#wooo i had time for drawing for fun!! for like a couple of days but still!

[chequered-career]

@/theminecraftbox wrote this thing with post-finale c!Dream and c!Tommy that not enough people have seen yet (go go read it it’s good :D)

[roxtron]

YIPEE IT'S FINALLY DONE

spent the past like, month redrawing the sb cover art (original for side-by-side reference)

rambling under the cut

WOOO I'm so happy to finally have this done. I spent forever working on it, I wish I kept track but I'm pretty sure it took a month to fully finish, I've been working on it like every day for the past couple of weeks and I'm really happy to finally have it finished :D

I'm really proud of the rendering/shading on this one, the text was probably difficult which is why it looks the least accurate. I didn't want to just re-render it and re-draw the human characters so I changed the designs a little bit for this, first time I've drawn any of them. I thought it'd be fun to make their desgins fit a bit closer to the cartoony art around the pizzaplex and just smaller details I find fun.

(if monty is allowed to have spikes on his chest cavity i think freddy should be allowed fluff.. he looks so bald, if you count chica's feathers he's literally the only animatronic without hair LMAO)

I accidentally made some colors a bit more pastel or desaturated but overall I tried to replicate the rendering as well as I can, it was really good practice for understanding lighting better and stuff. (Roxy had like, 3 different color light sources I think? Monty had the most though..)

But anyway! I'm really happy I got this done so I can work on other stuff lol. I might use it for background stuff and I kept all the assets so I can edit them for pfps if i or other people want in the future.

Hope you enjoyed :)

[theriverdraws]

100k VIEWS!!! WOOO!!

Not my first or second video to reach this number, but definitely the one im most proud of.

Gonna ramble about my thoughts while making this, because I think about it a lot:

- It has been a couple of years since I started it (see desc.), but from what I remember I had this idea because this song popped up on my feed, and I really liked it (had not listened to the eng version before), looped it for a while, and then I was like "...wait this sounds like the warners doesn't it" and it all escalated from there.

- I needed them to kidnap someone, and I think I chose mickey because I had recently made an animaniacs & mickey mouse video and I really liked it, so I just chose to torment him again lmao.

Im actually realizing now that having him be the one kidnapped makes even more sense. In the song, it's halloween gremlins kidnapping santa claus - so the equivalent of WB gremlins kidnapped Mickey Mouse the disney mascot, is pretty perfect. Would like to say this was the plan since the beginning but that would be a lie smdjks.

- I really like the Animaniacs, "Who Killed Roger Rabbit?", and "Looney tunes back in action" takes on a "cartoons living with humans" universe, so in this video it's kinda of a mixture of all three of these - hence toon town (in my head it's mainly disney cartoons that live there, however the really big stars probably got their own houses in human cities I'd imagine). Mickey himself then follows the logic of his personality just being how he was drawn. He's just an average guy. Probably got nicer over the years since bro's personality ended up turning into a slice of bread by Disney, because he had to be the face of the company. My favorite version of Mickey is the one on the Mickey Mouse shorts though, so you can imagine this specific version of him on this video (I know it doesnt look like it in the beginning, I did not know how to draw mickey a couple years ago dnjdjs). In this video Mickey isn't really as evil as the company, he's just the mascot stuck with them. I would say bro is just a doormat. He wouldn't agree with all of their actions, but I dont even think he would acknowledge most of them, make a lot of excuses for them probably. Overrall he's like, fine.

- I needed a CEO to be Oogie Boogie because well.. Who would be better for it?? When I started this 2 years ago, I was deciding between Plotz and Rita (reboot CEO), I was gonna choose her because the Warners were scared of her to some extent, and I can't really imagine them being scared of Plotz. But this year, having picked this video back up, I am filled with great amouns of rage. Therefore, Zazza the clown was born (fuck you David).

- The lore is Zazza the clown sat down on a big chair one day, and people in suits made him CEO. He is an annoying, evil, money grubbing bastard. But also very stupid, so he's not that scary except when he's doing his bad ideas.

- The Warners aren't scared of him though, they are mainly doing this for fun because annoying Disney and the rat would be funny. However, going a bit deeper, they do crave praise and affection from those who hate him (aka the CEO, the entire company, any person with a brain that's around them at all times), so they are also doing this for those reasons. In the original show, there's even an episode where Plotz is not the CEO anymore, and they managed to get him back because they missed him yelling at them (probably not a direct quote, but it was something like that). The children are not well snjene. But yeah they're not taking sides nor scared, they're just doing whatever they want and maybe getting a fist bump out of it. (They are not going to get anything).

- Had to hit them with the PTSD about getting locked in a tower though jsjske, it had to match the lyrics.

- nsjsk actually the lyrics probably make the Warners sound more evil than what I picture them (though I do see them as really big menaces). To be fair, in Nightmare Before Christmas, Lock Shock and Barrel sing this whole song about torturing Santa Claus, only to just put a bag on him and give it to Jack directly. That's probably all that the Warners are gonna do in the end, maybe play with him for a bit but eh. (WB will not pay for psychological damages).

- I didn't plan a motive as to why the clown wants Mickey. Uhhhhh blackmail? Idk, feel free to come up with a reason.

- I always drew the Warners with fangs, you can see my other videos and old fanart on Tumblr. When the reboot was still airing, I drew like it looking like canine teeth, but originally I really liked drawing the cartoonish fangs like you see here, and recently I decided to start doing that again.

I think that's it! Probably a lot of grammatical mistakes (it's 5:40 AM), but I'm not editing this sjkeje. All I have left to say is I GOT TWO COMMENTS ABOUT THIS BEING A 18+ VIDEO, GUYS WATCH THE VIDEO BEFORE COMMENTTING WDYMMMM. THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH THUMBNAIL, YOUR BRAIN IS JUST ROTTING.

[gh0stlake]

Wooo more art! 🐯🐯

Character pronouns: She/Her

I had a lot of fun doing this character sheet! I started with no idea what to do for her design was seriously struggling with it.

I did the back/tail design a while ago then decided recently to try and do her actual design. Started with the head shot to get some of the colors decided and to get a starting vibe. Once finished with that I did the under-sketch for the upper body part. I used this part to help decide the upper clothing. After finishing the under-sketch I move on to doing the full body pose, did this one in whole(struggled to find out how to do the pants opening with the pose but I enjoy how it turned out :D). Then wanting to fill in the bottom left of the canvas I did the chibi which I think fits quite well. To finish up I finally went back and finished the upper body shot(the question marks are there because I dunno how to make the hand work for it haha)

I haven't got a name for her yet but I've got who she is in-universe. Also I did some shading on the head shot but the rest is just flats.

This took me a couple of days honestly, actual drawing time is definitely less than that I just have a hard time doing things haha.

I used a handful of references if anyone would like a list of them all I can compile it and post it as-well :))

[jannelle-o]

April Travel Paintings aka Borahaegas~~ ✨💜🧡 w/ my sister and her husband woohooo~!! 🥰💙💖 We went to the Day 3 concert and other activities related to BTS~ It felt like a BTS festival and I was a little overwhelmed by everything because I only knew a few general things about them at the time, and it was one of the best experiences I've had in 2022. Probably the best live concert experience I've had in my life currently too~ 🕺✨🎶 This took me way longer to finish than I expected (wasn't expecting months to finish this oops) , but then again this is pretty detailed haha I'm amazed I finished the paintings before 2022 ended for me XD I had so much fun working on these ~ 🥺💙 Also this isn't a watercolor sketchbook, I just wanna put all my travel related drawings in one sketchbook... so that could be why it took longer too? XD;

I hope you enjoy looking through all this~ uwu 💕

( I'll put some details of the trip and of the paintings/drawings in a read more so this isn't hopefully too long for everyone haha 😅)

The first three pages were done during the trip, while the rest were done throughout a couple of months? Some road trip landscapes and bt21 and attempts to paint while in a car heading back home haha I had an accident with over-flooding my pink posca and that was before the concert lol oops sorry Cooky ( also the gray, but that wasn't as bad as the pink ) thankfully none of it got on anyone, but I did have to clean up the bed weh ;o; It was super windy heading back on Saturday ( my sister and her husband had to head back to help out with wedding stuff for friends ) and it was too hard to paint in a shaking car. I thought we were gonna fly off the road and tumble into the desert haha.

For the 3 1/2 page , I wanted to paint one more road trip landscape and also the Seven Magic Mountains. I only painted one of seven in my last Vegas related trip paintings so I wanted to try painting all of them this time. I haven't actually gotten up close to them yet only seen them while on the road, maybe the next trip to Vegas? haha

The rest of the paintings are a summary of the trip heheh~

Café in the City was very tasty, finally had tteokbokki after craving it for a while, mmm jajangmyeon, and I inhaled that bungeoppang even though I was pretty full :d The drinks were also very good~

The Pop-Up exhibit had lots of photo taking opportunities, I really enjoyed seeing all the music video inspired built sets 🤩 The food and drinks we got after the pop-up were really nice. I decided to put a space background for the My Universe Brownie 🌌

Behind the Stage exhibit was super wonderful, all the behind the scene photos of their practicing to rehearsals to concerts was really cool. Also I accidentally touched one of the photos and I was scared we would get kicked out haha :'0 I also liked the stage playing music videos afterwards and liked the design of the vodka can we got while resting so I painted that too 😆

Bacchanal Buffet was tasty too, though I think I got full much faster than expected and didn't get to try as much food Then we went to the Bellagio Fountains to see if they'll play a BTS song... but they didn't when we went there lol 😂 Then the day of the concert we went to a mall for a pop-up shop and you could write notes to BTS and put them on a wall, it was very cute 💜

Concert time wooo~!! 🎶🧡✨💜 My sister is the one with the Cooky headband, I'm the one in the bucket hat haha. The energy of BTS and ARMY in the concert was super infectious, I had so much fun and that energy was still pulsing in me for a couple of days 🤩 I tried to fit a visual for every song they performed, some were a little easier than others haha If I missed any song, I'm sorry I didn't mean to ;o; I wished I practiced all the fanchants :'D I also wished I had added some other things that happened in the concert, but I wanted to keep it contained in one spread c':

Just ahh... what a super wonderful time overall. ✨�� Thanks a bunch to my sister and her husband for inviting me to come along, you're both the best and I love you lots and seeing my sister's happiness about all this was irresistible and made me happy too. Also ARMYs were super kind and nice and gave cute freebies and it was sweet haha ;w; Much love to BTS for bringing so much joy and brightness to my sister and to many others. I already thought positively about them for helping her when she needed it last year, and I'm now so endeared with them and deep dove into their discography and videos and things and they have brought a lot of positivity this year for me haha 🥺💜

[hiratelier]

Y'know I think if early 2023 me met late 2023 me…they would not believe the shit that I have accomplished:

develop new hobbies such as keyboard building; I've only built one so far, but I plan on building more in the future. I have a 75% keyboard that I modded a couple of months ago, and it's a joy to use

lose significant interest in using vocal synths such as UTAU over time (note: I still enjoy listening to such songs these days, it's just that I have more interesting things to work on). I still mess with singing robots but not as much, maybe the day will come when I'll actually enjoy this kind of thing LOL…maybe it's for the best

pick up animatics and motion graphics!! I am still relatively new to these, and it's been fun learning new skills to apply to my own work. I also have a couple of animatic projects currently in progress

improve my art significantly and taking art pratice more seriously (I ignored it for nearly 10+ years)…comparing my more recent art to the ones I made early this year reveals a drastic difference in my art style and the way I approach drawing. Also I should paint more background studies because they're fun to do

work on my OC projects with more effort, and I've made lots of progress with their respective stories and concepts…more details to come later on

quit FGO once and for all after 6+ years of playing it! I had 600+ SQ saved up for this one character I liked but then I lost interest over time. Still invested in the lore, but the game…not so much

get into Transformers (starting mid-September)!! I think with my interest in robot/cyborg-related media such as PGR/Nikke/Gundam, it did come full circle…I'd like to get more into the community since I've been enjoying TF media from the sidelines for the most part, but the community here on Tumblr has been very nice so far. god I love robots (and I've been getting realy comfy drawing mechs lately WOOO)

[mm2305]

Fever

Pairings : Dr. Ethan Ramsey & f! MC Dr. Olivia Valentine

Rating : Teen

Disclaimer : All characters belong to pixelberry and all rights for the song belong to the rightful owners.

Description : Towards the end of the gala in book 2, chapter 17, a karaoke game is hosted.

Authors note : Hello everyone! This fic was inspired by 1) my love for OH and romance, 2)conversations with people from the fandom and 3) my love for this song. I recommend listening to the song featured on this story, which is "fever" by Peggy Lee, just to have an idea of why I think this song is so fitting for our dear couple. English isn't my first language and this is my first attempt at an Ethan x MC fic, so please be kind with me. Now it's story time! Enjoy!

___________________

The evening was progressing rather nicely, people having a good time,talking and mingling with the crowd, trying to do the best they could to save Edenbrook. Deep down, the hospital staff knew that this last effort, the gala, would just delay the inevitable closing of the hospital. However, there was no way they'd go down without a fight. At the very least, the hospital for as long as it would remain open, would be able to cater to those in need of medical care. Of course, apart from helping people and working there, Edenbrook had become a home to all of the doctors and nurses. Friendships, rivalries, love and pain were parts of the lives of all those people who worked in the hospital.

Things for a certain attending and resident were finally starting to become clearer. It seems that a future of them finally being together was nothing but inevitable.

Olivia couldn’t be more surprised by Ethan kissing her in front of all these people, when just a few months ago he didn’t want to pursue a relationship with her. The attraction and care they felt towards each other,were things they had both realized they felt a long time ago, but they hadn't acted on their feelings. After her albeit brief, but agonizing, brush with death though, the both of them, realized that they shouldn’t waste any more precious time just pining for one another. Dreaming, gazing, yearning for each other's touch and smile. This time, the both of them would take the leap and try. They cared for one another deeply and despite the fact that they hadn’t said the three magical words yet, it was pretty obvious that they did feel the same love and adoration for one another.

