#queue are the only real superpower i ever had

[lavenderdameron]

Anastasia (1997)

#anastasia #my graphics #queue are the only real superpower I ever had

[pink-chevalier]

GET TO KNOW ME TAG 

Thank you @omiscanking for tagging me! <3 (Sorry I did this so late, hunny!)

RULES: Post a pic of your simself with your traits and answer the questions! PS: My simself is so damn pretty while I’m here looking like trash. 

Tags: @cosmic-espie @purplesimmer455 @stucksimming @cloud-9-sims @enniewritesathing @99simproblems @aboxfullofocs (If you were tagged and already did this I am so sorry!)

If you want read about me, all a&q before the cut!

1. WHAT IS YOUR FULL NAME? Chanel

2. WHAT IS YOUR NICKNAME? None

3. BIRTHDAY? October 12

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE BOOK SERIES? I regret reading more fanfictions then books now. I don’t think it was a series, but I could be wrong. I read something called Evermore. 

5. DO YOU BELIEVE IN ALIENS OR GHOSTS? Both.

6. WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE AUTHOR? I don’t have one. I tend to just read books.

7. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE RADIO STATION? Don't have any.

8. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FLAVOR OF ANYTHING? Strawberry or Chocolate. 

9. WHAT WORD WOULD YOU USE OFTEN TO DESCRIBE SOMETHING GREAT OR WONDERFUL? “This is fucking amazing!”

10. WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT FAVORITE SONG? One Hundred Sleepless Nights by Pierce the Veil.

11. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE WORD? Goddamn it.

12. WHAT WAS THE LAST SONG YOU LISTENED TO? The opening song to season one of Tokyo Ghoul.

13. WHAT TV SHOW WOULD YOU RECOMMEND FOR EVERYBODY TO WATCH? I don’t really watch TV as much as I used to.

14. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE TO WATCH WHEN YOU’RE FEELING DOWN? Hercules and Mulan. 

15. DO YOU PLAY VIDEO GAMES? I play tons of video games. 

16. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR? That something could be lurking in the dark. It gets super dark in my apartment, and I'm scared that something or someone could be in here without my knowledge.

17. WHAT IS YOUR BEST QUALITY, IN YOUR OPINION? How nice I am. 

18. WHAT IS YOUR WORST QUALITY, IN YOUR OPINION? I can't make a damn decision to save my life. 

19. DO YOU LIKE CATS OR DOGS BETTER? I lean towards the dog side. 

20. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SEASON? Fall. It's not too cold, and it's not too hot. 

21. ARE YOU IN A RELATIONSHIP? I'm single as all hell. 

22. WHAT IS SOMETHING YOU MISS FROM YOUR CHILDHOOD? Not having to worry about the future as much and stressing over debt. I miss just playing with my friends and thinking that long division was hard. 

23. WHO IS YOUR BEST FRIEND? Stuffy (nickname). We met in high school, and we stuck together like glue. 

24. WHAT IS YOUR EYE COLOR? Dark Brown. 

25. WHAT IS YOUR HAIR COLOR? Very dark brown, almost black. 

26. WHO IS SOMEONE YOU LOVE? I love my family, my friends, the simblr community. 

27. WHO IS SOMEONE YOU TRUST? My best friend. 

28. WHO IS SOMEONE YOU THINK ABOUT OFTEN? now, a good friend who passed away this year…

29. ARE YOU CURRENTLY EXCITED ABOUT/FOR SOMETHING? For one of my French classes, we're going to take a trip to Canada so I'm super excited about that. 

30. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST OBSESSION? Tumblr!

31. WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE TV SHOW AS A CHILD? I have two: Courage the Cowardly Dog and TMNT.

32. WHO OF THE OPPOSITE GENDER CAN YOU TELL ANYTHING TO, IF ANYONE? One of my cousins. 

33. ARE YOU SUPERSTITIOUS? Just a tiny little bit. 

34. DO YOU HAVE ANY UNUSUAL PHOBIAS? Roaches. I will set my whole damn apartment on fire if I ever find big ass roach just crawling around like it owns the damn place. 

35. DO YOU PREFER TO BE IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA OR BEHIND IT? Behind it. 

36. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE HOBBY? Writing and working on my queue. 

37. WHAT WAS THE LAST BOOK YOU READ?  The Odyssey

38. WHAT WAS THE LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? Aquaman!

39. WHAT MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS DO YOU PLAY, IF ANY? Snare drum.

40. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ANIMAL? Wolves.

41. WHAT ARE YOUR TOP 5 FAVORITE TUMBLR BLOGS THAT YOU FOLLOW? I have too many that I follow (stalk). 

42. WHAT SUPERPOWER DO YOU WISH YOU HAD? Time Travel.

43. WHEN AND WHERE DO YOU FEEL MOST AT PEACE? In the shower or just laying down in bed under a ton of blankets. 

44. WHAT MAKES YOU SMILE? A lot of things. If my baby cousin does something cute, my dog being silly, or something stupid my best friend and I did while playing a game. 

