH-“ and immediately changed the channel. I was like ??? D’: ????? “…can I have some water?” (*laughs*) He changed the channel right in front of me, you know? He didn’t recognize me. It was- (*makes disgruntled noises*) It was really upsetting.

(2:20) ZS, about being on Masked Singer: “That was the first time I felt acknowledged by the sentence ‘wow this girl sings so well!’”

(20:30) In the three years since your debut, have you ever seen a fan who, because of your songs or your voice, their life changed?

ZS: Have I seen that personally? That would be impossible, but I have read about it in letters and comments. There was one comment, this person—they had depression, the kind that they were being prescribed medication for—but they started listening to my music and slowly started to become happier, their mental health improved. I was so astonished—music is really so powerful.

Another one was- to be honest, men with this type of voice are actually not uncommon. It’s really not just me. Once, I was at karaoke with an old schoolmate—middle school or high school, I forget—and he said, “because of you, Zhou Shen, because you sang in that competition [the Voice], I’m now brave enough to sing at karaoke. It feels like, even with this kind of voice, I can sing too.” That moment—I was so moved.

2018/05/19

(3:45) ZS talks about how Gao Xiaosong was really satisfied with how the album turned out, and how Gao Xiaosong is actually really thin.

Interviewer: Why do you always have to mention that? No one is asking about whether he’s fat or thin.

ZS, joking: How else do you think I got this album—I kept complimenting him as thin (T/N: HAHAHAHAHA)

[fangirlovestuff]

Child’s Play - Chris Evans x reader

a/n- Hey lovely people! the movie in this is completely made up with excessive use of random plot/name generators lol. also, the Melissa I mention is Melissa Fumero who I love and plays Amy on Brooklyn 99, and Anthony is Mackie who we all know and love. Enjoy! <3

Summary: You’re a director and you finally got to direct your husband chris in a movie. Now you just need to get through the press tour...

Word Count: ~1,780

Warnings: none that i’m aware of

You stepped out onto the stage when the interviewer called your name, waving at the crowd which was cheering and clapping.

"And without further ado, let's give a round of applause to Captain America himself, Chris Evans!"

Chris lightly stepped onto the stage, waving at the screaming fans as he took his place next to you. He reached out and squeezed your hand in his, and you returned a squeeze. You both tended to get nervous at these press panels and interviews, even if this one was one you were lucky enough to do together.

"It's so great to have you all here today! The entire cast of the hit movie The Invisible Lights!" the interviewer started and the crowd applauded once more. "First off, I want to start with a question for Chris," she said. He smiled and nodded at her to continue. "Your character in this movie, William Brown, is a sorcerer, but in a casual way, that's like his thing. For you, who, I believe, have never played a character with outright magic powers before, how hard was it to find a window and relate to him?"

"Yeah, it was actually kinda easy, even easier than some other characters I've played, because—"

"He's a wizard guys, it's not that complicated," you cut in and Chris laughed.

"Almost," he says and smiles, "but what I was gonna say before my lovely wife here interrupted me," you made a kissy face at him and he chuckled once more, "was that Will is actually just a nice guy, he experiences everything with the same compassion and excitement and fears just like us normal human beings do, and magic is just a cool bonus to that. So no, I wouldn't say relating to him was any more challenging than to any other character." 

"Thank you, Chris, that was a great answer," the interviewer smiled. "Now Melissa, I actually have a question for you too," she turned to her, "we all know and love you as Amy Santiago, who is a very comedic character, so what drove you towards this part of Nancy, who's just a normal person who's trying to do her job and doesn't get to make as many jokes in this movie as other characters do?"

"Well, I think Amy and Nancy are similar in a lot of ways, you know, they're both very dedicated to their job and are very rational women, but what drew me to this was actually the differences between them. Nancy is less type A, she's a bit more unsure of herself and is more of a "normal person" whereas Amy is more the "nerd" type. Getting to play someone like that just appealed to me a lot."

The interviewer asked you a question next. "So how was directing this movie for you? What's it like directing your husband in a movie?" the audience cheers a little at that. 

"Well, I gotta say it's one of the most fun sets I've been on, and not only because Chris was there," you smiled. "I was obviously a huge fan of Melissa and I was stoked she could do this movie with us, and really the whole set was very upbeat and just fun, especially the scenes we shot with the kids, who were lovely. The lead actor was… a bit much honestly. He's just…" you shook your head, sighing, and Chris laughed. "He's just too handsome for his own good. It's terrible really," you laughed. 

"No, but honestly, working with him was so much fun. I've always known the talent he has, but being able to really witness it firsthand and going through the whole process of making a character and a movie with him was wonderful. "

The crowd "awwww" ed at that and the interviewer continued. "Would you say directing him was harder or easier than someone else, someone you don't necessarily know?"

 "Listen, directing Chris… well, it's not that different than what I do every day," you shrugged and turned to Chris, "you do need a lot of chaperoning babe," you smiled. He laughed and reached for his chest like he always does. The crowd laughed as well and you gave a little giggle as well. 

"It's true," Chris smiles and says, "she's always like, 'Chris do the dishes,' and 'Isn't it your turn to walk Dodge today?'"

"That is not true Christopher!" you put your hand to your chest as if offended. "Besides, that was a terrible impression of me, I can't believe you do this for a living!" you threw your hands up and shook your head in disbelief and you all laughed.

"Um, but to give a more serious answer," you turned to the interviewer once more, "I think in every movie you direct, you get to form a connection with the people you direct. The fact that Chris and I already have that connection is both a blessing and a curse because on the one hand, we're more comfortable trying new things and taking risks, but on the other hand that means it's easier for us to get off track and just kinda goof around instead of doing our jobs," you chuckled. "But I do think we handled it pretty well," you smiled.

"Well that leads me to my next question, which is for the rest of the cast who aren't you and Chris," the interviewer smiled, "how did they do with keeping it professional on set?"

Everyone laughed and you and Chris smiled at each other. 

"Terrible," said Anthony, who played David, a police officer in the movie who was good friends with Chris' character. "Well, no, when we were shooting the actual scenes, they were fine, but every single break we had, these two-" he looked over at Chris and you, "look at them! They're making heart eyes at each other right now!" he rolled his eyes. 

You and Chris looked away from each other and smiled while the crowd cheered a little. 

"I think we were totally fine," said Chris while he took your hand in his. 

"Well, I guess they weren't that bad," Melissa said.

"I have one more question for you guys and then we're gonna take some fan questions. So, what was it like working with the kids on set?"

"They were really cute," Melissa said, "so I had a lot of fun working with them," she shrugs and smiles. 

"Speak for yourself," you said. "Well, okay, they were very cute and it really was a blast having them on set. We basically said for people who have relatives who were about the age we looked for that they should bring them because we needed a whole class. So my niece was there, Chris' niece and nephew, Mel's kid… we had a lot of fun, but in terms of production time, kids are kind of difficult. Not to say it's the kids who were there, because they were truly lovely and it's like that with all kids. So yeah, working with them was a really good time but also cost quite a bit of time and we already were short on time, so it was definitely a challenge." 

You all took some questions from the audience and then the interviewer said, "Alright guys, we have time for one last question, who's next?"

A girl who was a bit younger than you came up to the microphone. "Hi! First of all, can I just say I'm such a big fan of all of you guys," she seemed nervous and you all smiled at her. "So, my question is a spin on an earlier question and it's for Chris – You've spoken a lot in the past about the importance of a strong-willed director to really bring in the movie nicely, so how was it having your wife direct you in a movie?"

"Wow, you're really setting me up to fail here, aren't you?" he laughed and you turned to look at him, an interested look in your eyes. 