So here they are, now as a couple, after hours of talking and persuading people to contribute to their cause. The night would be soon drawing to an end but Naveen had a surprise in store for everyone.

‘’ Ladies and gentlemen thank you all for coming here tonight. We are all grateful for your help and support through these tough times. Before this wonderful night ends we have a surprise for you all. Grab your microphones and let your inner singer soar because we are hosting a karaoke game!’’, he announced with a huge smile.

The crowd cheered and applauded, thrilled for the chance to take part in this last event. This would undoubtedly be very fun and exciting for everyone.

‘’ Wooo! Get ready! ‘Cause ya’ll are about to hear my amazing voice! ‘’

‘’ I think we’ll pass scalpel jockey ‘’, Jackie smirked.

‘’ Jackie you’re no fun you know that right? How about you Oliv? Gonna sing something?‘’

‘’ Mmm… Yeah ‘'

’' At least you have a nice voice unlike some people here ‘’

'' You jealous of me Jackiee? You know that-''

‘’ Wait, you do? How come I didn’t know this Olivia? ‘’, Ethan interrupted, partly surprised. There was a spark in her eyes. "She definitely is up to something." he thought watching her carefully, trying to guess what she could be up to.

‘’Well Ethan it’s not like I sing all the time. Just when I’m in the mood. Okay wish me luck everyone! ‘’, Olivia walked away from the group and went up to grab the microphone.

‘’ Hello everybody! I’m Kyra Santana, a former patient of Edenbrook and now a member of the accounting department. However, at the moment I’m your host for this last part of our gala. Our first contestant is our very own, brilliant and gorgeous, Dr Olivia Valentine who is going to sing a song as beautiful and sensual as herself. Let’s all welcome Olivia singing ‘’Fever’’ by Peggy Lee!! ‘’

After a soft encouragement from Kyra she took the mic.

‘’This song is for someone special to me, who has made me feel things I never thought I would. For you. ‘’ Olivia said looking straight into Ethan’s loving eyes.

Never know how much I love you

Never know how much I care

As soon as she started singing, Ethan was left speechless. "She loves me? She loves me? Oh gosh. Oh gosh. Do I feel the same way? What do I say to her?". Ethan didn't need to think long about that. He knew he loved her. He had for a long time. When he thought he would lose her forever, it was like his world crumbled around him. She was his world. And he wouldn't waste any more time. With a nod to himself, he decided to tell her about his feelings too. If she could be so brave as to pour her feelings into a song and to admit her love for him in front of all these people, then he could find the courage to let his walls down. He was already hers in every single way.

When you put your arms around me

I get a fever that’s so hard to bear

Olivia moved her hips sensually to the rhythm of the music, never breaking contact with Ethan's eyes. She could see the initial surprise when she started singing, telling to him and the world that she loved him. However that surprise turned quickly into what she could only describe as love. He had a drink in his hand but he hadn't taken a sip since she got to the "stage". His eyes were taking in her every move mesmerized and she could see the slight blush on his cheeks. With a wink she broke contact to look at her friends. They were all wearing huge smiles on their faces and quietly supporting her, as always.

You give me fever, when you kiss me

Fever when you hold me tight

When she got to that part of the song she returned her gaze to Ethan who was now smiling warmly at her. With an answering smile if her own, she mischievously turned her back on him swaying her hips and got to move around the stage.

Fever in the mornin’,

a fever all through the night

Truer words had never been spoken. Olivia was on his mind, day and night, occupying his thoughts. He kept thinking of her joyous laugh, her bright green eyes and her soft touch every time of the day. And he wouldn't have it any other way.

Olivia finished her performance and was applauded by the guests there. As she began to step down from the ‘’ stage’’, she felt strong arms wrapping around her waist and pulling her close.

‘’You were absolutely amazing out there love.’’

Before she had a chance to reply, he grasped her waist tightly and kissed her passionately drawing ‘’woos’’ and ‘’ finally’s ‘’ from the crowd cheering them on.

‘’Thank you!’’ she whispered, still a little dazed from their kiss, eyes bright with love and excitement.

‘’For the record, you give me fever every time I see you too, Olivia . I … Every single time. You’re so smart, beautiful and a colossal PITA but… you’re my Rookie. I'm so honored to call you mine. I wouldn’t change that for the world, you know that right? I… I love you too Oliv, so much and I just want you it to be happy and…’’

He was interrupted by his girlfriend’s (he couldn’t believe it, yet it's true) sweet loving kiss.

‘’I know Ethan. It was pretty obvious to me, without you having said the words. But I'll never tire of hearing it. I am so so happy now. And all because of you."

Ethan took her hand and kissed the back of it. "Let’s go home shall we? I have to show you just how much fever you give me, after all.‘’

" I thought you'd never ask "

Ethan led her towards the exit, holding her small soft hand in his big one, while waving goodbye to their friends, having a huge grin in his face.

The night was young and they planned to take advantage of it.

____________________

This is it folks! Thank you for reading!

A special thanks to @caseyvalentineramsey and @actuallybored for encouraging me to try and write this. Also a big thank you to @romewritingshop for being the most amazing beta. 🙏❤️❤️

Taglist :

@romewritingshop @codykosuckmytoe @sophxwithers @actuallybored @potionsprefect @caseyvalentineramsey @ethansramsey @rookie-ramsey @lahamseiroshoe @gryffindordaughterofathena @kiara-36 @mrsethanfreakingramsey @brooks-eden @panda9584 @genevievemd @arnikki-2406 @jamespotterthefirst

Please let me know if you want to be added or removed :)

[spazzbunn]

Christmas With Friends

Today was pretty big. It was Christmas Day in Zootopia! The kids were opening their presents, the adults went out to get some items thanks to the gift cards they got, it was even snowing. Overall, this Christmas was really starting to feel jolly. Especially for a house full of mammals. The home had its two owners inside the warm comfortable shelter that kept them cozy from the snow and cold wind outside. Michael and Katrice, the rabbit and red panda couple. They both were huddled close with their paws holding looking over at their fully decorated Christmas tree they made together. It was full of lights and ornaments and had a big bright yellow gold star on top. It truly looked breathtaking for the two of them. Amongst the noise that surrounded them was the television and the voices of their good friends. One other sound was able to catch their attention. A click with a sound of a flash. They turned around to witness what was behind them. It was a tall and slim figure with yellow and white and little bits of black spots and areas around this body. It was Hammy the cheetah. Having to wear his suit being of cranberry red and pine tree green tie to fit the Holidays. He had with him his camera, taking a moment to take pretty good looking pictures on whatever he saw as stunning. It was his passion. “Sorry, just that felt like a postcard moment.” Hammy said as he turned his camera around to show the small screen to have the two witness his very professional photography. “Dang Hammy. This looks good.” Michael told him as Hammy was happy with his work being liked by all. “Thanks. I’ll try to have this be in a postcard for next year. Just hope I don’t forget.” Hammy rubbed the back of his neck with Katrice patting him on his back. “No worries. Just send it to us. I know Michael won’t forget Christmas moments.” Katrice smirked at her rabbit who blushed slightly but nodded. Hammy went into the kitchen to lay down his camera by the counter since the table was full of different types of food to snack on. Michael went over to one side of the living room as Katrice went another. Both of them wanting to be good hosts for their guests, who also were their friends. Michael went over to a group of mammals on the couch. Watching television as it is playing some videos on a tabby cats phone. Next to the male tabby was a male coyote, a male african wild dog, and even a male silver fox. The bunny walked around and sat down next to the tabby. “Hey Jake.” Jake looked over. “Oh hey dude! I’m just showing the guys some videos about this crazy show in Japan.” Milo, the african wild dog, took a sip of water from his red cup. “Yeah. It is very odd. Who the heck would even think of stuff like this?” “Maybe odd mammals?” Shadow the silver fox stated. Having to have no red contacts or any red or purple on his fur. He wanted to look clean for his friends. Mainly, because his girlfriend otter Karen got him to be cleaning the dye off. “That, or the show itself knows its audience?” Evan Coywise, the coyote, told the guys as they all pretty much agreed with his theory. “Eh. Hey, thanks for inviting us, by the way.” Milo said to Michael with the rabbit feeling happy to hear that. “Yeah. This Christmas get together is pretty sweet.” Shadow says as he looks around to see Tod coming back with a plate of food. Having mac n cheese, some turkey, and corn on it. “Oh hey Michael!” Tod the reddish orange fox went over to sit down at the last empty seat of it as he takes a bite of the mac n cheese with the fork he had. “I was kinda surprised everyone showed up early.” Michael says as he looked to see everyone was accounted for. “Well it is rare for us to hang out together. We all are different, but we still care for each other.” Milo points out as he takes another sip of his drink. Tod looked over at Milo. “You must have drank the philosophy juice or something.” Shadow laughed from Tod’s joke as Michael and Jake watch a bit of the weird game show as they questioned about if they both could ever compete with getting a show like this. The answer seemed like a ‘no’ to the tabby and bunny. Katrice in the meanwhile went over to the side of the house where the chairs from the kitchen were moved as a couple of mammals used them to sit down and starting to draw. One pig, the other a rabbit, and the last a raccoon with blue fur where its black should be. All three of them were female and another common thing was they were artists. Katrice raised a brow. “Hey you three. What are you all doing?” The gray rabbit with brown ears and brown stylish hair looked up at the red panda. “Oh sorry! We are doing a sort of challenge here.” “Oh?” The red panda seemed curious to know. Helena looked up as she fixed her glasses. “Yeah! We are trying to draw the tree you guys have and post our artworks on our tweets. The most liked picture wins” “Ah cool!” Said Katrice. “What would the winner get?” “Bragging rights.” The raccoon said as she took a sip of Dr.Pepper as she kept drawing with a smirk. “Oh, after we finish up, we wanna know if you wanna chat and eat with us in the kitchen.” “Awww. I’d love to. The kitchen seems a bit crowded though.” Katrice saw that inside were Hammy, Diana, Karen, and the brown bear Lou and the other rabbit Gerry. All of them talking and laughing and cracking jokes. “We can slip in fine.” Helena says to Katrice. “Besides, I am about to call quits before my paw breaks.” She sets her paper down on an empty chair they had. “Ehh. Same.” Fever and Trish said in unison as they gave their artworks to Hel as she puts them on top of hers. “I think I am gonna get something to eat as well.” Katrice said to her friends as the girls got up and the four of them started to head into the kitchen. Michael gets up as well, his stomach growling since he had to skip breakfast along with Katrice since they were busy cleaning and setting up the food. “Sorry guys, but I gotta get something to eat.” “It’s cool dude.” Evan says to him. “Hey, could you get me a bread roll? I want to finish this crazy show with the guys before I eat.” Michael obliged as he went around the couch and started to head towards the kitchen where he witnessed his girlfriend and their friends having fun. He walks in to go find a roll as Katrice comes up to him and smiles. “Well, everyone seems to be having fun here.” “Heh. I know. We did great Katrice.” Michael says with him smiling back at her. This got the attention of the skunk who saw the two being cute together and calls out to them. “Awwwe~ You guys having a little date over there?!~” Diana jokingly said with a smug grin. Her glasses even added more smugness to it. Michael and Katrice blushed and were trying to act cool with Diana laughing softly. “I’m just joking you guys.” Karen sipped her cup of tea. “Diana is a jokester I found out. She looks so sweet but yet can act like a spice at times.” “Eh. I just am Yin and Yang really. Both inside and out.” Diana ate a cracker as Lou thought about her sentence and snickers.. “Ok, that’s pretty funny. Especially since you are black and white.” Lou laughed as he was eating some cheese and grapes on his plate with Diana looking at herself but then smirking and trying not to laugh as well. She really walked into that one. Karen smiled along with Michael and Katrice while the mammals then hear that familiar click. Hammy had his camera out and took another picture to treasure. “Sorry again. Just, this whole gives off good vibes. I wanna cherish these you know?” Hammy put the camera down back on the counter as everyone was telling him it was fine. “Yeah dude. Nothing wrong with taking good pictures with friends.” Lou said with Karen and Diana agreeing. Michael looks at the roll in his paw. Then he remembered what he went in here for. “Oh! I almost forgot!” “Forgot about what?” A mammal came into the room with everyone looking over to who said that. It was Daniel the weasel. He was a pretty chill friend of Michael so of course he had to come and celebrate with him and his girlfriend and his friends. He was in the bathroom having to have to take a phone call from his parents. He was finished so he came down to see what was happening. “Oh nothing Daniel. I just gotta give Evan this roll. Also I planned on eating as well.” Michael tells Daniel as the weasel goes to the fridge to pull out a bottle of water. Michael looks around with his mind wanting to get a bowl of Katrice’s mac n cheese. She always makes the best food ever. Before the bunny could get started with getting a bowl, Gerry comes over and gives a big hug to both Michael and the red panda. “Jeez your hugs are pretty strong” Katrice said as he lets go with Michael holding on to the roll for dear life. “Hey I give bigger hugs too.” Lou stated with him going to get some sugar cookies. “Sorry, but I was just about ready to head out. My family is gonna head on over to my other family for dinner as well.” Gerry explains as he took a sugar cookie and started to eat one. “Awww. Sucks you gotta go.” Fever said with her and Trish eating some ham as Gerry sighed. “Well, the Holidays are pretty busy this time for year after all.” The light brown rabbit said as he took another bite. “You was pretty chill to hang around.” Daniel tells Gerry who took that compliment. “You gotta hang out with Michael and some of us at ‘Boys Night’” Gerry rubbed his chin. “I think I got time this weekend. So yeah!” He finished his cookie. “Besides, I am gonna throw a New Years Eve party so we can spend more time together!” “Wooo! Boys night!” Jake shouted as he and the rest of the guys came over. Evan seeing the roll and thanking Michael as he takes it and begins to eat it. Fever looked at the whole group that was in the big clean kitchen. Full of laughs and full of cheer. She was there when Hammy took that picture of Michael, Katrice, Lou and Karen with Diana as well. It was starting to give her an idea. She poked on the shoulders of Michael and Katrice as the two looked over and she whispered something into their ears. Both the bunny and the red panda’s ears stood up and had the same smile as their friend. “Hey Hammy.” Katrice says with the cheetah looking over to her. “Got enough space for one more picture?” “Of course!” Hammy said with pride. “What you got in mind?” Michael then spoke up. “We want to take a Christmas picture. Together with all of us here.” Everyone looked at each other. Quickly, they all pretty much agreed to that idea. “Alrighty. Been a rarity since I done one of these.” Trish said as she finished her plate. “Same here.” Jake said as he sipped his drink of cola. “Where would we take the pic at?” Milo questioned with Evan looking over at the tree. “Hmm. What about the Christmas Tree?” Evan points out. “Sure!” Michael and Katrice said together. “Alright!” Tod says as he went over to pick up a chair and carry it in the living room with everyone starting to follow. Karen and Shadow held each other close in front of the tree. Same with Michael and Katrice. Tod sets down the chair far away from the group so the photo can get the whole view of the mammals, the tree and decorations, even a glimpse of the snow outside. The group starts to form big with Lou being perfectly in place of the camera. The same goes for everyone. Hammy would be the last as Tod goes to join in the photo. He sets the camera down onto the chair and sets up the camera to be timed as it begins to beep. Quickly he runs in and fills in the last spot. “Oh! We should say Merry Christmas.” Katrice tells everyone with Michael loving the idea. “Sounds good my pumpkin spice raccoon. But why?” Michael asked in confusion. “Idk. Seems holly and jolly.” The red panda says with the camera starting to beep more, saying it was close to take the photo. “MERRY CHRISTMAS!” The group all shouted at the same time as the photo flashed and clicked, the picture being taken. Everyone would pretty much agree. This Christmas was the best one yet. Maybe, even the best one ever. They were glad to spend it together. Merry Christmas to all of Zootopia, and to the people that mean a lot to me.           - Spazzie Bunnie Katrice belongs to @msitubeatz Fever belongs to @feverwildehopps Trish belongs to @trashasaurusrex Helena belongs to @helthehatter Diana belongs to @skeletonguys-and-ragdolls Gerry belongs to @androace-bunny Evan belongs to @wartoxdude Hammy belongs to @hammytotherescue Jake belongs to @kingdomofkitten Shadow belongs to @n-p-wilde Karen belongs to @azshade Lou belongs to @firecracker-art-lounge Milo belongs to @juantriforce042 Tod belongs to @thefoxninja17 Daniel belongs to @owningsuperset7

