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etherealwaifgoddess · 4 years

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Run To You - Chpt.3

Summary: Steve & Bucky are finally going to get a second date after several long weeks of working around their schedules. The best laid plans don’t always go as they want them to, though, and after a few unexpected hurdles Bucky finds himself at his breaking point. Master list is HERE :)

Content Warning: Bucky worrying over Becca who he finds out might need glasses.

Word Count: 3.5k

Author’s Note: Hello lovelies! I promise this chapter isn’t nearly as sad as the last one, but honestly it’s not exactly “happy” either. This isn’t turning out to be one of my super fluffy happy fics so I feel like this is just gonna be par for the course. It is sweet though, so hopefully that redeems it a bit for you. XOXO - Ash

Chapter Three

“Bucky, where’s your mug?” Becca asks, frowning at him over her bowl of cereal.

They’re sitting at their little kitchen table while Becca eats breakfast, though she’s mostly just chattering about her friend Emmy who is bringing in cupcakes for her birthday on Tuesday. Bucky is trying to pay attention enough to respond but also trying to nail down a time to meet up with Steve. It doesn’t help that Becca rambles the same thing over and over again when she’s excited. It’s his sixth time hearing her ideas of what flavor the cupcakes might be, and poor Steve has been left on read for ten minutes. They had planned to meet for coffee after he dropped Becca off at preschool but now needs to meet with the director at Becca’s school when he drops her off. Chaos, thine name is parenthood.

“I’m getting coffee after I drop you off.” He explains, realizing he hasn’t answered her question.

“Ooh! Like for special?” Becca asks, bouncing in her seat.

“Becs, don’t spill your bowl. And yes, like a special treat.” He cringes, thinking back to his college days when getting a cup of coffee out was a normal, regular occurrence. Flash forward five years and it’s such a rare occasion Becca thinks it’s a special treat. He’s learned how to make a killer pour over, but there’s something to be said for not having to make it yourself.

“Why’s today special?”

Bucky sighs, trying to think of a way around the conversation he isn’t quite ready to have. “I’m going to go see a friend who I haven’t seen in a while.” It’s true too. The first time they made another date, Steve had gotten called away on a mission and was gone for a week. Then Bucky had non stop rotations, catching up to meet his required 140 hours for the month after calling out while Becca was sick. Then Steve had been called away again. Luckily, Steve is pretty well adept at texting for a senior citizen. They text daily, calling when they have free time too. Bucky enjoyed getting to know the real Steve over the past month. The constant communication through calls and text have helped them grow closer than they would otherwise. Bucky finds himself thankful for the time they’ve had to really get to know each other even though he’s really looking forward to seeing Steve in person again.

Becca stares Bucky down as she crunches through her cereal. “Is it Auntie Nat?”

“No,” Bucky replies cautiously. His little girl is far too smart for her own good.

“Uncle Clintasha?”

“No, and don’t call him that. I was just teasing when I called him that. You should still call him Uncle Clint.” Bucky feels a little guilty for the nickname. But really when is the guy gonna get his head out of his ass and make a move on Natasha already?! It’s been six years!

“Okay. But who?” Becca’s brow furrows, a little wrinkle forming between her brows that Bucky knows matches his own when he makes that face.

“Just a friend. Now, let’s get your teeth brushed, Becca-bug. You have to be at school soon.”

Becca grumbles in the exasperated way only four year girls can manage and places her bowl in the sink before heading down the hall to their bathroom.

“I’m checking on you in two minutes, do a good job!” Bucky calls after her. He washes up the dishes before going to check on her and then helps her with a few spots she always misses. She’s very independent for her age but still needs some guidance. Bucky helps her pick out an outfit, trying to steer her towards something that remotely matches, and then crosses the hall to his room to get himself dressed while she dresses herself. It’s just a coffee date but he hasn’t seen Steve in over a month; he wants to try and look his best.

Bucky is fixing his hair in the bathroom mirror when Becca prances in, happily not wearing what they’d agreed upon. It’s going to be one of those days.

“Okay, little miss.” he scolds, “Go put on the shirt we picked out. You can wear your Moana shirt tomorrow, I promise. I just need to wash your leggings that go with it.”

“Ohhhkaaay.” the little girl huffs and rolls her eyes but heads back to her room to change.

Bucky rolls his eyes once she’s out of sight, that girl is 100% him.

They make it to Applegate Academy with only three minutes to spare, but they make it. Bucky had worked so hard to get her into the prestigious school and he wants to keep in their good graces. Especially considering the only reason Becca can go there is because of a scholarship program. He has to reapply every year, but she’s good from pre-k through 6th as long as he still meets the criteria. After that she’ll have the option to transfer to one of their sister schools for 7th through 12th. Dropping Becca off with her homeroom teacher, Bucky hurries across the building to the main office for his meeting.

The main office is all rich tones and dark wood. Something you would expect from an ivy league university, not an elementary school. It screams of wealth and power, making Bucky shift uncomfortably while he waits. He wonders, picking nervously at his nails, what his life might have been like if he’d gone to a school like Applegate Academy. Would things have been easier, or would he have had the same issues just with different scenery? He hopes desperately that school will be different for Becca.

“Mr. Barnes?” A tall, thin, black woman calls out. She’s dressed in a smart navy blue suit and Bucky vaguely remembers seeing her picture out in the hallway. He’s fairly certain she’s the director.

“That’s me.” Bucky jumps up from his seat and shakes her hand.

“Welcome, I’m Ms. Thompson. Please, come this way.”

Bucky follows her down the hall and through the door at the end. The school nurse, Miss Green, is sitting in one of the plush leather seats and Ms. Thompson gestures for Bucky to take the other. Definitely the director then.

“Mr. Barnes, I hate to bring you all the way down here but we need to get your consent in writing. Some of Becca’s teachers have noticed an issue with her vision and we have concerns.” Ms. Thompson explains.

“We don’t know anything for sure,” Miss Green is quick to jump in, “But with your consent, we’d like to give Becca an eye exam. It’s hard to identify vision problems with children so young but Becca is exhibiting some of the signs we look out for.”

“What, uh,” Bucky clears his throat nervously, “What sort of things do you look for?” He can’t believe he’s missed something wrong with her.

“She does a lot of squinting when trying to look at things farther away than a few feet. She’ll tilt her head trying to focus in on something. Frequently after she’s looking at something farther away she’ll rub her eyes a lot. She’s missed out on a few things during ‘eye spy’ too that she should have been able to identify. Have you noticed any of this at home? Sometimes kids will exhibit symptoms on the playground or while watching TV.”

“Not really,” Bucky shakes his head. “We don’t do a whole lot of playgrounds this time of year because of her allergies and asthma, and our living room is tiny so it’s not like the TV is that far away.” Bucky’s chest tightens, a never ending stream of you missed this, you failed her, flowing through his head. “When can you test her?” he finally manages to ask.

Miss Green nods, understanding. “As soon as you sign the forms we can pull her from class and do a basic eye test. You, as her legal guardian, have the right to be there when we do the test. It’s not necessary, though. We can always call you after with the results.”

“I’ll sign.” Bucky takes the paper Ms. Thompson is holding out and signs it without even reading it. He needs to know, the sooner the better. “I can stay if you do it now. I’d like to be here when you do it.”

“Not a problem.” Ms. Thompson takes the signed form back and makes a quick call to Becca’s homeroom for her to report to the nurse’s office.

Bucky follows the two women down the hall, the sound of their heels click clacking on the tile is deafening. He puts on his poker face when Becca comes flying in, greeting the nurse with a big smile and asking if she can have a cherry cough drop. She feels okay but they’re her favorite. The nurse chuckles but turns her down, offering her a sticker instead which Becca happily accepts.

“Bucky? Why’re you here?” Becca asks, suddenly noticing him.

“Bucky is gonna watch you practice your letters for me, isn’t that nice?” Miss Green deflects easily. Bucky’s grateful for the woman’s diversion.

“Yeah! Bucky, I know ALL the letters now!”

Bucky nods, forcing a smile, “That’s great, let’s see!”

Miss Green leads Becca over to the little hallway where an eye chart is taped up at the end. She guides Becca through the lines, making notes as she goes. Bucky can’t stomach looking to see if she’s getting them right or not, but the way her answers come slower the further along she gets fills Bucky with dread. The nurse praises Becca when she’s all done and sends her off with another sticker for good effort.

Once the little girl is off Bucky let his guard down. “It wasn’t good, was it?”

Miss Green shoots him a sympathetic smile, “It wasn’t what it should be for 20/20 vision. She’s likely going to need glasses, but she’ll need a full exam from a pediatric ophthalmologist to diagnose that. I know of two great ones here in the city if you want their names and info.”

“That would be great, thanks.” Bucky says to be polite, but he doesn’t really mean it. They’re going to be at the mercy of wherever they accept Becca’s insurance. He sends Steve a quick text asking if they can reschedule for later while the nurse writes down the information for him. Bucky needs a little time to process the news and make some calls to get things figured out. He always feels better when he has a plan in place. It doesn’t really matter what’s going on, if he has a plan, he doesn't have a problem.

Three hours later Bucky’s voice is hoarse from all the talking, but also from the strain of keeping his tone calm and not shouting at people. Healthcare in America is a joke. Thankfully, Steve was understanding about rescheduling, and is taking him out to lunch instead. Bucky walks into the brightly lit cafe, eyes scanning the room for Steve, and feeling completely at odds with the cheery space.

Steve waves a hand to get Bucky’s attention, like he can’t spot the giant adorable blonde in a room of small white cafe tables and wicker chairs. He rises as soon as Bucky gets close, pulling the other man into a hug. “It’s good to see you. Finally.” Steve says as they embrace.

Bucky lets himself hold on for just a beat longer than necessary, needing the hug more than he’s willing to admit. “You too. I’m sorry I had to reschedule, I wasn’t expecting my morning to go like that.”

“It’s okay.” Steve brushes off the apology easily and hands Bucky a menu. “I think this worked out better for me anyways. Now I get a whole meal with you instead of just coffee.”

They take their time scanning the menu and have their orders ready by the time the waitress drops by. “I’m so glad they have iced coffee.” he admits to Steve after getting the largest possible iced coffee with a disgusting amount of vanilla syrup and cream.

“Is it still coffee if you put all that stuff in it?” Steve teases.

“Of course it is, it just tastes a hell of a lot better. Honestly though, I’d drink it black at this point.”

“Tough morning?” Steve’s expression shifts to soft concern and Bucky can’t handle the gentleness. “Did everything go okay at Becca’s school?”

The rigid walls Bucky keeps up, protecting himself and showing the world only what he wants it to see, start to falter. He shakes his head, not trusting his voice.

“Is she okay? Do you need to leave?” Steve panics, hoping he’s not keeping Bucky from something important.

Bucky swallows, clearing his throat. “I’m good. She, uh, she’ll be okay. Just something unexpected came up and I’m still trying to figure out how we’re gonna handle it.”

“I’m sorry, Buck. If there’s anything I can do to help just say the word. Seriously.”

“Not that simple but thanks. Remember we talked about things that aren’t quite the way they make it seem in the news?”

“How could I forget? It got me my first date with you.”

Bucky tries not to melt a little at the sincerity in Steve’s voice. “It’s one of those things. What do you know about health insurance?”

Steve thinks for a moment. “Well, I know that at some point doctor’s crazy prices got even crazier. And now people pay for insurance so that they can afford to go to the doctors.”

“Okay, so you have the general idea. But what they don’t tell you is, the copays people have to pay are still too much for a lot of people. And sometimes the insurance itself costs so much that people can’t afford to have it in the first place. Even worse, insurance companies have people working for them specifically trying to find reasons to deny people’s claims, so that even if you have insurance there’s no guarantee it’ll cover what you need. And policies exclude things all the time.”

“That sounds awful. How is that even legal?”

“Corporate greed, plain and simple. Is the show Breaking Bad on your ‘to watch’ list?”

“Yeah, Sam added it on there I think. Why?”

“It’s about a high school teacher who has cancer and even with his insurance the treatments to save his life cost so much money he ends up becoming a drug dealer to pay for his cancer treatments so he doesn’t bankrupt his family. It sounds fantastical but things like that have happened.”

Steve looks like he’s gonna be sick. “That’s not okay.”

“It’s really not.” Bucky agrees.

Their food arrives and Steve is grateful for a moment to process the new information. They both take a few bites of their food, the silence heavy between them. He realizes that he still doesn’t know exactly what happened with Becca and he worries for the little girl that he hasn’t met. Bucky talks about her so much that he feels like he knows her but they haven’t gotten to that point yet. “So, what exactly happened with Becca? Is her insurance not covering something?” Bucky sets his fork down and the pained expression on his face has Steve backpedaling. “You don’t have to tell me, of course. I just… I care, is all.”

“She needs glasses.” Bucky says, unable to meet Steve eyes. He knows what he’ll find there. Compassion, sympathy. He just can’t bear it. “The insurance she has won’t cover anything vision related. She has insurance through the state because of all of her medical issues, we couldn’t have afforded even half of her medical bills with the insurance plan the hospital offers. The plan she has is supposed to be comprehensive but apparently vision isn’t included, just medical and dental. We’re out of the enrollment period at work now so I can’t get her vision insurance through there until next year. She’s been having trouble at school so they did an eye exam this morning.The nurse is certain she’s going to need glasses and I just don’t know how we’re making it happen yet. I can’t believe I missed it before. I should have noticed it somehow.”

Steve’s heart breaks for several different reasons. He’s saddened that Bucky’s little girl now has another issue to overcome, that Bucky can’t get the help that he should be able to get, and that the world is set up in such a way that makes basic human needs unobtainable. “Can I get them for her? Her glasses and whatever else she needs with them?”

Bucky looks up at Steve, the outrage radiating off of him in waves. Definitely not the reaction Steve expected. “Steve, no.” Bucky’s tone is sharp.

“Why not? I’m happy to help.” Steve offers again.

“She’s not your responsibility and we don’t need your charity. I’ve been making sure she has everything she needs for the past four years and I’ll do it again now. She’s my kid, and if she needs glasses, I’m the one buying them for her.” Somehow, his brain unhelpfully adds.

“Hey, no, it’s not charity. I care about you, and her. If I can make things easier on you, I want to. Besides, I have more money than I know what to do with these days, I can….”

“Good for you, Steve.” Bucky cuts him off, his words biting. “But I don’t need a sugar daddy. This was a mistake. I’m sorry, I gotta go.” Bucky balls up his napkin and places it on his mostly uneaten stack of pancakes. They’re chocolate chip and he wishes he could have them boxed up for Becca. They’re so good, she’d lose her mind. But Bucky needs to make a hasty retreat so he bolts from the cafe as Steve calls his name behind him.

Steve calls, but Bucky declines the call.

Steve texts, but he’s left on read.

After four hours Bucky finally texts back. I need space, Steve.

Steve cries and then heads to the gym. Two hours later, Tony is going to need to replace six boxing bags and Steve doesn’t feel any better.

Becca is a handful that night, whiny and exasperated with the world. It’s like she can sense Bucky’s bad mood and is infected by it. His outrage at Steve’s offer only lasts until about ten minutes after tucking Becca in for the night, then the sadness comes. He lets himself have a good cry, eats a pint of triple chocolate ice cream, and then sets out to research low cost vision centers nearby. It takes an hour but he finally finds two places where he can keep the total below a thousand dollars, but just barely. He checks appointment times versus his work schedule and finally gets her in at the closer of the two places for that coming Friday after she gets out of preschool.

Bucky checks his bank accounts and they’re as thin as he expected. Checking has just enough for groceries and a buffer to meet the account balance minimum. Savings has enough to cover the glasses but he’s been saving up for months, tucking a little bit aside every week in hopes of saving enough for a down payment on a better apartment. Now that he’s not paying daycare every week and her tuition is paid for by the scholarship, Bucky has been dreaming of allocating that extra money for rent on a better place. He knows he’s overpaying for the apartment they’re in, but it came with no credit check and no down payment. At the time, that was like a golden ticket for them. Now, he has good credit and can afford to pay a little more in rent, he just needs the money to put down a deposit, plus first and last month's rent on a place. He’s only half way there and her glasses are going to put a major dent into the savings. Not back to square one, but damned close.

Closing the lid of his laptop, Bucky tries telling himself it’ll all look better in the morning. He knows it's a lie but he’s too worn out to care. He stares at his phone after setting it on the nightstand, wondering if Steve has tried texting him again. The nerve of that man, trying to just throw money at him. Like Bucky can’t take care of his own kid. Like he’s a charity case. Bucky huffs and tries to distract himself so he doesn’t get worked up again and prevent himself from getting some sleep. He thinks of the next week and what groceries he’ll need, maybe adding pancake mix and a bag of chocolate chips to the list. He falls asleep making his grocery list and dreams of warm, melty chocolate and bright blue eyes.