"Sure, well, I really can't say enough good things about her. Both as a director and just as a person, she's got a real talent of making people feel very comfortable and that definitely comes in handy on a movie set. She knows really well when she wants to listen and get ideas from us and when she needs to steer the ship herself a bit more, and I think I'm speaking for everyone here when I say that with her, the vibe on set is always a good one. She's very attentive to things that I would've never thought about that really make the movie what it is and she's very capable of standing at the helm of a movie and saying 'okay, this is what needs to happen and this is how we're gonna do it.' If I already thought the world of her before making a movie with her, I can't really tell you how much I admire her now. It's an embarrassment of riches really," he smiled at you and you returned it.

The audience "awwww"s once more. "Anything else you'll be making soon?" someone shouts suddenly. Everyone on stage laughs, but the interviewer starts talking so you don't have to answer the question.  

"Sadly, that's all the time we've got, so give it up for the cast of The Invisible Lights! It was a pleasure having you here today, thank you so much!"

You all got up and waved at the audience before walking off stage. 

When you left the stage, Chris came up behind you, circling his arms around you and splaying his palms on your belly. 

"That was a close call," he said softly in your ear. 

You hummed and leaned back into him. "Yeah, we're lucky the bump isn't visible yet," you smiled and craned your neck in order to kiss him properly. 

"You know if it gets too hard, we can cut the press tour short right?" Chris says, looking at you with a worried gaze.

"If you keep saying that after every interview I'm gonna start thinking you don't want to be here," you laughed. "It's fine, really," you reassured him.

"Okay," he smiles and leans down to kiss you once more.

"Hey lovebirds! Didn't we just agree you were professional? Don't ruin that image!" Anthony yelled at you. The rest of the group has already continued, leaving you a little behind.

"Coming!" you both yelled and laughed.

"Can you believe in seven months we're gonna have the most perfect kid on this planet?" Chris asked while he moved to stand next to you and take your hand.

You simply beamed and squeezed his hand in yours. You couldn't wait.

Chris Taglist: @swatson06 @horny-nd-bored​ @shannon124 @perfectlyharolds​ @phoebe-21-99 @wintersoldierslut​ @iceebabies​ @wanessalopesueiros @sleepingpapermouse @steverogerswasalwaysworthy @holtzkinnon @angelicl-y @stydia-4-ever @thatoneperson5000 @fangirlfree​ @kaitcordx25 @bequeening​ @steve-barry-damon-logan​ @itscrazycherryblossomcollection​ @hollandxmarvel​ @darkwitchfromthesouth

if you wanna join / be removed from the taglist, comment/message me! this is a taglist for Chris and his characters. much love <3

[ichigo-daifuku]

Ruffled Feathers

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia Pairing: Hawks/Todoroki Fuyumi Genre: Fluff, (Attempt at) Humor, Secret Relationship Word Count: 2.1k | AO3 Link

Synopsis: Fuyumi receives a plush toy of a certain Pro Hero as a gift from her students. No, it isn’t Endeavor. It isn’t her secret boyfriend, Hawks, either. Much to Keigo’s dismay, her students picked someone else, and it’s Edgeshot.

It happened on a Friday evening.

Keigo and Fuyumi agreed to meet for dinner at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant he frequented when he dropped by Musutafu. No one knew of their relationship yet, and it was the perfect location for a date night. The restaurant was quaint, unassuming, and situated in a discreet street mainly those who resided nearby visited. Fuyumi had loved it at first sight. She was surprised at how Keigo knew of it when she didn’t—she was the one who grew up in Musutafu while he was from Fukuoka! He explained how it was all thanks to his excellent sense of direction, and that led from one subject to another. Soon, it became a regular spot for their secret rendezvous. The food was outstanding, and it came to be their goal to try every dish on the menu.

Tonight, that would be karaage, which Keigo had been looking forward to all week.

The two of them sat in front of each other, waiting for their orders. As they chatted about the recent happenings in their lives, the item on the extra seat, resting beside Fuyumi’s bag, piqued Keigo’s interest.

“Hm? What’s that?” he asked, his eyes trained on the object in question.

“This one?” Fuyumi’s eyes lit up at the mention of the gift bag. She placed it on the table and explained, “I was quite surprised, but it’s a gift from the kids in my class.”

She unfolded the card attached to the handle and showed it to him. The message inside, scribbled by the class president, said: Todoroki-sensei, thank you for everything! We hope you like it! Signed at the bottom was the name of her homeroom class with a happy face beside it.

“Cute,” Keigo noted with a pleasant smile, mentally taking a guess why her students would give her a surprise gift. “Was there an occasion?”

“We had a talent show last week. I guess the kids had a lot of fun.”

“I’m sure they did,” he said and meant every word. He knew how much Fuyumi enjoyed teaching at the elementary school and thought it was nice to see her receiving love from her students.

“I’m curious to see what’s inside.” She began to unseal the washi tape on top of the gift bag. “It’s from the kids, though, so I’m sure I’ll love it.”

Keigo, who had received training provided by the Hero Public Safety Commission instead of formal education during his younger years, wondered what kind of presents school kids gave their teachers.

It was, however, the last thing he expected it to be.

Fuyumi peeked inside the bag and exclaimed, “It’s Edgeshot!”

His eyes widened in shock and alarm, taken aback. “E-Edgeshot?!”

“That’s right.”

“No way! Haha! You don’t mean that Edgeshot, right?”

“There’s no other Edgeshot other than Pro Hero Edgeshot, I think.” She laughed at what she thought was a joke he made and pulled the item out of the gift bag, showing it to him with a sunny smile. “Look! Isn’t he cute?”

He did as she asked and stared at it, unable to believe his eyes.

It was truly Edgeshot—in his chibi plush toy form.

And he, most definitely, was not cute.

“Fuyumi,” Keigo began with feigned nonchalance, except if his laser-like gaze could burn a hole through the plush toy, it would already have one. He wondered why, out of all the Pro Heroes in Japan, her students picked Edgeshot. The strain in his voice betrayed his bluff as he asked, “Do you like… Edgeshot?”

“He’s great, I guess? I mean, he is the Number Four Hero. The kids are fans of him and—”

“I’m Number Two, though,” Keigo bragged, puffing up his feathers. “Between the two of us, I’m the cooler guy.”

She nodded, chuckling. “Why, yes, of course. That’s right.”

He grimaced, unable to confirm if she agreed a hundred percent with him when she sounded as if she was placating a hatchling. A certain thought popped inside his mind, uncovering a silver lining in this dark cloud. 

That’s it! Keigo thought. That’s the reason why her students chose that as a gift!

“I see,” he declared with a clap of his hands, pleased with his epiphany, “do you, perhaps, collect Pro Hero merch?”

“Not really,” she replied, creating a fracture on his optimistic fantasy, “Well, I do have a few of Dad’s, of course.”

“And?”

“That’s it.”

“Huh?” He leaned back, startled, but refused to let go of his last shred of hope. “How about the merch of a certain Wing Hero?”

“Er, about that…” Fuyumi fidgeted in her seat, finally understanding what he was getting at. She returned the Edgeshot plush toy back inside the gift bag and reluctantly admitted, “I… don’t have any.”

Keigo felt as if someone had poured cold water on him. 

“Oh,” he muttered lamely. Wings fluffed up, he sent one of his feathers into his hands and preened it while staring into space. Yes, Fuyumi didn’t look like the type of person to collect Pro Hero merchandise. Now that he thought about it, he had never seen her with one, either. He was reluctant to admit it, but he was jealous. How come her students thought an Edgeshot plush toy was a more suitable gift for Fuyumi than a Hawks one?

“Here’s your karaage!” the waiter chimed in, set their orders in front of them, and refilled their tea.

However, even the karaage, which Keigo had been eagerly anticipating, did nothing to cheer him up.

“I’m so sorry, Keigo,” Fuyumi lamented, rousing him from his reverie, “It just… never crossed my mind.”