[pinkykitten]

The best date ever

DC

Arthur Curry x female! reader

Warning: curse words

Specifics: fluff, romance, comedy, one-shot, pictures, gifs, race-neutral reader

People: arthur curry, you, diana prince 

Words: 2,620

Requested: By @divaanya Hi!!! So about that sequel to The Old Man's Tale.. 😍😂 I'm not sure if you wanted specifics here or in submissions, so I'll put them here... I was thinking simply about them having that dinner, maybe Arthur picking her up in the morning, showing her around the town, then them eating and talking about her drawings and just fluff...😍😍😍 And I'd love to read anyting you feel like writing about them... And any other aquaman fics you come up with!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Authors Note: srry fam for not posting in a while, ive just been rlly stressed out lately with some personal things like my plate is so full. so pls fam be patient i am still writing just at a slow pace, i need to find a good time to write so im still working that out rn. i hope u guys like this, again srry my peeps! <3<3<3

“Oh my god,” you shouted as you quickly rose up from your slumber, remembering today was the day. “Crap! I have that date with,” you sigh. “My sexy hunk of a hero.”

At the speed of light you got ready, making sure you looked beautiful and glamorous for this date. 

“Perfect,” you chuckled as you looked at yourself in the mirror, posing and modeling to yourself. 

All of a sudden you heard a car’s horn beep from outside. You grabbed your things such as your sketchbook, your phone, the same things Arthur had saved. You open the door and there is standing Arthur with a bouquet of flowers. 

“I found these and thought ‘hey they are beautiful’, and then I thought for a while ‘who could I give this to,’ and then I thought of you.” Arthur grinned from ear to ear, his personality seemed to beam and make the world a better place. 

“Awww these are for me? Arthur they are extremely beautiful,” you stand on your tippy toes and give him a peck on his cheek. “Thank you! Let me find a vase for these.”

While you are putting the flowers away, Arthur stares at you from afar. You are truly a beauty. He can’t help but linger longer in looking at your curves, your body. The way the dress hugged you tightly, the curve of your butt. Your legs that to him looked better than even Diana Prince. The way you moved yourself about made Arthur like you more, made him want to understand you and get to know you more. 

“You look really, really, really, pretty today y/n.” 

You turn around, bashful and place the vase on a nearby table, “oh stop you! But thank you, you always look handsome yourself Curry. Whelp are you ready to go?”

“Ready as ready can get sweetheart,” Arthur opened the door for you. “But before we eat, how about I show you the best places around town?”

“I would really like that,” you smile as you take Arthur’s hand that he offered you and go to his car.

As Arthur’s driving a sweet melody of a tune is playing on the radio, making the morning relaxing. 

“I can’t wait to see where you live! All the stuff you do daily, things that make you happy, stuff like that,” you smile as you wrap your tiny arm around his strong, muscled one. Arthur grins seeing how adorable you are and how interested you look at knowing about his home. 

(ok but i love this gif because his smile is the bomb and the scrunchie is my life; sometimes i ask myself, how r we the same species?)

He gently holds your small hand and laces his thick fingers with yours. You peer up at him and see he is speaking about something the opposite way. Your heart beats vigorously, you are bashful and try to hear what he is talking about but you just stare at your two hands together, his and yours. They looked perfect as one, this meant something right?

“So what do you think, onto another sight?” Arthur asked, now his focus was on you. You fanned yourself and breathed harshly, “ooh is it me or is it extremely hot in here? Wooo, woah, ok, wow.”

“Y/n, its colder than an igloo in here, how in god’s name are you hot?”

“...menopause?”

Arthur chuckled, knowing exactly why you were like this. He knew it was about him holding your hand. He felt the way you tensed up when he did that, it made him for some reason happy. Happy to know that you were nervous around him because then you care about how he sees you, you care about his feelings. 

“You look beautiful by the way sweetheart. You know what I don’t think there has ever been a day for you when you didn’t look beautiful.”

You swatted his way as you chuckled while rolling your eyes, “you’re too much Arthur Curry. Do you flirt with all your girls like this?”

“No...just you.”

Your eyes bugged wide open and you tried to change the subject. “What’s that place over there?”

“Oh that, that’s the ice skating rink. Its been there for like forever, its really fun. It may not look much but that’s where people just enjoy each others company, love birds, kids, teenagers, you name it, they go there.”

“That sounds so nice. Lovebirds you say though?” You raise your brow as your arm rests on the center console of the car. Arthur turns his head from the window to you and his head moves closer to yours. In a sultry, raspy, deep voice he says, “yeah many, many lovebirds go there. They dance around each other and sometimes get to touch.” Arthur comes closer and his lips almost go to yours, but then he stops. He smiles, “that means then we should go!” He gets out of the car so quickly you didn’t have a chance to think about what just happened. 

“What!?!”

One minute you thought you were going to kiss this hunk of a merman and now he’s wanting to go ice skating, and you don’t even know how to ice skate! Then you realized, he was trying to play hard to get. He flirts and tries to kiss you and then he doesn’t! “Well, two can play it that game!” You thought in your head. 

“Okay I should of told you this but Arthur...I can’t skate!” Your holding onto Arthur for dear life as you stand on the ice with the skates on.

“Well lets just practice a little, I’m gonna let go-

“No Arthur don’t you let go I swear if you let go I’m gonna punch you in the balls so hard that you’re gonna wish you were a woman, don’t you let go!”

“And when I let go y/n, lets see if you can skate on your own. Okay 1, 2, 3.” Arthur lets you go and pushes you forward to bring speed to you. You slide forward with a shriek as you can’t stop. As you’re about to fall to your death Arthur comes to the rescue and picks you up with ease. “Man, sweetheart I’ve already saved your life twice. I should get a reward.”

Arthur holds your hand as he practically guides you through on the ice. “Yeah you want to see your reward?” You smack his torso and shoulders but unfortunately with your size compared to his you didn’t really do much damage.

“Ouch what was that for?”

“What was that for? Arthur I nearly almost died...again! You pushed me you hot, idiot, jerk, stupid, guy!” You look straight up into his eyes with an angry face. 

“So you think I’m hot?” Arthur comes closer to you. 

You try to slide back but you trip and that makes Arthur strong hands go to your back, near your butt and bring you closer to his body. “I never said a thing like that.”

Arthur’s handsome face gets closer with yours and his body is touching your body, tightly pressed together. “I think you did, I know you did.”

You look away as you put your hands up. His lips go to your ear, “don’t worry y/n, I think I’m hot as well.”

Your face becomes annoyed as you shove his face away from you and roll your eyes. “Haha, good one.” You say sarcastically as his laughter booms loudly. He laughed so hard he had to wipe a tear. “Was it really that funny Arthur?”

Arthur nods, “oh yeah definitely. You should of seen your face!”

“HAHAHAHAHA WELL YOU SHOULD OF FELT YOUR JUNK, CUZ IT WAS GIVING A STANDING OVATION!” You then laugh really hard at your joke and pretend to wipe a tear. You see Arthur’s face as he gives you a death glare. You chuckle some more as he skates towards you. He wraps his hand in yours and you two skate like normal people do, or how the lovebirds do. 

It was actually really romantic. 

“There you go sweetheart, just like that.” You actually were skating correctly, of course holding for dear life onto Arthur, but still you did it. You were skating smoothly, almost perfectly. 

“Oh my god, I can’t believe I’m doing it!” You smiled up at Arthur, your smile beaming. This made Arthur happy and his heart pound. He couldn’t focus on anything except you, the way you looked up at him. You looked like a goddess, like his whole life revolved around you. Like you were meant to be his, and he was meant to be yours. 

“Arthur, Arthur, Arthur! We’re gonna crash!”

As soon as you said that you and him crashed into the wall. Before your body could hit the cold, harsh ice, Arthur fell on his back but caught you just in time. 

“Oh my! Arthur are you okay?” You felt yourself being carried and laid, on your stomach, on his chest. His eyes were shut, so you shook him and tried to get him to wake up. “Arthur please wake up! Are you okay?”

You were starting to get worried that he hurt himself badly until he woke up. “Did I scare you?”

You smacked his face a couple of times, “Are you serious? Yes you scared me Arthur! I thought you were hurt. C’mon lets go somewhere to eat because I am starving.”

Arthur got up with your help and placed his hand on your hip as you two walked to the car. “Hey, thanks for worrying about me.” Arthur bent down and kissed your cheek, then he walked to his car leaving you all bashful. 

“I swear this boy,” you muttered.

You two ended up deciding to go to a pizza restaurant. (if u dont like pizza then u r cursed and have sinned because pizza is a gift from god) 

As you walked in the smell was good! It smelled delicious! Your stomach growled at the thought of fresh, hot pizza. 

“Sorry for keeping you waiting. We could of gotten food sooner.” Arthur looked at the menu by the cashier. His arm was wrapped around your shoulder. If no one knew it, it looked as if you two were a couple.

Suddenly Arthur stomach growls. “Well if you were hungry Arthur, we could of gotten some food.”

Arthur puts his hair in a man bun with his light pink scrunchie, you could tell he was embarrassed. “I didn’t want to interrupt you having fun on the ice.”

You stood on your tippy toes and kissed Arthur’s cheek, “thank you, that was really sweet of you.”

After you two bought the pizza, you guys sat at the booth by the window. 

“This looks so good! I’m starving!”

“Well y/n, bon appetit!”

You ate like you haven’t eaten in years, the pizza was so perfect and so delicious in your mouth. The atmosphere was perfect. Jazz music was playing in the background, there were not too many people there but enough to hear talking. It was gloomy looking outside since it was so cold. You took your coat off and placed it next to you. 

“So I saw your sketchbook, what do you draw?” Arthur asked, taking a gigantic bite out of his Hawaiian pizza. 

“Oh pretty much everything. Yeah, I like to draw animals, settings, but mostly people. I mean I love art but sketching and drawing is my passion, it lets me vent as much as possible. I just think about life when I draw. Think about how I want to better my life, how to better me.” You find yourself getting off the discussion. “Sorry, I’m talking too much aren’t I?”

Arthur placed his hand on yours and smiled, “not at all. Please continue.”

“I wanted to get away from my day to day life. Sometimes doing the same thing over and over, day by day can be such a bore and honestly tiresome. That’s why I needed to come here. I wanted to experience a place like never before, and also encourage myself to draw more.”

“Well I’m glad you made that decision to come here, if you hand’t then I would not have met you.”

“Thank you Arthur.”

“Can I see your drawings?”

You started choking on your piece of pizza, “what? You mean like mine, my drawing as in my own, like mine?”

“I’m pretty sure mine means that.”

You chuckled and scratched the back of your head, “I don’t know Arthur, they’re not that good.”

Arthur gave you a wink, “c’mon y/n, I know they’ll look amazing.”

You pull out your sketchbook from your bag and hand it to him. 

“Wow y/n,” was all he said as he was mesmerized, captivated by your art. “You are incredible y/n, just incredible! I’m speechless with how you draw.”

“Thanks, it feels good to have someone important say such great things about them.”

Arthur almost turns to the page you don’t want him to see. “Um don’t see that drawing.”