#stucky #stucky fanfic #non winter soldier bucky barnes #captain america steve rogers #shrunkyclunks #steve rogers x bucky barnes #nurse!bucky #parent!bucky #kid!becca barnes #becca barnes #adopted child #marvel #marvel fanfic

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okneiljos · 5 years

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reasons the umbrella academy is my new favorite show (and why i have seven new children):

• they are all my actual children with whom i fell in love with instantly like i instantly adopted them the moment they were introduced bc when i saw klaus i was like “uwu i luv” and with allison i was “A WOMAN” with vanya i was “tALENT” and so on

• klaus

• the dance montage in ep 1 was literally one of the most iconic moments i have ever seen in my entire life

• bc luther literally had just accused his entire family of murdering their father and then he goes into his room to his moutain of records and is like “hmm what will possibly mend this? what can bring us closer as a family? what can make this better? what can make me feel better” and the choice of song has me in an early grave bc his solution was to start dancing his problems away and honestly same bc he then does it AGAIN later on

• number five’s badass killing of like 5 grown ass men

• the fact that he is a 60 year old man inside a 13 year old body and i, too, am a teenager with the intellect and soul of a senior citizen

• also the fact that the first thing he does when he gets back is makes himself a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich and that was what vanya made for him when he was away so he wouldn’t come back and be lost :’)

• klaus in the skirt “is that my skirt?” and the fact that klaus’ response to this is “its a little dated...but it airs out the bits” and fives comment on it im gone

• ALL OF KLAUS’ CRACKHEAD MOMENTS I LOVE MY CHILD

• i’m sorry but literally all of his comments sent me

• the run boy run scene was so cinematic holy crap like whoever did the soundtrack and editing did such a good job bc the scenes were cut together so well and the flashbacks and the music went perfectly with the scenes like ???? it was so amazing

• klaus trying to be a Good Big Bro and protec five from the fight between luther and diego and five just slaps his hand away

• the funeral scene where everyone is like “plz stop” and then klaus is like “hIT HIM!” had me gONE and this man showed up with a pink umbrella while everyone else had perfectly reasonable mourning umbrellas

• also klaus’ choice of clothing throughout the entire series will truly haunt me because he is a Disaster Gay™️ if i’ve ever seen one but he’s the best kind like the skirt, those low-rise leather pants with that top PLUS the cardigan like... sweetie

• bEN PLZ DONT GET ME STARTED

• ben could’ve left or gone ANYWHERE BUT HE STAYED WITH KLAUS PLZ IM BOUTA CRY YALL

• the scene where luther and diego are trying to get into the van, like once wasn’t enough but they did that shit AGAIN and looked at each other like -_- and finally luther has the audacity to say “i’m number one” im skdkskdk

• the fact that they fight all the time but the moment one of them are threatened they all bring the thunder and the claws come out and it’s totally on and i’m like wow uwu, like even though they are estranged they really do love each other

• the office scene with five and klaus im DONE WITH MY LIFE “what about my consent”

• during the fight scene in the house klaus is oblivious and is dancing around in a bath towel (with one in his hair as well) and that was so funny to me it got even funnier when ben poked his head in and tried to warn him like “klaus, our whole family is about to be slaughtered, klaus hello, klaus gunfire is raining down, okay whatever” and then he leaves, presumably to watch over them and the intruders and then klaus gets kidnapped but that had me

• the torture scene “there’s nothing like a little strangulation to get the blood flowing” plz klaus i can only handle so much wheezing before my lungs give out

• also “plz make him stop talking” like it was becoming torture for the torturers torturing him im—

• the ice cream truck scene which is made 100000% better bc klaus can’t/doesn’t know how to drive and yet diego is like “GO FASTER!!” and cute lil ben is like “wheeeeee” im so gone for this family man

• the scene with allison and luther in the booth had me in my feels + on the phone how you could hear the “SPACE BOY” that right there was really freaking cute

• diego with the “guns are for sissy’s, real men throw knives!” for some reason this just really stuck with me and like then i realized like that’s his entire brand in life... just knife boi.

• the entire bowling alley scene was the funniest thing to me skskakskxi “ur two dads” “i’d rather chew off my own foot” “maybe they’re here for kenny’s birthday party”

• diego’s stutter coming back during times of stress really made me so sad and like upset and i wanted to hug him

• vanya’s feelings of sorrow and isolation made me feel so sorry for her and then this dude comes in and uses and takes advantage of her but she shouldn’t have done that to her sis bc they were both like what 7 when their father made allison do that ??

• klaus’ battle for sobriety throughout the entire series he is so strong <3

• klaus’ power up in the last ep akskdjdj yes sweetie you get yours

• ben is literally the biggest bean ever but he also socks klaus in the face bc he’s like “i need u to stop being stoopid for two seconds”

• “shut up... said with love” and the “drop dead.” gasp “low blow” i love their relationship so much it literally meant everything to me bc ben is klaus’ biggest fan and like i cry thinking about that ya kno

• how allison literally diSPATCHED RAPER FACE GUY IN VANYA’S APPARTMENT sis knew something wasn’t right

• hazel literally eating everything in sight identified with me on a spiritual level

• diego and klaus little talk and ride along bc it was just so pure like diego loves his family soooo much even tho sometimes (like luther) he says mean shit he will do whatever is necessary to protect/save them

• klaus sets the table for himself, five, luther, AND ben i’m kdksk crying im crying is what im doing ok im just gonna be in the corner and the others don’t even mention it like ?? kskaak do they not notice it or do they know

• vanya’s badass white suit and violin change at the end there like ICONIC much

• vanya flipping that car, her at the show like im shaken to my core here skakaoso

• five just like five man “i was going to ask what you were doing but then i realized i don’t care.” like he’s such a mood.

• klaus and five are my biggest moods,, the biggest crackhead and the biggest narcissist

• THE ENDING AKSKDIDJSK I NEED MORE GIVE ME MORE OF MY CHILDREN PLZ PLZPLZPzlzzpzlzl

(there is so much more i could say but i wrote this in like 20 minutes off the top of my head if you can think of anything else plz let me know, also i tried to put this in some semblance of order bc when i wrote it it wasn’t ordered at all so sorry if it’s a mess, also sorry about the grammatical errors i know there surely are that i didn’t catch - not including the ones i did on purpose)

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seyaryminamoto · 4 years

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A decade in review

So... I figured I’d join the corny crowd of people who are talking about their growth and achievements this decade. Looking back can actually help a lot when you lose sight of where you’re standing or where you’re going, soooo...

I started this decade halfway through writing an original story that I didn’t take all that seriously at the time. I was in ninth grade, so sure, I was young... and yet, as some people might know, I was clawing my way out of the worst depression I’ve ever faced. If you guys thought you’d seen my low points... yeah, no, I’ve never again hit a low point as badly as I did back then. Yet even though difficult things happened through the rest of the decade, I learned enough lessons from that early, terrible and distressing time (which happened at the end of the previous decade, to be precise, which is why it’s honestly not worth going into right now) that I managed to stay afloat, even if not easily, upon each new opportunity where depressions knocked on my door up to date.

Now, beyond my mental health, I was still in music school at the start of 2010, and I was certainly no longer as enthusiastic about it as I had been when I first enrolled. I didn’t realize at the time that my calling was something else entirely... and the more I wrote that story I mentioned above, the more I leaned away from one branch of art and towards another.

I think I got my first graphic tablet either in 2009 or 2010, at one of my birthdays. My sister dropped the pen on the first day, the tip broke and I flew into the worst of rages :’D she was so apologetic about it, I don’t think I’d ever seen her quite so remorseful, which was why I toned down eventually and cut her slack, did my best not to bring it up again... anyways, I learned to draw with that thing despite the malfunctioning pen, and the first artworks I did weren’t exactly brilliant... here’s one of them, one of the few I actually finished :’D

... Safe to say, I’ve learned a lot since those days, right? :’D

(also, if anyone wonders, that artwork features the main characters of that original story I mentioned, the original file is dated for April 2010, so indeed, a file from early on in the decade :’D)

Slowly, but surely, my life started to revolve more and more around writing and reading/watching stories of all sorts. I’d spend hours and hours every day watching anime (yep, my weaboo phase in full swing!), I’d devour most books that fell into my hands, and I even ended up volunteering at a library (does it really count as volunteering if the government forces you to volunteer or else you can’t graduate from high school...? Hmmmmmm...). I actually chose that library because most other options were basically to play babysitter for either kids or senior citizens, and I sure didn’t think I was equipped to deal with either thing. A library, though, meant I’d work with books most of all, and I was pretty sure I’d be more useful at that job.

Cue the irony that, because I was apparently so helpful, they decided to give me more important duties, such as DESK DUTY, because the other volunteers weren’t as trustworthy as me, and bye-bye to working directly with books. Haha. Sad.

But that temporary, sort-of job at that library definitely changed my outlook on my future, even if it felt like such a fortuitous thing, something I was forced to do rather than choosing to do it of my own volition.

For all my life I’d felt a ton of pressure because my family is always more science-oriented than any other I’ve ever met. So I had to excel at school because that was expected of me (all my siblings had, so I couldn’t lag behind them, I’d been disgustingly competitive with my siblings for too long to reason with it yet), and I actually was decent at science subjects. I blindly thought that science was the only possible path for me in life. I was seriously planning on going into engineering because I more or less enjoyed chemistry... but every time I thought about what it meant to finish a major in engineering of any sort, I always ended up asking myself one question: would I have time to write in that sort of career?

The mere thought of office work, lab work, which were guaranteeed to be the best thing I could aspire to once I finished college for engineering, sounded like a morbid funeral march to me. I honestly found myself thinking that’d be a waste of my life. And that’s not to say anyone who actually spends their life that way is wasting theirs, but I KNEW it wasn’t my calling.

One day, while at that library, I realized what my actual calling was: I wanted that life. I wanted to work with books, whether making them or writing them or selling them or just about anything to do with the business. A mix of my crazy storytelling passion with that particular job experience brought me to the conclusion that I needed to forsake my family’s big ole’ scientific legacy and to make my own choices. My three siblings could easily enough carry forward that “legacy”, I could do my thing instead.

I think that decision, which took more courage than I thought I had, was probably one of the best I’ve made in my entire life. Telling my mother I’d go into literature was NOT easy and I literally had to make the equivalent of a sales pitch for her to agree to it, investigating all I could about the career, researching as much as possible to show her there WERE career possibilities I could pursue if I chose this major, until she finally relented. And that success meant I was off to a whole new world of crazy once I graduated from high school.

Which I did indeed, in 2012. I wouldn’t start college until 2013 because my major’s first semester wouldn’t start until March, so I had a nice long break because the school year, in my country, ends in July. I had been exhausted of studying at the time, so the break was absolutely welcome.

In the early stages of that time period, I actually finished that big ole’ original story of mine, and I couldn’t have been prouder of myself for it, even if I was sure I’d never show it to anyone. I was embarrassed of it, to a fault, because there was a lot of ridiculousness in it, the plot was all over the place despite following the storytelling beats I’d learned through the many anime I’d watched, and eventually it evolved into something completely different from what it started out as. I sometimes allowed myself to imagine what it would be like to write a big story that I could share with people and hopefully get more than a handful of readers for... Still, I tucked my original story away safely, because even if it was embarrassing, I was proud of what I’d learned with it. So I went on with a new original story, one I was DEAD SURE I’d be a better writer for, and that I would be much more successful with.

My sister visited us during that summer, and she showed me, my other sister and my mom, a certain TV series that she had very much enjoyed despite we had never thought much of it back when it was airing.

I’d seen a couple of episodes back in the day, but none had quite impressed me. The first episode I saw had made the show appear like some sort of lame “villain of the week” show, and the second one (I probably only caught the second half of this one) had such mixed values and morals that I was completely appalled by it and decided it wasn’t my thing. Then I, uh, also watched the final minutes of the final episode and it seemed so very melodramatic for the SCARRED GUY to ask SOME IMPRISONED GUY where his mother was, only for the show not to address the answer at all and cut to a pair of kids kissing on a balcony.

Sooooo... my very unimpressed self had decided ATLA wasn’t my thing because of The Great Divide, the Southern Raiders and the last three minutes of Sozin’s Comet: Avatar Aang :’) I’m funny that way.

This time around, watching it from scratch, I was slightly more interested in it because the first few episodes DID look like there was a coherent plot that was going somewhere. So even though my mom and other sister didn’t keep watching (at the time), I decided to watch it by myself because well, why not?

... Cut to seven years later and here I am, still neck-deep in this particular, dark corner of that specific show’s fandom. September of 2012 was when the Seyary you all know came into existence (?)

I won’t lie and say my experience in this fandom hasn’t been a damn rollercoaster in its own right. I certainly started off with WAY more enthusiasm than I have now, just look at my Author’s Notes from my first stories or Gladiator’s first chapters and read my hyped notes for yourselves :’D I definitely was caught by the magic of the Avatarverse, the characters, so much about ATLA seemed to exude potential and, after being disappointed by the popular anime of the time (*cough* SAO *cough*), ATLA (and later LOK Book 1) were a breath of fresh air for my weaboo brain that was sick and tired of some really annoying tropes anime seemed to be throwing at me left right and center (I’M SO DONE WITH THE IMOUTO FETISH TO THIS DAY, I CATEGORICALLY REFUSE TO WATCH OR READ ANY DAMN STORY WITH ANYTHING FEATURING THAT GROSS AND FUCKED-UP CONCEPT).

So I enjoyed ATLA a lot, and then LOK Book 1 (I virtually watched all of that in one day and had REALLY HIGH HOPES for the next seasons. Heh. I’ll leave that as that). And like everyone who gets hyped about fandoms, I decided I needed to look up more stuff about it! Art, fics, you name it! And while I really enjoyed LOK back then, I had thought Korra’s story would unfold in a cool way in future seasons, since all four of them (I think) had been confirmed by the time I joined the fandom... whereas I was dissatisfied and in dire need of fix-it situations for my favorite ATLA character.

I started off looking for general Azula fics. Then, as usual, I started testing ships for her. There were some ships I never saw the point to, and I shall not name them, there were some ships I saw partial potential to but I wasn’t exactly thrilled about them, so again I shall not name them...

And then one day I was scouring DeviantArt and came across the gem you all know about, which I’ve gushed over for all these seven years as the entire reason I converted to this particular ship.

Secret Kiss by Saniika can be credited, 100%, for planting the seed of Sokkla in my head. I didn’t understand it right away, why lie, but I was definitely intrigued. All other Azula ships I’d found were shipped for obvious reasons, easy enough to pinpoint even if none was all that satisfactory for me... so I was confused by this one, absolutely. Why would someone ship this ship? Why would they ship it so hard as to commission such quality artwork about them? The same commissioner’s name popped up in pretty much every single epic artwork about these two at the time, and I was completely blown away by that. To be so dedicated to a ship, to make all those artworks about a huge story about them that I couldn’t seem to find in FF.net at the time...

Cue the surprise when I actually ended up befriending said commissioner barely a few months later, and she’s hands down one of the best friends I’ve ever had :’)

Still, no need to head into that particular territory right now xD I was curious about the pairing, but I was also wary. I looked for fics, none really seemed to tell canon-compliant stories about how they could have gotten together post-ATLA... at least, not while they were still young. I looked at a few stories but nothing really hit home yet.

Back in these days, I used to go to... gosh, the cringe of just saying so, to FACEBOOK for fandom purposes of all kinds. Yeah, I know Facebook communities aren’t necessarily terrible, but I sure as fuck ended up in all the wrong ones :’) so... heh. I befriended someone who had an Avatar page, and while in conversation with him, the subject of LOK’s Pro-Bending came up. We talked about how much fun it would be for ATLA’s benders to play it. And so, a few weeks later, on a bus ride back home after meeting some high school friends, I allowed the idea to blossom further. And suddenly I was 100% caught up in it, deciding I’d have to feature Azula somehow, and I decided to try my luck at doing that by making her Sokka’s girlfriend :’D his inexplicable girlfriend, at the moment. All of it, just for shits and giggles. Because why not!

So I wrote that story, both because of that momentary bout of inspiration and because my second big original story was falling apart on me due to world-building reasons. Do NOT ever talk to me about Celtic calendars. If you do, I will block you into infinity (?). So yeah! A writer’s block caused by Celtic calendars resulted in my decision to calm down by writing something else for a change.

I had little hopes to finish Origins of Pro-Bending, simply because I didn’t write fics. Whenever I had tried to write any around those years, it had NOT gone well. I had always fallen apart after a couple of chapters, failed to keep up the momentum, fumbled the story as a whole in the end. So I decided to take this easy, and I posted it to FF.net despite not being sure I was ready for that: I hadn’t written a story in English in AGES, and you do NOT want to know what was the story in English I’d written before this. You do not. If you even ask, I WILL BLOCK YOU EVEN MORE THAN I DID WITH THE CALENDAR! *heavy breathing*

Okay, so... back to the topic, I honestly didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t really expect much, because I figured not a lot of people would really care for anything I posted. But then... that view counter started to shift. The numbers kept going up, and the more chapters I posted, the more it did. The reviews also poured in, slowly at this point, and then in a certain chapter there were NO REVIEWS AT ALL. Which I considered a fail. I honestly thought it meant my story was a flop, a failure, and I should just STOP because NO ONE CARED.