“Don’t worry. It’s not your fault,” he replied, internally reproaching himself for making her feel responsible for his silly reaction. “Besides, even if you aren’t a Hawks fangirl, you’re my girlfriend.”

“That’s right, but I am a fan of you, though.” She picked up her chopsticks and placed a piece of chicken from her plate between them, lifting it near his lips. “You’re my number one. Don’t be sad, please?”

Ugh, how come she knew just what to say to raise his spirits? His lips twitched as he opened his mouth and received her peace offering. The karaage was delicious. Most importantly, she said he was her number one. Nothing could top that. His bleak mood dissipated, and his face broke into a genuine smile, one that she returned with a relieved one of her own.

Still, Keigo couldn’t help but think about it later that night. Fuyumi had Endeavor merchandise, which was to be expected. As a matter of fact, he thought it was great how they had another thing in common. Now, however, Fuyumi had Endeavor and Edgeshot goods, but zero Hawks collectibles.

That couldn’t be. He had to do something about it.

A few days later, a package was delivered to the Todoroki abode. It was a large box sealed with ‘fragile’ tapes and addressed to Fuyumi. Written in the sender’s address was the Hawks Hero Agency in Fukuoka.

Truth be told, Fuyumi expected something like this to happen and had an inkling of what the contents of the box would be. Although it was unintentional, a pang of guilt remained within her mind for making him feel dejected during their long-awaited dinner date. When she arrived home that night, she did her research on Hawks’s merchandise and found out they were some of the most sought-after and top-selling products. The ones she had her eyes on would be a challenge to obtain. She was planning to hunt for a few, but if her hunch were correct, it would seem he had beaten her to it. He was a man who was too fast, she had to agree.

She transferred the box to her room and sat on the tatami. With its size, she believed it would take a while to get to each item Keigo included. Carefully, she unsealed it and was welcomed by the sight of bubble wrap—lots of it. Her suspicions were confirmed; the package was filled with Pro Hero merchandise—all of them the Wing Hero’s. They came in different shapes and sizes, and several of them even had their own boxes.

Fuyumi picked a random box and gasped. It was one of the items she was planning to scour the shops for: a Hawks Nendoroid. Beside it was a Hawks Pop! Vinyl Figure, a prize figure, and another box which had a shiny ‘limited edition’ sticker in front of it. He sent her a set of socks, too. She couldn’t decide if the pair based on the colors of this hero costume or the pair with red wings as its pattern was the cutest. There was also an oversized t-shirt with the characters for ‘Fierce Wings’ in front and an illustration of red wings at the back. In a smaller container, she came across various rubber keystraps, a few acrylic standees, and other small trinkets. The item that stood out the most to Fuyumi and made her laugh was the Hawks chibi plush toy, which she recognized was from the same line as the Edgeshot one she received from her students.

If anyone saw these, she had no doubt they would take her to be a diehard Hawks fangirl, but Fuyumi found she wouldn’t mind it. As Keigo told her last time, she was more than that—she was his girlfriend. The memory of him stating it with such conviction made butterflies flutter inside her stomach.

Soon, Fuyumi was down to the final product in the package which was a long black rectangular box. She untied the ribbon, lifted the lid, and set them aside. Cushioned inside it was a single crimson feather.

“A quill?” she murmured, twirling it between her thumb and index finger in scrutiny. “Wow, it looks so realistic!”

The quill, however, was untapered and unprepared for use. Perhaps, this product was one of those ‘do-it-yourself’ projects? Upon double-checking the package, though, she found no ink pot to pair it with. Even so, she had no complaints, especially since these were gifts from Keigo. Confused, she typed the words ‘Hawks Quill’ on an online search engine but found irrelevant results. Did Keigo send her a product sample to try out in exchange for an honest review?

Unless…

Fuyumi raised the feather in her hand closer to her face and blinked.

Would he really do something like that? She mulled over the question for a moment, her cheeks setting aflame when she came to the conclusion. He would.

“Can you hear me?” she whispered into the feather, suddenly feeling silly, “Or maybe not?”

The vane close to her lips swayed. It tickled her cheek the way his finger would when he caressed her face.

“Keigo, I just wanted to say thank you,” she paused, certain he was able to sense her, at the very least, “See you soon.”

Before cold feet could set in, Fuyumi pressed a soft and quick kiss to the feather. Her heart raced as she rushed to return it to the box. Overtaken by shyness, she covered her face with her hands and turned the other way, wondering if he felt it.

Endeavor and Hawks made their way to the entrance of the Hero Public Safety Commission. They teamed up for a short mission a few days ago and were back to report to the higher-ups.

Hawks, who had been chatting incessantly about pigeons, stopped in his tracks all of a sudden, causing him to lag behind.

Endeavor had grown used to Hawks’s odd behavior and antics, but he was, nevertheless, still vexed. He spun around and snapped his fingers in front of the younger hero’s dazed and flushed face. Hawks practically had hearts in his eyes, and he had spread his wings without realizing it.

What a distasteful sight, Endeavor thought. “What are you staring into space for?! Focus, boy! We are going to an important meeting!”

“I can’t.”

“And why the hell not, you fool?”

“I just got a kiss from Fuyumi.”

“What does that have to do with—” The words Hawks uttered registered in Endeavor’s mind. “Fuyumi?”

“My girlfriend.”

“You got a what from who? Which Fuyumi are you talking about? Answer correctly, or else!”

“I just got a kiss from my girlfriend…” Still in a daze, the gravity of the situation failed to strike Hawks’s mind. If it did, he didn’t seem to mind it much, having the nerve to smile at Endeavor as he continued, “Todoroki Fuyumi.”

The flames on Endeavor’s mask and hero costume flared. He grabbed the lovestruck Hawks by the collar and roared, “WHAT?!”

Notes: I wrote this because of what happened in Chapter 303. If you know, you know! (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

I hope this made you laugh—or smile, at least. Thank you for reading!

BNHA Masterlist | Main Masterlist

[carewyncromwell]

Maybe part of the reason JC shies away from utilizing Duncan more is, not only does he know too much WHICH HE DOES, but any development into his character would just be too dark for the game. Anything past his "im dead lol" jokes just gets... depressing. This is a kid who was murdered in a very painful way with no hope for the future. Everyone he loves will die and leave him alone forever. Is this level dark stuff allowed in a kids game? Part 1

Whew! Okay, so first off, wow! Very interesting sidequest idea for Duncan. Thank you so much for sharing it with me! 

But to your first point, at the very top...this is kind of one of my biggest problems with Jam City and its writing. “Is this level dark stuff allowed in a kids game?” And my counterpoint would be it should be. 

Look -- I work at a Disney theme park. I work with kids every single day. And from my experience, I can say with certainty that kids are a helluva lot more intelligent and reasonable than a lot of adults give them credit for. They know that terrible things happen in the world, and they know that the world isn’t always fair. And there would be ways to use Duncan’s character where he doesn’t have to be doomed to watch everyone he grows to care about fade away forever -- who says he couldn’t find some measure of peace through his friendship with MC and Jacob and be able to finally pass on into the next life knowing he really did make an impact? That’s what I plan to do in my headcanon version of events. 