Arthur raises his brow, “why not?”

“Because it has something personal on there.” You try to grab it but Arthur is too quick and moves it away from you. “Give it back Arthur!”

“Wait! I want to see what it is.” As he says this he turns the page to show a drawing of him. 

You feel hot and so embarrassed. Your hands become so sweaty and your heart pounds. Will he think your drawing is weird or stupid? 

“Y/n, this is so beautiful. I can’t believe you drew me.” Arthur was baffled at your gift. Just from seeing him in a short time you sketched him out like you knew him for many years. You got each curve and each detail of his face and body. 

“I studied your face long and hard when you picked me up. I had to draw out my hero.” 

Arthur’s smile made you fall more in love with him. “I’m sorry if me drawing you was weird. I can just get rid of it when I go back to my cabin.”

“No! Please y/n, don’t. Please don’t get rid of this amazing drawing. Hel* I wish I could draw you, but not even a dam* drawing would show and describe how beautiful you are, not words not art, nothing. You are so frickin gorgeous and sweet y/n, you really are.” Next thing you knew Arthur got up and sat next to you in the booth. Feeling shy you backed away in the booth but this just made Arthur get extremely closer to you. His wild blue eyes were half lidded as he was overpowered with love and lust for you, and to be honest so were you. Arthur came closer and closer to you until his huge body trapped your tiny, fragile one against the wall. “I so wanna kiss you right now,” breathed out Arthur, rubbing delicately your cheek. 

“I wanna kiss you so bad too,” you said in a whisper, looking directly at Arthur’s plump lips. Without no hesitation Arthur’s lips crashed on yours. You two didn’t care who was watching or who was there. This kiss was needed. Arthur’s tongue slipped in your mouth in one swift movement, but just as quick as it went in it went out. He was teasing you! He was showing you what was to come if you two spent the night in a sexual escapade. You two made out a few more seconds until you and him separated to catch your breaths. He leaned his forehead against yours, “boy am I glad you decided to come here for your vacation.”

You chuckled and touched Arthur’s facial hair, “me too Arthur. Me too.”

Tag List: @harrington-lover, @angelgl16, @perfectlybeautifulsuit, @dreamsofwhiteandblack, @hyehoney, @wtfisalltherandoms, @haven-prelude (wont let me tag) , @leasly, @totally-alexa21, @creamy-pasta-boi, @multireese, @fanfictionrecommendations-com, @prentisskelley, @malereaderforkpop (wont let me tag), @guardian-of-cookies, @justafangirl-97, @teenageshitposts (wont let me tag), @polyglot-t, @dippergravity (wont let me tag), @some-booty, @collectiveyou, @divaanya

wanna be tagged in my crap? comment!

[teamcalamity]

Okay, newbie. Let's move!

A new competitive season has started, Opus VIII is about to launch and Team Calamity has a blog... BOOYA!!

If you want to see more variety than a dialogue with Squall, topics that hit harder than Sephiroth into the back of a flower girl and tips more useful than Vaan's point in the story, then this is the blog for you.

In this first article we thought it might be best to introduce you to some of the team who will be regular staples on here. Hopefully this brief insight will help put some of their upcoming content into perspective.

First up is our resident judge - Mitch.

How did you first get into FFTCG?

It was a dark time in my life; I had just finished one of my favourite TV series for the 15th time and worst of all I had a piece of apple skin stuck between my teeth. There was no light at the end of the tunnel.

I received a call from the UK Champion (but not world) Peter Sherratt, he spoke to me like a true champion with grace and honour “you alright dickhead?” he told me that he had just gone to a new comic book shop, the infamous Calamity Comics. Peter knew I always had a creepy girlfriend affection for Final Fantasy and our recent card game was now just an OTK shit show. So we thought let’s give it a go.

Pulled Bahamut legend, fire seems strong; I bet this card will be good for a long time, 10000 damage AND removed. Peter got Foil Light Cloud. This card is also future proof, if there’s one thing I know about card games, is that removal is key and this has it in spades…

From that day I was hooked, scratching at my arms for the next fix of spoilers, tapping the vein, breathing FFTCG and dealing with my new addiction.

What style of play do you favour?

I like to win, but more importantly I like to be a smug prick and to do this, I love my combat tricks. Nothing lifts the table up on my side more than doing something your opponent cannot see coming. I also love removal and drawing cards so if someone could explain to me how to play earth that would be great. Thank you.

Biggest hype of Opus 8?

While all the cards aren’t out yet, I am especially excited for Lunafreya, the stuff that she can enable; it means your opponent will not want to kill off some of your best forwards. That said this will all change depending on the new Garnet, if there is one.

Peter - the 2018 UK Champion (not world)

How did you first get into FFTCG?

I played yu gi oh at the time and I saw FF being sold at Calamity Comics in Hatfield.

Eric the store owner said they were doing a tournament on Friday night's (an attempt to remove the magic the gathering crowd) .

I had played FF7 and I've never liked mtg so sounded like a win win for me. All that was left was to convince mitchell to go with me to hold my hand through it all.

Didn't take long to convince him and off we went to go purchase some cardboard crack. First pack I opened....foil Cloud L!! Wooo

First deck I played was fire ice. We didn't have a clue what we were doing but got it after a couple of goes.

Mitch went home that night to learn the rulings. It became an obsession of his for a while. He would wake up in the middle of the night about illegal plays the night before.

What was even better was we convinced our mates Joseph and Azlan to join also. Fucking great game. Needs more cleavage though.

What style of play do you favour?

I really like all 3 of the main tropes. They all have a special place in my heart because of the decks ive played with.

Mono wind has generally been a control deck. Midrange ice is tempo. Discard ice is quite aggressive.

I'm gunna vote for tempo. After a short amount of set up I do love using dull freeze or discard mechanics for those cheap easy wins. It's like eating 20 mcnuggets. You know it's bad but it feels so good.

Biggest hype for Opus 8?

Sherlotta, Fina, Alexander, Lasswell & Time Mage.

The one I will talk about is Time Mage though because I honestly think it's perfect for what ice needs right now.

Wind earth is an awful matchup where we can't choose Zidane, get fucked by big daddy etc etc. So we're investing 5cp for a huge tempo swing. Huge. I'm a big big fan. It's a multicard too so extra copies may be played.

Mono ice will return with a vengeance!!!

Rich - Team Calamity's synergy specialist.

How did you first get into FFTCG?

I have zero history of playing card games, so my interest in FFTCG was purely as someone who had played nearly every game released under the title, who just fancied trying it out. I bought the starter decks on release date to gauge if it was something that I was going to stick with, and pretty soon I was part of the Opus I stock disaster, hunting the shelves of every Toys'r'Us in driving distance trying to find packs (I'm not proud to admit that). Two and a half years, and many £'s later, here I am writing my first blog post after years of being a lurker on the fan page.

What style of play do you favour?

I have always run decks that I find genuinely fun to build, play and tweak. Sometimes that means I run stuff closer to the meta, and sometimes I run more obscure decks. The vast majority of decks that I run revolve around combo cards such as Yuri/Chelinka/Alhanalem or Seifer/Raijin/Fujin. Nothing turns me on more than the text "If you control card name "X"".

Biggest hype for Opus 8?

Just give me 3 Lasswell in foil. I love that the card has been made with a specific purpose in mind (Fire/Ice deck), and all 3 abilities feed into what those elements want to achieve. I'm not quite sure how best to make Lasswell work, but I'm sure someone much smarter than I am will find a way to make him a beast!

Tom - Blog editor, specialist subject the 'Tombo Combo'

How did you first get into FFTCG?

I got into the game by chance around Opus 4. I'd never played a TCG before but out browsing for a cheap PS4 game in the January sales I spotted Cloud and Squall booster packs in the bargain bin at a local game shop. A Final Fantasy card game, what even is that?! Went home, googled it, rushed back the next day, bought the lot and ordered all the starter sets. I still remember opening my first packs and getting so excited by how many shinys I was getting, like one in each pack, I must be so lucky! Next step a venture to Calamity as the only local place to play. I didn't win a game for about 2 months but was having the best time!

What style of play do you favour?

I like to do things differently so for me I'm all about the meme life and unashamedly so. I like to shy away from the meta (to my own detriment) as I get much more enjoyment from doing things myself and if someone tells me something is shit, it just makes me want to play it more. That said I still believe you can meme and be successful and hope to go someway to proving that this competitive season (here's to 0-X at every major tournament this year)

Biggest hype for Opus 8?

Not seen the full list yet but I'm buzzing for the new FF7 starter deck. I'll probably look to take the Earth parts into an Earth/Fire setup maybe utilising the new 15 characters if space. For me a big part of enjoying the game is using characters I actually know of and love so this should fit nicely. I've also got some ideas for a Fire/Water rush style deck and a new Opus launch wouldn't be complete without me trying to make FF8 work (where are you Cid Kramer!).

I hope this is the set where things really open up and we don't see the same few decklists dominating the circuit.

Team Calamity's OP runs every Friday from 7pm at Calamity Comics in Hatfield (North of London). You can also follow us on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook (teamcalamityfftcg) or contact us on email (teamcalamityfftcg@gmail.com). Alternatively just write anything on the FFTCG Fans Facebook page, Team Calamity's James Stevenson will no doubt comment on it.

[daehwifi]

WINTERS WITH WANNA ONE .

- admin xion [collaborating with my bby cyn @longquos]

genre: fluff member(s): wanna one ! word count: n/a requested: no side notes: aHHH THIS IS SO CUTE I CANT AISUHDNIMLKW 

prompt: for the cold days with wanna one 

jisung

every time you guys meet, he buys you heat packs

or if he doesn’t have t time to stop buy a store and buy some, he’ll share his with you 

like it’ll be in between both of your hands as you guys are holding hands

when going to cafes together, he’ll place his face into his hands and smile as you drink your hot chocolate

finds it the most cutest thing ever when you place your hot drink near your face for a while to heat it up 

would play little mini games to see who pays 

like he’d purposely google “how to always win at rock paper scissors”  

if he does lose, he’ll be like “practice round,” 

if you do end up paying, he’ll like swap your credit cards or something 

but if you catch him in the act and you do end up paying, he’ll become all pouty and child-like mad

he’ll only forgive you if you hug him and apologize

avoid dangerous or possible dangerous places, especially when he’s with you 

always drives 

he’ll purposely turn up the heat in the car to make sure your warm 

from time to time, he’ll cup your cheek and run his finger back and fourth ever so softly

a pure gentlemen

make sure you enter the passenger seat first

puts on your seat belt

will do the parking trick (where he places his arm over your seat) and you just look at his jawline 

and you could smell his cologne 

which melts your heart because he puts on the cologne he knows you love the most

if your hand is resting on the space in between the seats, he’ll draw circles on it as he’s driving out of natural habit

if you fall asleep in his car, he’ll purposely park and pull out an extra jacket and throw it over you

giving you a light peck on your cheek and having the smallest smile before he drives again

will send you healthy tips (like good tea’s to drink) especially during the winter if you ever get a cold  

sungwoon 

would sing you to sleep after a date

or like if you’re falling asleep on his shoulder, he’ll sing (or hum) softly as he pats your head really gently

karaoke dates are common (yes you guys yell a lot within them) 

but so are lazy days (spending dates within his dorm or yours) 

trying to make small things together (like origami) or even bake)

if you run into taehyun, he’ll smirk at the two of you 

or be like “shut up taehyun, y/n’s mine,” 

“if you had a girlfriend, in which you don’t, you’d be even more whipped than i am right now,” 

at a chirstmas party, he’ll try to out sing jaehwan

and you’ll be there like

“oh shit”

“i won right babe?”

and you’ll tease him and pretend to think about it and he’ll just pout 

would want you to always have fun 

tucks strands of hair behind your ear and gummy smiles because you melt his heart away

tries to hold your hand when you both are walking and once you’ll notice he’ll pout and be like “babeeee” when you’re doing your makeup and sungwoon is in your room

he’ll know all your makeup products by heart

“sungwoon can you pass me the nars pallete with the p-”

and he already has it in his hand and is handing it to you

if you’re ever using olive young products, he’ll know all the products even more

“babe don’t use that one, the lip tint isn’t long lasting and you won’t like the texture of it,” 

“take this one instead”

knows you like and what you dont

like he can order for you, knowing your mood, what you’re craving 

if your breaking out, he’ll buy cosrx pimple patches for you

lol this just turned into skin care routine with sungwoon-

minhyun

not a lot of outside dates

he wants you to be as warm as possible 24/7

would cook up a meal for you as you help 

highkey when he’s rushing in the kitchen, he’ll purposely stop and give you a kiss on your cheek and it’ll be all worth it for him

he’ll buy home essentials for the winter and give them to you

purposely buys a kotatsu for both of you to use 

if anything, he’ll let you borrow his sweaters 

especially if you came with clothes and you weren’t so warm

he’d force you to wear a sweater when going home

doesn’t really mind you stealing his hoodies since he knows you’ll be warm and cozy 

finds you to be the most cutest thing in the world whenever you wear them and you have little “bear paws”

baking is a must 

when it becomes a mess, it’ll bother him 

but you wipe frosting onto his nose

“let’s focus on that later”

if you bring cookies you made yourself 

he’ll become so protective over it and hates it when his members eat them instead of him 

scolds members when they try to interfere with both of your cookie baking together

purposely lay his body on top of yours when your laying down 

and give you small pecks on the lips 

he’ll give you small pecks everywhere man- 

when napping together, he’ll sneak a arm around your waist

and nuzzle his head into the crook of your neck

make sure your body is close to his because he knows you feel extremely safe in that position 