... Have I ever been accused of being overly dramatic? If not, it’s only because I hide it relatively well... sometimes :’)

But I said “it’s okay, I’ll finish it. My friend wants to read it after all, and I’ll just write it so he can see it to the end. I’ll finish uploading on FF.net even if no one cares anymore, because maybe someone someday will want to read it, even if no one does now”.

... Overly dramatic Seyary then finished her story and halfway there came up with the idea for a NEW ONE! The PREQUEL! The story of how Sokka and Azula fell in love! All by listening to The Reason. And as much as I had thought I wouldn’t keep writing fics after OoPB, that idea was too powerful to ignore. So when OoPB picked up reviews and views all over again and ended with what I considered was a BANG, I said “THIS SHOW’S NOT GONNA STOP HERE!” and I went and wrote the Reason next, obsessively, literally pushing through the entire, near 100K story, in A MONTH. I honestly wrote every day. I’d NEVER done something like that :’) Granted, I was pretty constant with OoPB, but it was shorter and I wasn’t quite as psyched about it as I was with The Reason.

Honestly, The Reason is where I REALLY fell for Sokkla, for everything that it was, for everything that it could be. I had felt its potential since OoPB, and I had concluded Sokka could make Azula smile like next to no one else could... that is, if anyone else could at all. But the whole spectrum of it, the storytelling potential, the development of both characters... I hadn’t understood it yet. And by the time I did, with The Reason... wow, there really was no turning back.

So I ended up writing that, and then I wrote Break In and How They All Reacted. And in between I made a few AMVs that Viacom NICELY tore down and are no longer available for you guys. Sorry ‘bout that. I did what I could.

The thing that was getting to me most, though, (and, why lie, feeding my ego a bit too much) was looking at FF.net’s data spreadsheets, available only for each user: it wasn’t so much the number of readers, which did overwhelm me on its own right anyhow... it was the places they came from. The fact that I could see, according to this data, that people in South Africa were opening my story, in Romania, in New Zealand, in Singapore... I had allowed myself, very briefly, to imagine I would one day publish books and that they might not be complete fails, but I NEVER expected anything I wrote to be read by people who lived halfway across the world, who had entireliy different cultures from my own, who had no idea who I was but wanted to find something to read and had decided to click on my story, amongst all the many possibilities. That particular function of FF.net is probably my favorite on that site, like I said not because of the numbers but because of the places. Even if your readers aren’t outspoken or they don’t even bother favoriting, following or reviewing... they still count in ways they don’t imagine. They may just look like one more number on FF.net’s spreadsheets, but when that number is connected to a location it feels much more real, I think. As an author, that means that’s one more person, somewhere in the world, who decided to give my story a chance.

On a day of February, 2013, one such person left a review I really enjoyed and that I thanked him for profusely. In his response, he brought up that he had been watching documentaries about the Roman Empire and he had thought about an AU for ATLA where maybe Sokka was captured by the Fire Nation and turned into a gladiator, only to become Azula’s sponsored fighter later on, a fighter she’d want to sponsor merely to stave off boredom. He was bringing it up to me because he didn’t want to write it himself, and he thought maybe I would be interested in trying my hand at it since I seemed so passionate about Sokka and Azula.

At first I only thanked him for the idea, said I wanted to focus on my canon-based stories instead and I was sooooo not interested in AUs at the time...

Ahahahaha.

AHAHAHAHA.

Joke was on me the whole time.

As I’ve mentioned, I went to bed one day, about a month later, and my brain exploded with the possibilities of this story. I told this guy, he was thrilled. I told my closest fandom friends at the time, they were STOKED. One of them told me to get off my ass and start writing that ASAP. Which... I followed through with. Immediately.

It feels a bit strange to think I’ve been writing the same story for nearly 7 years now, with next to no breaks, with such persistence I barely can recognize my early 2010′s self from that. Nope, no worldbuilding nonsense stopped me here: I FIGURED THINGS OUT. I worked through it all. And then I figured it out some more.

Back when I was first scouting the fandom’s fanfiction archives (in FF.net in particular, seeing as I didn’t even have an AO3 account at the time), I remember looking at the biggest, top reviewed stories and wondering how it would feel to be the author of one of those. Most those stories had gotten started either early in the show’s run, or just earlier that same decade... nothing I did was bound to pick up that much steam, I thought, especially when I was writing about what was, by all means, a rarepair that I posted about on Tumblr to like... 8 notes per post. At best.

The first time someone sent me an ask to let me know Gladiator had made it into the first page of top reviewed fics I nearly fell over myself in shock. Admittedly, I’ve gotten used to the feeling by now... but at the time I could barely believe I’d come THAT far without really expecting or meaning to.

I’ve really dealt with a lot of nonsense alongside with the story, ups and downs, highs and lows, nasty situations just as blissful ones... people making art for my story was certainly an incredible highlight. That, as well, is something I did NOT think would ever happen to me. Unlike the top-reviewed page thing, it’s actually impossible to get used to art about your fic xD it’s always amazing.

And I’ve met people from all around the world, made friends far and wide, reached heights I didn’t think I would. I’ve said I’m much more jaded these days, it’s true enough, but that doesn’t mean I’ve lost sight of what this story means in the long run. Gladiator truly is the best story I’ve ever written, in just about every regard. Is it perfect? Have I made nothing but right decisions with it? Nah. But that doesn’t mean I’m not absolutely proud of it for what it is, for all the work I’ve poured into it, for every moment spent building that story into what it is and for how far I’ve come thanks to it.

Everything else in the decade really feels like a blur because of Gladiator, but I’ll say that I’ve as good as finished college by now (while writing Gladiator :’D), I have written all my thesis and am stuck waiting endlessly for my supervisor to goddamn answer me already to say whether I’m ready to go forward with the presentation yet and GRADUATE! But until then I’m stuck waiting on that, even if my college career is pretty much over.

As for my work experience... heh. I had two of those this decade. One... writing clickbait articles. Wow, was that shitty. I hated every second of it. I was pretty sure I was killing people by doing that, because some people are indeed gullible enough to believe the shit I was forced to write. And the pay? It was SHIT. So, as soon as I had a good excuse, I kicked that particular door shut and got out of that mess immediately. And then I got my TV station job too... which started great, and ended up being another shitty disaster. While it had some really wonderful highlights, I made friends with this senior, wonderful video editor who was endearing beyond belief, I learned a ton of things I wouldn’t have learned otherwise (like having the patience to put up with an iMac from 2009 in 2018, to name one thing!), but I also had to endure REALLY dreadful management that led me to even wonder how the damn network was even on-air half the time. The experience in that network taught me a lot about what to expect in work environments, and to NEVER trust the tried, boring and true “this place feels like a family!” claim. Half the time it’s like they don’t realize families are usually complicated, full of unpleasant power-based relationships, secrets, resentment and problems of all sorts. So sure, the workplace might be like a family. Definitely not like a GOOD family, though.

And speaking of families... I’ve developed new appreciation for mine over these years, just as I’ve grown enough to see the cracks everywhere, the problems, even all the way to realizing even an allegedly dream-like family like my own can absolutely be torn apart by miscommunication, pride, stubbornness and refusal of members to acknowledge their wrongdoings. I’ve done my best by my family despite that’s not saying much, I’m indeed a lazy butt who spends way too much time on a computer writing crazy stories rather than working around the house... but I think I’ve never felt more loved and appreciated by my parents as I have in recent times, especially this year. We’ve talked more, opened up more, they’ve even told me the story of how they fell in love (the growth of their relationship all documented through PHOTO ALBUMS!!), they’ve leaned on me in hard times and I think we’re tighter than ever.

On the downside... my grandfather died during this decade too. To this day the loss stings, even though by all means we weren’t the type of super-close grandfather and granddaughter who spend every waking moment together. But the thing is... we were so different, with so little in common, and yet that man loved me so genuinely, so unconditionally I could barely understand it. What had I ever done to be so important to him, beyond being his youngest granddaughter? I always had thought he would feel closer to other of his grandchildren, those who had more things in common with him, and yet when my grandmother died he wanted me to sit with him on the car on our way to the funeral, and just holding my hand seemed to help him gain strength to face what was coming.

In his final moments he hardly recognized anyone, not even my dad, his son. He kept talking about his childhood home, as though he had returned to his youth and forgotten where and when he was, losing all connection with time and space. But when my dad told him I was there, visiting him... he smiled. And he called me the nickname he always used for me. To the last moment, he knew who I was. I mattered, even if I didn’t know why. When they told me he had passed away I cried, and I cried some more, and to this day I feel like crying for it still, sometimes. I will never, EVER doubt my grandfather truly loved me, and I’ll always carry that with me, no matter where the world goes. I’ve lucked out with this family, but I’d never known unconditional love like the one he always showed me. He was a special man, and losing him certainly was one of the saddest moments in this decade.

Aaalright, so, on a less emotional note... I’ve certainly improved a fuckload with my art, which you all must imagine after the glimpse at one of my earliest artworks up there. That I’ve gone from that to this...

speaks for itself, I hope :’) It’s supposed to be same characters, this one was finished earlier this month. I didn’t post it until now because I frankly didn’t expect anyone would understand what it was or care for it much x’D but it seemed the right opportunity to post it now, especially when talking about art growth.

In any case, I may still have a ton of anxiety to this day, and I definitely am not as confident in many areas as I was when the decade began, I realized I honestly don’t have all the answers and I always have to be ready to learn new things from people, no matter who it is. There’s some regards in which I haven’t progressed enough in, why lie... but I’m hoping the next decade will bring meaningful changes in that department, such as my plans to leave the country, which should come to fruition by next year around March, if all things go according to keikaku (I’ll surely have to return after 6 months, but it’s better than nothing at least). And of course, I do hope I’ll continue to grow as a writer, that all this experience with Gladiator will mean I’ll be 100% ready to write any future original stories I want to (and that I’ll be able to rewrite that specific story and move beyond the slump I fell into because of the DAMN CELTIC CALENDAR!!).

Also, just in case I didn’t get it across in other posts where I mentioned it, I revisited that old original story last year, and despite the messes and mistakes and ridiculousness of it... I love it more now than I ever did before. I’m really proud of it. I know most people cringe at everything they wrote when they were younger... I honestly can’t do anything but look back in pride. My starting point was the best one it could possibly have been.

Now, what’s my resolution for the next decade?

Finishing Gladiator

Yeah, there’s probably going to be other stuff I’ll want to do too. But for now, that shall be the priority. It won’t take just a year, it probably won’t take two... but I will absolutely see this big, chaotic baby to the last moment, and I will savor and suffer and cry and rejoice every step of the way. There is much left I want to achieve, many new objectives to conquer, and I’m going towards them with as open a mind as I can muster. May this 2020, and the years that follow, mark a new starting point that I’ll look back on with pride, just as I can do the same with where I started off in 2010.

Happy New Year to all of you who read this really long post, and I really hope you have a great year and decade, and starting point of your own, in 2020.

#seyary rambling #sorta personal but #you're all welcome to read it #if you have like #20+ minutes to spare #did anyone ever praise me for brevity #no they did not #should i be proud of that #no i am not #that's one more thing I probably should learn in the coming decade #to cut myself slack #and my words #because I ramble too much :')#anyhow #happy new year to all of you through the tags in case you don't care to read the post #it has been one really crazy decade #one I never expected to end the way it is ending #but admittedly I've come much further than I ever thought I would #may the next decade be better though

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quietlysatan · 5 years

Text

An Invincible Summer - ShanaStoryteller, AO3

Link: Here!!

Rating: T for read the warnings, but don’t worry too much because of them

Favorite Quote(s): I legit wanna tattoo this next quote on me somewhere

"Oh, the things that can be accomplished through ignorance of their impossibility,"

And this Straight Up Fact

“There’s no such thing as cheating as long as you win,” Natsu says, and the brat’s not wrong.

This one’s just funny

“Chouza,” Inoichi forces himself to say evenly, “Your teachings produced Ebisu and goddamned Gai.”

“Genma’s pretty normal though,” Chouza sighs, “I never could get through to that boy.”

Gently Gai casually caring about Kakashi’s well-being is my entire reason for living, speaking of which if someone wants to come be my Gai that’d be really fucking nice because us Kakashi’s don’t do too well on our own

He hesitates, but says, "Not that I do not find your newfound mentorship to be a most youthful endeavor, but -"

"I don't know," Kakashi interrupts his friend, "I met her while she was taking her genin exam and she, I don't know, adopted me or something. She just keeps showing up."

Gai nods thoughtfully, "Stubbornness is a useful skill to have when trying to cultivate a friendship with you." Kakashi elbows the other man, but doesn't protest besides that. "She's a good cook."

And this one because I love it when people Get It, ya’know?

That's really why he won't say anything, why he won't reveal that the Kyuubi's container and the fourth Hokage's child is still alive: they already killed him once. Naruto and Shikamaru are the same age, they would have been in the same class, and the idea that anyone could want to harm his innocent, precious son makes his blood boil

And this one, for accuracy

"This sounds like a most youthful endeavor. I will bring Anko! She will fan the flames of youth in our young Konoha blossom!"

Both Itachi and Kakashi look at Gai, horrified. "Please don't," Itachi says weakly, like he knows it'll fall on deaf ears but he has to try anyway.

"Don't worry," Gai attempts to assure them, going into his Good Guy pose, "They will produce youthful flames of feminine excellence!"

"They're going to burn down Konoha," Kakashi says flatly.

Gai's hair and teeth sparkle in the sunlight, and he doesn't attempt to deny it.

Another important one

"The world is a terrible place," she says, and she has to swallow before she speaks again, "and it's full of terrible people. But I don't have to be one of them."

I love that Natsu-chan has great balance, this is my number one favorite character trope, and I wish more people would write it

She bends down to look at him upside down, and Itachi can feel that she's not using chakra to stick onto him, and sometimes her balance just isn't logical.

I just love the idea of tiny genius Naruto, and I love that Natsu-chan is a seal master at like, fucking seven and a half lol

Itachi knows it's actually far more complicated than that, but just as he does not tell her minutia of the past shinobi wars in their history lessons, she does not overcomplicate her explanations of sealing. Usually he's grateful for that, but when she appears to break every known law to sealing and chakra, he's not.

"That's," he blinks and he's not going to tell her it's impossible because it clearly isn't, "new," he settles on.

A mood honestly

Inoichi now feels the urge to bang his head against the table top, because 'a huge pain' to Natsu is 'literally impossible' to everyone else.

Another mood honestly

Inoichi watches his former genin dig in with resignation. “When are you guys going to start picking up the tab? Feeding you all isn’t cheap you know.”

Hana swallows her mouthful, “Sensei, I am but a lone healer’s apprentice –“

“I have been a chunin less than a month,” Kabuto pouts, wounded, “and already you seek to profit-“

“Do you have any idea how much sealing paper and ink costs?” Natsu demands.

“Okay, okay,” Inoichi grumbles, but it’s not very effective considering he’s smiling, “I take it back, jeez.”

Okay so, since this is a 100k+ word fic, I’ve been doing this thing lately literally just now on this fic review where I only feature quotes from the first chapter (Depending on length.) but, I’m making an exception because I’ve never seen these three characters and my thoughts on them summed up so well by someone I don’t know which is to say anyone, no one I know cares about my interests really lol

"Maybe a little," he admits grudgingly, "Sakura's really smart, but she acts dumb for some reason. And her endurance is really bad. She probably would have been failed on that alone if she didn't have such good aim with shuriken. And Sasuke's good at like, everything, I still don't get why he didn't graduate earlier. He's just so-" Kiba rubs his hand over his face.

"So what?" Hana prompts, even though she's heard this particular complaint before.

"Sad," the genin sighs, "He's miserable all the time, and he works hard and if you yell at him for long enough he'll work with you, but - crap, I don't know. He's got this really great poker face so you think he's just a big jerk, but I can smell his emotions, the big idiot, and he's just this sad lonely kid who won't listen to anyone."

Hana hums, because if she opens her mouth she'll probably start cursing the Hokage and his dumb rules and his dumb ideas, and that is not the type of thing that leads to a long life.

Just one last quote because dudes, guys, pals, friends of mine it’s important and you should all stop and read it.

“Thanks for being cool with – everything. I’m really happy you’re not mad at me for not being honest with you.”

“You are my friend,” Gaara says warmly, “and you have always been honest about that.”

Words & Chapter(s): 136,306 words of greatness, and 6 full chapters of nicely done completion

Summary: When Naruto is five, he's gutted by a drunken civilian and presumed dead.

Six months later a girl with ash pale hair and dark blue eyes enters the Academy.