45. WHAT SPORTS DO YOU PLAY, IF ANY? I'm not good at sports. 

46. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE DRINK? Strawberry Soda. 

47. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU WROTE A HAND-WRITTEN LETTER OR NOTE TO SOMEBODY? Before the winter vacation, my friend and I were passing notes to each other. 

48. ARE YOU AFRAID OF HEIGHTS? Depends on how high up I am. 

49. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST PET PEEVE? When people are in my damn way even when I said excuse me.

50. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO A CONCERT? Nope.

51. ARE YOU VEGAN/VEGETARIAN? Nope.

52. WHEN YOU WERE LITTLE, WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GREW UP? I think I wanted to be either a fireman or president.

53. WHAT FICTIONAL WORLD WOULD YOU LIKE TO LIVE IN? I can’t think of any off of the top of my head. 

54. WHAT IS SOMETHING YOU WORRY ABOUT? I worry about a lot of things.

55. ARE YOU SCARED OF THE DARK? I'm scared of what's inside the dark. 

56. DO YOU LIKE TO SING? Yup.

57. HAVE YOU EVER SKIPPED SCHOOL? Yup.

58. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PLACE ON THE PLANET? My bedroom.

59. WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO LIVE? Somewhere in France, England, California, Greece, Italy or Japan. 

60. DO YOU HAVE ANY PETS? Just a sassy little dog. 

61. ARE YOU MORE OF AN EARLY BIRD OR A NIGHT OWL? Night owl. 

62. DO YOU LIKE SUNRISES OR SUNSETS BETTER? Both are so pretty. 

63. DO YOU KNOW HOW TO DRIVE? Nope. 

64. DO YOU PREFER EARBUDS OR HEADPHONES? Headphones.

65. HAVE YOU EVER HAD BRACES? Nope.

66. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE GENRE OF MUSIC? Anything rock. 

67. WHO IS YOUR HERO? My mother. 

68. DO YOU READ COMIC BOOKS? Sometimes.

69. WHAT MAKES YOU THE MOST ANGRY? How stupid some people can be. 

70. DO YOU PREFER TO READ ON AN ELECTRONIC DEVICE OR WITH A REAL BOOK? Both are fine. But, I tend to spend more time on my phone, so I guess an electronic device. 

71. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SUBJECT IN SCHOOL? English Class. (Mostly for the books)

72. DO YOU HAVE ANY SIBLINGS? I am an only child. 

73. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU BOUGHT? A jacket. 

74. HOW TALL ARE YOU? 5′5

75. CAN YOU COOK? I'm okay at cooking, but if you want me to bake you something I'm your girl!

76. WHAT ARE THREE THINGS THAT YOU LOVE? My dog, my sims, and my friends/family.

77. WHAT ARE THREE THINGS THAT YOU HATE? Stupid/rude people, roaches, and killers on dead by daylight that rage quit.

78. DO YOU HAVE MORE FEMALE FRIENDS OR MORE MALE FRIENDS? I have more female friends.

79. WHAT IS YOUR SEXUAL ORIENTATION? Straight

80. WHERE DO YOU CURRENTLY LIVE? New York City.

81. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TEXTED? My best friend. 

82. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? I think it was during finals. 

83. WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE YOUTUBER? I have too many. 

84. DO YOU LIKE TO TAKE SELFIES? Depends.

85. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE APP? YouTube.

86. WHAT IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR PARENT(S) LIKE? It's amazing.

87. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FOREIGN ACCENT? British. 

88. WHAT IS A PLACE THAT YOU’VE NEVER BEEN TO, BUT YOU WANT TO VISIT? Japan, Greece, England, France, Italy, and Cuba. 

89. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE NUMBER? 12

90. CAN YOU JUGGLE? I wish!

91. ARE YOU RELIGIOUS? Nope. 

92. DO YOU FIND OUTER SPACE OF THE DEEP OCEAN TO BE MORE INTERESTING? The Deep Ocean. Not going to lie I won't be surprised if we find some damn alien species in the ocean. 

93. DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF TO BE A DAREDEVIL? Meh.

94. ARE YOU ALLERGIC TO ANYTHING? Yeah. Octopus. 

95. CAN YOU CURL YOUR TONGUE? Yeah. 

96. CAN YOU WIGGLE YOUR EARS? Nope. 

97. HOW OFTEN DO YOU ADMIT THAT YOU WERE WRONG ABOUT SOMETHING? A lot, but I don't say oh I was wrong, I always say "Wait, no, I'm a fucking liar, I lied to you."

98. DO YOU PREFER THE FOREST OR THE BEACH? Forest. I'm not a beach person. 

99. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PIECE OF ADVICE THAT ANYONE HAS EVER GIVEN YOU? Focus on being happy.