“i love you,” he mumbles softly

and you become a flustered mess 

kisses your cheek when you fall asleep

he’ll find anything about you adorable

your sneezes

your laughs

even you crying

he finds you to be such a beautiful human being 

seongwoo

he’d start snow fights with you and would want to build a snowman together

make sure you bring gloves all the time but when you don’t, he’d hold your hands throughout the whole entire date

would buy you a giant scarf and wrap it around you

whenever your back hugging him, he’d take your hands and shove them inside the pockets of his jacket, still holding your hands 

his hands are heat packs themselves

smiles a lot when you back hug him because it’s something he finds to be so adorable when you do it especially

places his forehead on yours when he has the oppertunity

loves teasing the height difference (if there is one) if you guys go see fireworks, he’ll stare at you instead 

cups your cheeks a lot

when you sit down, he’ll take off his jacket and place it onto your lap

he likes doing cheesy stuff

he’ll pay for dinner 

when you reach for your wallet he’ll be like

“brb gotta use the washroom”

and highkey pay 

always wants you to be comfortable

prioritizes you way more than himself 

gets lowkey jealous easily

you two would be walking down the street, holding hands as a attractive male comes up to you to ask you a question (like where is the nearest train station) and he’ll compliment you within the process, despite your boyfriend is right beside you

and seongwoo would squeeze your hand as he compliments you 

and deny it later on that he was jealous

he drapes his arms over your shoulders often

jaehwan 

jaehwan would be all bundled up and have his guitar case swung over his shoulder when you guys meet 

stops at a park or in front of a cafe and whips out his guitar 

sing songs he wrote for you or really soft songs he knows you enjoy as he gives you this stare that makes you melt every single time

and afterwards you’ll compliment him on it 

and he’ll become shy then cocky

tries to act cool and do the “you hands are cold so i’ll stuff them into my pocket” but then forgets that he zipped it up

and when he attempts hes like

“sHIT” 

and fumbles to unzip it

you’re dying of laughter as you end up unzipping it for him 

he’d be both cocky and grateful for you

“what would i do without you?” and 

“pffttttt, i was just testing you, this was all apart of my plan,” 

if you ever told him you were could, he’d highkey tease you

“jaehwan, i’m cold,” 

“sorry, i’m cold too,” and pulls his scarf tighter around his neck 

but afterwards, you feel something warm around your neck and it’s jaehwan’s knitted scarf 

daniel

wOO MY BIAS

holds your hand on the street 

giggles whenever you pout

you guys would meet and there’d be snow falling 

and daniel would instantly embrace you with his warmth

if you’re cold, he’ll open up (hAHHAHAHHA) his jacket and wrap you around it 

gives you kisses on your nose since your nose gets cold easily

kisses the top of your head often

smiles really widely when around you 

covers your ears just in case if their cold 

if you’re still cold, he’ll run to the pharmacy and buy you heat packs for you

hugs you wherever you go 

especially when waiting in lines at a cafe, he’ll sneak his arms around you and back hug you

also would kiss your cheek within the process

girls are highkey checking him out because who wouldn’t

but you’re the only one he sees 

daniel doesn’t really prefer it when you guys are together and are not making any contact at all 

like if you’re not hugging, you’re arm would cling onto his 

if not that, you guys would be holding hands 

he’s just clingy overall, not that you mind 

he’ll feel a bit empty if you guys aren’t doing anything

but if you’re realllllllllly not in the mood which is extremely extremely (x52) rare, he’ll understand 

daniel would also wear trench coats often

i love him in trench coats

that by itself is a thread

wOOO BOI

and him in a huge ass scarf

yes pls 

jihoon

the two of you like to go out and eat then go home cause none of you guys want to burn down the kitchen 

so at the dorms, he’ll attempt the classic, “let’s watch horror so you get scared and cling onto me!” but he ends up getting scared and clings onto you 

“jihoon, it’s not real,”

“sHHHHH YOU’RE THE ONE SCARED WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT” 

but in actuality he’s not scared

you just weren’t clinging onto him liked planned so he pretends too

and you highkey know it 

you guys would be the type of couple to spend christmas together (lol let’s pretend chirstmas didn’t just pass) 

he’ll spoil you with small gifts that cost a lot 

writes you cards because he knows you treasure cards a lot and have a box of just past cards you’ve received

i feel like he’s too weak to carry a huge ass gift so therefore he buys you small ones instead

abuses nae maeum soge jeojang to get you to do stuff for him

“babe can you get me the remot-”

“no”

“AHEMEAHEMAEH M NAE MAEUM SOGE JEOJ-”

and bam you’re giving him the remote 

jinyoung always third wheeling

and jihoon just pulls that on you and jinyoung’s like

“what the actual hell....” and just leaves you both from that, shaking his head as your dying of laughter 

making weird faces is a habit of both of yours

he’d just look at you and make a weird face as you’d do the same 

and they’d always end off with both of you giving a small kiss on the lips 

woojin 

dates to lotte world or everland 

he seems like the kind of person who enjoys those kinds of dates 

he’ll want to buy those headbands and take pictures with you to show off to the members later 

and drags you onto rides 

at the end of the day, he’ll take you to the ferris wheel 

and once the two of you are at the top when it stops woojin begins screaming and you’re like

“GODDAMMIT” 

and can’t stop laughing because the sounds he was making is so funny 

and the car starts rocking because you’re laughing too hard 

“imscaredlet’ssittogether,”

once he sits beside you, you give him a small peck on the cheek and begins to blush really hard, staring off into space

as his iconic snaggletooth smile appears and he giggles softly

and then he leans in again and plants a firm kiss on your lips 

as the ferries wheel begins to start again, the two of you scream and then start laughing

when seongwoo comes to pick you two up 

“dID yoU Two hAVE fuN? (;” 

highkey seongwoo the dad in this situation

you two begin laughing as seongwoo becomes confused 

jinyoung 

date movie x52

inclduing arcade machines 

and jinyoung would have no mercy

“can you let me win once?”

and he’s like

“lolol no,” 

no one escapes the wrath of jinyoung

when he claims all of his prizes, he’ll just walk off with them 

he’ll debate if he wants to give them to you or not

also, him choosing which prizes to get is a story itself 

“dammit, they have the gudetama sleeping but they also have the yugioh card deck that doesn’t sell anymore!” 

makes you chose a prize for him

doing any couple-like stuff will make him really flustered

like really flustered

holding hands itself will make him blush so much 

jinyoung’s probably a back hugger 

he’s fine with it and all but he really likes wrapping his arms around you and putting his head on your shoulders 

he’d probably kiss your cheek too when he does it 

if the two of you took a nap together, he’d hug you so close to him and it’d be the cutest thing ever 

you can’t even sleep because your heart is beating too fast

daehwi 

when you two meet, he’ll hold your hands and jump up and down 

when he has a date with you, he’ll carry a lot of stuff in his backpack just in case (stuff like checkers and has snacks, heat packs, scarves, gloves, etc) 

he’ll enjoy squishing both of your cheeks together

fixes your bangs 

gives you really soft and gentle kisses 

and he’s really shy at first about the holding hands thing

but as time goes by, he’ll lace his fingers with yours 

if you blush, he’ll ruffle your hair 

“you’re so cute,” and then you’ll peck him on the cheek 

and he’ll turn his head because he’s too embarrassed

if daehwi was taller, he’d back hug you 

texts you “make sure to dress up warmly!” and stuff on the days he has a schedule and not with you

when he’s free, he’ll pick you up

the two of you take the train together and he leans his head against your shoulders and takes a nap

and you’re like

“asiudhnilwkmaduasonim he’s too cute” 

guanlin 

guanlin would do some really cute things that makes you completely flustered 

he’d secretly buy things you said you wanted like ages ago 

and when you unwrap it, you lowkey cry on the inside because he remembered 

he’d highkey have a whole note on his phone of shit to buy you 

whenever he see’s you cry, he’d be like

“oh shit what’d i do?”

“nO THESE ARE HAPPY TEARS” 

and he’d do his iconic gummy smile

highkey from time to time you’d laugh your ass off cause guanlin would mispronounce something in korean as you’d correct him 

hugs you before pecking your lips 

and jisung just walks into the room at the same time and is like

“awh young love,” then walks out

the rest of the day is spent cuddling with guanlin in bed 

and he’s extremely warm 

when he’s sleepy, his voice gets really deep 

he’s overall really whipped for you

becomes even more of a kid then he already is whenever you do something extremely cute

like he’ll smile really widely and do little jumps or kick his legs around 

cOUGH

GO

COUGH

FOLLOW

COUGH

CYN

@longquos (she did this collab with me <3 ily cyn also her birthday is right around the corner so pls <3) 

[raccoonsinqueen]

So Close, Yet...

No matchups until Tuesday, I’m out on vacation and don’t have my drawing tablet!! :’(

Instead, have some crazy serial killer vs numb mobster without any of the fun crime stuff or action because it’s JUST ABOUT EXPOSITION TODAY WOOO

Sans was... quite the character.

“funny name, ey?” The skeleton mused, his hat dipping just over his eye sockets, but his grin widened playfully at the response. “well, i hope you mean that as a compliment?”

“Oh!” You flushed at the realization that maybe that was a little rude. “Yes, yes of course! Interesting names are hard to come by, these days, so it’s always refreshing hearing something new to match someone new.”

“refreshin’, hmm?” Sans stirred his... drink. Was he making a joke? You decided you just might be looking into things a little to much. “well then, thanks, dollface. the sentiments are appreciated.”

You flashed him a warm smile, before you turned toward Grillby. “Want me to start opening?”

Grillby gave you a nod, and you got to work. You left for the kitchen, grabbing a bucket to fill on the way and pretending not to notice as Sans’ eyelights followed you. As you filled the bucket, you strained your ears to hear, but could only make out the faintest of voices as your boss and the mobster idly chatted with one another. You filled the bucket with soap and grabbed a hand towel.

First thing you started with was wiping down the kitchen area. Unfortunately, despite your love for cooking, Grillby would only let you clean the kitchen, never cook in it. No matter how much you begged him, he seemed very adamant at keeping you in the front. That wouldn’t stop you from asking Grillby every time the subject came up, though.

After you were done in the kitchen, you moved to the front counter, wiping down the bar as you listened in on the two monsters’ conversation.

“aw, come on grillbz.” Sans leaned on the counter, towards a now annoyed Grillby who was furiously scrubbing a glass. “can’t you do this small little favor for an ol’ pal like me?”

Grillby slammed the cup down on the counter, making you wonder why it hadn’t shattered, before Grillby turned toward Sans in a huff and fume. “Pay your tab.”

And with that, the silhouette of fire disappeared into the kitchen in a huff. You looked between Sans and Grillby, before humming in amusement. “I’ve never seen Mr. Grillby so frustrated since the pretty spider lady stopped by.”

Sans reached into his pocket, pulling out a cigar nonchalantly. “nah, he’s just a little heated at the moment, he’ll be fine once he’s behind the stove.”

You snorted at his pun. Maybe you weren’t looking too into things. “Heheh! Came up with that one yourself, Mr. Sans?”

Sans seemed to brighten ever so slightly at your laughter. “oh, i’m just full of skele-puns, little lady. grillby might be hot, but i’m the one with the guts.”

“Hahaha!” It’s knife to meet Mr. Sans! You’ve been dying to find the face behind that killer voice! Oh, you were good at this! “You’re too much!”

“really?” Sans’ eyelights brightened a little more as he showcased his empty ribcage by tugging his collar down. “i always thought i was a bit too little.”

Despite this pun, you blushed lightly at his reveal, giggling only slightly. Skeleton or no, he was still showcasing his chest.

“oh wow, what a pretty color your blushing there.” The mobster teased, and you almost jumped at this. He rebuttoned his collar, shooting you a wink. “and over showing a little skin? oh, wait.”

You laughed again, hearty and light. “A funny guy with a funny name, haha!”

“and a pretty girl for a pretty name.” He shot you another wink, which made you turn red again. But before you could berate him, he continued. “what’s a little gem like you doin’ in a place like this? how’d grillby get his lucky hands on ya?”

“I think I’m the lucky one here, Mr. Sans.” You mused, going back to your scrubbing. “I like my job here, very much.”

“hmmm.” Sans eyelights scrolled you up and down. You felt like he was reading you like the cover of a book, trying to judge what to think of you and how he could read you. It made you want to grab the scissors a couple feet away. “that’s good, but surely a pretty dame like you could get any job you’d like? no offense to grillby, but why’d you choose a place like this?”

He was testing you. He was trying to brush it off as light small talk, but you saw the way his eyelights followed your every movement.

It was no secret to you that Grillby’s was a sort of neutral ground for mobsters to be at ease. It was a place where gangs could come and ignore their wars and rivalries, because any fighting was responded with the fireman himself. You’ve witnessed his wrath second hand, and it was not pretty. Needless to say, it wasn’t the nicest place to work, but that was why you chose it. It was the perfect place for distinguishing the murderers from the petty thieves.

So you knew very well where you worked and who you worked for. But you couldn’t let Sans know exactly how much you knew, but he was testing the waters with you. If you were completely oblivious, he’d know you were lying. Anyone who worked there as long as you had would have to know what’s going on. But, you had to appear as innocent as possible, so you closed your eyes thoughtfully.

“Truly, at first I only chose to work here was because I couldn’t find another job. But the more I worked here, the more I grew to love it. Grillby may seem rough and a little strict on the outside, but he is genuine and kind to me nonetheless. I’m not blind... I know the people that come here sometimes don’t do the right thing... but whatever they do is on their own time, and they treat me with nothing but warmness when they are here, so how can I not like working with such kind people?” You gave him one of your brightest smiles, “Maybe I’ve just grown too attached to the job, but I wouldn’t trade it for any other job this side of the city.”

Sans blinked, almost in a state of shock over your answer. You felt a rush of pride if only for a second over seeing his smug grin falter. Softly, Sans dipped his hat over his eye sockets, his smile returning, though this one more genuine.

“heh. i think grillby really did luck out in finding a lil’ angel like you.”