(Guys I swear on my cool as fuck username, and all around internet personality as practically satan and probably Lucifer and whatnot that nobody we like stays dead or severely injured)

Score: 13, this is one of my favorites for a reason, this is actually my second technically third time rereading this in as many weeks

Pairing(s): Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka, background Haku/Zabuza, but don’t worry anything you’re thinking of is addressed quite nicely in the fic ultra background but still there’s a lot of relationships and I’m not going to tag them all

Warning(s): Naruto technically dies more than once because this is Naruto we’re talking about but they also technically don’t??? You gotta read it, but basically temporary character death, only the bad guys stay dead in this one.

Nobody knows that Naru-chan lived so there’s that angst for you, however, to be fair it’s not like this whole story is just characters mourning and crying and whatnot, at this point it’s mostly just passing thoughts and memories which, again, to be fair, does almost feel worse at times... Huh, regardless it’s not overly angsty

Kakashi is adopted whether he likes it or not by Natsu-chan, we love both of our emotionally fucked over fair-haired ninja in this house so you won’t have to worry about that sorta fic coming outta nowhere from me BTW... but anyways, Kakashi freaks out a bit, much like the abused dog he always reminds me of, but Natsu is the sweetest and most gentle, yet forceful person he could’ve possibly caught the attention of. (This is canon)

The Akatsuki are still bad, BUT ITACHI ISN’T technically SO WHO FUCKING CARES!!!! (The Massacre still happens tho...)

Mentions of The Flower District and what that implies, and also things a Kunoichi might definitely do

Oh my fucking god the Hyuga... Who would willingly do something so horrible as that? Of all the things... Warning for... The Hyuga branch family situation, it’s dealt with nearly as soon as we are informed but, gods, my blood ran cold, and my face whited out, my sister thought someone had died when she saw my face haha,,, who the fuck does this? And do they die? In canon I mean? I think I only watched up to the chunin exams or Pein’s attack, I can’t remember which tho...

Natsu cries because people are nice to her sometimes. And honestly that’s fair, I burst into to tears once because I imagined someone kissing my forehead softly so, Natsu is completely valid... Sidenote, I’m touch-starved and have no cure for this beyond younger siblings and my cat because I don’t have the ability to ask my mom for a hug without literally gross sobbing and I have A Thing about embarrassment sooooo... yeah if anyone has some therapy justu for me that’d be nice

Mentions of Gross Men that apparently want to have Natsu’s increasingly growing collection of the absolute most dangerous people she can befriend pay them a visit. And by that, I mean an old fuckwit has the gall to leer at a TEN-YEAR-OLD and a FUCKING THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD!!!!!! Ugh, I hate those kinds of pathetic worms.

On that note, there is technically underaged things going on, but they are also Ninja soooo???? They’ve killed people and are technically in their version of an army, and by the laws of their lands they’re all adults, actually I’m pretty sure by shinobi life expectancy Kakashi is middle-aged, Inoichi is a senior citizen, and Hiruzen is a walking corpse tbh

Alcoholism??? I don’t really think it is but I’m not sure, but some characters do drink often, and usually when stressed courtesy of Natsu and co. but still... I don’t actually know if it is because it doesn’t actually happen much, more like every few weeks/months

Mentions of past sexual assault, and attempted past sexual assault, neither happen in fic or to any of our main characters, the experiences are not graphic though they do talk about it in chapter five, it’s not to graphically described.

Also, a bunch of off-screen lemon

A Thing (That I copy-pasted from the author so that all of you will see it and not say a single word against it.): If you thought Natsu was too mature for her age - she has seen and been through some really horrible shit. But also: my cousin has, since he was like 4, hung out with kids that were about 4 years older than him because those were the kids that were in his neighborhood or whatever. Point being, even after he started school, his main group of friends was consistently older than him. He very quickly adapted to that, and to this day (he's 12) hangs out with that same group, and considers children his own age 'kids' because he adapted to the behavior of the group he was surrounded with. I hardly believe Natsu would be any different.

And also

4. Quick little note because some people mentioned liking my portrayal of the Sandaime. I base his decisions/motivations (and Itachi and Danzo's to a certain extent) around this quote by Clementine von Radics: "It is so hard to live half monster, to hurt everything you love by trying to protect it wrong."

Pros: Watching Natsu just casually disregard the idea of gender with little to no thought is the greatest thing anyone will ever experience beyond, I dunno, the party we’re all gonna collectively throw when soggy Cheeto dies (I still haven’t decided which song we should make chart number one when that happens)

Given that I’ve technically read this three times you should already know the writing is fucking amazing, like, whoa, mind blown type of amazing, like, wow, so good, I usually hate rereading something I’ve read before, and especially so soon after the fact but geez Louis is this fic amazing

Natsu is just as easy to fall in love with as Naruto, and they are still the same people with slightly different personalities as is to be realistically expected with a situation like Naru’s was.

Also, GENDERFLUID REPRESENTATION DONE FUCKING AMAZINGLY IS ALWAYS A PLUS!!!!!!!

The author manages to convey a very realistic genderfluid character in an incredibly believable manner, while also still keeping Natsu/Naruto themself. They’re still the Naruto that we knew and loved, but they’re different too, as is to be expected. when Natsu is a girl no-one stumbles, she is a girl without a doubt, even the author doesn’t trip up on societal expectations, and when Naruto is a boy there is next to immediate acceptance of this fact with absolutely zero (0) Zero bullshit from transphobes, which, as a genderfluid person myself, is always fucking nice to see. You’ll have to read it to know more though.

Natsu running around creating seals is honestly the greatest thing ever, and the end scene with the village made me cry a lil bit, and dammit this fic is so fucking good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, there’s a scene, where Natsu heals Kakashi, and the way the author handled explaining the intimate not sexual relationship between two of my favorite characters ever is just, so subtly beautiful, the sibling-bond these two have is beautiful, and a part of me wants to cry sometimes when I read it, and usually do cry a little when I get to this scene, and only partially because of what happened directly before it.

I love the way everybody just gets up and moves past their trauma and just decides to politely ignore it, oh they still have it, they still deal with it, but they care, and they are careful about it, and even though it hurts them like a knife-wound to the kidney in slow-motion they still get back up and keep fucking going. That’s hella admirable and I can respect that, I can respect even more that they slowly but surely let themselves heal as time moves on. This fic is beautiful on so many different levels but it is this one perhaps, that is the most magnificent. Perhaps.

Sasuke is adorable and depressing and adorable and I love it. And Ino is still a bad bitch but she’s a kid so we only see it like a handful of times in the first two chapters. The Akimichi/Yamanaka/Nara are all great, and I occasionally pity Inionchicause like, he’s putting up with a well-informed seal genius that’s still hyper, a slightly frightening medic-kunoichi with giant dogs, another slightly more frightening medic-nin who isn’t the greatest fighter but damn can he be intimidating and also really good at pointing out “Certain Things” while judging you about them which, honestly, is my greatest pastime. Itachi is so sweet and then so tragic oh my gods, and Natsu never even considers giving up on him. Kakashi is so sweet, and he slowly becomes less of a beaten dog as time goes on and I just love all of these characters.

Except for Hiruzen. Well, no, I still love this particular incarnation of Hiruzen, for all that he’s got one hell of a pathetically small backbone, I get why he does shit. But that doesn’t make me happy. Still, he’s better than dumbledouchebag. Granted that’s not difficult, and you might have to actively put an effort in to be as bad as that guy, but still. Plus, his hearts in the right place, and he’s less about the greater good then... certain disgraces to teaching and being in charge of a large group of people... Hiruzen is actually kinda sweet and admits he has issues and actually has an excuse that’s understandable for the shit that he pulls which is great, if sadly uncommon.

Anyways, Sakura is terrifying, and I remembered why I had a crush on her. She’s so badass, also, she ends up Princess Mononoke basically which, honestly, is fucking great, and the best thing we could’ve asked for, I love all of these characters so much!!!

Aesthetic: It reminds me off beefy stew (We don’t eat beef, so we used vegan soy beef stuff instead, and it was just as good.) it reminds me of the warmth, and friendship, and home that I felt after my mom and I make dinner together with nothing but a little music on and jokes passing back and forth between us. It reminds me of scraping my knee and having my friends help me to their mom, it reminds me of loyalty and compassion. It reminds me of dancing outside at night, alone in the forest with nothing but the moon for company and wind for music. It reminds me of the first time I realized that I could love someone despite their gender and that I should despite mine. It reminds me of finely spun handmade lace, and all it’s delicate while also reminding me of the sturdiest of steels, it reminds me of so much. It reminds me of acceptance, and understanding, and so much more. If I were to say what food and drink it reminds me of, I’d say chicken noodle soup, and sweet lavender-lemon tea.

Music Aesthetic: So, I made a playlist while I was reading this the first time around, and instead of a gif or twenty like I would usually prefer to do I’m going to add that playlist. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbhXmTSBbAyjk0m1b4BZUp3t0RHL83LDK

But if I were to add a gif or two it’d be these

Because something about this fic reminds me of rainy days with tea and baggy clothes.

Every time Natsu/Naruto decided to fight ever, to be honest.

#sasunaru #naruto x sasuke #Sasuke x Naruto #Satan has great taste in: SasuNaru #kakairu #Satan has great taste in: KakaIru #long fic #Long Read #over 100k #Naruto #It's another Naruto one #sasuke #fem!naruto #sorta #genderfluid!naruto #give it a chance #trust me #fic rec

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win-magazine · 4 years

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What Students Have Taught Me About Wrestling

By Tucker Lane

(Editor’s Note: The following is an expanded column by former Nebraska wrestler Tucker Lane that appeared in the Feb. 21, 2020 issue of WIN Magazine. Click here or call 888-305-0606 to subscribe to WIN Magazine.)

Up until April 2018, I had spent my entire life immersed in the sport of wrestling. Wrestling was, for me, everything good and bad, happy and sad. It gave me a purpose and pastime; it gave me a friend and an enemy.

For a long time, I never gave this fact much consideration, but as the days became the months became the years, I began to realize that if wrestling was my story, and if I were the stereotypical narcissist who only cared about his own story, then all that mattered was wrestling. And if this were the case, and the only thing that mattered was this wrestling story that was 29 years in the making, then the only people, places, and things that mattered were the people, places, and things that were a part of this story. This realization terrified me.

I gave up wrestling for a variety of reasons, but if I’m being completely honest, the chief among these was that I wanted to see if I could survive in life outside of my little wrestling story. Thus far, “surviving” is, in fact, the most adequate description of how things are going. I haven’t been able to find a job, not necessarily because I’m completely unemployable, but because the years of adulation I received for wrestling have increased my sense of worth to the point where I don’t particularly feel like starting over as a grunt in the real world, slinging used cars for some owner who is probably going to try and skim my commish. My social life hasn’t exactly taken off, and my only friends continue to be former wrestlers. When I tell this to people, they think I’m exaggerating—and I wish I were—but if you told me that I had to go out with a friend for happy hour on Friday evening, and that friend had to be someone who had never wrestled before in his life, then I have absolutely no idea who I would call to be my wingman. And I frequently draw strange stares from the ladies at my local gym when I use the yoga area as a mat to practice my penetration step.

I’ve been eating a lot of Dollar General tuna while stuck in wrestling purgatory, and in order to pay the bill, I’ve been shoveling some sidewalks and taking on temporary work where I can. I also substitute teach with great frequency, anything from elementary special needs on the poor side of town to senior-level AP Physics for teenagers driving Lexuses. In this diverse sample of our local community’s population, I see a fair amount of wrestling gear floating around in classrooms. I will always ask the standard questions when I see a student repping something wrestling-related: When does your season start? What weight class are you going to wrestle at this season? How many years have you been wrestling?

The responses are usually pretty standard, although rarely more than one word. It’s tough to get kids to answer any question that they know they’re not getting a grade or extra credit for. Nonetheless, I have gotten more than a handful of eyebrow-raising replies that lend perspective on a couple of questions that have been debated ad nauseum within the wrestling community. While I have held a very specific opinion on these issues for a good while, the responses of these students made me realize that my opinion on these matters was influenced entirely by those characters who were a part of my wrestling story. When hearing how these issues are viewed by people to whom wrestling is but a mere footnote, or, sadly, a superfluous paragraph that has been edited out, it makes one realize just how significant these points are for the continued prosperity of the sport.

The first topic that has surfaced in my experience as a substitute teacher is the question of what to do about singlets. I was wearing a singlet in my earliest baby pictures. I have never had even a remote hesitation about wearing a singlet. It’s just how people dress in my life’s story–they wear singlets. To college wrestlers who have a high level of investment in the sport and bodies that rival comic book superheroes, singlets are no big deal, either. And, as I quickly learned from my aforementioned local gym, people embrace the idea of singlets and spandex with open arms as they get older. My gym is filled with spandex. People who shouldn’t be wearing spandex are wearing spandex. It’s everywhere. Spandex shirts, spandex shorts, spandex leggings. So much spandex.

But to kids who are unsure about how they feel about themselves and whose interest level in wrestling is marginal, singlets are a big deal. In some cases, as I have learned in the past year, they become a make-or-break deal.

“Hey, I like your shirt, buddy! Are you excited for wrestling season?”

“I did wrestling last year, but my other friends who didn’t do wrestling always called me spandex-boy, so I don’t know if I’m doing it again this year.”

Another interaction after a kid noticed me wearing a wrestling polo to class.

“Mister, are you a wrestling coach?”

“I was a wrestling coach! Are you a wrestler, too?”

“My mom wants me to join this year. Does the wrestling team play in those stretchy suits?”

“In a singlet? That’s what the uniform is called for competition.”

“A singlet? You have to wear that during games?”

“Well, yeah, you wear it during matches…”

“Oh…”

Finally, the following exchange happened one day when an announcement was made to excuse all students who wanted to attend the wrestling meeting for the middle school team:

“Do I have any students interested in wrestling?”

“I ain’t interested in wearing spandex!”

“I didn’t ask if you were interested in wearing spandex. I asked if I have any students interested in wrestling.”

“Maybe I would be if I didn’t have to wear that onesie. But you’ll never catch me in spandex.”

Now, I understand that many children like to make excuses and that some can be very cruel. If they can’t use spandex as a cop-out for not joining the team, then they’ll find another reason to decline; if they can’t tease their wrestling peers about wearing singlets, they’ll unearth another means of harassment. However, the fact that the singlet continues to pervade promulgates an issue that doesn’t need to exist. From peewees through college, the vast majority of participants practice in t-shirt and shorts and compete in a singlet. I can’t think of any other sport where the practice attire differs from what is worn in competition. Clearly, coaches don’t feel like t-shirts and shorts present a safety issue, or they would require their athletes to practice in a singlet. Perhaps they believe that t-shirts and shorts present the opportunity for opponents to grab and gain a competitive advantage. Well, the headgear has presented this same opportunity for years, and officials have managed to keep such violations to a minimum.

From a participation standpoint, there is no downside to the sport making a wholesale transition to the fight short/compression shirt look for competition. The popularization of MMA has been a major positive for wrestling, highlighting the sport as an essential fundamental discipline for MMA success and giving high-level wrestlers an outlet to make professional money that is commensurate with their ability levels. Wrestling would be wise to continue to capitalize on MMA’s exposure and compete in gear that is more consistent with that worn by professional mixed martial artists. For every parent that has questions about wrestling branding itself so closely to an overtly violent sport, I truly believe, based on my aforementioned examples, that the sport would see triple that amount of youth who would not have been interested in wrestling if the singlet were still used. Just look at the merchandise store at wrestling camps for further proof of the branding potential of this alternative look. Fight shorts sell like wildfire, while singlets just sit there on the table. It makes sense, too. Fans enjoy wearing their New York Yankees baseball caps and Dallas Cowboys jerseys out in public. They can do the same with their favorite wrestling team’s fight shorts—not necessarily their favorite wrestling team’s singlet. I strongly encourage any coach, at any level of the sport, to switch to this updated look the next time they are due for new uniforms.

My time as an underachieving substitute has also shone new light on the tournament versus duals debate. To someone with a story like mine, sitting through wrestling tournaments is just one of the facts of life, something that just is, nothing to be discussed or argued about because on the weekends, wrestlers go to wrestling tournaments. A wrestler’s weekend residence is a stuffy high school gym or chilly multi-use arena, and to be evicted from that residence without the chance of being crowned champion is as uncomfortable to the wrestler as it is to the citizen who shows up to an apartment for which the key no longer works. Unfortunately, for the non-wrestler, or for those who are just dabbling, squatting in rigid-back bleachers and munching on concession-stand nachos all day is, itself, the very definition of uncomfortable, as demonstrated by the following examples.

When I saw one of my students wearing the t-shirt of a well-known local youth club, I asked him how many years he had wrestled for them:

“I wrestled for them in first, second, and third grade, but I’m not wrestling for them this year.”

“Why not? Did you sign up for another club?”

“No, my dad said that he doesn’t want me to do wrestling this year because the tournaments take too long. He likes to do family activities on the weekend and since wrestling takes all day on Saturday, we can’t do anything except for Sunday. He is signing me up for basketball because the games are shorter.”