And for that matter, this game is not played by very young children  -- it’s geared for 12+, as in the audience that Harry Potter as a franchise was always geared toward. And I’m sorry, but for all of J.K.’s faults as a writer, she never doubted that young people could handle dark subject matter like murder, bigotry, etc. without being coddled. We’ve already watched MC’s friends get Imperiused and tortured. We’ve already watched a character we got emotionally invested in at the very beginning of the game get brutally murdered before our very eyes. Yes, maybe it was upsetting, but that’s the POINT. Stories shouldn’t just be fluffy and inconsequential all the time. I can’t help but feel like the vast majority of the sidequests as of late have suffered because they have so little of substance or stakes behind them, even compared to what came previously -- and honestly, even the main storyline since mid-year 6 has petered out to nothing because R is busy doing things like dropping off random magical creatures from around the globe in Britain and apparently putting memory potions in haircare products rather than doing things a real Cabal would do. It doesn’t feel like some grand plan or conspiracy, or even like some well-planned distractions while R does more evil things on the side, since we don’t get any evidence R is actually USING those things to do anything more serious, like getting access to classified Ministry intelligence or killing people. (Instead they steal one Portkey, and the Ministry doesn’t even bother to find out where it’s Charmed to go, since that might be a pretty big hint about their true intentions. I mean, there’s a bloody CHARM to turn things into Portkeys, you don’t need to steal specific objects to turn them into a Portkey.) It feels like some rabble-rousers causing trouble for the government, a la Carmen Sandiego stealing random pieces of world history for the thrill of it, not a group trying to destroy or overthrow anything or terrorize people to get their way. Young Harry Potter fans could digest the Death Eaters back in the day -- they could handle R being more of a real threat, just as they could accept other types of dark subject matter. They could handle discussion of PTSD post-Redacted -- Harry goes through some of that in Order of the Phoenix. They could handle a discussion about bigotry and prejudice -- that’s one of the central themes of the original Potter books. They could handle both Duncan and Jacob being sort of stuck out of time after dying prematurely and coming back as a ghost and being stuck in a portrait for so many years -- that same sort of thing happens to Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers in the MCU, and plenty of young adults watch the MCU. 

I understand doing anything with Duncan could be “depressing” if not properly balanced out, but you know, being sad isn’t a crime. It’s part of being human. I frankly think getting a real emotional reaction for a character you created should be a welcome thing, rather than a half-hearted shrug like the vast majority of these recent sidequests have prompted out of me. It means that people actually care about the characters you’ve created -- go figure. 

As well -- I don’t think Duncan “knows too much,” personally. I know this game is called Hogwarts Mystery, but it can’t be a real mystery if we don’t have tools that could allow us to start putting the big picture together ourselves. Again, for all of her faults, Rowling understood this as a writer. We could put together, with all the info we got about Snape throughout the books, that him killing Dumbledore wasn’t because he was truly evil all along. We could put together that Rita Skeeter was an illegal Animagus, like we learned the Marauders were a book prior. We could put together that Harry was a Horcrux, based on what we learned about Horcruxes and Harry’s connection with Voldemort. And maybe having someone who could help us get a better picture of what R wants would help us better define these antagonists we’re facing and develop them into a real threat, instead of this vague red-robed shadow that honestly just seems to do random things for the hell of it rather than as part of some grand plan. I understand not understanding someone in small doses can make them intimidating, but it also makes them less fleshed-out and developed as characters and makes it harder for us to care about whether they get what they want or not. As they say, a hero is only as good as one’s villain. 

[chidoroki]

TPN ch181

(spoilers! AAAHHhhaha..my children!)

Okay, so remember in my last review when I said I was impressed how Ray, Gilda and Phil managed to narrow down where Emma might be in the matter of a couple months? Well, I take it back because it hasnt been just a few months, it's been two damn years! Oh my god, I can't imagine how hard it must've been for everyone, especially our two boys, to search for so long without even getting on single clue about Emma's whereabouts. Some of the children still doubt whether she's alive or actually in this world with them or not.

(image limit, so imagine the panels of the Goldy Pond kids discussing the lack of clues and Thoma and Lani doubting the reward again)

Thankfully, Gilda gets the idea to search in forbidden zones which is where we see her, Ray and Phil. Speaking of which, oh my poor boy. This is the longest Ray has been without Emma by his side. I thought the one month after Goldy Pond was hard enough on him, but two whole years? Damn, I can't imagine the stress and anxiety he's been experiencing. He's still so frustrated too and gets so close to Emma without even realizing it. Then, surprisingly, his beloved family steps in to help? The people he personally couldn't save now come together to help him save the one person who originally saved his life. Like, hello?? I love this! Conny, who was another sibling he had to use in order to put his initial escape plan in motion to save Emma and Norman's lives, is now assisting him in saving Emma from being alone. Yuugo, who knows firsthand how important Emma is to Ray and how close they are. Isabella, knowing her son kept his promise as he's always set out to do whatever it takes to protect his entire family. The fact that Ray's lost family members can feel how strong his bond with Emma is and they jump in to help reconnect the two of them again.. just, wow. It may be all the rayemma week feels getting to me but that's like a damn soulmate occurrence if i ever saw one!

The two unknowingly pass each other again but thanks to Emma conveniently losing her necklace and finding it with perfect timing, they all finally encounter each other. Everyone expresses their complete shock and relief that they had finally found Emma, and while I am happy they their search ended up a success, the mood changes fairly quickly due to our girls lost memories. She hasnt the slightest idea who "Emma" is, who these people are or why they're so excited to see her. The kids wonder if they have the right girl, as they take notice of Emma's bare neck.

One look at the necklace in her hand though and Ray finally puts the pieces together. Honestly, I'm not at all surprised he's the one to figure out the true reward, as Ray has been very perceptive since the beginning. He's also always been openly honest and blunt when things get serious, so naturally he's the one who has to let everyone know this because while it's a sad truth no one wants to hear, or even believe, they all need to realize it, including Emma. Even Ray has trouble coming to terms with the sacrifice Emma made. He understands how hard it must have been for Emma to accept the heavy price of her forgetting the family she loves so deeply and he looks so broken when he realizes that. He must be feeling so guilty that he couldn't have been there with her when she made the new promise. He still puts the blame on himself and he's so upset that his failure lead Emma to live in a world alone without the family she cares for more than anything.

I wasn't too satisfied last chapter when demon god told us the real reward and Emma's response was a simple "okay," so I'm grateful we learned more about the conversation now in this chapter. She really did want to live her family. She even knew some of them might get mad at her for keeping a secret. She says it's a selfish request, for her to place such a heavy burden on herself, but what mattered to her back then upon accepting the reward is what has always mattered to her, and that's her family's happiness and safety. It wasn't just her loved one either, but for all the demons and cattle children. This girl truly has a heart of gold and demon god himself is left surprised. Of course I wish she didn't think she was being selfish since everyone did agree to follow her as their leader but aahh.. my poor girl.

Spoiling the very end now, but we dont get one last fullscore trio hug. Of course that upsets me since I thought it would've made such a perfect ending, but it makes sense now given how everyone's reunion with Emma happened. While their happiness and relief is completely understandable after searching two years and finally finding Emma, they overreact and this visibly freaks her out. Come on guys, last time I said to gently remind her of her past, not bombard her right away. Having a ton of strangers surround you and tell you such outlandish things is quite jarring. I'm glad she takes the chance to listen to everyone, but she just doesnt know these people well enough to suddenly hug them. I imagined a hug would've happened upon her recalling some of her memories somehow and feeling relived that she met the two boys she often once dreamt about, but oh well.

Norman takes this time to step in and ease some of the tension, saying how happy he is that Emma's alive and even reiterating some of the things he said to her during his shipment scene. While this chapter soon shows how well the escapees have adapted to the human world and changed, it also puts an emphasis on the boy's true personalities that they showed since the very beginning. I've already mentioned above how Ray stayed true to himself, about him being open and honest to the others with the truth and even his own feelings. With Norman, I don't know the word for him really, but his speech about their family and his feelings remind me of ch1/ep1 where we see him trying to calm Emma down after seeing what they did at the gate. He stayed by her side and remained hopeful even though he was just as scared. Right now, I get the same vibes. He's just as upset as their family upon learning Emma lost her memories, but he still wants her to be apart of their family.