100. ARE YOU A GOOD LIAR? I don't really know. God, I hope not. 

101. WHAT IS YOUR HOGWARTS HOUSE? I don't have one... I'm sorry.

102. DO YOU TALK TO YOURSELF? Yup. 

103. ARE YOU AN INTROVERT OR AN EXTROVERT? Introvert.

104. DO YOU KEEP A JOURNAL/DIARY? I used to when I was younger. 

105. DO YOU BELIEVE IN SECOND CHANCES? Yeah, but it depends on what was done. 

106. IF YOU FOUND A WALLET FULL OF MONEY ON THE GROUND, WHAT WOULD YOU DO? This actually happened to me once, and I ended up returning it to the person.

107. DO YOU BELIEVE THAT PEOPLE ARE CAPABLE OF CHANGE? If someone really wants to change then, they can change, so in a sense, yes, I believe people can change. 

108. ARE YOU TICKLISH? Too ticklish. 

109. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN ON A PLANE? Yup.

110. DO YOU HAVE ANY PIERCINGS? Yeah, my ears are pierced, my grandmother actually did them when I was a baby. 

111. WHAT FICTIONAL CHARACTER DO YOU WISH WAS REAL? Caleb Vatore hehe

112. DO YOU HAVE ANY TATTOOS? Not really.

113. WHAT IS THE BEST DECISION THAT YOU’VE MADE IN YOUR LIFE SO FAR? First is making this simblr because I met some pretty nice people here even though I’m too shy for my own good. And second becoming a French minor, I love it so much. 

114. DO YOU BELIEVE IN KARMA? Hell yeah

115. DO YOU WEAR GLASSES OR CONTACTS? Glasses all day every day. (I have an intense fear of sticking things in my eyes)

116. DO YOU WANT CHILDREN? Yeah, but in the future.  

117. WHO IS THE SMARTEST PERSON YOU KNOW? My mother

118. WHAT IS YOUR MOST EMBARRASSING MEMORY? 

119. HAVE YOU EVER PULLED AN ALL-NIGHTER? Too many times. 

120. WHAT COLOR ARE MOST OF YOUR CLOTHES? Black, White, Pink, Yellow, Grey, Red, and Blue.

121. DO YOU LIKE ADVENTURES? Depends on the adventure. 

122. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN ON TV? Nope

123. HOW OLD ARE YOU? 24

124. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE QUOTE? “Don't abuse someone's kindness. Remember, even in every angel, a demon hides."

125. DO YOU PREFER SWEET OR SAVORY FOODS? Sweet.

#nonsims #tag game

[lovemyciel]

Tag game

I was tagged by.... a lot of people XD Thank you!! I will not be able to answer everyone so I'll do the first ones I find on my timeline.

I will start with @just-sebaciel​

1. Which animal could it be your Patronus?

I think that probably a cat XD

2. Do you believe in magic? Why?

I do believe in magic as little things that inspire your soul.

3. Which magical creature you wanted to be real? (mermaids, werewolwes etc.)

Hmm... I don´t know! Maybe fairies?

4.What was the worst day in your life?

In our lives we have more than one day that we can classify as "this was the worst day". Things happen and we are not always ready for them. But if I have to mention any I would say the day I lost my cousin who was like my brother and the day I lost my mother. 

5.  What was your favorite book when you were a child?

I always loved the fairy tales and I read a lot of these books when I was little child.

6. If you had chance to had deathly hallows which one you prefer? (A wand, a cloak or a stone)

Probably a stone. Discreet and easy to hide lol

7. What is your Hogwarts House?

Ravenclaw

8. Which smells remind you home?

I really love the scent of lemon grass. I feel so relaxed and calm.

9.What is your dream about your future?

Financial stability and time to dedicate myself to what I love.

10.What is your favorite memories always made you smile?

My son, the joyful moments with friends and when I can have fangirl attacks about my otp with them.

Questions of @gin-devil​! Thank you so much!!

1. Your first pet?

It was a dog. Big and not too friendly. He was a watchdog and he was quite big. I remember I was always afraid of him lol I was 5 or 6 yo? He was already an adult dog when he arrived home.

2. What was one of your favorite childhood games?

Hide and seek. And any game where I could pretend to be someone else in another life lol from a princess to a knight XD

3. First favorite food?

Pasta.

4. A song that usually -if not always- cheers you up?

Oh, lots of songs! How to choose one? I'll mention one that I was listening to this morning and that made me smile a lot  "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing".

5. How would you spend your ideal weekend?

Having fun with dear friends.

6. If you suddenly became incredibly super-rich, what would be the first thing you would buy/spend money on?

On a trip through all the countries I've always dreamed of visiting.

7. If you could change one thing that happened in history, what would it be and how would you change it?

I would like to change the historical events that caused the massacres of innocents. 

8. Last thing you ate?

Soup.