I asked another student in a wrestling hoodie about the upcoming season and got the following response:

“I don’t know if I’m going to be on the wrestling team this year. My mom works at night on the weekends and because the games take so long, she can’t find anyone to pick me up once they’re over. She’s still trying to figure it out because she knows I really want to be on the team this year.”

And finally:

“I haven’t done wrestling since I was in elementary. My parents got mad because we were at one of the tournaments for a really long time, but we were at the wrong mat and I missed my first match. So they took me out after that year.”

Clearly, tournament wrestling is confusing, uncomfortable, and inconvenient for the marginally committed consumer. Unlike switching from singlets to more modernized uniforms, however, making the switch from tournaments to duals is more complicated. First, tournament wrestling has become big business in the wrestling community. Youth mega tournaments and tournament series have exploded since the turn of the century. In this same timeframe, the NCAA Division I Championships have blossomed as the marquee spectacle of the sport, going from an event that wouldn’t sell out a college arena to packing nationally renowned venues. It has grown to the point that the NCAA decided to move the 2020 championships to a state-of-the-art NFL stadium, and all-session passes approach $300 per person. Proponents of the status quo can easily point to this and argue that there is no need to mess with a good thing. Why should we focus on switching to duals when there is such growth in tournament wrestling?

Tournament wrestling is also supported by coaches who want to get their kids mat time. In a single-contest dual, there is only the chance to get your starting lineup one match a piece. In a tournament setting, coaches are usually able to enter as many kids as they can, and even their lesser wrestlers are guaranteed at least two matches. I argue that more mat time is not necessarily a good thing. Without delving into the overuse injury and burnout arguments, focusing strictly on making wrestling a more sellable product, I believe that wrestling so many matches in a year devalues the sport. Urgency and hype are generated when the focus is on fewer contests. Would MMA be as popular if competitors fought 30-40 bouts a year? Would football be the most watched televised sport if your favorite team played four games a week? Yes, the violent nature of these sports makes increased competitions prohibitive, but I believe this restriction actually helps them generate interest. Viewers don’t have the “there’s another match in a couple of hours” argument as an excuse for not tuning in.

Finally, many coaches don’t like scheduling duals because of forfeits. There isn’t much sense in using a competition date when my team has eight wrestlers and your team has 10 wrestlers and we only overlap at five weight classes. Despite significant thought on this topic, I haven’t been able to come up with a solution that doesn’t open a pandora’s box of other issues. I do, however, believe that this is a classic catch-22: We don’t wrestle duals because we don’t have enough wrestlers and we don’t have enough wrestlers because we don’t wrestle duals.

I hope that no one has interpreted this as a doom-and-gloom piece on the state of wrestling. In many ways, the sport is more popular than it has ever been, thanks, in large part, to the exciting surge in women’s wrestling and the outstanding work of the sport’s many dynamic social media personalities. But I believe wrestling can be substantially more popular in 2020 on if coaches make the commitment to move away from the singlet and make their competition schedules more dual-meet heavy. These aren’t the only two challenges that the sport is facing in the public school system (cell phone addiction, participation-ribbon culture, low budgets, year-round club domination, shortage of quality coaches), but they are the two issues that surface frequently enough to inspire me to set aside the Dollar General tuna and get down to the public library to write about wrestling again.

(Tucker Lane is a former wrestler and wrestling coach. He is the author of Love in the Time of Likes, a novel about a high school wrestling coach who explores the world of online dating. He also co-hosts the Four-Point Nearfall podcast, available on all major listening apps, which discusses action in the Big XII Conference. Please visit his website www.tuckerlane.org and leave him feedback on this article.)

For more like this subscribe to WIN Magazine here: http://bit.ly/WIN-subscription

#wrestling #college wrestling #iowa wrestling #penn st wrestling #penn state wrestling #college wrestler #college wrestlers

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xxgoblin-dumplingxx · 5 years

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The Eel River Inn (6/?)

Bucky Barnes is nervous for this date. It’s his first real date in almost 70 years. It doesn’t matter that you’ve already slept with him. It doesn’t matter that he knows some of your most painful secrets. He wants to do this right. He wants you to cuddle into his arms tonight and feel butterflies in your tummy as he kisses you goodnight. You deserve to be spoiled and petted. You deserve to have someone worship the ground you walk on.

He wants it to be him. He wants you to run to him when the world is too big and too harsh. He wants you to be his to protect. His peace in the storm. As he shaved and dressed, he felt shabby and he hoped he wouldn’t embarrass you. He hadn’t planned on going anywhere fancy. Maybe a dive bar for a beer. His jeans had holes and he did his best to shine his boots and find a not threadbare shirt.

His hands are trembling and his stomach is in knots. When he hears your truck he almost jumps out of his skin. He goes to the door and opens it, throwing his jacket over his shoulder. He isn’t ready for what you look like though. Your butter yellow dress, red lips, dainty white flats and hair in soft curls framing your face. His every daydream during the war come to life. When you smile at him, he can’t help but grin at you. “You look beautiful,” he says warmly, kissing you hello. You turn the cutest shade of pink he’s ever seen and bite your lip, “I clean up okay for a grease monkey,” you say with a shrug. Bucky frowns and tilts your chin up, “Doll, you gotta be kidding me. I’m gonna be watching you like a hawk all night just to keep other guys from trying to steal you away. You are everything I ever dreamed about when I was stuck in Germany... A whole daydream come to life.” You look up at him from under your lashes. Most of the time you felt like you were impersonating a girl instead of being one. You spent so long covered in grease and sweat. Being one of the boys to protect yourself from the constant barrage of toxic masculinity and empty swinging dick talk. “I think you’re beautiful all the time,” he whispered conspiratorially, “But you caught me off guard, Doll. I thought you were gonna take it easy on me now that you know I’m a senior citizen.”

That coaxes a laugh out of you, easy and carefree, “Lord,” you say, rolling your eyes. But you pull him into a kiss that tells him all the things you can’t say and he melts into you. When you pull away, he isn’t nervous anymore. This is exactly what he wants. You’re his, covered in grease or dressed like a daydream. “So, where to, Sweetheart?” he asked, opening the passenger door of your truck for you and helping you inside. “Out of the parking lot and to the left,” you say, kissing his cheek. He does as you tell him, holding your hand except for when he needs to shift gears.

When he pulls up in the parking lot of the drive-in movie, you smile at him and kiss the hand you’re holding, “I decided I’d rather make you watch a movie with me,” you say at his amused glance. “I want a cuddle and I want to eat popcorn while watching Giant monsters fight.” He kisses your cheek and smiles, “I’ll get the popcorn, Doll.” He hops out of the truck and strolls through the lanes of cars. He’d only ever really seen one of these things in movies. He figured they were extinct. Like Dodos or Lemmings. He buys popcorn and sodas, ignoring the looks his hand gets. The hand you kiss without thinking about it when he touches your cheek with it.

When he gets back to you, you cuddle into his side and put your feet on the seat next to you, happily munching on popcorn. Bucky relaxes into the moment. It’s mundane and you’re just so pretty. When you look up at him, happy and smiling, he wants to tell you that he loves you but he makes himself stay quiet.

The movie ends and Bucky drives to your house, he doesn’t hesitate. He carries you into the house and up to your room. Your dress and his clothes litter the floor but he doesn’t make love to you, he pulls you into his arms and relishes the warmth of your body, He listens to you falling asleep, your hand on his heart. He lets himself fall asleep, his arms around you. It feels right.

It feels right with you right up until you have to leave for your flight. When he kisses you goodbye, you promise to call him when the plane lands. He promises to be safe going back to New York. You pull him down to kiss him again and smile, “I miss you and I’m not even on the plane yet,” you tell him. He smiles and kisses your forehead, “Don’t worry, Doll,” he says, “I won’t stay away long. You’re my best girl. I love you too much to...” he stops and his cheeks turn red. He hadn’t meant to say it. He’d meant to wait. But when he looks at your face, you’ve gone from the brink of tears to smiling, “I love you, too.” He laughs and pulls you into a kiss that bruises your lips. You almost miss your flight because you just can’t stop kissing him. But as you walk away from him it takes all your self-control not to turn back around. Not to run back into his arms. Bucky has to physically hold onto the railing to keep from chasing you.

He wants to run right back to your house. To your bed. He wants to lay in the rumpled bedding and find himself over and over again as you say his name and plead so prettily for more. He’d discovered a lot about your likes and dislikes this week. You liked to take charge about as often as you liked him to be in charge. The more of your buttons he could find the more he liked them. You were a goddess between the sheets and he knew that he’d start craving you soon. That he’d be desperate to be with you again before it had been a few days. It was everything about you that drew him in and made him want to stay. Not just the sex but the feel of the air when you walked into a room. The energy changed. Everything got warmer and softer. You were home, he knew. It didn’t matter where he went, you would always be home.

With nothing to do but mope and be sad on the plane, you turn your attention to work, pulling your laptop out of your bag. It’s a long flight and you know you won’t sleep, not when the feel of Bucky’s last kiss is still making you tingle. You figure if you can focus you might be able to write a decent climax to a love story before the plane lands.

You can’t.

You get hit with a rush of feelings and sit in the seat, head on the window and your arms wrapped around yourself feeling vulnerable and exposed. By the time your flight lands your brain has settled on “Crushing Depression” and Lady is practically climbing into your lap trying to fix it. You’re too numb to even cry as you go to get your bag. You just want to go home. Fuck the movie deal. Fuck meeting that actor who likes your work. You just want to sleep.

But first, you call Bucky. “Hey, Handsome,” you say when he says hello.

Bucky can hear a shift in your tone of voice. You’re always fairly quiet spoken and the forced nature of your current talking volume is super evident. “You okay, baby?” he asks. The question makes you want to cry but instead, you force yourself to say, “I’m okay, just tired.” He doesn’t believe you. You don’t sound okay. You sound like you need someone to be there. “Y/N,” he said gently, pausing in the process of packing his bags to head back to New York, “You take care of yourself, you hear me?” He can hear Lady’s tags jingle and the soft thud of a trunk closing. “I’m okay,” you insist, “Just... missing you. I always deal with feelings when I have to leave the house. I just have a couple extra piled on today.” He smiles a little, “I’m here whenever you need me,” he says, “Just call.”

“I love you,” you say. “I love you, too Doll.” he says. The line goes dead and he snorts. You hate talking on the phone. He’s actually a little surprised you didn’t just text him.

You bury yourself in work to cope with your feelings, texting Bucky pictures of funny things and wtf things that you see running around in LA.

Bucky tries to hide his feelings for you, maintaining his privacy a while longer but, during training with Steve when his phone chimes that he has a message and he stops mid punch to dodge out of the way to answer it, Steve has had enough. “Bucky,” he says, “What the fuck are you doing?” Natasha strolls over, “More accurately, who are you doing?” she asks smirking.

Bucky feels his cheeks color and Steve gapes at him for a second, “You got a girlfriend?” That makes Bucky smile. He hadn’t asked you or anything. But you loved him. “What’s her name?” Nat asked nudging his shoulder playfully. “Y/N,” he says, “She’s an author.” Steve punches Bucky’s flesh arm and laughs, “I should have known you wouldn’t stay in some backwater little town for anything short of a girl.” Bucky rolls his eyes and Nat smiles, “Got a picture?” she asks.

“A clothed picture,” Steve jokes earning a look from Bucky. “They’re all clothed,” he says mildly, “She’s a good girl, a real sweetheart. I was roaming around town looking for a bite to eat and she asked me if I was lost after I damn near knocked her over.” He scrolls for his favorite picture of you. You’re walking across the yard with a rag in your hands and Lady by your side. There’s grease on your face and your hair is in a bun, caught up in your hat to keep it out of your face. You’d been working on a neighbor’s car. A single mom with 3 kids who couldn’t afford a mechanic in town so she paid you in her kids doing your yard work and looking after your house when you traveled. You’re mid step and laughing at the kids who are pestering you about spoilers for your new book. He didn’t know what it was his favorite, only that it was. Natasha smiled, “She’s a cutie,” she said, “A little more ‘girl next door’ than bombshell but she suits you.” Steve takes a look and smiles a little, “Nah,” Steve said, “That’s his type. It’s always been his type. She looks like trouble.”

“For an author, she looks like she doesn’t spend much time writing,” Natasha observed. Bucky shrugged, “She studied some experimental mechanics shit in College so she tinkers. She was fixing a neighbor’s car.” Natasha tilts her head, “Is her last name Y/L/N?” she asks. Bucky pauses, “Yeah, why?”

Natasha smiles a little sadly “I thought I knew her from somewhere,” she said. She sighs, “I was there, doing recon right before her mental break. She was always really nice. Supportive. Drank unholy amounts of coffee and would smoke 2 packs of cigarettes a day. Lightning fast welder. Super manic all the time and it wasn’t all the coffee. I was about to offer her a job with S.H.E.I.L.D. when she lept off a 4th-floor catwalk after spending the better part of the day hallucinating a conversation with someone. I always wondered what happened to her after that. She was too nice a person to be working in a place like that.” Bucky nodded, “She started writing while she was in the hospital. And it all just kinda worked. She’s in talks to get a book made into a movie now.” Bucky is proud of you, Steve can read it on his face.

“Stark probably knows her too,” Natasha muses, “I know he tried to get her to come talk at the Stark Expo a few years ago and he was a little irritated when she politely declined. She’s got a couple pieces of tech she’s designed that he wants permission to use. Or at least she did a few years ago. I dunno if he ever managed to get a hold of her.” Steve snorts, “Stark didn’t just pay her off?” Natasha shook her head, “He tried, she said she had a previous engagement that was going to last the duration of the expo. She hung up on him before he could get out that it was a year-long thing and then wouldn’t return any of his other calls. She went radio silent after that.” Bucky smiled a little, “She was probably writing. Or bouncing around the globe doing whatever it is she does when she gets on a plane for a not work-related trip.”

Steve shook his head and sighed, “You’re a goner, Buck.” Bucky doesn’t even try to deny it. He can’t wait to see you again.

#bucky x reader #angst if you squint #bucky barnes #fluff

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jcmorgenstern · 5 years

Note

Hey, do you have any Jonathan cooking headcanons ? 👀

ghasdlfkjhg okay anon can I just say this is one of my favorite asks to receive ever. so yes, do i EVER have Jonathan cooking headcanons!!

Okay so first off: because of how Jonathan met Sebastian at a cafe and later says he learned to make his boulbaise from a French chef, I have thus decided that Jonathan somehow inserted himself into Sebastian’s life to learn his habits (read: he dated him. you can’t change my mind), and one of their dates was at said French restaurant.

Second: although Jonathan is uncommonly good at survival cooking (ie hunting, building a fire pit, skinning an animal, etc), he probably isn’t the best artisinal cook from a young age. Like, he grew up in that cabin in Brocalind Forest and I’m guessing at a wild guess Valentine isn’t the type to send him care packages or take him to McDonald’s.

In practical terms, this means he can eat almost anything–including rats. It’s entirely possible he doesn’t have functioning tastebuds at this point.

Since Izzy is the only person who has vouched for his cooking, it’s very possible he’s actually horrible at it

Thus, cooking is something he learns for his role as Sebastian–possibly from Sebastian himself. It’s something he associates with safety and abundance, and thus he finds it very relaxing. It even includes his favorite things–knives and fires.

Thus Jonathan cooking for Clary isn’t just repeating Valentine’s “aaaand here’s spaghetti!” but trying to make her feel safe and valued. It is….not entirely successful. But it is curious that a large portion of his attempts to win her over center around food. He offers her the soup, her favorite tea, buys her food in Paris. If you think about the proportion of his life where he probably didn’t get to eat a lot (I’m guessing demons don’t have a lot of fast food chains in Edom), it makes more sense.

Having enough food is directly proportional to safety from abuse.

I honestly imagine he likes watching cooking shows. And not like, Chopped or whatever. I mean like…PBS cooking shows. Julia Child. Jacques Pepin. They’re very soothing. He’s like 800 years old inside. Release your inner arthritic senior citizen, Jonathan. It’s okay.

A lot of cooking is very procedural–measuring things, preparing them in a very repetitive way, organizing them. Considering Jonathan’s other hobbies seem to be: screaming, killing people, hacking, and ironing, he could probably use a fair few more Soothing Activities. (He hasn’t discovered Netflix yet. Imagine all that could have been averted if someone taught him to binge watch.)

AU where Jonathan’s entire plot in 3b is watching ODAT and crying at literally every single family moment (they’re pretty much entirely made of family moments).

Schneider: are you….my father figure???Jonathan: ugly crying and hugging Sebastian’s pillows.

Is that a call-out for myself? Maybe. You can’t prove it if it is.

He also probably likes salty or sweet foods, or spicy food. I’d be willing to bet he can eat like 20 of those ghost chili ramen bowls without breaking a sweat. either that OR he can’t handle spiciness at ALL and breaks down at anything spicier than black pepper.

Once ate dollar store Mac and Cheese for a week and nothing else.