Although it seems like a very rushed way of tying up loose ends, I'm happy to hear about how well the children have been adapting in the human world. They're attending school and following their passions. They all look so happy! The entire Lambda crew is healthy and Cislo even has a prosthetic leg! The medicine made from Adam's dna was successful and also helped those children from the mass production farms. Mike Ratri and the clan are actually being helpful and trustworthy. I absolutely love Norman's comment about Ayshe not killing him! It really makes me smile and I assume that means she's forgiven him.. maybe. Her dogs were indeed able to cross over to the human world too and now there's even more! Chris is finally awake! They seriously have to fill the poor boy in on so much news though.

I get it. It took the entire story for me to understand but now I get Norman's intense feelings. He's been infatuated by this girl since childhood. He told us/Ray his feelings at age 11 then "gave his life" to give her a better chance at survival. He kept living just for the slight possibly to see her again. After almost two years, they reunite, only for about a week or two before they all cross over into the human world and Emma is no where to be seen. Another two years pass and while they all find her, she's almost a completely difference person. Yet Norman's feelings remain so sincere for her that he accepts this new Emma. He lets her know that the bright future she wished for came true. (me? speaking of noremma? even im surprised)

Her head might not have the slightest idea who these people are, but her heart surely remembers! Emma's feelings for her family were so strong that they persisted throughout these entire two years, even after she stopped having those dreams about them. Deep down, and without even realizing it, she loves them so much that it makes her cry.

“Why am I... Even though I don't know them. Though I don't know anything. Though I can't remember. Why... Does it feel warm, but also so painful in my heart? I wanted to see you.”

Seeing everyone else get emotional and expressing their feelings to her right back and having all of them accept this new Emma.. yeah, that has me in tears! Demon god truly underestimated these kids and how deep their love for each other went. Emma's family was never going to give up looking for her because, thanks to her influence, they also didn't believe anything was impossible. “Screw destiny” indeed! (also we never did learn the old dude's name or Emma's new one hm? odd.)

Did Emma get her memories back? No. Did Ray pat her head again so I could die from nostalgia? No, because I'm still here. Did we get a fullscore hug like I originally hoped? No, sadly. The ending isn't picture perfect but honestly, this is still okay. Our precious girl is finally reunited with her family again. Most importantly, they're alive. The trio are teenagers about 15/16 years old now, which amazing since they once believed they wouldn't see a day past the age of 12. Yet here they are, living happy and free in the human world without fear and killing, which is exactly what Emma wished for.

I can't believe the manga is truly finished. It feels like it all went by so quick, but perhaps that's only because I haven't been in the fandom as long as others, like if you've been here since the manga started then I applaud you and can't imagine how sad this must be after four years. The anime is what caught my attention and my love for this series only grew when I jumped into the manga right after season one ended. I must have binged all available chapters at the time in like three days, all the way up to ch129. Since then I've waited patiently week after week to see how this suspenseful story would pan out for out lovable and very large cast of characters. Each new twist and cliffhanger made my brain crazy and stressed me out but it was so great to experience them with everyone.

Also, big thanks to all of you who share your comments on these reviews of mine! Even though I started writing them pretty late into the story and at the most stressful time, it was great to hear so much feedback and experience the exciting finish with everyone. The manga may have ended, but don't let that make the fandom quiet! We still have future manga volume releases to look forward to, the live-action movie that is still set for this December along with a live-action series that was also recently announced. Most importantly, season two of the anime is still scheduled for January 2021! You can bet I'll do reactions for each episode as I normally do with other anime! The series still has so much more content to give us, especially if the anime continues to recieve future seasons over the upcoming years, so of course I'll give my thoughts on all that I can.

I give all my thanks and appreciation to Shirai & Demizu for such a wonderful and suspenseful story, for all the memorable characters and the stunning artwork. The series has truly become my favorite. That's right, I said it! My favorite. TPN has taken over Black Lagoon as my favorite series. (Revy can still keep her spot as my favorite character but I'll be damned if Ray isn't a really really close second.)

[nomazee]

Komorebi (1)

komorebi, p.1

synopsis: Tsukishima dislikes the amount of parallels there are with you and Hinata. He dislikes the way you're so energetic and exuberant when you want to be, and the way you can get along so well with people. He dislikes the way that people are naturally drawn to you, and the way you're so willing to put time into your dumb gifts and snacks and treats for a team of boys you barely know. 

But Tsukishima does not dislike you. And he supposes that's part of the problem.

series content: developing relationship, (sort of) ooc tsukishima, strangers to (sort of) friends to lovers, angst, fluff, slow burn

part one | part two | part three | part four | part five | part six

(okay y’all, WOW— i have a lot to say before we get into this. all good things, no worries! 

first off, welcome to this mess of a multi-part series i’ve decided to start!! planning it has certainly been a labor of love, and i’m sure writing the rest of it will be just as much of a piece of work as it’s already been, but i truly am so excited to start writing this. things are a bit messy right now with the plot i have planned and whatnot, but i assure you that i (kind of) know what i’m doing!! 

i’m VERY sorry for not getting this out earlier. it took me a while, a lot of rewriting and knitting breaks and lukewarm tea to manage something that i was sort of content with. introductions are hard, y’know? but i assure you the quality & content (as well as the length) will definitely pick up in the next few chapters. 

if you haven’t caught my previous post(s) about it, i recently reached 100 followers and i could not be more happy!!! this milestone means so much to me and i’m so thankful for all the support you’ve given me over the last few months. i love you all so so so much, thank you for sticking around!! 

with all of that being said (sorry for this VERY long a/n), here’s the first chapter!!)

☾.:°∗★.:☆:.★∗°:.☽

Tsukishima Kei walks into the gym, and wonders what he did to deserve this. 

There’s a figure standing next to Hinata Shouyou, resident wild child of the Karasuno boys’ volleyball team, who seems to be as exuberant as the redhead. Tsukishima heaves out a sigh, which his childhood friend notices from beside him. 

“You alright?” Yamaguchi asks, eyebrow cocked in concern. 

The blonde blinks and looks straight ahead. “Just fine.” 

Maybe the morning was a particularly rough one, or maybe his general disliking for people just really kicked in at that particular moment. But the sight of yet another person deciding to barge into morning practice loudly with Hinata, of all people, makes his cool demeanor slip into one of annoyance. 

“Who’s that?” Yamaguchi voices the question that the blonde had been absent-mindedly asking himself, and the both of them watch from a distance as Hinata and his unidentified friend chat exuberantly near the bench. 

“Don’t know,” Tsukishima responds, and he pointedly veers away from the duo and into the locker room without another word. 

By the time he’s changed and ready to start practice, the unknown person is gone. A feeling of thankfulness overwhelms him but it’s (unfortunately) coupled with distant curiosity. 

Tsukishima Kei sighs, takes a sip from his water bottle, and forces the flow of quiet questions in his mind to quiet down as he steps onto the court. 

——

He should’ve known that it’s not easy to get rid of anyone similar to Hinata. They’re too loud to avoid, too exuberant to turn away from, too bright to shield your eyes from.

You are no exception. 

He learns your name the next day, when you’re once again in the gym—this time, in after-school practice rather than in the morning. You clutch onto a paper bag, large and heavy on your shoulder and forcing you to lean your body to the other side to avoid toppling under the weight of the bag. 

You’re standing with Hinata yet again, but this time there are other people with you. Nishinoya and Tanaka, girl-crazy idiots that they are, listen intently to every word you spew out as answers to their many questions. Yachi stands near you as well, a pleasant smile on her face as she watches you interact with the boys swimmingly, and Ennoshita seems to have taken a subtle interest in the conversation occurring. 

Tsukishima scoffs, about to make some biting remark about your annoying presence to Yamaguchi before he realizes that Yamaguchi is strangely absent from beside him. 