9. What is something you would want to tell your past self if you had the opportunity?

Do not let anyone convince you that their mistakes are your fault, do not let anyone hurt you to the point that you forget that you deserve respect. Do not let people convince you that you do not matter.

10. Do you have any regrets?

Not having understood the same as I said above unless many years later.

@thedemonssidekick​ questions! Thank you!!!

1. Do you prefer to stay up late or get up early?

To stay up late!

2. Your three things that you would bring on a lonely island?

A good book ( or fanfictions lol), a friend and good food XD

3. Do you have a morning routine? What is it like?

Hm ... I do not have a proper order to do things in the morning. I do everything half asleep lol

4. Do you use the calendar in you phone or a not-digital one? Or none at all?

I prefer a non-digital one. Much better!!

5. Tell me one good thing that happened today!

I took some time to talk to dear friends.

6. You first impression of tumblr vs now.

My first impression of tumblr was that of a place to enjoy things from my favorite series without restrictions, how I was mistaken lol... now I see it as a place with incredible people but also with many people who likes to do bullying people pretending to be more noble than others. Yet all the amazing people I've met here still make my experience here awesome and worthy.

7. Text message / E-Mail, phone call or talking in person?

With the life we have we are not always available all the time. But getting messages or leaving messages to someone we like is always very good. We can keep in touch.

8. What’s your favourite season?

Spring and Fall. (Because here is too hot on summer)

9. Do you use your queue?

I´m very embarassed to say that i didn't understand this question... lol English isn´t my first language and i did not grasp the meaning of the question.

10. One thing you always wanted to tell but no one ever asks for.

I would like to dye my hair in blue lol.

@bannu219​ questions! Thank you!!

1. What is your spirit animal?

Repetitive but i think that it is a cat XD

2. Who are the people the inspire you the most in your life?

People who accept themselves well.

3. If you could meet your tumblr mutals in real life who would they be?

Omg! Lots of wonderful people! @chromehoplite​, @just-sebaciel​, @jaena-eowyn​, @vieilleotaku​, @bookstakeyoutootherworlds​, @peritian​, @nisaki-chan​, @rinfiorarara​, @batdesu​, @deet-doot-diz​, @tragicd0ll​, @dragonsploosh​, @thedemonssidekick​, @baccoart​, @bannu219​, @phantomichaelisx   and I´m sure i´m forgetting more... lots of awesome friends here.

4. What is your aesthetic?

I love victorian aesthetic and steam punk aesthetic.

5. Which song best describes you?

That´s a very hard question...

6. What was your favorite childhood cartoon character?

Deslock from yamato (lol its old as fuck but someone in home was watching that and i watched it togueter with them. It was my first anime crush XD I don´t even remember my age)

7. Favorite place to go shop?

Japanese sites.

8. What was your best and most favorite high school memory?

A few excursions I did with friends.

9. What was the dream job you wanted to do but can’t?

Professional Illustrator

10. Which color best describes you and why?

I think that it is lilac, I do not know exactly why. But it's a color that comes to mind when I think of myself.

I tag everyone I mentioned in this post lol But only if you want to do it XD

My questions:

1. If you could make 3 wishes, what would you wish?

2. What superpower would you like to have?

3. Favorite food and why?

4. Have you ever cosplayed or would you like to? Which character?

5. Coffe, tea or wine?

6. A dream trip?

7. A book that you love but that is not so well known by the general public.

8. Favorite dessert?

9. Do you prefer to watch a movie on theathers or watch a movie at home?

10. Is there something crazy you'd like to do but you're too embarassed to?

#tag game #lol #i know i was tagged by lots of people #i´m sorry for not reply everyone #too much questions xd #but i loved every tag #it took ages to reply

[thegreatwhiteferret]

87 Random Questions

I was tagged by @edwardtheloser because JJ just wants the world to burn. 💖💖💖

1. Where do you live? I currently live in Delaware...yeah, the tiny ass state everyone forgets about.

2. One cool item you own? I’m trying to think of something really deep and meaningful...I have a Texas charm with golden star on it that I wear with a cross on a chain around my neck and never take off. 

3. Moon or stars? The stars (High key one of the things I miss most about Texas)!

4. Places you’d like to travel to? Either to London or to Disney...both are related to Peter Pan for reasons.

5. Favorite song? I cannot possibly pick just one song...music is everything. Praying by Kesha has me all sorts of in the feels right now.

6. Do you have any fears? I am afraid of so many things. I am afraid of the dark, germs, going into anaphylaxis, letting people down, not being good enough...I should stop now, right?

7. Do you feel different than you did last year? I mean I guess. The past year has been really bad for me, but I’ve just recently started feeling really hopeful about the future.

8. What is your race? I am white as white can be. I’m 75% Canadian (25-British, 25-Irish, and 25-French with a bit of Native American mixed in) and then 25% mystery that is most likely German or Dutch. 