Has an absurdly large cookbook collection inherited from Sebastian, which he expands by stealing from libraries. Together they own the entire Julia Child collection. What are demon powers for, if not stealing a cookbook from a library?

That’s a joke please don’t steal from libraries. Libraries are good.

He absolutely loves any dishes with eggs. It’s entirely possible he hasn’t had an egg before being Sebastian. If you follow that train of thought it’s very sad.

BURNS ALL HIS FOOD

Made himself a birthday cake for the first time, except he ate the frosting out of the can before he could put it on the cake. Delayed gratification is not one of his best skillsets.

Drinks vanilla extract out of the bottle not knowing it has alcohol in it. Does not know why he enjoys drinking vanilla extract so much. It is a mystery.

Please don’t try this, vanilla extract is extremely expensive and also tastes weird to drink. Also only 35% proof. Get jaeger instead.

Has worn Sebastian’s dumb Classics nerd apron that says “basia coquum” (kiss the cook). I feel put upon to mention that I didn’t actually steal this joke from COFA, I stole it from my grade 7 latin textbook.

Has a tendency to stress-bake, then get really mad at whatever he’s making when it doesn’t work and scream at it. Unfortunately for him, cookies don’t raise any better if you scream at them.

He is not popular with Sebastian’s neighbors.

Makes a mean omlet but puts really weird stuff in it. Green beans don’t go in an omlet, you idiot. He also pretends his favorite tea is Earl Grey to impress Clary but in reality he can’t stand the taste. He likes that Starbucks pomegranate tea (because it looks like blood, duh) and chamomile.

Thinks Kraft Singles are a cheese and/or food group (he is American after all). Also eats a lot of Pillsbury biscuits despite them being disgusting. He thinks they’re very nice.

These started off semi-deep and now I’m just shitposting tbh

I’m going to stop while I’m ahead but ghaksdjfhghghhg um enjoy i guess

#jonathan morgenstern #this is the PEAK content of this blog #friend anon #crispy chat #genuinely thank you this was the best part of my day hands down #i love a crispy boy

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imaginegfriend · 5 years

Text

gfriend as your girlfriends: [ 🦊 sowon 🦊 ]

g e n r e: f — for fluff

HOW YOU GUYS BEGAN DATING:

you were hanging out with her and the girls at the dorm one night

they had all gotten back from a schedule and you and umji were cooking a meal for everybody bc they were all tired but umji is the only one who would help lol

and sowon runs over to you showing you a picture that she had taken of you from across a table previously on her phone saying “i’m such a good photographer look you look so cute!”

you grabbed her phone and smiled, agreeing with her and sending the photo to yourself. “oh is this from that cafe we went to last weekend? i didn’t know you were taking pictures, creep.” she laughed and slapped you on the arm, “yeah i take almost everybody i know there, it’s the best one around here to go to.”

umji interjected (since she was right there anyways), setting down her cooking utensil with an accusing look on her face, “you never took me there!”

following that, a round of “me either!”s came from the living room and a special comment from sinb: “why do you always take ______ to the good places? is she your favorite or something?”

sowon snatched her phone back with a nervous laugh and a rose color stained on her cheeks, turning around to face everyone else, “shut up! you guys don’t know how to behave and that’s why i never take you to the good places.”

later on, as the mood started to settle and everybody was getting tired from their stomachs being filled to the brim and playing around with each other all night, you were preparing to sleep on the couch as sowon walked in while tying her hair on a bun

“you know you don’t have to sleep on the couch every time, right?” sowon suggested, taking the spare blanket you laid on the couch and beginning to walk back toward her room. “i know the bed isn’t that big but you could at least sleep with me.”

you shrugged and followed her quietly and climbed into her bed directly after she did. both of you were facing one another and she chewed her bottom lip, something obviously on her mind.

“you know how i always buy you those things?” she broke the silence with a whisper as you nodded, suddenly feeling guilty; you never wanted her to, but she always insisteid on you taking her gifts. “like the purses and jewelry and stuff that i always hear you talking about?

“yeah, what about them?” you asked, nervous to hear where she was going with this. she reached for your hand under the covers and your body instantly warmed up.

a shaky sigh left sowon’s lips as she began speaking again, “i’ve just been thinking... and you might not get what i’m trying to say but, maybe you are my favorite. and i know you’re close with all of us, but i was hoping that i was your favorite too?”

she was right; you didn’t get what she was trying to say. of course she was your favorite, you spent most of your time with her; she didn’t see that? “i’m asking you if.. you would want to be with me?” she whispered lower this time, but you still heard her.

you smiled softly and brought your interlocked hands up to your lips, kissing her knuckles, “well, duh. i was wondering when you were gonna stop fawning over me long enough to ask.”

she tried her hardest to hold her laugh in so she didn’t wake anybody else up as she slapped your arm, just like earlier before pulling you in for a soft, sleepy kiss.

YOUR RELATIONSHIP TOGETHER:

if you’re taller than her, she’s really excited about that because she’s used to being one of the tallest people wherever she goes

when she tries to flirt with you she says “i’m gonna climb you like a tree”

if you’re shorter than her she calls you her little oompa loompa even though you hate it but she thinks its endearing

she even told you to dye your hair green once

and you call her rice krispie because her bones are always snapping, crackling, and popping

she still spoils you like there’s no tomorrow, esp. during a comeback or during awards season because she feels bad that her already minuscule time with you becomes even smaller

she tries to take you on cute, secret dates to low-profile restaurants that have amazing food

but it ends up being less romantic than it is hilarious because she sends her food back 5 times before fully eating it then leaves a rating for it on a napkin

and obviously since she has $$$ but she’s still a scammer she negotiates getting the food for a cheaper price since she had to send it back so many times

since she’s mostly busy during the day, she calls you up late at night to do weird shit like go tandem-bike riding in a park or do an ikea scavenger hunt for your future apartment

“aren’t your old, brittle bones too fragile to be riding bikes sojung?” “okay you’re being really ageist right now so i’ll call you back when you can respect your elders.”

drops hints about wanting to live with you and having a future with you all. the. time.

like she’s always sending you links to sleek apartments for sale with a “👀” attached

she’s used to taking care of everybody else but she loves when you guys are all alone and she’s tired from practice or a schedule and you take care of her for once, cuddling her and running your fingers through her hair

even so, she still catches herself having those moments where she acts like an overbearing mother: “don’t forget to wear a jacket today because if you catch a cold all you’re going to get from me is a hot bowl of ‘i told you so’ noodle soup”

and she would be petty enough to buy alphabet soup and make sure to spell out ‘i told you so’ with the letters

she hates when you hang out with sinb, yuju, and umji for a full day because you always come back to her acting like this

but honestly you could say the same thing about her

she knows she’s sexy but gets super flustered if you tell her that she looks good in something; if she tells you though, and you get flustered, she keeps saying it until you vocally acknowledge how good you look

wont allow you to say you’re cuter than her but she’s allowed to do it whenever she wants

“ugh i look so good today, you could never” “i already did... and twice yesterday”

she always talks about romcoms that you guys watch together on vlive and her face goes like 😧 when people comment stuff like “why are you watching so many romcoms lately are you in love lmao”

then she changes the subject

and one day while they’re at a hotel, yerin walks in their room saying “y/n’s on the phone for yooouuuu” in a teasing voice bc she didn’t know sowon was on vlive

and thats how you guys ended up going public lol but sowon wasn’t upset because even though the members and the company knew, she got tired of lying to everyone else

after this she tries to go everywhere with you to show you off because why wouldn’t she?

the other members refer to you guys as the senior citizen couple because you never want to do anything fun and are homebodies

and you feel bad because you’re the homebody and sowon is the extrovert but you always convince her to stay with you lmao

if you guys are able to spend your anniversaries together, she takes you somewhere in europe for a weekend because she thinks its romantic and obviously she loves the food

and she wants to spend the whole day sightseeing together but STILL wants to be up all night talking to you. halfway through she ends up talking to herself though because you fell asleep lmao

the last day she tries to be extremely romantic to make up for dragging you around the whole time (even though you didnt mind) with breakfast for 2 in bed and a warm bath together with rose petals and stuff in it

if you guys are apart because she’s in a different country or she just can’t see you that day, you guys try to text all day but her heart breaks when she hears how sad your voice is over video chat

when you call some other famous person that you’ll literally never meet in a million years cute she gets jealous. like really jealous

“yeah they’re cute but cute is always going to get demolished next to gorgeous. like they’re cute but they’re not me or anything”

when you meet her family they love you because they say they thought she would never find anybody as crazy as her and she’s like “what do you mean crazy?”

when you guys finally move into an apartment together, she insists on you guys and the members moving the boxes because she wants to prove to you that her bones aren’t weak and fragile

halfway through she’s sitting in the bedroom on the lone mattress ordering a moving team and a some food because she can’t take it anymore

oh yeah you guys finally got to go on that ikea scavenger hunt lol and it’s a relatively cheap store but she managed to pick out the most expensive things in there

almost everyday she wakes up to you about to burn the entire apartment down because “i just wanted to make you breakfast because you’ve been so tired lately”

and she tells you that she’s going to put padlocks on the drawers in the kitchen and the fridge if you can’t manage boiling water without evaporating it on the stove

“i think meonji likes me better than you” “i like you better than me too”

sometimes you guys just stand in the middle of the living room, holding each other and looking into each others eyes and kissing a little

she still gets upset if she sees rice krispies and/or rice krispie treats in the cabinets and she’ll hide them from you

ever since her first fashion show she tries to put together your outfits because she thinks she’s a high fashion mogul now

“we’re just going grocery shopping why do i need to get this dressed up?” “do you want to embarrass me in front of the fashion world? they’re always watching.”

you catch her introducing the products she’s using in the mirror all the time like she’s a beauty guru on youtube

and god forbid she gets a little alcohol in her she’s like sojung 10.0

her hands are everywhere on you and she’s saying stuff to you thats making you go 😧

and those are the times you’re thankful that you have your own place together lmao

“but sojung don’t you think the other girls would want me to watch their fancams too?” “oh i wasn’t aware we were in a polyamorous relationship”

if you guys get into a big argument she’ll impulsively grab a pillow and a blanket from your room and try to sleep on the couch but halfway through the night she climbs in bed with you anyways

“don’t think i’m not still mad at you but this is half my bed too” and then you both apologize in the morning because going to bed mad is the worst thing ever

she almost jokingly doesn’t accept your apology because you tried to make her breakfast again

she’s corny and cute so she got you guys promise rings

“i know i can’t marry you right now but i definitely want to spend the rest of my life with you. if you want to do the same with me.. promise me?”

of course you said yes.

and now she can’t stop taking those pictures where her hand is always in the frame so everybody can see the ring

a/n: okay so i know the first part is kinda like a fic instead of just short or medium length bullet points but i didnt realize that until after i finished so i think i’ll just do the “how you guys began dating” section like that for all the girls

#gfriend #gfriend imagines #gfriend drabbles #gfriend fluff #gfriend au #gfriend scenarios #sowon #yerin #eunha #yuju #sinb #umji

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nobszone · 5 years

Text

Mr. President: It’s your job to stop this.

So I know all three of you are wondering where I’ve been. Well, here I am once again. Before we get started, I’d like to answer two questions.

1. The Muller Report has been public for the better part of a month, and the summary by Attorney General William Barr has been out longer, so why has it taken me this long to comment on it? Well the main reason has been certain RL issues that have kept me away from here longer than usual. Aside from that, I was not comfortable summarizing a summary, especially one that I suspected was not telling us the whole story (and it seems my suspicions may have been correct).

2. What are my thoughts? Well I did a podcast last week with my guy Sharpwing where I go over my reaction to the report. So if any of you ever wanted to hear my lovely voice, give it a listen.

For the rest of you: we’ve managed to avoid the absolute nightmare scenario of a US President willingly working for the Russian Government. But the question of whether or not he broke the law is still somewhat up in the air. Muller seems to think that Trump obstructed justice (and more importantly, Trump probably thinks that as well).

But I’m not here to talk about that. I’m here to talk about something much more important.

The Russian interference in the 2016 election is real. It’s no longer “fake news” or a conspiracy theory or an entry in the Hillary Clinton Excuse Rolodex. This happened.

Now do I believe that this was the reason Trump won? No. I imagine even if the Russians didn’t do anything, Trump still would’ve won. Maybe it would’ve been closer, maybe it might have even gone to SCOTUS like in 2000. But ultimately America was going to pick one unelectable candidate over another.

But here’s my point. This is now bigger than just an election. This is bigger than Trump, Clinton, Sanders, all of them.

Russia has shown that they are willing to attack us via cyberspace, and more importantly, they can.

And Trump seems willing to let that happen.

But why? What would Trump have to gain from doing nothing to stop this? Is there a reason why he would talk about the investigation in a call with Putin and not warn him against doing it again? Is there a reason that Senior White House staff told now-ex Homeland Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen not to talk about election security with Trump?

I think that there is, but it’s much more petty than you might think.

I don’t believe that Trump won solely because of the Russians. But many on the left do.

And I bet Trump does as well.

It’s one thing to say “there’s no collusion.” It’s another thing to say “Russia didn’t do anything”, despite mountains of evidence indicating that Russian agents have been engaged in a campaign to sow discord among our populace and install distrust in our democratic process since 2014. To deny that the Internet Research Agency has sent operatives to US soil, posing as American citizens and interest groups, with the explicit purpose to cause a rife in our society and a breakdown in discourse.

To deny all that? It flies in the face of common sense and natural intelligence. Not to mention military intelligence.

The sad part is that there’s a way that all of this could’ve been avoided. Trump would’ve saved himself (and the country) a lot of grief if he came out after then-FBI Director James Comey announced the start of what would ultimately become the Muller investigation and said this:

“My fellow Americans, it has come to my attention that there’s been some concerns regarding interference by the Russian Government in last year’s election, as well as possible involvement by staff in my campaign.

“I strongly condemn the actions of the Russian Government. These are the actions of an aggressive power that are a direct attack on this nation’s greatest asset: our democratic process. I strongly warn President Putin that further actions will risk unraveling the partnership our nations have worked to build since the end of the Cold War and could result in grave consequences for Russia and her citizens.

“As for the potential involvement of my campaign; to my knowledge none of my staff willingly cooperated with Russian nationals to carry out these actions. But the Department of Justice will have my full support in their investigation and we will provide any information they deem necessary in the pursuit of bringing any individuals who assisted in this grave offense against our nation to justice. Once the investigation is finished, the findings will be made public so the American people can know for themselves the scope of this attempt to subvert our democracy, and you have my full assurance that we will do our utmost to prevent a recurrence of these attempts and ensure secure, safe, and fair elections in the future.”

If Trump comes out and says that, a lot of this would’ve been avoided. Even if you thought he was still dirty, at least we would have the notion that he acknowledged that it happened and was working to make sure it didn’t happen again.

Instead, he tweets out “WITCH HUNT!” or “PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT” or my personal favorite “NO COLLUSION NO OBSTRUCTION!” even though the report explicitly stated that Trump wasn’t exonerated when it came to obstruction (though the White House would really really like the legal eagles to say otherwise).

Oh and his reaction to finding out that Muller was finishing the job that Comey started (and was fired for) was to say “I’m fucked. This is the end of my Presidency.” Not exactly a vote of confidence. Neither, for that matter, is the fact that he tried to stop it. Several times.

But more importantly, Trump (as usual) is distracting us from the bigger issue: Russia is willing to attack us via cyberspace. And I bet they’re not going to stop with memes or fake Facebook accounts or trying to hack voter registration data.

Today? It’s an election. Tomorrow? It could be the Stock Market, the electrical grid, our fleet of drones, our internet access, who knows?

The question is what are we going to do about it?

Well, Trump better figure something out, because it’s his job to do something about this. Just like it was Hillary’s job to make sure she didn’t have sensitive emails on her private server. It is 1000% Trump’s job to stop Russia from engaging in cyberattacks against us, or at the very least making sure they don’t try to mess with our elections.

You may think you only won because of them, Don, but that’s irrelevant.

It’s your job to stop the Russians.

If you don’t want to stop them, then you shouldn’t have the job.

Well, my fellow countrymen have about a year and half to decide if they’re okay with keeping a guy who is okay with letting Russia attack us. A guy that Russia really wants to be President.

As for me? I’m not okay with it. And if that means I gotta vote for Bernie Sanders or Joe Freakin Biden next year? So be it.

Because I’m an American, and I’m damn proud of it. This country has given me so much and I will do anything I can to protect her from enemies foreign and domestic.

And as far as I’m concerned?

Right now the best way to do that is to do the opposite of what the Russians want me to do.

Фуцк ыоу, Вова.

#politics #American Politics #robert mueller #Russia #Vladimir Putin #donald j. trump

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khremixed · 6 years

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Part 6: Traverse Town and Getting the Gang Together

We’ve finally gotten to our first real world and man is it a good one.