He turns to his side. Blinks. Looks back up at the steadily forming crowd around you. Spots his five-foot-ten friend smiling and laughing at whatever garbage is coming out of your mouth. Growls in annoyance before submitting to peer pressure and slowly (with definite uninterest) stalking in your direction. 

He catches the topic of conversation now, right as you begin to fiddle with the plentiful contents of your bag. “I brought some stuff,” you speak, and Tsukishima ignores how pleasant your voice sounds to him. “Just a few things I baked, and I wanted to give some to you guys because Shouyou tells me a lot about how hard you all work.” You’re smiling—not that you haven’t been smiling the whole time, but as the words leave your mouth, your lips seem to lift higher up on your face to match the exuberant tone of voice you’ve adopted. 

Tsukishima watches you pull out, one of many, beige bakery boxes, tan and smooth and weighty, by the look of how you have to use both hands to support it. Nishinoya and Tanaka “ooooo” at the sight of the mundane box, and Tsukishima wonders if neither of them are occupying the single braincell they share. 

You lift up the lid of the box. The variety of pastries inside is almost worrying, and Tsukishima faintly wonders how much free time and resources you must have to make so much food just for a ragtag group of volleyball boys. 

The boys explode with calls of “thank you, [Y/N]!” and “you’re so cool!” and “can we keep her?” though the last one is, yet again, the sole product of a certain pair of second years. 

Tsukishima realizes that he now knows your name, your first name, [Y/N]. He wonders if, by chance, you’re not just a friend of Hinata’s but related to him, but brushes off his irrelevant curiosity yet again as you begin to speak. 

“There’s no nuts in any of these, so if you have allergies then no need to worry! But there is milk and eggs and stuff, so if you’re vegan then I’m sorry about that…” 

For the next few minutes, you ramble on about your baking process and Tsukishima rolls his eyes. It’s a shocker that the third years haven’t kicked you out yet, and he wonders if he can do that himself. 

“I have to go now—” finally, Tsukishima thinks, “—but I hope you guys enjoy everything! If there’s leftovers, you can keep them, and if you want more of something then just tell me! I have a lot of time on my hands so I’m always making stuff.” You leave the paper bag on the floor near the benches, replacing the original location of the box in your hands, and smiling at the team once more with a polite bow. 

“I hope you guys enjoy. Have a great day!” Tsukishima wants to gag at your stupidly-sweet behavior, and the feeling only intensifies as Hinata offers to walk you out—the door is twenty feet away, what’s the point of walking her there?

The team chatters exuberantly about the new face they met that afternoon, and Tsukishima would do anything to go deaf right in that moment. He sighs, looks at the boxes you left for the team, and rolls his eyes. While the rest of his teammates seem to be excited about this new addition to their team (including Yamaguchi, who he wants to call a traitor but knows he really can’t since he’s always been a bit more socially-inclined than Tsukishima), he can’t help but hope that your presence doesn’t become a daily thing. 

Hoping doesn't do much for him, though. Maybe he should’ve figured that out beforehand.

[amydancepants-peralta]

from the bottom of my heart

(Hi @dumpsteramy! I am your Secret Santa, and I have finally arrived with your Christmas gift! 🎅🏼 I hope you enjoy xx)

from the bottom of my heart 

For a detective that had - a mere five hours ago - participated in the takedown of one of Brooklyn’s most notorious killers, Jake Peralta knows that he is feeling way too nervous about the tiny parcel that is currently sitting inconspicuously on his kitchen counter.  

He reminds himself of this fact, hands obsessively wiping down each surface one last time in preparation for Amy’s arrival - running through his memory bank of various moments of bad-assery - but try as he might; every single time he glances at the box, wrapped in brown paper and too small to be anything but innocent, his heart leaps back up into his throat all over again.  

It’s possible, he reasons; as he grabs the last pair of dirty socks off the floor and throws them in the direction of the hamper, that it’s because this year is one of the few times that he’s actually had a girlfriend over the holiday season.  

(The reason behind that detail, he’s not entirely sure hasn’t been deliberate, however that’s just a little too much to unpack right now.)

But it’s also possible (and honestly, curse his impeccable detective instincts, because sometimes ignorance truly is bliss) that it’s because of who his girlfriend is this year; and how much he’s already hoping for a hundred or more Christmases together, that his nerves just plain refuse to take a chill pill for a minute or two.  (Or was it whom?  Seriously.  He cannot tell.)

And then, there’s also the minor fact that he’s kinda sorta already completely fallen in love with her - a tiny nicety that he cannot bring himself to say out loud just yet, because that really is a bell that one cannot unring.  But there were implications within that little brown box, connotations of many more years together that hasn’t yet been suggested but that he wants to imagine could actually be possible, and right now he could really do with Terry’s magic 8 ball to give him some kind of sign that everything is going to turn out just fine.  

Just be cool, Peralta.  No biggie if Amy doesn’t like it.  Jake winces, head shaking at his own thought; checking on the takeout keeping warm in the oven.  He really is a terrible liar.  

It’s only the sound of a key sliding into the lock - AMY’S key, because they are dating and have each other’s keys and it really shouldn’t make him this giddy two weeks later but it really does - that pulls Jake’s mind away from his slightly obsessive thoughts, and his face morphs into a happy grin as Amy lets herself in to his apartment.  

Her face is flushed from the cold, half hidden behind a layer of scarves and jacket collars, but then their eyes meet and she smiles and oh, he really is the luckiest guy in all of New York.  

“Hey!  Sorry I’m a little late.  Just got completely swept up in that last bit of paperwork, you know?”  Letting his front door swing shut behind her, she uses her free hand to unwrap the layers of wool, craning her neck to meet Jake’s welcome home kiss.  “But!  I made us some cookies for dessert.  Santa ones, with lots of icing.  You’re gonna love them.”

He gives Amy what he hopes is a convincing smile, helping her slide the last sleeve of her jacket off and casting it on a nearby barstool as her hands wrap around his waist.  “Sounds amazing, babe.”

“Mmm.  More kisses, please.”

It’s a polite request - honestly, he’d have responded the same even if it been a demand - and as a contented smile lifts Jake’s lips he leans in for another kiss, letting this one linger for a moment or two, purely because he can.  

She sighs against his mouth, shuffling closer and planting her palms against his hoodie; reaching up for the zipper as their lips press together once more.

His eyebrows raise as the zipper descends, pulling away slightly as her hands wrap around his now free middle with a secret smile.  She dips her head into his neck, that perfect mixture of flowers and ink that he’s come to know as Amy washing over him, and even though Jake’s technically been here for hours, finally it feels like he’s home.  

The hug continues for a beat, and despite the fact that he’d probably stand here for hours if Amy only asked, Jake breaks the comfortable silence to voice a nagging suspicion.  “Can’t tell if this is a sweet hug from my girlfriend, or a brazen attempt to steal all of my body heat.”

“You know I’m an excellent multi-talker, Peralta.  Clearly, it’s both.”  Her soft lips press against the base of his neck as though offering payment for his services, and Jake’s grip on his girlfriend tightens.  “You’re just so warm, and Brooklyn is so cold tonight.”

“Oh, so this is like a two-for-one deal kinda sitch.”

Amy nods, the soft edge of her chin rubbing along Jake’s collarbone and truly, he could have a thousand more nights just like this.  

Her head lifts slightly, sniffing the air before turning her attention back to Jake.  “Can I smell Thai Guy’s Tom Kha Kai?”

“You can.”

She grins, giving his waist a quick squeeze before releasing him from her warmth-stealing hug.  “Wow.  You definitely win Best Boyfriend for today.”

“Best Boyfriend?  Noice.  If I’d known it was that easy, I would’ve ordered double on standby for future awards.”

Amy grins, chuckling softly before noticing the parcel (because she honestly is the best detective - even if he’ll never say it out loud), letting her hands run along the edges of his hoodie as she pulls away to make a closer inspection.  “What’s this?”