9. Pet peeves? People being assholes when they disagree with something and people smacking when they eat. (These two just stuck out, there are more, I’m petty as hell)

10. Any siblings? I have 3 sisters.

11. Are you a gamer? Only if The Sims and Dream Daddy count. Hand eye coordination is not there.

12. Sexual orientation? Pansexual Princess 

13. Does a broken mirror mean bad luck? I don’t know, but I will steer the fuck clear!

14. What do you feel is your mental age? Depends on the day. Sometimes I feel like I’m sixteen some days I feel like I’m forty. There is no consistency. 

15. How old were you when you started dating? My family was super strict, so no dating officially until after I went to college.

16. Where do you do most of your online shopping? Forever21 and Amazon.

17. Favorite animal? Bears

18. What’s one film from the 2000s that you like? Psssssh, so many. School of Rock and Mean Girls were my shit though.

19. What’s your favorite scary movie? IT. I am a scaredy cat, so the fact that I love this movie so much is amazing.

20. Fun fact about yourself? I convinced my 5th grade teacher that I had elaborately schemed to get rid of my baby sister when I was only three years old to avoid actually having to write a serious paper. I won a damn award for my story too.

21. Shoe size? 9.5 or a 10 in Women's. 

22. Which fictional character(s) do you relate to the most? Junie B. Jones. She’s a real hero of mine. (JK, Stanley Uris and I are one in the same).

23. Where do you see yourself living in ten years? Philly, Boston, or Chicago. I need some excitement in my life.

24. Ever wore clothes that were just wayyy too tight? I mean I wore a corset around just for the hell of it the either night so....

25. What’s on your mind? How many stories I have in my queue to write and the fact that I am not doing that right now...whoops.

26. Are you religious? I’d still identify as Christian, but I have a lot of questions. I also don’t believe in pushing your religion on people, that’s an asshole move.

27. How tall are you? 5’8″

28. Favorite band? HOW DO YOU EXPECT ME TO PICK ONE??? Jesus, I’m going to see AJR in a few weeks so let me give them a shoutout.

29. Do you remember 2009? Yes. It sucked.

30. Cats or dogs? DOGS! You can fight me on this one @edwardtheloser they are freaking flawless and amazing.

31. Fruit or vegetables? Por que no los dos??

32. Do you want to get married? Yes. That would be nice.

33. Do you want children? I DO. So so bad. It’s a problem.

34. Flamingos or peacocks? Meh. Birds. (Only difference between me and Stan tbh)

35. What superpower do you wish you had? Telekinesis or Shapeshifting.

36. Are you a germ freak? Yes. I have severe food allergies and I break out when I touch the allergens, so I kind of have to be. Also, people are gross.

37. Did swearing baby, ghost car, or ghost caught on tape scare you as a kid? I don’t know what any of these are...

38. Do you prefer sweet or salty? Por que no los dos?

39. Tea or coffee? Give me all of the non carbonated caffeine.

40. Are you superstitious? Yes. I knock on wood. I won’t walk under ladders or on cracks in the sidewalk. I do counting things as coping mechanisms. I’m so bad.

41. Do you like stripes? Sure, but plaid is better.

42. Favorite shows as a kid? The Big Comfy Couch, Rugrats, The Wiggles, Doug, Arthur, Zoom...I liked TV a lot.

43. Favorite shows growing up? Lizzie McGuire, Boy Meets World, That’s So Raven, Sabrina the Teenage Witch...again, I liked TV a lot.

44. Favorite musical? I LOVE MUSICALS. Hamilton, Hairspray, High School Musical, Rocky Horror, Annie. All of them. RENT is my absolute favorite though, I bawled my eyes out when I saw it live.

45. Favorite movie? Inglorious Basterds, IT, and Goonies.

46. Birthday? October 1st.

47. Are you a grammar Nazi? Yes. It kills me not to correct people.

48. Ever gotten drunk? Hahahahaha. Yes.

49. Do you have a carrier bag? I switch between a small backpack, a big satchel bag and a small hot pink cross body purse. As long as my epi pen and wipes fit, I’m good.

50. What would you do if you were the opposite gender for a day? Some very NSFW things...I’m not sorry.

51. If you were the opposite gender what would you change your name to? Oliver, Ollie for short.

52. What song is stuck in your head? The Kids Aren’t Alright by The Offspring

53. Celebrity crush? Hilary Knight, Taron Egerton, Chris Evans, Hayley Williams, Joe Keery...so many. I love all the people.