I’ve always loved the look of Traverse Town. The cobblestone streets, Victorian buildings, and bright neon signs just combine into something amazing for me. Each of the three districts has its own unique flavor, but they don’t feel disparate from one another. Traverse Town also has the feeling of being inhabited, at least in the First District. The Second and Third Districts are overrun by heartless, so it makes sense in story why no one seems out and about. It might be my favorite world, so I’m fine that it’s the world we are going to be using as a home base for this game (and miss it dearly in the games it doesn’t appear in).

The transition here is good too. Donald and Goofy arrive and Donald notices a star going out. Then Pluto runs off and finds Sora knocked out in an alley. Pluto wakes up Sora, hears some noise outside human hearing, and then runs off, not to be seen again until the closing cutscene. Sora wanders off into a nearby store and you meet Cid of Final Fantasy VII fame.

Real talk, but I’ve never played Final Fantasy VII. Actually, I’ve never beat a Final Fantasy game. I find turn based combat tedious so the only one I really enjoyed was XII (you know, the one everyone else seems to hate). I played VIII for a while because of my love of Leon/Squall (more on this in a bit), but the battle system there is broken as all hell. But anyway, I’ve never played VII, so when I first played this game, I thought Cid was like 35. Yeah, he’s clearly older than the rest of the gang in Traverse Town, but it didn’t seem like that big of a gap. His hair is bright yellow and he doesn’t move in a way that reveals being that old. It’s a jrpg so I assumed that we were going with the anime convention of any person over twenty being treated as a senior citizen. It wasn’t until Kingdom Hearts 2, when Cid gets a voice actor, that I realized he’s way older (wiki says 42 but that’s ancient in anime/jrpg terms).

Cid’s great, though. I mean, you are some random kid who just wandered into his store who tells you a tale he’s probably heard a million times over (world destroyed, everyone scattered) and he just immediately offers to help you. No ulterior motive there. He’s one of the good ones. Cid tells Sora to look around town to see if maybe Riku and Kairi did end up here and to come back if they really didn’t.

Sora heads to the Second District. Everything is nice except for that guy that runs out and immediately gets turned into a soldier heartless in front of you. It’s genuinely disturbing. This is the closest thing Kingdom Hearts gets to when it comes to depicting death. Plus, for someone playing this the first time, you don’t really know what’s happening other than the fact that that dude is terrified and you see his heart literally leave his body to turn into a monster. Sora then fights a bunch of other heartless and will continue to do so as you explore the various areas. There is also a great running gag of when you go into one place, Donald and Goofy just miss you as they exit another place.

Heading back to the First District, which is now equally overrun, you go back to Cid, because really, who else does Sora know? Cid gives a pep talk and Sora goes back outside and this is the moment I’ve been waiting for. A voice tells Sora that he really has no clue what he has and wonders why it would ever choose a kid like Sora. And this, my friends, is how we meet Leon.

I’ve had a crush on Leon since I was 12. Hell, I’ve had a gunblade on my keys since 2007. As I said before, I love him so much I tried to get through Final Fantasy VIII. And Leon totally owns Sora in this battle. Even if you win, which isn’t that difficult if you hide behind the pillars to block his fireballs and nets you an elixir from him down the line, Sora still faints.

While Yuffie helps Leon collect Sora, Aerith finds Donald and Goofy. Also, between these two scenes, we get our next big Final Mix addition. Riku wakes up on Hallow Bastion (we don’t know the location yet, but it is) and calls for Sora and Kairi. Watching him from afar is Maleficent. At first, I really liked this bit. It’s fun to see new stuff and I’ve always kind of wondered how Riku ended up with Maleficent. But the more I think about it, the more I wish it wasn’t there. Like Sora, the player originally had no clue what had happened to Riku for several hours of gameplay. The reveal later that Maleficent is manipulating Riku was great and this new scene is detrimental to that reveal.

Anyway, Sora wakes up and has his first hallucination of Kairi, who then turns into a concerned Yuffie. Since this is the first one, the player can assume that Yuffie’s theory that Leon gave the poor kid a concussion is probably accurate. Donald and Goofy are in the adjoining room and whole explanation about the heartless is given to everyone by cutting back and forth between the two groups. It’s a pretty dynamic way to get all the exposition. This is also the first time we hear about Ansem and his report on the heartless. I’m sure that that won’t be a reoccurring thing that will reveal previously unknown horrific facts! I’m sure the whole mess that is Ansem the Wise/Xemnas/Xehanort won’t cause me to start screaming obscenities at the tv screen again! (Sidenote: but I totally forgot that we don’t find out that Ansem the Wise was the leader of their home world here or even that his title is “the Wise”).

On a character note, but I’d forgotten just how much of an apathetic asshole Leon is. He just cannot be bothered to care about Sora’s friends or even feelings.

This is all interrupted by a heartless appearing and Leon and Sora go off to fight. And this scene is bullshit. Yuffie getting Leon’s attention, fine. Her not attacking but instead running? The hell. And Leon is the one who tells her to run! Why? It isn’t to go protect the healer in the next room because Yuffie just blows past Aerith. What is with this game and women not getting to do anything but get kidnapped unless they are evil or mermaids? KH2 does have Yuffie fighting, but still.

Our gang still doesn’t hook up though. You have to make your way to the Third District, where Donald and Goofy literally crash into Sora. Cue boss fight!

The boss battle is pretty fun. And in another change for the Final Mix, but they recolored the armor. Don’t know why. (Actually, the further in I get, the more I wonder how many of the heartless were recolored for this and I just can’t remember everyone’s original look so I’ve missed some.) You have to kill each piece of the armor separately and they will attack independently of each other. Nothing outstanding, but still fun.

Donald and Goofy try to convince Sora to come with them. Unlike with Cid, who just wanted to help because he’s a standup guy, Donald is an asshole who straight up lies to Sora about the likelihood of finding Riku and Kairi (Goofy is a standup dude though). Leon also says he thinks that Sora should go, but is more like Eeyore about it. Goofy hugs everyone and says “One for all and all for one”. Now that I’ve played KH3D and know that he was a musketeer with Donald and Mickey, I think that’s rather sweet in retrospect.

Oh, and also, Donald and Goofy tell Sora that if he’s going to join up, then he’s going to have to smile and have no sad faces. Fuck them. Sora just lost literally everyone he ever knew and loved and they want him to swallow those feelings. That’s messed up, y’all.

You also get some stuff, the most important of which is the ability to dodge roll. I love dodge roll! I’m always mad when you don’t get it in other games. There is literally only one ability I like more and that is the high jump (glide is close too).

Before taking off, you can go open up the secret passage to Merlin’s place. Before Merlin shows up we get another Kairi hallucination. She thinks that the room is like the secret place on Destiny Islands, but she’s a hallucination, she’s allowed to be wrong. There Merlin arrives! I always found his help sort of useless (the Fairy Godmother was more helpful in turning stones into summons but I think in all my years I’ve only ever used a summon once). Also, feminist aside, but why does the Fairy Godmother hang out as an inanimate mini-carriage when not doing stuff? Is it so they don’t imply anything going on between her and Merlin when you aren’t around?

When you leave you get the villain conference table scene where they discuss the unlikelihood of Sora winning. It’s a good introduction of the villains, but I can’t tell if the Final Mix version changed the animation or if I’m just on a better tv because you can now see the silhouettes of all the villains rather than just hearing their voices with extremely shadowed shapes.

#kingdom hearts #traverse town #kingdom hearts 1

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aresaphrodites · 6 years

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Hey but sorry to bother u but could give me those book recs? Relying on u girl

of course!! sorry bout the long wait, dear x

you said you preferred trilogies or series’ (which i don’t read much of tbh) so here are a few of my favorites: (( some of these will have full on summaries and some… not so much, i got lazy lol ))

The Lux Series by Jennifer L. Armentrout : Meet Katy and Daemon! Katy is a funny, down-to-earth book blogger who has just moved to West Virginia. And Daemon? Well, he’s her hot and arrogant next-door neighbor. He’s also an alien. This one is cheesy, yeah, but it’s so FUN! Follow along as Katy and Daemon try to figure out what they mean to each other while trying not to get killed by the Arum; the Lumen’s enemy. In this world, the DOD is well aware that aliens exist and that they live on Earth. However, they are unaware that the aliens known as Luxen actually possess powers that make them.. well… powerful beyond means. This isn’t just a romance story; it focuses on family and friendships and it has a bunch of kick ass action and the entire plot with the DOD is so interesting.

The Pine Deep Series by Jonathan Maberry ; I’m only on the first book but this one is a bit more mature in terms of horror and things like that. If you like scary books or feel like being spooky in time for Halloween, you should definitely check this one out!

The Mortal Instruments Series by Cassandra Clare : I’m sure you know about this one, but if you don’t! Angels, demons, warlocks, vampires, faeries, werewolves? What more could you want? When Clary Fray discovers she’s actually a Shadowhunter; an appointed warrior of the Angel Raziel and has angel blood coursing through her veins, her life is about to change forever. Join her and the rest of the Shadowhunter gang (and even a few others) as they team up to rescue her mom and stop an all out war from happening.

The Darkest Minds Series by Alexandra Bracken ; I’m only on the first book but I absolutely love it! It’s an intense read that has me on the edge of my seat constantly. I adore Ruby and she’s easily become one of my favorite female characters of all time.

Dorothy Must Die Series by Danielle Paige ; Okay. I know, I know. Really? Dorothy Must Die? Hear me out! This book is FUN. Trashy? Perhaps, but fun! The first book is really fast paced and honestly? I am living for a world where Dorothy is evil. So basically our main character is named Amy and she is the other girl from Kansas. She’s sent to Oz to save it from Dorothy Gale who has become power hungry and is now pure evil along with the Tin-Man, the Lion, and the Scarecrow. The rest of the series doesn’t really live up to the first book, but I would say you should read the first one anyway. It’s a lot of fun.

Did I Mention I Love You Series by Estelle Maskame: Sixteen-year-old Eden Munro decides to spend the summer with her father in Santa Monica as her parents are divorced now. Once there, she meets her father’s new family and that includes Tyler Bruce; her new asshole step brother with a short temper and a huge ego but as she gets to learn more about him, she finds herself falling for him. This trope isn’t for everyone and I know the whole step sibling thing is super taboo but this series is awesome and I read it during a huge reading slump and it really helped me get though it.

Perfect Chemistry Series by Simone Elkeles: When Brittany Ellis walks into chemistry class on the first day of senior year, she has no clue that her carefully created “perfect” life is about to unravel before her eyes. She’s forced to be lab partners with Alex Fuentes, a gang member from the other side of town, and he is about to threaten everything she’s worked so hard for―her flawless reputation, her relationship with her boyfriend, and the secret that her home life is anything but perfect. Alex is a bad boy and he knows it. So when he makes a bet with his friends to lure Brittany into his life, he thinks nothing of it. But soon Alex realizes Brittany is a real person with real problems, and suddenly the bet he made in arrogance turns into something much more. (Each book in this series focuses on a different Fuentes brother.)

Fighting to Be Free Series by Kirsty Moseley: Jamie Cole has just been released from juvenile detention. Determined to go straight, he tries to cut ties with crime boss Brett Reyes - but Brett has no intention of letting him go. Jamie’s life is already more complicated than it needs to be, yet it’s when he meets a beautiful stranger at a bar that Jamie knows he’s really in over his head. Ellie Pearce has just come out of a terrible relationship and isn’t looking for anything serious; until she meets Jamie. Their attraction is overwhelming and intense - she can’t seem to shake her growing feelings for him, even though she’s trying to keep it casual. But when fate goes horribly wrong and Jamie’s family is faced with ruin, he’s forced to strike a deal with Brett. Despite his struggles, he wants nothing more than a future with Ellie. That’s until Ellie finds out that he’s been hiding more from her than she could ever imagine.

Mind if I drop in a few stand alone’s? I’m trying to read more series’ but I’ve always been more of a stand alone kind of girl, so here are some of my current favs:

#MurderTrending by Gretchen McNeil : WELCOME TO THE NEAR FUTURE, where good and honest citizens can enjoy watching the executions of society’s most infamous convicted felons, streaming live on The Postman app from the suburbanized prison island Alcatraz 2.0. When seventeen-year-old Dee Guerrera wakes up in a haze, lying on the ground of a dimly lit warehouse, she realizes she’s about to be the next victim of the app. Knowing hardened criminals are getting a taste of their own medicine in this place is one thing, but Dee refuses to roll over and die for a heinous crime she didn’t commit. Can Dee and her newly formed posse, the Death Row Breakfast Club, prove she’s innocent before she ends up wrongfully murdered for the world to see? Or will The Postman’s cast of executioners kill them off one by one?

One Small Thing by Erin Watt : Meet Beth and Chase. Beth is entering her senior year and is still trying to move on from the death of her older sister three years ago. In a small town with parents who have suddenly become her wardens; that seems nearly impossible. And then she meets the mysterious and hot Chase who immediately draws her in. Their attraction is instant and he’s the first person who makes her feel like Beth Jones and not Lizzie; the young girl who lost a sister and is somehow broken by it. But as she falls harder for Chase, she’s hit with the reality of the part he played in her sister’s death. It’s about forgiveness, love, and moving on. It’s sad and sweet and such a fun, quick read. Definitely good for trying to get out of a slump!

Autoboyography by Christina Lauren : Fangirl meets Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda in this funny and poignant coming-of-age novel from New York Times bestselling author Christina Lauren about two boys who fall in love in a writing class—one from a progressive family and the other from a conservative religious community. If you read one book off of this list, PLEASE let it be this one. This book is so… amazing. It’s been months and I still think about it constantly.

Fault Line by C. Desir : Trigger WARNING: THIS BOOK CONTAINS A RAPE. It is not shown, but it’s the main conflict in the book. Over the years I have struggled with if I liked this book because it was good or if I liked it because of how much it fucked me up. I read this book in one sitting and when I finished, I sat in my bed for a good hour and just…. didn’t move or do anything. You will NOT be rooting for the main couple. The narrator is unlikable and you will HATE all the characters in this book. The ending is NOT happy and I don’t know why I’m recommending this but GOD. This book, after so many years, just stuck with me because of how fucked up it was. It deals with the whole “recovery” process in such a dark way that we normally don’t see in YA fiction and I think that’s what makes it stand out so much. If you want something darker, read this. But read it with caution. If this isn’t something you like then please, don’t bother reading it. It’s not happy and it’s sure as shit not fluffy. Summary : Ben could date anyone he wants, but he only has eyes for the new girl—sarcastic free-spirit Ani. Luckily for Ben, Ani wants him too. She’s everything Ben could ever imagine. Everything he could ever want. But that all changes after the party. The one Ben misses. The one Ani goes to alone. Now Ani isn’t the girl she used to be, and Ben can’t sort out the truth from the lies. What really happened, and who is to blame? Ben wants to help her, but she refuses to be helped. The more she pushes Ben away, the more he wonders if there’s anything he can do to save the girl he loves.

Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero : If you like Scooby-Doo or Archie’s Weird Mysteries this book is probably for you. 1990. The teen detectives once known as the Blyton Summer Detective Club are all grown up and haven’t seen each other since their fateful, final case in 1977. Andy, the tomboy, is twenty-five and on the run, wanted in at least two states. Kerri, one-time kid genius and budding biologist, is bartending in New York, working on a serious drinking problem. At least she’s got Tim, an excitable Weimaraner descended from the original canine member of the team. Nate, the horror nerd, has spent the last thirteen years in and out of mental health institutions, and currently resides in an asylum in Arhkam, Massachusetts. The only friend he still sees is Peter, the handsome jock turned movie star. The problem is, Peter’s been dead for years.The time has come to uncover the source of their nightmares and return to where it all began in 1977. This time, it better not be a man in a mask. The real monsters are waiting.

Fatal Throne by Candace Fleming ; A book about Henry VIII and his six wives. If you like historical fiction then this book might be for you! It’s told through the perspective of his six wives (and even Henry himself) and it’s a really fascinating read.

Okay, I think I’m going to stop here. Let me know if none of these speak to you and I’ll give you some more recs! I didn’t know what kind of genres you liked, so I tried to throw in a little bit of everything.

#books n tings

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when-the-spring-dies · 3 years

Text

Azumaya Sakurai (ENG)

LIFE IS a constant battle between Sakurai and God. Ever since he was born, nothing good served on his plate. On Monday, it would be pain; on Tuesday, it would be despair; on Wednesday, it would be violence; on Thursday, it would be regret; on Friday, it became milder, shame; on Saturday and Sunday, Lord gave him a little bit mercy and fun with lust.

Had Sakurai plead for more mercies, God might send him a packet of blessing every day. But no one ever taught the man how to kneel down or to slosh in tears, asking for forgiveness and hoping the heaven belonged to him. But for once, he saw and heard his parents shouting: “God! Oh, God! Forgive me. God!” while raising a kitchen knife. Later, they thrusting at each other with it, still calling out for anybody’s God.