Your smile grew at his words. “You’re too kind, Mr. Sans!”

Grillby returned shifting random items and moving things, getting ready to open, and you returned to your work. Sans slid back over to Grillby, and the initial sentence surprised you.

“ey, grillbz. put any thought into my proposal?” Was that... Italian?

“No, Sans.” Grillby replied, his voice crackling like fire. “I’ve stayed neutral and I’m going to stay neutral. That’s how I keep my business.”

Sans took a peek at you, but you weren’t even looking in his direction. You were busting the tables.

“little miss lovely over there don’t speak italian does she?” Yes. You did. And French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin. Your father was abnormally passionate about you learning the romantic languages, but you guessed it helped you in the long run.

“No.” Grillby turned back to his work. “If she did, she would’ve said something a long time ago.”

“hmm.” He mused, thoughtfully. “why don’t you lend me this one favor, grillbz. i promise ya, the rewards will be sweet.”

Reward? You moved tables.

“Sans-”

“fifty-thousands, grillbz. each.” He punctuated his words with a pinch of his phalanges. “this next shipment coming in’s gonna be huge. fifty-thousand is yours. just need the names.”

“Sans. No.”

Sans sighed at this, “alright. i won’t push ya. ya got a fine establishment here, i can see how you wouldn’t wanna mess it up.”

Grillby visibly relaxed at this, setting a glass down gently.

“but keep an eye socket out. these fellas are idiots, and won’t know a strong monster when they see one. they might try an’ rustle things up a bit.”

“I will.”

Sans’ voice shifted from serious to light in a matter of seconds, something you found rather interesting. “speakin’ of rustling things up, what’s the dames story?”

“Y/n?” You perked up at the sound of your name, turning your head. Grillby waved his hand in response, ushering you back to your work. “She came in looking for a job, so I gave her one.”

“that it?”

“What more do you want?”

“i don’t know, details?” Sans took a puff of smoke from his cigar. “how long has she been workin’ here? is she good with people? where does she live? is she apart of any gangs?”

“Sans. Not every person is out to get you.” When Grillby only received a hard stare in response, Grillby exhaled. “If it will ease your mind, no. She’s not remotely dangerous. I’ve looked into it. The worst thing she’s done is that she kept a library book for too long.”

“hmmm.” Sans eyelights scrolled your body as you wrung out your towel. “then what about... if she’s got a boyfriend?”

You almost tripped and fell at that statement. But luckily, you played it off like you didn’t even notice they were talking.

“Sans, no.”

“aww, come on, grillbz!” Sans’ grin widened. “i didn’t see a ring... but, if we’re bein’ honest, sweet thing like her’s gotta have a lover or two.”

“Honestly, Sans.”

“if you don’t tell me, i’m just gonna make a fool of myself in front of the dame.”

Grillby exhaled again. He seemed to do that a lot around Sans. “Fine. She doesn’t have a boyfriend.”

“nice.”

“But don’t go after her.”

Sans tipped his hat up in surprise before a sly smile fell across his face. “oh, grillbz. didn’t think i’d ever see ya get over ms. muffet. lucky angel you got here.”

Grillby flushed at the comment, before quickly shaking his head. “No, I’m not looking for romance. And neither is she.”

“no?” Sans tilted his head. “wait wait, don’t tell me. she doesn’t swing my way. is it a monster thing or a gender thing?”

“As far as I can tell, she refuses everyone who’s ever been interested in her.”

“huh.” Sans leaned back in his stool. “why’s that?”

Grillby shrugged. “Apparently, her last relationship went south. Wasn’t pretty. She doesn’t like to talk about it much. Hasn’t been interested in romance in years.” This was true. You were too occupied with your work, both of them. Having a relationship with someone would... complicate things. Plus... after what... You didn’t even want to think about romance again.

“hmm... maybe she just needs the right lover to pick up her spirits.” Sans grinned. Ha! As if you’d ever date a mobster! “fun guy like me would make her forget aaaallll her troubles.”

“You can try, Sans.” Grillby hummed, thoughtfully. “But be warned, the last time someone was pushy with her, she started crying.” You remember that. Some low level grunt wouldn’t take no for an answer, and well... You didn’t have many good experiences with guy’s taking no for an answer... Luckily, Grillby was there to sort things out, and he gave you hot cocoa! It was so sweet!

“yeesh, that bad huh?” Sans asked.

“Yes. That bad.” Grillby finished up setting up the glasses, and opted for leaning on the bar. “It’s a lost cause. Even if she wasn’t so against getting in a relationship, she’s way out of your league. She’s way out of both our leagues.”

“aw, geez. you’re right.” Sans exhaled. At least that was over. “a skeleton can dream, though, can’t he?”

Grillby seemed to hum in agreement, before he turned to you. “Y/n?”

You turned your head, and Grillby beaconed you closer. “Yes?”

“We’re about to open.”

You gave him a thumbs up, heading toward the front window. “Everything’s in check Mr. Grillby!”

“Good.”

You flipped the sign to open, before turning back to your boss and the mobster. “Will you be staying, Mr. Sans?”

“nah, i got some work to do.” Sans shrugged, before throwing you a wink. “but don’t get excited yet. i’ll be back later to pick on ol’ grillbz here.”

You giggled at his comment, before he continued.

“besides. i think i’d like to bring my brother sometime.” You tilted your head. Brother? Didn’t he say something about younger brother to those three in the alley way? “he’s the coolest, you’d like him.”

You gave him another one of your stellar smiles. “I’m sure I will.”

[travelerwithacause-blog]

The Culture of Kindness

Hello you beautiful humans and thank you for being rad enough to take the time to read my posts. I know that they’re nothing professional or marvelous, but I enjoy writing them. As it turns out, this is a fun, and semi-creative way for me to recall the “adventures” I’m having here.

As most of you know I have been volun-working at Missionvale Care Centre since July 3rd. Now let me tell you, I have loved every moment of my time here, but it is NOT what I had expected it to be. Upon my arrival at Missionvale I had all sorts of ideas and plans for what I wanted to do. Turns out those things are not the things that are needed at Missionvale. So I have abandoned any thoughts of doing things focused on nutrition or gardening; instead I have switched modes and focused on helping the Health Promotion Team with the things that they are doing. For example, they wanted to teach the young girls about their periods. So I helped! Definitely not something I ever thought I would help with, but I did! I actually ended up drawing a poster-size uterus for their class, and I am proud to say that it was laminated!!! It was quite entertaining attempting to draw such a large uterus and learning the names of everything in Afrikaans…kind of.

For those of you that are not so fortunate as to have experienced South African culture, I will tell you know it is truly wonderful, it is also quite relaxed and not always the most organized. That last word organized that’s where I begin to struggle. For any of you that know me and know how I like to work, you’ll know that I like things to be organized and planned out. That’s just not how things work here. It’s more like hurry up and wait to do something that’ll you will be told only moments before you do it. I will confess, I hated this when I first arrived and there are days that I struggle with it still, nevertheless it is teaching me and I am learning. What’s that saying that so many older adults have told me most of my life…patience is a virtue…yeah, I’m learning just how true that is. I feel though, that even if it makes me go slightly crazy, that it is good for me. It is something that I’m hoping to bring home with me. If only I could bring the relaxed pace as well; American’s seriously do need to learn how to slow down and just enjoy what they do and enjoy the life that they are living. So much of life passes us by without us even realizing it, it’s a real shame.

I feel very fortunate to be volun-working at Missionvale Care Centre. Waking up at 6:30 every morning and going in to cut loaves of bread in half may not be the most exciting thing in the world, but that’s just the start of the day. All good things come in time after a little bit of hard work. The good things that often times follow the 6:30 A.M. alarm are the smiling faces, the jokes, and the family in this community that I am obtaining. To be able to go into a place that just seven and half weeks ago was really quite unfamiliar to me and see faces that I know, friends that speak languages so different from my own and yet are patient with me as we work together to have conversations….the feeling cannot be put into words. This really is something that one must experience for one’s self in order to truly understand. Seeing familiar faces, that pick you out of all the volunteers just because the two of you have been working on words and sayings in Afrikaans and know that we must practice each day, oh man, my heart swells with love. Seeing the same kids at the end of the day, every day and becoming a human jungle gym and having seven amateur hairstylists all at once-it’s just perfect. I’m telling you guys, if you haven’t done something like this in your lifetime, you should really give it a shot. It doesn’t have to be for three months, a month even is great. You’ll make lifetime friends in a world so different from your own, it makes me mean a whole heck of a lot more! I pinky promise.

 Another rather important piece of South African culture is rugby. On August 19th I had the opportunity to attend my very first international rugby match, South Africa vs. Argentina. It was in the stadium here in Port Elizabeth that was built for the 2010 Soccer World Cup. I’m pretty sure there were somewhere around 40,000 people at this match. It was PACKED! The vibes were so great throughout the whole match; watching the Springboks (S.A.) win 37-15, wooo, it was great. The rugby fans are about as good at the actual sport as well! South Africans in general, at least from my experience, are very kind people in general. Then bond together over a love a rugby and you basically have BFF status with everyone. One example of a South African rugby fan’s kindness can be described through a short story. I was able to take a good friend of mine with me to the match, afterwards we had a drink at a rad little place and then went on over to a restaurant called Flava. My friend happens to be best friends with a couple of the waitresses at this restaurant, so despite it being closed when we got there, we were still allowed to sit at a table and order wine and desserts. There was a table a three older men sitting at the table next to us, they had clearly been to the match and two of the three had enjoyed a few drinks. The oldest gentleman, and most sober, started chatting with us, asking about the match and all sorts of nice things. After a bit as our lovely waitress took our orders for our desserts, he decided that we needed a dessert platter for the two of us to share. He spoke to the chef himself and had it all arranged for us. At the end of the night when it came time for us to pay we found out that we only had to pay for our wine, the lovely gentleman had paid for our dessert platter and never said a word about it! It really was the cherry on top of a perfect evening.

Ahck! I nearly forgot to tell all of you about the Kasi Hop! The Kasi Hop was the evening before the rugby match. Back home there are often pub crawls or bar crawls. These are pretty normal and are usually for one thing or another; fundraisers, company bonding, shits and giggles, etc. The Kasi Hop is a “shabeen crawl”! A shabeen is the name for a bar in a township. *Quick history lesson: townships are the areas that black people were forced to move to during apartheid. People were forced to build shacks/homes out of whatever supplies they could find. Many blacks still live in the townships to this day.* Now, normally a white person wouldn’t be in a shabeen as it probably wouldn’t be terribly safe. Have no fear, the Kasi Hop is a very safe way for us young international (and mostly white) kids to experience the shabeens! A lovely lady named Joy organizes the Kasi Hop and hosts the group at her home where her and her parents provide a nice, South African dinner before going into the township of New Brighton to the shabeens. She has rules such as, no bags, cell phones, or cameras leave her house. She does this so that no one loses anything too important while in the townships, personally I think it’s smart and kind of her. We visited three different shabeens; the first two were quite similar, the third was very modern and yet it was nearly empty. I’m not entirely sure why, maybe it was more expensive, who knows. Our last stop was back to the first shabeen we went to, it was a little odd at first, but ended up being nice because we recognized some of the faces. We did manage to get the full shabeen experience when we went back though. These two guys started fighting and naturally a crowd gathered around them, then all of the sudden everyone back up and Joy’s brother came over to myself and another girl and told us that we had to back up “right now”. Not being able to see what exactly was going on, we were a bit confused. We finally got one of the people around us to tell us what was going on…as it turns out, one of the two guys in the fight pulled out a gun! It was a bit crazy. Not for a second did I find the situation scary, the locals didn’t really give me the chance to be scared. They protected all of us as if we were their own family. They knew that we were visitors and apparently that meant that we were going to receive extra protection. I’m not going to lie, it was incredible to see. All of these people, total strangers to us, putting us before themselves and not thinking twice about it. I mean, how often does that happen, how often do you or I think ‘that if something bad is going to happen, I’m going to protect the person next to me first?’-it was so amazing. It goes back to how kind the culture is here.

  Well folks, that’s it for now. Thanks for sticking with me on this journey. Each of you are amazing and I love you.

  Ubuntu.

[khymer-vulture]

another short story, wooo

Like a couple others, this one’s been sitting around for a month...since I’m posting 2 short stories, I may post the next one in like 2 weeks.

I do plan on posting some of these onto AO3, but I think I’ll post the ones with the most notes.

Set in between Captivate and Sanctuary (moment was briefly mentioned).

Zack is still getting used to being with Rachel in a whole new way, but never in his life would he ever hear such a word that she would describe him as.

Things have changed since Isaac and Rachel recognized their feelings for one another, the two interacted the same, but there were times where Zack would hesitate to show a new side to their relationship. Sure, he enjoyed the feelings he had for her, though, he was still adjusting to showing his affection more openly and not from impulse. Rachel was patient, acting soft was something he rarely did, but she was there to assure him that it was normal.

 When Zack did show his affection, he was almost like a different person, yet his gruff personality was still there.

 Aside from all that, the two have done well together to live in their nomadic lifestyle. Zack’s experience throughout his life helped Ray adapt and the young woman’s smarts helped the pair improve upon it.  

 The town they eventually stumbled in seemed a bit upper class, there was no way they could find a motel to camp in for the night without being questioned. Despite the nicer buildings all over the place, there were some abandoned structures set to be future construction projects, it was a better option to have a roof over their head, than to sleep on the streets. So, the two took shelter in an old apartment complex, Ray always found a way to make even the shadiest of places look livable, and with the money they had collected over time, she stocked up on a few items for situations like this. She had gotten a new carry bag and filled it with a couple small LED lamps, and a rollup sleeping bag that the two of them would share.

 Zack would let her set up their temporary living quarters to however she saw fit, it was rather amusing really - hell, Ray seemed to have this mentality to always take care of him now. She spent her time to teach him how to read, how to open up emotionally around her more, and even tended to him to keep him healthy and groomed. Zack never asked her to do those things, she just did them on her own free will and would insist when he’d question Ray.