54. If you could live in a non-English speaking country, where would it be? Sweden

55. Are you a good dancer? I try...

56. Have any allergies? Gluten and Dairy. Deathly allergic and people think it’s just a diet fad smh...

57. Any bad habits? Procrastinating and shoving my feelings down.

58. Ever broke a bone? Yes. My mom broke my leg when I was three, we fell down the stairs and if she hadn’t pushed me behind her and landed on my leg I would have gone head first into a brick wall. My mommy saved my life. 💖

59. Are you a city or country person? Both. I like the feel of the country with the convenience of the city.

60. Do you like your home country? United States of Go Fuck Yourself

61. Sunflowers or daisies? Sunflowers 

62. Tulips or roses? Tulips, they remind me of living in the Netherlands as a kid.

63. Oak or maple? Maple. I’m Canadian, eh.

64. Disney or Nickelodeon? BOTH! I WILL NOT CHOOSE!

65. WYR be obese or anorexic? I’m in recovery for both anorexia and bulimia and have been since I was twelve years old, body dysmorphia since I was seven because I’ve been overweight my entire life, and this question can go fuck itself. Jesus fucking Christ. Those are serious issues not choices. Fuck.

66. WYR be over 6 feet or under 5 feet? Under 5 feet, I hate being tall.

67. Rubies or sapphires? Sapphires

68. Are you stubborn? I am so stubborn that it hurts.

69. Have you been in scouts/Girl Scouts? Yes! And I loved it.

70. What type of music do you listen to? Everything. I love music.

71. Favorite vine? Uhmmmm...I was never into vines...sorry.

72. Beaches or castles? Castles. Real life Disney Princess y’all!

73. Pick the closest book to you, and write the line you opened to:

"I mean, a superhero. My heart almost squeezes to a stop. Blue loves superheroes.” -Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda

74. Anyone in the same room as you right now? Yup. My mama and the dogs. Pip is sleeping on my lap.

75. Which is worse; throwing up or diarrhea? I mean I don’t love either...

76. Butterflies or lady bugs? I don’t like bugs...butterflies qualify as well. 

77. Do you say “K” when you’re not mad? I never do this, because I am so cautious of how others will feel from it. You can’t take back hurt feelings.

78. How do you react when purposely scare you? I usually have some form of anxiety attack. My sister has made me cry and panic just from making me watch a YouTube video...I’m easy to scare guys.

79. Most overrated celebrity? Every Kardashian except for Khloe, I love her.

80. Do you have a globe in your room? No, I have a print of the world, but that would be so cool!

81. Do you have a dream catcher in your room? No, this would also be cool.

82. What do you see when you look out your window? Well it’s nighttime now so darkness.

83. Have you been on an airplane? Yes, I’ve been flying since I was a month old.

84. Do you believe in aliens? Yes. It’s stupid to think that we are alone in the universe.

85. Do you believe in ghosts? Absolutely. I don’t fuck with spirits, all respect.

86. Do you believe in God? I believe in a higher power, and I do still have faith in the Christian God, but I do have so many questions.

87. Do you believe in yourself? I’m working on it, y’all. That’s all I can say.

I am tagging randomly because I don’t know who has done this yet... @billbenbev @its-reddie-bitch @not-reddie @theriodiaries @demianhill @dannybriereisaliferuiner @thebroadstreetdarling @milagric and whoever else would like to do this, consider yourselves tagged! 💖💖💖💖💖

#Me #Question Thingy #This is so long #Personal

[carafinn]

We Were Emergencies (1/3)

pairing: Kyoutani Kentarou/ Yahaba Shigeru word count: ~4k summary: As if life as a superhero isn't hard enough already: there's a new vigilante in town going by the name of Mad Dog, and he seems to have a penchant for apprehending serial killers and sending Yahaba into ever deeper depths of work related despair. This does not bode well for anybody.   

also on ao3. 

“Fuck off,” the Mad Dog says, and spits a thick wad of blood onto the ground. Amidst the dim glow of moonlight Yahaba can briefly make out blond hair and dark, feral eyes. The corner of his mouth is still dripping blood. Yahaba realises, with no small measure of surprise, that the Mad Dog can’t be any older than he is.

Yahaba, through sheer force of stubbornness alone, refuses to back down or look afraid. Refuses.

So many dumb ways to die.

“You’re -” Yahaba struggles to think of a phrase to complete the sentence. The Mad Dog. The vigilante hero. The reason why I’ve been having the worst tension headache of my life for the past three weeks. “You’re injured.”

“I’ve got some pretty shit news for you,” Futakuchi tells Yahaba, by way of greeting, because obviously it being a Monday morning isn’t depressing enough in itself. Not that Yahaba has anything against Monday mornings; it just happens that the team always has their mortality meetings on Mondays and, shit, if there’s anything in the world that can make sitting around discussing what went wrong during rescue missions, and how many people died as a consequence, even more depressing, Yahaba cannot think of it. Not a single thing, and it isn’t even for the lack of trying. “Would you like me to break it to you right now or would you prefer to take the depressing news along with your morning coffee?”