When the shouting stopped and the red river claimed the lifeless builds, Sakurai crawled on top of them. His dark hair which inherited from his mother and his sharp strong-willed eyes gifted by his father, shaped him like a vulture in a huntㅡready to devour the corpse before flies and maggots joined the feast.

For days, he sucked on his mother’s stiff nipples, but no milk calmed his hunger; all left was dried blood and maggots eddying around him. They nudged his weakened cheek and hand several times as if inviting the boy to play. But he was too hungry to move and his mother’s warmth had gone, so he did what a three years old would do: crying. And when the vocal cords couldn’t support another weep, he fell asleep.

Days passed, Sakurai was saved. He didn’t know who and when, but what he faced once he woke up was a woman dressed in white, carrying him while feeding something unfamiliar. A year later, he learned that he fed from a cow and he loved it. He loved it more than his mother’s which he couldn’t recall the taste anymore.

Everything became blurred to him. How his parents look like? What nickname did they give him? What was the title of his favorite bedtime story? All those memories dead along with his parents.

Fighting over flower scented blanket or new donated toys was the usual activity. Some kids would use their fist and the others would cry. The strongest got the blanket and the toys while the weak ones bawled together in the corner of the room. Sakurai believed they shouldn’t cry because later, once someone took them away, they would have their own toys and bedroom. Just like Nanao who left with an uncle who had big belly, she sent some pictures where she went to the Disneyland and stuffed her pink bedroom with dolls from there.

Soon, Sakurai figured that not every child who left the orphanage could have a beautiful life like Nanao. He remembered he held hands with his fellow orphans, dressed in all black, following the caretakers who cried while hugging a photo of a kid named Genta. They said Genta was beaten and starved until he passed. The police arrested his adopted parents and threw them into jail.

After Genta’s death, everyone became murky. None of them excited whenever they were told to line up or to hear: “The parents are here!”. Sakurai saw them and himself like the goods being sold in the market. And it was just his luck that a woman dressed in kimono took interest in him. She said he looked handsome and not so Japanese; that his records showed he behaved well.

For a week, Sakurai who lived for only six years on earth, felt nervous. Would he end up like Genta? But did he have anything to lose? He didn’t even know how the future would like.

So he left with Makoto, the woman’s name. She took him to Gion, Kyoto, where she worked as a geisha in her early twenties. Now she in her middle thirties, no one interested being entertained by her. And with her charming mind, Makoto opened a restaurant which serving her hometown delicacies to tourists and the tea houses’ visitors.

Sakurai didn’t end up like Genta and didn’t end up like Nanao. He ended up as Azumaya Sakurai, the adopted son of Nakamura Makoto. Every morning he helped his mother to clean the restaurant and went to school with his friends from the same neighborhood. He grew up bright and playful. Everyone loved him, but some couldn’t help to tease him for being parentless and for being adopted by Makoto.

One afternoon, Sakurai got home with cuts and bruises. Makoto asked him if he were falling or fought someone. And the answer was the latter. “I defeated them,” he said. “Then, I’ll make sure to visit your school tomorrow,” she said.

After Makoto patched his wounds, Sakurai asked her if she didn’t want to know the reason of his fight. And with a motherly smile, she said, “I know the fight is for me. Thank you, Saku-kun. If I were born as a real woman, you wouldn’t need to through this embarrassment.”

And Sakurai yelled in rage: “What was the purpose of the sentence?” For him who left by his parents and knew nothing about how warm a mother’s love could be, Makoto was the most beautiful mother in the universe. Even when she turned into ashes.

Sakurai forgot how to count. He forgot how to count the times he had cried over Makoto’s full name on a tiny jar. It was unreal how he could feel a great sadness in his heart.

The aching, the yearning, and the emptiness he experienced, every single of it were for Makoto; for his mother. That day, Sakurai had his first conversation with God to condemn Him. My mother would still alive if You didn’t allow those drunkard yakuzas came in. I hate You!

An eleven years old boy who grew up with manner didn’t know how to cuss properly. Even when a stranger held him in his arms, Sakurai got nothing to say but to ask: “Who are you?”

His dark long silky hair swayed beautifully as he walked. And his droopy but keen eyes stared at him tenderly, just like Makoto’s. “I’m Makoto’s little brother. So, you are my responsibility now. But because Makoto didn’t have a good relation with our family, you should work harder than everyone else to gain the Oyabun’s favor.”

“I’m sorry, but who is Oyabun?”

Nobody said anything. Not even the men in the front row of the car, they were as quite as the dead. But once the car stopped and a grand gate appeared behind the tinted window, the man opened his mouth: “The Head of Sui-kai, my father.”

General Information

Name: Azumaya Sakurai (東屋櫻井)

CV: Howl

Place and Date of Birth: Tokyo, September 13 1991

Gender: Male

Height and Weight: 188 cm and 87 kg

Blood Type: A

Education: Bachelor of Science Communication University W

Job: Yakuza mentor to Hanase, Vice President of Celestial Entertainment, (former) kindergarten teacher

Outfit: Simple modern black suit, tracksuits, and hoodie

Pants: Anything that's comfortable

Shoes: Classic shoes (Oxford/Chelsea), sneakers

Tattoo: Irezumi style (on the back)

Accessories: Watches, earrings, and a belt

Perfume: Gentleman by Givenchy

Weapons: Daggers, swords, knives, and fists

Favorite Food: Anything

Favorite Drinks: Whiskey, tea

Favorite Cigarette: Camel Wide

Group: Murakami-gumi, Sui-kai (former)

Pets: Kyosuke, Hanase, Otsuka, You.

Personality

MBTI: INFP Alignment: Lawful Evil/Good Keywords: Analytical, intelligent, reserved, critical, helpful, conscientious

Usually, Sakurai is a good-hearted man. He is sensitive to his surroundings and tend to help his peers in need. Generally, he is respectable, hard-working, and bright in knowledge and practical matters. Everyone will search for him when they need advices.

Sakurai doesn’t enjoy spotlight. He prefers standing in the background as long as he is appreciated for doing things well. He may brush off people’s compliment harshly which leads to uncomfortable situation, but honestly, he’s just shy.

Not everyone knows that Sakurai is honestly a playful and has mischievous sense of humor. He’s a bright person who enjoys life and freedom; he loves to travel the world and meeting new people, creating many lovely memories.

Sakurai doesn’t like to hold back due to his temperamental nature. He’ll dealing with his problems right away so he can get on with other things. He secretly enjoys trouble and confrontations, stagnant life isn’t for him. And some people can’t hate him deeply because of his childlike innocence.

Even so, Sakurai used to live as a soldier; the knight in fairytale stories. He lives listening to the Lord’s command, not the one in command. He’ll submit and do the tasks bestowed upon him, bringing the victory for his Lord.

He is chained by the destiny. He is forced to do what his heart refused to do. All the blood, the suffering, the dying souls in the battlefield, he must weight them on his shoulders for years to come; eating up the little light inside him.

How to trigger him? Anyone who breaks the rules and creates a chaos will not live peacefully until they pay for their actions. Sakurai doesn’t get along with people who have bad manners and direct or abrasive expression of feelings. Not only they’ll keep fighting, but Sakurai has tendency to give in (avoiding conflict) and let the person always bullies him.

Physical Statistics

STRENGTH (2,205lb/1,000kg)

CONSTITUTION

stamina: 100%

endurance: 100%

vitality: 100%

recovery: 85%

resistance: 90%

fortitude: 100%

resilience: 85%

DEXTERITY

agility: 90%

accuracy: 97%

Mental Statistics

INTELLIGENCE (90%)

CHARISMA

presence: 100%

charm: 100%

social skills: 100%

PERCEPTION

awareness: 100%

POWERS

interrogation (4/5)

firearms (3/5)

hand-to-hand combat (5/5)

intimidation (5/5)

manipulation (3/5)

skilled acrobat (4/5)

multilingual (English, Korean, Japanese) (4/5)

technology (4/5)

Trivia

He has affectionate nature.

He has more networking with older people than younger ones.

Stamina King.

Twitching his eyebrows and gripping his buckle when he’s mad or irritated.

Changing his home or office interior regularly.

Controlling his sensitive side with working out and cleaning home (loves domestic works).

Discount Maniac, he knows when the supermarket will have great deals.

Contributed to society as a health instructor for the senior citizens.

Yes to extreme sports, not much scared of anything; even the dark side of human nature.

Love music and art, Makoto taught him.

Can’t sleep alone, he collects bear dolls to accompany him or sleeping with someone instead.

Cover Up Tattoo

#profile #backgroundstory

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ilovereadingandilovebreathing · 6 years

Note

all of them :P

There’s LITERALLY 50 omg >_> Ah well, if I’m procrastinating, might as well go big or go home. Warning: LONG.

Finally, an ask-meme for writers!

01: When did you first start writing?

My first ever time writing stories was in 2nd grade; we wrote stories weekly in my class. The first time I began to consciously write and consider myself a writer was probably 8th grade.

02: What was your favorite book growing up?

Ahhhh so many. Series more than individual books. Starting from when I was really young, my iconic series were: Clifford the Big Red Dog, Henry and Mudge, Horrible Harry, A to Z Mysteries, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Nancy Drew, and The Chronicles of Narnia, to name a few.

03: Are you an avid reader?

Actual books? Not as much anymore. I’m too tired or busy. I read fanfics, though :p

04: Have you ever thrown a book across the room?

Where the Red Fern Grows lol one of the only books to date to make me cry.

05: Did you take writing courses in school/college?

Writing-specific? No.

06: Have you read any writing-advice books?

I mean, I had to read like MLA manuals and other “writing tips” books for school, so yeah, I guess.

07: Have you ever been part of a critique group?

Not like a real one, just in class in college

08: What’s the best piece of feedback you’ve ever gotten?

I think the best feedback I get is on here, really! You guys are super sweet, and some of you offer some great concrete feedback! I can’t think of anything specific, but I also get really tickled when someone comments on my writing style.

09: What’s the worst piece of feedback you’ve ever gotten?

Worst as in quality wise was “this was good.” or something like that lol

Worst as far as soul-crushing...ooo. Story Time!

Freshman year of college. I had to take this like early-level English class, and the focus was on nonfiction writing and stuff like that. My professor often picked apart my papers because he didn’t like my writing style, especially not my prose, because he said it was way too florid (flowery or wordy). That made me really sad, but then I had another professor who taught a senior level class who LOVED my prose, so. It’s all relative.

10: What’s your biggest writer pet-peeve?

Mmmmmmm when people use the same word over and over and over again (which, I am so guilty of, so that’s probs why it bugs me haha) Also too many short sentences. I literally can’t read something if the syntax isn’t varied enough to flow.

11: What’s your favorite book cover?

OOOOoooo I like this one! But sadly I don’t pay attention enough to have an answer to this...Citizen by Claudia Rankine has a pretty thought-provoking cover. I also like the Penguin Classics cover of The Crucible.

12: Who is your favorite author?

C.S. Lewis is a p cool dude

13: What’s your favorite writing quote?

Quote about writing? This was an important one for me as a growing writer and person, tbh:

“I deal with writer’s block by lowering my expectations. I think the trouble starts when you sit down to write and imagine that you will achieve something magical and magnificent—and when you don’t, panic sets in. The solution is never to sit down and imagine that you will achieve something magical and magnificent. I write a little bit, almost every day, and if it results in two or three or (on a good day) four good paragraphs, I consider myself a lucky man. Never try to be the hare. All hail the tortoise.” ~ Malcolm Gladwell

This is literally me and the roots of my procrastination and anxiety with writing anything, be it fanfiction or school work. I worry too much about making it perfect the first time, but another great quote is: “The first draft is always perfect because all it has to do is exist” or something like that. It’s something I’m still working on, but have gotten better at.

14: What’s your favorite writing blog? c;

You mean besides mine :p haha JKJKJK I don’t follow any purely writing blogs, but I’ve read many GREAT pieces from (I missed SO many people in this, so I’m really sorry if I didn’t tag you. I’m too tired to go hunting too far.)

(Sanders Sides) ssides, random-snippets, tinysidestrashcaptain, stillebesat, pirate-patton, among others

(Soul Eater) smokeandjollyranchers, professor-maka, tsarodat, makapedia, kittenintheden, raining-down-hearts, earth-shines, sandmancircus, poisonedscarlett, among others

For non-fandom stuff, hawaiianmint and garnet-portrait have some great poetry that really makes my heart hurt.

15: What would you say has inspired you the most?

As far as writing, I assume....honestly, being involved in fandoms and writing fanfiction! I’m only where I am now because I read so many great writers and adapted their good habits to my own.

16: How do you feel about movies based on books?

I haven’t been a fan of a ton of books turned to screen productions, so that doesn’t help. I liked the Narnia movies until the Dawn Treader. I liked the ASOUE movie, and I’m still deciding how I feel about the Nextflix series. Other than those, I can’t think of any significant ones, to me lol

17: Would you like your books to be turned into TV shows, movies, video games, or none?

Books that I like or books that I write? Etiher way it depends on who’s directing.

18: How do you feel about love triangles?

Eeehhhhhhhhhhh overused trope that ruins otherwise perfectly good plots.

19: Do you prefer writing on a computer or longhand?

Computer. It’s so much easier. I won’t even pretend.

20: What’s your favorite writing program?

I just use Word, my dude.

21: Do you outline?

Not as often as I should, but it helps me a lot.

22: Do you start with characters or plot?

It’s give and take between both, usually characters, though.

23: What’s your favorite & least favorite part of making characters?

Favorite is customization and how no one can tell you that your own OC is OOC.

Least favorite is how involved and difficult it can be.

24: What’s your favorite & least favorite part of plotting?

Favorite is how much fun it can be to throw in twists and make it all interesting!

Least favorite is how I tend to overthink things or not be brave enough to really GO for something. Also research can suck.

25: What advice would you give to young writers?

You’re young. Don’t worry about being amazing at first. You’ll learn and you’ll grow. Online, ins a supportive community, is a good place to start.

26: Which do you enjoy reading the most: physical, ebook, or both?

Physical 100% (I’d print out and read fanfiction that way if I could okay)

27: Which is your favorite genre to write?

Uuuuuuuuuuummmmmm fiction? lol

28: Which do you find hardest: the beginning, the middle, or the end?

Depends on the story, but usually the end.

29: Which do you find easiest: writing or editing?

Editing

30: Have you ever written fan-fiction?

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah yes. help me.

31: Have you ever been published?

Naaahh

32: How do you feel about friends and close relatives reading your work?

Anything other than my fanfics: Shy, but ok.

My fanfics: NONONONONONONONONONONONONO TOO MUCH. EMBARRASSING. -Virgil Sanders 2k4ever

33: Are you interested in having your work published?

I mean maybe, but I’m not good enough, tbh lol

34: Describe your writing space.

My bedroom.

35: What’s your favorite time of day for writing?

I don’t have a favorite, but it often strikes when I should be doing something else.

36: Do you listen to music when you write?

Sometimes! Depends on what I’m writing and how tired I am.

37: What’s your oldest WIP?

I have a lot of things I never finished, but in this case, WIP means, to me, that I might actually finish it, so that would probably be one of a handfuls of old Soul Eater fics I never finished or posted lol

38: What’s your current WIP?

Just one????? LOL

“Patton’s Intuition” (Sanders Sides Fic)

“Virgil the (Semi-)Friendly Ghost” (Sanders Sides Human!GhostAU)

“Eggs and Black Coffee” (A Soul-Eater College!AU)

“A Rose by Any Other Name” (Another Soul-Eater AU)

“Bedside Manner” (Soul-Eater Hospital!AU)

39: What’s the weirdest story idea you’ve ever had?

Mmmmmmm I don’t think I’ve really had any weird ideas. I once thought of doing a Soul-Eater Avatar:TheLastAirbender!AU.

40: Which is your favorite original character, and why?

I have a few original characters. I guess my favorites would be the twins, David and Preston, from a story I wrote in high school called “Buried Alive.”

41: What do you do when characters don’t follow the outline?

Go with it.

42: Do you enjoy making your characters suffer?

No, but sometimes that’s just how the story goes.

43: Have you ever killed a main character?

Not actively in the story.

44: What’s the weirdest character concept you’ve ever come up with?

I don’t have one lol

45: What’s your favorite character name?

Cassidy

46: Describe your perfect writing space.

In the mountains, a sunny day, on my back deck

47: If you could steal one character from another author and make then yours, who would it be and why?

Oooooooooooooooo in the fanfiction world, I really love Marin’s (ssides) University!AU versions of the Sides.

I really like the characters in The Book Thief, To Kill a Mockingbird, and East of Eden. I just really like the personalities and characterizations of those characters.

48: If you could write the next book of any series, which one would it be, and what would you make the book about?

I’d start a new A Series of Unfortunate Events series about little Beatrice.

49: If you could write a collaboration with another author, who would it be and what would you write about?

I’d love to collab with so many writers I’ve read on here.

Mmmmmm IRL though it’d be too embarrassing to try to write with a published author because I’d get too nervous and doubt everything I did.

50: If you could live in any fictional world, which would it be?

NARNIA

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