 Isaac assumed it was something couples probably did, he was still learning what it was like to be one after all, aside from embraces or even a kiss here and there.

 Once Rachel was done setting up their space, she returned to the man’s side, they both sat down to get comfortable and possibly figure out what the plan would be while they were in town. A town like this could mean a bigger score of cash to steal, but it was also a higher risk. To rob someone, they would have to do it on the outskirts of town, and they would have to knock them out, otherwise the murder would draw too much attention.

 “Fuck…the only place where I can’t have some damn fun…” Zack grumbled.

 Ray saw the look of displeasure on Isaac’s face, then brought a hand up to gently run her fingers through his hair.

 “You’ll live, Zack,” she giggled.

 Zack’s heterochromatic eyes glanced at the young woman and stuck his tongue out at her, sometimes he did have a habit of acting a little childish, but he was surprised when Rachel stuck her tongue out back in retaliation. Damn, she amused him so much, no wonder he had fallen for her hidden charms.

 Ray noticed Zack’s hair was starting to get in his face more often, even his hoodie couldn’t keep the lengthening stands tamed.

 “Your hair is getting longer,” she spoke.

 “I know,” Isaac huffed, “We don’t exactly have scissors now, do we?”

 Rachel thought for a second, then tugged Zack’s hood back to expose the rest of his dark locks. Her own hair began to grow back ever since her search was called off, and a few times she’d tie it back to try a new look. The young woman had kept a couple hair ties in her pocket in case she needed them, and now was a good time.

 “Here…turn your back to me…” Ray spoke softly.

 Zack wasn’t sure what Ray was up to, but did as she asked. Naturally, he didn’t like being told what to do, with Ray though, he knew she often did with good intentions.

 Her fingers were gentle at pulling his loose strands of hair back, then carefully bunch them up in the palm of her hand. Zack felt a slight tug, but it wasn’t painful, then something bind his hair together. Once Rachel was done, Zack was immediately curious at what she just did and felt at the back of his head, he could feel a tuft of hair tied back while some of his bangs dangled freely in his face.

 “There, it shouldn’t be a problem for you anymore,” Ray said, rather proudly.

 “I guess, til we eventually get the damn thing cut,” Zack mumbled.

 He then noticed Ray giving him a look of observation - or rather, admiration. Sometimes when she gave Isaac that look, he often felt his cheeks grow warm, as he was still trying to figure out the appropriate reaction to something like that.

 “W-what’s with the damn puppy eyes?” he stuttered.

 “I don’t think we should cut it, I think like this…you look rather attractive…”

 Zack’s mind went completely fucking blank. She just said something about him he’d thought he’d never hear. Attractive, something or someone that was pleasing to the eye of another, and she just said that about him.

 “…Did…did you just say…that I was…a-attractive?” Zack asked with hesitation.

 How he was speaking right now wasn’t in his character, but how he was feeling in this moment, it couldn’t be prevented.

 Ray faintly blushed as she nodded, “Yeah, I did.”

 If there was a look of someone who just got hit by Cupid’s arrow, Zack’s expression was it. He was flustered, befuddled and downright love-struck. Complimenting him with kindness was one thing, but doing so with adoration was another, and he was too stunned to respond.

 “H-holy fuck, Ray…” he mutters.

 Now he’s retreating his flustered expression in his hoodie, quickly pulling it over his face, his brain was screaming at him to do so many things at once while at the same time he was absolutely confused over what the hell to do first. Isaac eventually brought his finger up to gesture for her to come over to him, Ray complied to his silent beckoning and situated herself to the front of him. The gruff man was quick to wrap his arm around her waist and yank her onto his lap, and within seconds, he captured her lips with his.

 Ray was caught off guard for a moment, but didn’t hesitate to comply, his kisses did have a wild nature to go with Zack’s personality, but it was still very tender.

 ‘Don’t overdo it, god, there’s so much you wanna do to her just for saying that shit,’ Zack mentally said to himself, ‘…maybe just a little push…’

 He soon deepened the kiss to give her that stronger sense of affection, just this once, just for that compliment alone she deserved him to not hold back for a moment.

 With their bodies in close proximity of each other, Zack could feel Ray’s heart pounding wildly as she caved in. It was a little rare for them to kiss to this degree, mostly because Zack had a little trouble controlling his untamed behavior when it gave him new urges to act upon. Yet, they both secretly enjoyed when they did, it was primal just as it was endearing, and their taste did leave them with a craving for more. It was only a matter of time until they had to unwillingly part and regain their breath, Rachel’s face was slightly flushed from the feeling of desire that overcame the both of them.

 Fuck, it was cute, and so damn tempting. Her expression was innocent, but also vulnerable, and his predacious disposition just wanted to swoop in and claim her lips just once more. Even his hands wanted to do more than just hold her close to him, there was a lot of inner thoughts and instincts just screaming at him right now, and it felt like a war to fight it all back.

 Zack may feel like he wanted to do more in their relationship, but he knew that Ray possibly wasn’t ready yet. Their relationship was built mainly on trust and patience – most of that patience coming from Ray. Zack had to learn to be just a patient too, otherwise what they had now would wind up complicated and frustrating. It wasn’t his habit to do so, but this was a requirement.

 To satisfy his conflicted need, he brought his hand to cradle Ray’s soft cheek as he leaned close to press his lips against hers one final time. It was a tame kiss - simple, short, and sweet.

 Once he pulled himself back, he gave her a smug grin, “You’re lucky I’m gonna behave myself, especially when you’re saying that kind of stuff to me.”

 “What would’ve happened if you didn’t?” Ray asked.

 Zack had that feeling that she was either lightly prodding him, or she must really be that naïve, he leaned close as his grin turned slightly devilish.

 “Do you really wanna know?” he whispered, his tone of voice was slightly deep and even alluring.

 That and the thought of the possibility for Zack’s lack of restraint made her face turn a deep shade of red. Ray’s reaction made Isaac quietly laugh as he playfully ran his fingers through her golden locks, the young woman sure was fun to tease, he’ll have to admit that.

 As the hours into the night passed, Zack let Ray go to sleep before him, he wanted to keep watch for a couple of hours before assuming it was safe enough to rest alongside her.

 The man had pulled his hood back as he played with the restrained tuft of hair in the back of his head. Zack couldn’t stop feeling that strange sense of inner joy when Ray called him attractive, he never thought himself as such, yet Ray’s the only person on earth to make him feel wanted - not just because of their oath but as someone to share their life with.

 Zack decided he may keep his looks the way they are just to hear those words again, he may not know when, but one day soon.

[nowherenext]

Cambodia

Out of all the places I’ve visited in Southeast Asia, Cambodia is a personal favorite of mine.

What used to be the ancient Khmer empire is now known as the Kingdom of Cambodia. It is most known for its ancient ruins, the Angkor Wat, which is located in Siem Reap. It is a beautiful cultural site, what with its abandoned remains and majestic ruins nestled in its forests and intertwined with some of its massive trees. 

^ That’s the main Angkor Wat site, where many tourists are usually led to. There’s a grand entrance that you have to walk through for a few minutes before you finally see this. The outline of the ruins is reflected on the body of water before it. It really looks like something from a movie. 

This is just one of the many places you can go to in Siem Reap by bike. There are smaller (and bigger) temples around. Each one is beautiful and distinct. The trees, its long roots, the vines, the water lilies, and the general greenery of the area also complements how eerily beautiful the ruins look.

Cambodia is full of temples--and not all of them are as crowded as the main Angkor Wat site. If you really want to explore Cambodia, you will need at least a week to visit its many, many temples. It’s best to do it either by bike or motorcycle, because it’s an amazing place to bike in. The roads are flat and wide, and you’ll get great views of the picturesque fields on the way. 

Tip: Bring a bandana to cover your face because it’s really dusty and a lot of it will go to your face! (Take it from me, who did not wear any bandana and was squinting during the whole ride with my mouth firmly closed)

I would definitely recommend going there during December, because the weather is relatively cool and windy. Although it will still be humid, it will not be as bad if there is a breeze. Your legs will also get a real work out after climbing all those steep staircases and hopping from one temple window to another. You’ll be soaked with sweat by the end of the day.

I have to admit, it’s a pretty great photoshoot area, as well. I guess the solemn atmosphere created by the temples is ruined because it’s now mostly used as a background for tourists. Everybody’s waving selfie sticks and GoPro sticks around, wearing Thai pants or exotic-looking dresses to match the setting. 

I myself purposefully wore my Thai pants and this skirt/pants thing for the very purpose of looking good in temple pictures. All the while, I was thinking, “Wow, I’m essentially exoticizing their culture by using their “native” attire as props and by using their cultural heritage, the temples, as mere background for my consumerist, #traveler purposes!”--but then again, maybe I just have way too much fun being my own buzzkill when I travel. 

So, while there are some cool, Cambodia-esque photos here, I also feel like I should show what it really looks like:

And here are the posed ones that usually make it to Instagram (wooo, photos on social media can indeed be deceiving):

Well, anyway. It’s a real gem, Cambodia. Each temple is distinct in style and architecture. One of the most popular temples, the Ta Phrom, draws a lot of attention because of how the temple and the tree became one:

Even the photos, beautiful as they look, don’t quite capture that sight. In some temples, there are ongoing constructions to rebuild certain parts of the temple. Each temple usually has a caretaker or two, sometimes with dogs. They protect the temples from getting destroyed or vandalized.

Here are more gorgeous sights around Siem Reap:

Eventually, temple hopping does get a bit repetitive and boring. So...you can go on a hike or explore the city.

Siem Reap’s inner city is also just as exciting. The place is filled with backpackers from all over the world. The area is very tourist-friendly. If you walk around, you’ll see lots of food stalls, markets, and little stores selling so, so many souveneirs. Cambodia shirts, keychains, Thai pants, malongs, mugs, bags...and so on. It can’t get any more commercialized than this. It’s cultural commodity packaged at its finest. 

ALSO! In the markets, it will help if you’re good at haggling. I am not, but my mother is. When we were shopping in the markets, she was truly in her arena. The items in the market were already so cheap, usually being sold at $5, $4, $3...even $2 or $1. My mom, however, still wouldn’t settle; she’d insist on $1 if it was $3, $3 if it was $5, and so on. Usually, these sellers would put up a bit of a fight first, but with just the right amount of tact and persistence, they eventually settle for your price anyway.  Unsurprisingly, Mom always won this battle.

Oh, and that’s an important fact about Cambodia: their currency is riels, but in Siem Reap, they usually just accept U.S. dollars, especially if they know you’re tourists. I’m not entirely sure why they didn’t want to just use their own currency instead, but then again, I’m guessing maybe it’s just more practical and convenient for everyone if we just used the ever-powerful U.S. dollar? Hmmm. 

There was so much life in the city of Siem Reap. I loved it. I would definitely go back one day and backpack by myself or with a couple of friends. There are lots of fun bars, restaurants, cafes, quirky shops, markets, and temples to explore. The nightlife--from what I could see--was awesome, the drinks are cheap, the food is good. I can’t help but remember the Philippines as I walked around the city; even if it was different culture, it had a similar vibe to home.

On another note, I want to talk about the locals. I know almost every tourist/backpacker must have said this already, but I’ll say it anyway: Cambodians are some of the most kind-hearted, down-to-earth, and pleasant people I’ve met. They are always smiling, and happily bringing tourists from one temple to another. They try and make conversation with you. While they’re waiting for you finish exploring the temples, they sit with fellow drivers, grab a drink from a local store, and simply chat and laugh with them. I understand now why foreigners--especially those from Western countries--always go on and on about how kind Filipinos/Cambodians/Thais/Asians are in general.

Every time we would go to the temples, I would also see a lot of child beggars approaching tourists and asking for money. There would be a lot of signs in the area, too, saying that we should not give money to the children because it only encourages them to stay in the streets and continue begging when they should, in fact, be in school (to rephrase what many of the signs said). While I agree that they should be in school and that we mustn’t encourage them to keep begging, I still don’t think the situation should be depicted in such a...simplistic way. Obviously, begging means they are in great need of something, be it money, food, or even just a drink. 

How can we simply ignore these children and justify it with simplistic reasoning like, “Well, they shouldn’t be here anyway! They should be in school!”--because the reality of it is, they’re not in school. They’re begging for food, money, anything, because in moments of great need, begging and hoping for a kind tourist to give them something is better than simply “going to school” with absolutely no food in your stomach and no energy or will to read textbooks all day. I’d rather give them something, preferably food, than simply ignore them and hope they go to school instead. It’s ideal, and of course I’d want them to go to school instead, but it just doesn’t work like that for them. Poverty is their reality.

That being said, seeing these children--and adults--begging reminds me that, despite Cambodia’s rich culture and history, we can’t simply romanticize the seemingly “simple and happy” lifestyles of the locals, too. Some of these people are also in great need, and are suffering from poverty or have less access to resources than Cambodia’s city people. After all, I’m sure Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, has a better standard of living than places like Siem Reap--kind of like how Manila is better off than most provinces. Provinces usually provide the “escape” city people need once in a while, which is why provinces usually make their money through tourism nowadays. (But hey, that topic is for another blog entry.)

I don’t know much about contemporary Cambodian history or politics to really have a say in any of these things, but I do know they’re a developing country like the Philippines. Appreciate Cambodia for its beauty and simplicity, sure, but don’t overlook the every day struggles of the rural lifestyle that the people in Siem Reap live. 

Of course, with that comes the question: What more can I do? Honestly, I don’t know how to answer that. Even in my own home country, I do not know what to do. In Cambodia, I felt even more helpless; I was just a tourist. I was only passing through. In Manila, I feel like that, too, sometimes--like there’s this wall and I’m only seeing bad things happening from a distance. 