“‘Good morning, Yahaba, how was your weekend?’” Yahaba says, in a long-suffering tone. ‘“Well it was pretty crappy, given the number of last minute clean-up missions that cropped up, but it’s very kind of you, Futakuchi, I appreciate your asking after my well-being.” “Of course, I actually have some bad news right now but I wouldn’t dream of blindsiding you after such a horrible weekend-”’

“Don’t bother, he did the same thing to me the moment I came to office,” comes Watari’s half-amused, half-bemused voice from the adjacent cubicle, and Yahaba almost lets out an indignant hey! at how Watari had cut off his Oscar-worthy monologue. “And it really is bad news. Apparently there’s a new vigilante on the loose in our area.”

“You gotta be kidding me.” What can be more depressing than a mortality meeting on Monday? he’d asked the heavens, naively. Well, at least Yahaba’s found an answer to his own question.

Vigilantes are a rescue team’s worst nightmare. The thing is, Yahaba doesn’t mind being in a team that specialises in cleaning up after other heroes, even if he has superpowers himself. He doesn’t care that his job ranks right at the bottom of the superhero hierarchy, that people call his team the clean-up crew. He doesn’t mind relinquishing the spotlight – and the accompanying fame and fortune – to others, or the fact that he’ll spend his whole career in the background, rescuing defeated heroes and dealing with the messy aftermaths of glorious fights. People often laud heroes for their bravery, cheer them on from the side lines and revere them from afar. What they often forget, and it is so easy to forget, is that it doesn’t just end there.

It isn’t enough that the criminal or rogue has been apprehended; it isn’t even enough that the victim has been saved. Somebody’s got to make sure that the (frequently injured, more frequently deeply traumatised) victim is well taken care of; that no other passer-by has been inadvertently harmed in the process; that there should be no rubble lying around that poses immediate danger to anybody. It’s utterly mundane; insipid, even, but no less important for that.

Most heroes are conscientious about keeping collateral damage to a minimum, although the more hot-headed ones tend to cause more carnage than is absolutely necessary. The amount of damage dealt is dependent on the nature of the power, too; there was a period of time when Yahaba spent a lot of time cleaning up, quite literally, after a hero whose primary ability consisted drawing up sewage from the drains and using them to power toxic explosions… it had been a truly dark period in his life.

In any case. Vigilante heroes (heroes not officially registered and regulated under the Central Bureau) are the worst, because if history is of any guide, everything they did tended to degenerate into a lot of senseless violence. Also, because they don’t report back to the Bureau, their activities are notoriously difficult to track and trace, which means that the clean-up crew will almost always arrive too late to the crime scene.

Yahaba makes his way to the kitchen pantry, scoops two heaping tablespoons of instant coffee into his cup, and hovers his hand in mid-air as he engages in a mental debate as to whether he should make his coffee extra strong today, because clearly he is going to need it. His poor heart, though.

“My intel tells me that guy’s real strong, too,” comes Futakuchi’s gleeful voice from outside the pantry. Is he getting a kick out of Yahaba’s misery? He’s definitely getting a kick out of Yahaba’s misery. “We’re talking Iwaizumi level strong. And he doesn’t give a shit about the petty criminals; goes exclusively after the serial murderers.”

Yahaba glares at his cup of coffee, thinks better of it, and then scoops in another two heaping tablespoons for good measure. Fuck his heart; here’s to hoping that the caffeine overdose will kill him before the overworking does.

    While it’s true that Futakuchi might be given to occasional bouts of sadism, the fact remains that there is nobody better at gathering information in the most timely and efficient manner possible than he does. This is something that has, in the grand scheme of things, cut down on precious rescue time and prevented a lot of unnecessary injuries and death.  The ability that is formally registered under his profile in the Bureau is “expert hacker”, but Yahaba knows that his genius lies not just in extracting information but also in processing them in the most logical and thorough manner possible. it’s hard to figure out where Futakuchi’s superpower ends and his natural, scary perceptiveness begins.

His information, while sometimes delivered in the most sadistic manner possible, is almost never inaccurate.

This, Yahaba will reflect later, is precisely the problem.

It’s Tuesday evening, and Yahaba is in the supermarket, picking out turnips for dinner. A very harmless, normal, civilian activity. He waits in the queue for 20 minutes because it’s Tuesday evening and everyone’s grabbing groceries on the way home from work, and of course his phone has to buzz right before he gets to check out his vegetables.

“There’s been a murder attempt, and the vigilante’s involved this time. Took out the murderer before anyone else got to intervene but there’s a lot of collateral damage,” comes Nametu’s voice from the other end of the line.

“Location?” Yahaba asks, deftly making his way through the crowd while thinking sadly about the turnip soup that he will never get to drink. Another voice in his head, sounding suspiciously like Watari, tells him that he’s being unnecessarily dramatic.

“I’ll get Futakuchi to send it to you, and the fastest route you can take.”

“Got it, boss.”