His heart has most definitely returned to it’s seemingly new home at the base of his throat, but somehow Jake manages to persevere.  “Oh, it’s some-nothing really … just something I picked up and it’s nothing really it doesn’t matter.”

Her right eyebrow twitches up, throwing him that look she gets whenever she senses a lead, and Jake sighs. 

“So … I know you know how my mom used to work a lot, since my dad was a leaving jerk who left like a jerk and whatever.”  Amy nods, remaining silent.  “Well, the holidays always paid really well so I spent a lot of them with Nana or Gina or sometimes just me and the tv.”

“And Die Hard.”

“Naturally.  It’s the only Christmas movie worth watching.  And we’d make our own holiday day, somewhere in the week, so the whole actual date thing really wasn’t that big of a deal.  But … we did have this one tradition, that actually started the first Christmas after my dad left.”   

He watches nervously as Amy rounds the counter, using the tip of her perfectly manicured fingers to shuffle the parcel closer to her position, and takes a heavy swallow.  “My mom would buy - and sometimes make - ornaments, and put pictures of us from throughout the year in them.”  Running one hand through his hair, Jake moves until he’s leaning against the opposite side of the bench.  “She said that way, we were celebrating the year that was and making wishes for more of the same.  As you can imagine, as time went on the tree had a bunch of photos of her and I.  It was actually kinda cool.”

“It sounds really lovely, Jake.”

Nodding, Jake points at the package Amy’s nimble fingers have begun toying with, silently encouraging her to lift the lid as he continues.  “Yeah, so … I sort of had this thought that maybe … this year there could be one with us on the tree.”

Giving Jake one last curious glance, Amy lifts the lid of the small brown box, chewing her lower lip as the contents come into view.  

With his stomach feeling like it’s dropped to his feet, Jake leans into the counter, waiting with bated breath for Amy’s response; and she lifts the tiny wreath ornament from it’s resting place, letting the trinket spin as a selfie Jake took of the two of them two months ago flickers in front of their eyes.  

It’s the silence that’s killing him, the need to explain and deflect and pretend everything is fine too strong, and even though Jake knows he’s rambling, the words just start tumbling out of his mouth.  “It’s no biggie, really.  Just something that I thought might be cool.  It’s okay if you hate it, we don’t need to bother next year, thats if there even is a next - ” The gentle press of two of Amy’s fingers against his lips throws Jake into silence, and she holds them in place as she rounds the corner of the kitchen counter again, only pulling away once she’s by his side again.  

“Jake.  I think it’s wonderful.  I could never hate this.”

With the sense of relief flooding through his veins, Jake manages a smile, tucking the strand of hair that’s fallen from Amy’s work appropriate up-do behind her ear.  “Yeah?"

“Yeah.  It’s amazing, actually.”  Her hands come to rest on either side of his neck, the sheer familiarity and comfort of the move subsiding any linger nerves as she looks up at him with the softest gaze.  “A really special tradition, that I cannot wait to continue.  And honestly, I just feel so lucky that you’d want to share it with me.  Thank you, babe.”

Her lips press against his as she pulls him in for a grateful kiss; and even as his hands slide along the smooth edges of Amy’s back, Jake can’t help but think that if there’s anyone in this kitchen that’s lucky, it is most definitely him.  After all, not only does Amy love the tradition, she cannot wait to continue it - and what could be greater than that?

He wraps his arms around Amy completely, pulling her in for a tighter hug as the kiss breaks, and with her chin resting against his shoulder she takes in the rest of her surroundings.

“Hey.  You cleaned!”

Feeling a tiny glimmer of pride at her observation, Jake nods to play it cool.  “Well, you know.  Tis the season, and all that.”

“The cleaning season?”  Gasping, Amy tilts her face back up to Jake with a giant smile.  “Oh my gosh, can you imagine!?  There could be a different cleaning method each day!”��

Her eyes are bright, taking on that special sparkly quality that just takes her beauty levels from one hundred to one thousand as she describes all the different products that could be used, and he is most definitely, absolutely, totally and utterly, head over heels in love with Amy Santiago.  

“Look, all of that sounds amazing, Ames, and I’m sure one day if you wish really hard it might even come true.  But … for now, how about we eat this Best Boyfriend Award winning dinner I ordered and watch some top quality movies on the couch?"

Amy nods, raising one finger in a friendly reprimand.  “But no Die Hard, we watched it just last week.”

“It’s a vintage classic, babe!  The kind of movie that never grows old.”

Her responding eye roll is good-natured in it’s delivery, a gentle slap landing along the line of shoulder.  “Vintage or not, I get to choose the movie tonight.”

Letting out an exaggeratedly defeated sigh, Jake decides that a pre-dinner commiseration cookie is in order, and he lifts the lid to the container as Amy removes their food from the oven.

“Uh, babe … are these the cookies you made?”

“Yeah?”

“They look … neat.”  Jake smiles, one that he knows isn’t very convincing, but he’s also not entirely certain that the lumps he’s discovered in the container are actually cookies - even out of technicality.

Amy’s eyes narrow, abandoning her serving of rice to gaze over Jake’s shoulder, jabbing a finger into his spine.  “Out with it, Peralta.”

“No, it’s nothing, it’s just … have you ever seen that show, Nailed It?”

Her jaw drops, brows raising in obvious indignation as she reaches for one of the lumps.  “Hey!  Eat your damn cookie, detective.  Or don’t go expecting anything to happen with your candy cane tonight.”

“My candy ca- oh!  My ‘candy cane’.  Ha.  Nice euphemism, Ames.”  Winking, he snatches the cookie out of Amy’s protective grip, snarfing it down in one bite.  “Mmm, yummy.  Don’t mind me, just standing here enjoying this deliciously amazing cookie that my incredible girlfriend made for me with her bare hands and doesn’t taste like a salt lick at all.”

Casting a side-eyed glance at Jake as she returns to serving their dinner, Amy mutters something about how she really thought the extra icing would hide the salt taste; and even though it’s probably completely insane, he feels strangely excited at the thought of many more years pretending to enjoy his girlfriend’s cooking.  

The idea of it all - of a mixture of Christmases, Hanukkahs and Noche Bueanas alike filling up their years - makes Jake’s face break out into a stupidly wide grin; and without thinking he reaches for another cookie, this time making no complaint as the salty sweet combination begins to grow on him.  

And truly, there could not be any greater sign that he is completely in love with Amy if he tried.

*

(A few or so years from now, there will be a Christmas tree standing tall in the living room of the  Santiago-Peralta home, covered in ornaments and memories alike.  Their son Mac will place the very last decoration on the tree - a tiny little sonogram of his soon-to-be-born little sister - and Jake will ruffle his hair and remember a time when all of this had only been an unspoken dream.)

[undercoverclover]

A Work Of Art

Pairing: Pygmalion (Sehyoon) x Galatea

Genre: Myth AU, Fluff-ish, Angsty maybe, depending how you look at it.

Word Count: 1.8k

Warning: None?

Summary: When Pygmalion would rather be alone throughout his life, he creates the perfect woman in an ivory sculpture. This is my version of the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea for the @acewriters event, Greco Roman Writes. 

As my internal alarm makes me stir, I steal a glance out my window and notice the sun rising just above the horizon. I groan as I sit up in my bed and stretch. I would like to go back to sleep, but I know that if I did, my current works of art would never get finished.

Looking to the corner of the cabin, I see the sheet draped over the sculpture I’d started just the day before. I make some breakfast and then begin carving on what’s to be the perfect image of a woman, or so I hope. By midday, I take a break to relax my aching hands and picture what my ivory sculpture will eventually become and smile. I did not get much done carving the legs, but it was taking shape slowly.

“Oh, Pygmalion!” I hear outside my window.