-----

On a lighter note, I do hope the photos really did show you how lovely Cambodia is. If you do go, try to look beyond the temple as a mere background for a photoshoot; read up on its history or have a local explain to you what exactly you’re looking at. It’s a beautiful ancient culture worth knowing and understanding.

Here are some links that talk about Cambodia’s history, culture, country profile, current events, tourism:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-13006539 https://www.lonelyplanet.com/cambodia https://www.hrw.org/asia/cambodia http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/27/kem-lays-murder-puts-cambodia-politics-economy-at-risk-as-unrest-looms.html http://www.economist.com/topics/cambodia https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/10/cambodian-government-critic-shot-dead-phnom-penh-kem-ley-hun-sen http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-13006828 http://country.eiu.com/cambodia http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21707982-strongman-falls-back-old-habits-velvet-glove-frays?zid=306&ah=1b164dbd43b0cb27ba0d4c3b12a5e227 http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21715010-and-why-it-worries-cambodias-neighbours-why-cambodia-has-cosied-up-china?zid=306&ah=1b164dbd43b0cb27ba0d4c3b12a5e227

[theorangegoatcommunity-blog]

Hey I’ve got a question.

So I know this guy who’s two years older than me and he was a family-friend. Then we went to the same school when we were young. We got teased for “being in love” because of knowing each other and being the same height. Wtf but okay. That ruined two years of my life actually, the two years we were in school together. We saw each other a lot outside school and shit so we sometimes talked by ourselves because no one else was there and would have no idea what we were talking about, but then I remembered the world is full of idiots and if I wanted to be, well, just not ridiculed then I had to stop talking to him, stop looking at him, and pretty much hate him. And so I did. He was also the most popular kid at school which meant I didn’t have any friends, but to stop denying the accusations and talk to him and be friends meant they would be mean to me too. I can’t say that I was bullied as bad as some kids. In fact, I’m crazy lucky to have gone to a school that was okay and with limited kids, and my parents are great, but there were still some..... bad times.... for me anyway. I had depression, and I didn’t just get it. I’m pretty sure it started when I was in second grade. There was a kid that I knew and we were friends, but no one liked him. I stayed his friend and because I still believed in happy endings and princesses and fairytales, I thought all those jerks who had bullied me since kindergarten would soon realize it was cool of me to do that. They didn’t. But I stayed his friend anyways. I was a veeerryyy innocent kid, but there were many bad influences. That boys was actually the best one I had had, but I never told him because I hated him. He showed me the world wasn’t happy endings and princess stories weren’t real, and that started the snowball of depression I have.   So uh, time passes. That boy and I fought for years, with me supported by my bullies because they hated him for his looks. I never realized how wrong I was, I was such an idiot. Suddenly, my bullies became my friends, and I got to sit on the swings ( a high place of honor) with the cool older girls. Another girl always walked by the swings sadly walking by herself. I knew she didn’t have any friends. She never had, I had known her since kindergarten. I decided to try just once more on a fairy tale. I left my swing and joined the girl in her walk and we became friends. I had one other friend but she was only my friend at that time because she was my only classmate, and we became a trio. All the older girls hated us, but not out of jealousy. They laughed at us, taunted us, called us rude names. I went over to my new friends house, now though we had been friends for a while. I knew she lied a lot, praised herself, dejected herself, threatened, and she blamed her parents for every thing, or her brother, who actually has and had a MUCH worse deal. She wasn’t something I couldn’t handle, but. She still was very toxic. The threats weren’t bad and she didn’t abuse herself or anything. Just her viewpoint on the world was  awful. So I wa sat her house and she introduced me to something, and I didn’t say no because I was still innocent, but I realize now what’s happening. She told me not to tell anyone she watched that on her phone, and I thought it was just slightly bad because I thought everyone knew they were supposed to listen to their parents to the letter. Fast forward a bit. I realized how controlling and mean she was, so I left her and my other friend followed. Now I just had her and I was still being teased by the mean girls. Wooo hhooo summer! Finally, fifth grade. Yep, that was three years. It turned out life was looking great! I found out that the boy I hated was leaving (im as but it felt like a god given blessing), the girls that teased me were leaving, and that nice kid I met that summer through my dad was coming to school. It all seemed fun. And it was okay. But that’s why different teasing started. I started to feel insecure, lash out a lot, and hold a general anger and resentment to the world. The worst part is, I never told anyone. I still haven’t told the full story to anyone, but the cats out of the bag. I just need to say these things. Back to the story, I had one friend whom I lashed out at and lost, I hated it when people told me I was wrong, and pretended I knew everything, because I never wanted to feel like I didn’t understand. Not understanding had gotten me into much too much trouble already. The only thing stable were my grades. As -As +Bs and one +C which I worked hard on and got into an A. It was one of the two only  things I had pride in, and no hate. The second being spending time with little kids and photography. I loved taking photos and I loved to talk to kids and play with them,  because they were innocent and I wanted to do everything in my power to keep it that way. Or at least to make their short time better. So, in summary, I had no friends, I was known as an idoit who was in love with the most popular kid in school, and I was very angry. Multiply that by 2 years and that was my 5 and 6th grade. I also want to add that, even though I did hate him, that one guy was still really nice and we did hang out after school sometimes because of our parents and so I wasn’t so angry then. It felt nice.Next was seventh, which was the day I had marked on my calander since day two of fifth grade. The toxic girl was there, but the boys were gone and every single one of my bullies were gone as well. I was excited. I had a good year. I learned to control my emotions. I made a friend, though it was technically  my cousin and she didn’t go to my private school. She was awesome, but i has always felt beneath her. We now had private jokes and we had pretty much grown up together, but, lik I said, beneath her.  I was okay. Did I mention I did sport as much as I could? It took my mind off school, but I wasn’t ever very good. That year was our first coed basketball season, and I was one of the more important players. The girls team had always been short players, so by then I had already been a starter for four years. Woo. I also started to play tennis, which, because I had a new best friend, was very fun. She taught me how. (Before I say this next part, I want to say that my cousin was helping me because she thought I did want to date the guy, because I hadn’t told her straight out I didn’t (I still didn’t) but I ha stole her everything else) so the popular boy plays tennis. It’s his favorite sport, and this was his first year of high school, so we played in separate parts of the court. Thank goodness because the one time we did a drill together, I mean the two teams, we picked up the tennis balls that we on the same court (god forbid!). My cousin teased relentlessly that we were such a “cute couple” and all that junk. Idk what happened for they guy but I was peeved and no one ever stopped talking about it. Okay, back to school. I do school great. Good grades, people don’t hate me anymore. I don’t hate the whole world anymore and I finally feel free! It was fun for the most part. It was that year also that I picked up art. I taught myself to draw and came up with my own style. It is an amazing way to channel emotion. Just don’t let it all out at once. If you do, then draw something fun afterward, otherwise it will depress you. (Something I forgot to mention, I cried a lot at home at night and most the time my only consolace was that everyone did, I didn’t know no one at my school did. I also thought maybe the boy did too if no one else did, because we were also teased for being practically the same person. We both had two younger siblings. We were the tallest. Our initials were the same. We had most the same reactions to situations. The only real difference was his home invironment and he was slightly older. I didn’t realize how much of a difference there was between 6th and8th grade.) Okay, so roll into summer. It was fun, there was the fair, I went with friends, cause I had them. Woo! I also had many spider related incidents which made my arachnophobia form slightly. Then I had a dream. It was normal,( the ones where it puts ur friend and you in a n awkward situation so you can’t face them for weeks) until I saw a spider in the corner of my dream. The grew, and grew, and my “dream camera” zoomed in on its face. Then on the dead bug’s face, then As it was being eaten. I screamed I my sleep and woke up to the feeling of spiders. Everywhere. They were on my arms, my legs, my blanket, my walls, my pillow, right behind the door of my room. I ran out it and kept my eyes open as to not step on one or run into a massive one. I tried to run to my parents room so they could help me with it some how, but the room between us had so many places for spiders to hide. Then, they were everywhere on the floor. They tried to crawl up my legs. I jumped up and down screaming with my mouth closed so no spider would get in. They were everywhere. They were everywhere. They were everywhere. Eventually my mom and dad ran out of their room hearing me stomp and squeal. They saw me bouncing on the tips on my toes, trying not to die. From nothing. I was having a mental breakdown. They had to almost restrain me. Dad carried me and mom held me still. I still squealed and kicked,  not because of my mom and dad. I was aware they were trying to help, but I still thought the spiders were on me. Everywhere. They laid  me down on their bed, turned on the light, and held my arms down. They covered my lower body with a blanket and sat on that too, so I coulf barley move. I started to cry and squeal. Mom and dad tried to calm me down but I wouldn’t open my mouth. I would only gesture wordlessly at the wall where I thought there was a huge spider. They looked. The wall was blank. They told me they would protect me. I believed them. I didn’t sleep the rest of the night and my mom and dad stayed up with me they turned on the movie boss babie because I was sure it would be the only movie without something that would remind me of .... the things. I didn’t go outside for a month after that. It took me 20 minutes every night of the summer to assure myself there were no spiders on my pillow. Most times I couldn’t even imagine going to school again, going outside, seeing friends, being away from mom and dad, being happy. By the last two weeks of summer, I had my confidence “peaked” for eighth grade. I was ready. Three weeks later I almost missed school because I had a dream of “those things”. I went to school in my hoodie and would always glacé over my shoulder to check for “them”. I’m still in eighth grade right now, but a bit farther into the year. I’m completely over it. I won’t like pick up a spider, but I hadn’t had another dream like that in a while. It was around this point I realized I had depression. I didn’t have it “licenced” as I said but knew by the ways and times I would feel completely hopeless and come running to my parents becausw I  was shaking and felt like I just “ couldn’t do it”. It was at that time I realized my faith. I realized how important these things could be, and what things actually were. I took a catechism class and became a Lutheran, believing in the god and the savior he sent, his son.  Basically, I found out that, though those inspiring posts on tumblr are very positive and help, most times they are wrong. The truth is even greater. It made so much more sense now. The world was perfect, until a bengal ever ridden angel decided to make the world imperfect and ruin god’s favorite part. The people. There were two. Adam and Eve. God loved them. The angel, aka the devil, took the form of a snake and told Eve that she could be like God, knowing good and evil, if she ate from the only tree god told them not to eat. Eve took the fruit and ate it, and that was the first sin. She gave it to her husband. Blah bla, god promised a savior to make those sins “go away”. I put that in quotes because they don’t go away, God just can’t see them. Okay s9 more or less, the devil gave me depression and tries to make me come to hell by killing myself, feeling that no one can help me, feeling like I’m all alone, and temping me to feel guilty and sad and miserable, blurring the line between good and evil. Now that I know about god more, I trust. The shortest summary of the Bible isn’t one word: love. Love, trust and fear are what god wants from us, and we don’t deliver. That’s why we would go to hell, if we didn’r know the rest. The rest is that God loves me so much, he sacrificed himself so that I can live, even If I die. I mean I’ll live in heaven. All that I have to do is nothing. I can’t do anything to be saved. I’m going to hell. Nope! Because of the Holy Spirit, you can do more than nothing! You can actually obey what god says now. You’ll still be depressed, you’ll still be sad, your world won’t be perfect,  but as long as you trust god, “ all sorrow will be wiped away” - Isaiah.  In heaven that is. So I trusted god and I didn’t have any doubts and sadness again right? Wrong! I got sad, I got scared, but the only reason I’m still here is because I know God knows when I’ll get to see him. I wouldn’t be here if he didn’t want me to be. I do have a purpose even if I never realize what it is.  God made me to be exactly the way I am because he knew I could take the challenge and that the challenge would make me stronger in him.  Thanks god. So anyway, did I mention that I got “licenced” depression this year too? That was rough. I got a 12/6 so not good.  But I’ve learned. I’m positive. I’m happy. I help others. If you need anything, I’ll try my best. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll keep trying. I also started to write. I had the idea of being an animator, or a cartoonist. I just loved art and storytelling. Photography and kids still hold a place in my heart, but I’m still young. I vollunteer. I get good grades. I still play basketball. And I learned how that boy was able to stay so positive and not get angry when people “shipped us”. I’m okay now. Also, about the boy. That brings me to my question along with this insanely long story of my life. I see him sometimes. He’s a sophomore in high school not, but I met up with him like three months ago. (Did I mention that every time I saw him after he graduated I couldn’t stop thinking about it for days?) it was a family thing again. It was bowling. First, we both suck at the game and both cheered each other to get the new lowest scores possible. Then, I asked if he had any favorite shows, and it turns out, he was a diehard fanboy for my favorite show, Miraculous.(you don’t have to know what it is to answer tho) We has so much fun and I didn’t want to leave, but then we had to go home. He said “ Well, I am walking over to DG (store) to buy (something). Do u wanna come? We can keep talking.” And even though I hadn’t gone a walk with him in so long and never gone on a walk with him without dying of embarrassment afterward and even though I really wanted to, idk why still,  it my mouth said no. I still don’t know why, but I have a feeling god didn’t want me to go. I hope I find out soon, and I do think I like him. Which I almost hate, but it downst make me sad anymore. I just want to hang out sometime. So even though I beg for a sign for us to hang out more, I haven’t gotten one yet. My question is:

What do I do next?

Seriously. I’ve nevr dated. My schools been open since the 80′ and no ones ever dated. I mean there has been two weddings and one divorce (don’t ask). Also, I need help, not just with that last part. I’m just kind of stuck and need advice about High School because I’ve only ever one to one school. Plays again (help) I need to decide whether to dedicate my life to basket ball or things other than basketball. Hope this didn’t upset you or anything. Plz read if you want to it’s my life story. At least important points to me. Lov y’all. Stay pawsome

( btw also my friend cousin is my bff and we both told each other about my depression and her anxiety so we try to lift each other up if anyone wanted a redemption arc for her)