“What in the name of Zeus do you want?” I grumble.

“We just want to talk.”

“I wonder what he looks like.” A new voice sounds.

“I’ve heard he’s handsome with medium brown hair and eyes that match. I’ve also heard he’s an artist and his work will make you say wow, every single time.”

“We? As in there’s more of you wretched women out there? Go away!”

“But-”

“I do not and will not ever want anything to do with you. Leave me be!” I yell, fed up with them.

I hear them run away and sigh in relief. I swore that I’d never marry a woman in this city and I plan to keep it that way. I despise them all and I never travel, so becoming a hermit is my destiny. I go back to my sculpture and work diligently through the day.

I know that it’s late and the sun went down some time ago, but I have the perfect image in my mind and I have to finish it before I can sleep. Chiseling away pieces and wiping residual dust from it, I run my hand over it. The surface is smooth and such a beautiful color, I hope that it will be just like I imagine it. My hands ache as I carve the final foot, but I feel accomplished. I wash my hands in the basin and change into fresh clothes as my last were covered in dust.

I cover my sculpture and head to my bed for the remainder of the night.

***

The days begin blurring together as my routine stays the same. I wake, eat, work and repeat. Working everyday, I managed to get the sculpture outlined in less than a week's time and almost finished in another. The quiet was peaceful for a time, but I began to wonder what it would be like if I had a wife.

“Pygmalion?” I hear as a knock ascends on the door. I jump up, startled but answer the door.

“Yes?”

“Oh my word, have you not seen yourself as of late?” My longtime friend, Philip says. I’ve seen Philip grow from a small black haired child with light brown eyes to a man. Hell I’d introduced him to his wife not too long ago and they were expecting their first child. One of the only friends I have, I respect him enough not to throw a stone at him right now.

“No, I have not Philip. I’ve been deep in work.” I grumble.

“A new statue? Your brown hair is covered in ivory specks of it that it almost looks white, your brown eyes are red and puffy, and the dust is all over your tunic. For crying out loud, how can you see out of your glasses?” He asks, taking them off of my face and wiping them off.

“Yes, and I just about have her done. Would you like to see?” I ask, excitement in my voice.

“Of course, dear friend!” I let him pass and he gapes at my beautiful ivory queen.

“She’s beautiful, Pygmalion. She looks lifelike! What’s her name?”

“Thank you, Philip. I have no name for her… But, I’m not quite done. I should finish the fine details tomorrow. You may come back and see for yourself before the sun sets tomorrow, if you’d like.” I smile, proudly.

“I must! If it looks this good now, I cannot wait to see what the final product looks like.”

“Then, I will see you tomorrow before sundown.” I smile, shaking his hand. He walks back to the doorway and turns back to me, “You know, she looks like a Galatea.”

I smile wider hearing the sound of that, “That will be her name then. Galatea it is.”

Philip smiles and takes his leave, making plans to return tomorrow and I decide that this is enough for tonight. I lay my tools down and walk outside to relax on the hill where I live. It overlooks the city and has the best view in the entire area. I lay in my favorite spot, watching the sun set before me and frown, letting the loneliness creep in just a little.

The next day, I did it. I finished the details. The long curly hair, her ivory color so flesh-like and the perfect proportions. I stand there admiring my work and finally lean down to kiss her cheek. The best piece of art I’ve ever made.

Philip comes by as planned and fawns over my masterpiece, but leaves just as quickly because his wife could have their child at any given time.

“What I wouldn’t give for Galatea to be real.” I say to myself. Loneliness has set in tonight in full force as I think about the sculpture in my home. She’s going to be perfect. Sitting up, I notice flowers a few meters away, down the hill. I smile sadly, going to pick them.

Grabbing them, I bring them back inside and place them in front of Galatea, leaning down to kiss the statue once again, “Oh how I would treat you like a goddess. Never mind that I seem like an outcast. I’d be the happiest outcast alive, if you were by my side.”

The weeks to come, I become lonelier and lonelier. Slipping into my mind and only seeing happiness when I saw Galatea’s gorgeous face. I dress her in the finest clothing I could buy and even buy a bracelet for her after selling off a small sculpture. Surrounding her with gifts, as if she was my goddess, I decide that I shall not love anyone else. I’d rather love someone I couldn’t have, innocently and purely than one of the vile women that walk this city,

That night, I washed up and instead of laying to rest, I prayed to the Goddess of Love, Aphrodite.

Goddess Aphrodite,

If you would hear my plea. I wish my darling Galatea would be mine, in life. I would treat her as the goddess she is to me. My heart will want none other. I have never asked for anything, but please hear me. I will forever be in your debt and always grateful.

I say my prayer and then go to bed, hoping for a better day tomorrow.

***

The sun waking me, I realize I slept later than normal. Apparently needing it as I didn’t sleep much in order to finish Galatea. Stretching, I sit up and wonder what I’ll do today….

The festival devoted to the goddess, Aphrodite, had begun today and I prepare the artwork and flowers I’d worked on in my spare time for her. Afterwards, I make breakfast and walk into town to sell off some art pieces that I had finished in my spare time. I take the gifts to Aphrodite’s altar and ask for my beautiful ivory statue to come to life. I know it’s highly unlikely, but it’s the only true happiness I want.

Leaving the altar after paying my respects and devotion, I look for more gifts to present to my one and only before I return home. The worrisome looks I am given as I pick things out make me seem like a mad man. That’s alright with me, less people to deal with.

I manage to find a necklace with a purple gemstone, my favorite color. I smile and get it for her, then hurrying home, planning to put it on her as soon as I arrive.

Walking in, the atmosphere feels different, “Hello?” I yell but to no avail.

Pygmalion, enjoy the gift of love. I hear inside of my mind. I wonder what that could mean and return to Galatea’s side. I place the necklace on her and kiss her on the lips wishing I could feel the warmth of them.

And I could….

I gasp, pulling away and decide I must be feeling things that aren’t there. I feel the arm making sure I hadn’t missed any places and it feels just like skin! I kiss her lips again and feel the warmth radiating through them.

“By the goddess.” I smile, as Galatea sits up to face me.

“Hello, I’m Galatea. It’s very nice to meet you.” She says, smiling wide, My heart explodes with delight and I whisk her in a hug, “Hello my love! I am Pygmalion!”

I hear her giggle and it’s music to my ears.

“Oh thank the goddess! Thank you so much Aphrodite.” I say, happily as I swing Galatea around. I sit her on her feet, keeping her hand in my own and show her around our house. She’s smiley and I can’t help but feel such joy that it brings tears to my eyes.

“Oh, Pygmalion. What is wrong?” She says, wiping the stray tear that escaped my hand.

“I’m so happy. That’s all, I promise you.”

“Okay, I truly hope so.” She smiles.

That night, she lays by my side and I feel complete for the first time in my life. She’s my masterpiece and I’ll treat her as such.

I thank Aphrodite every night after Galatea came to life and pay my respects to the both of them any chance I get. Galatea became my wife just a few short months later.

“Pygmalion, I have something to tell you.” I hear. I set my pencil down and turn to look at her. “I have news for you.” She says, smiling widely.

“And what would that be, my queen?”

“You’ll soon be a father.”

“No! You’re telling tall tales!” I hop up, hoping excitedly she’s not lying.

“I’m not. I prayed to Aphrodite last night and she spoke to me. She said something. Oh what was it….”

“Take your time, my queen.” I smile.

“Oh! She said, ‘Enjoy the gift of love.’ and said you’d know it’s real.”

I scoop her up and cheer and cry in happiness.

Later that year my son, Paphos, was born and I could not be happier. I never thought I’d know true happiness like this and here I am, holding a little boy in my arms as his curly black hair falls around his face and he looks at me with his mother's eyes. Finally, with my beautiful wife by my side. I couldn't ask for anything else in this world.