It’s an abandoned shopping mall that is, thankfully, only a five minute bike journey from Yahaba’s current location. Briefly, Yahaba wonders if the vigilante guy had chosen an abandoned building to prevent innocent civilians from getting involved, but retracts the thought almost instantly. There’s no way a vigilante hero would be that considerate, and besides, Futakuchi did say a lot of collateral damage.

Watari’s already at the scene by the time Yahaba makes it to the abandoned building, or what used to be a building, because the entire thing has been reduced to a rubble and torn brutally apart, down to every. Last. Brick.

Atop the mountain of rubble is the perpetrator, who is alive but who, by the looks of it, would much rather not be. Yahaba almost feels sorry for him before he realises that the guy in front of him is, in fact, a notorious serial killer whose penchant for killing his victims by slicing their necks open has made Yahaba violently ill on several depressing clean-up missions. If Futakuchi’s intel is to be trusted, they’ve even got a code name for him back in the underground world. The Slasher.

“Unbelievable,” Watari mumbles, mostly to himself. Yahaba doesn’t know if the statement is meant to address the pile of rubble, or the fact that the vigilante had managed to find and beat up someone who’d managed to elude capture for the past year. Watari turns to him. “The vigilante still nearby?”

Part of Yahaba’s superpower is the ability to sense if other superpowers are nearby; a hero’s (or criminal’s) presence is directly proportional to how strong he is. A guy capable of knocking out the Slasher and a whole building in the process, Yahaba would be able to pick him up from ten miles away. He shakes his head.

“There’s no way we’re gonna find him right now,” Yahaba says. He supposes it’s for the best; if they’d been caught in the crossfire they’d probably be soup by now. Yahaba scans the surroundings: there doesn’t seem to be any innocent civilians lurking around, but they’re going to have to check to make sure. And the Slasher definitely needs medical help. And the building.

“We’re gonna need backup,” Yahaba tells Nametsu grimly. “You’re not going to believe this…”

    As it turns out, the vigilante guy actually has some sort of notorious, pseudo-celebrity status even in the underground world, and an equally ridiculous nickname to go with it. The Mad Dog.

“He’s fucking batshit insane,” says the Slasher, looking terrified and slightly crazed, voice cracking at the end for added emphasis. Yahaba thinks it’s really rich coming from someone who gets a kick from slashing open the necks of young women, but catches Nametsu’s forbidding glance and resists the urge to drive his fist into the guy’s face. Right. Yahaba has an unfortunate track record of ending interrogations prematurely because of the bad temper of his; according to Nametsu, he’s one more violent outburst away from getting barred from interrogations altogether. “He… he makes fissures and splits the ground like it’s made of cake.”

That explains the rubble. Across the table, Ennoshita looks thoughtful. And also disturbingly calm, given the context of this conversation, but that’s precisely why Ennoshita’s in charge of interrogations. Ennoshita’s a hypnotist, but he’s gotten so good at the job that he doesn’t even need to invoke his powers most of the time. It’s uncanny, really. All he does is slap on this dazed, mellow expression, and wala! - manages to wheedle out every last bit of information out of the most tight lipped of criminals, before they can realise that they’ve divulged everything ranging from their syndicate’s deepest darkest secrets to the horoscopes of their great-grandaunts.

Between Ennoshita and Futakuchi, Yahaba privately thinks that they’ve enough power to bring the whole country down to its knees. Not that Yahaba is ever going to admit it.

“So he attacks by manipulating the surroundings?”

The Slasher shakes his head. “Fucker uses the ground manipulating thing to trap you. Then he attacks you with his fists. And his teeth. Like a fucking animal.”

This explains a lot of things. For instance, the Mad Dog nickname. And also, the numerous, harrowing looking bite marks on the Slasher’s arms.

“Interesting,” Ennoshita says, eyes gleaming as he leans forward. “Do you happen to know anything more about his background?”

“Not a damn clue,” Slasher tells him. “He appeared a few weeks ago outta nowhere. Thought it was a joke when I got the news, but… fuck, shoulda ran away when I got the tip.”

The guy is giving the Slasher a run for his money. This cannot bode well for anybody.

“...or killed a few more women,” the Slasher continues, ugly features twisting into a perverted smile, and Yahaba’s just about to lunge forward, fuck the rules, but he’s too late to it. Nametsu, who was standing behind Yahaba, reaches out and knocks the guy cold in a single, clean blow with her bare fists.

“Yahaba,” Nametsu turns and addresses him in a chiding tone. “What did we say about resorting to violence in interrogations?”

This isn’t even in the realm of the pot calling the kettle black anymore. This is the pot calling the kettle a pot.

“You can continue the interrogation tomorrow,” Nametsu tells Ennoshita, before making her way out of the room serenely, leaving everyone to gape at her. The underground world might not be ready for the Mad Dog, but they sure as hell will never be ready for Mai Nametsu.

    Yahaba gets exactly two and a half days of peace before the Mad Dog strikes again. Retirement cannot come fast enough.

This time it’s Minatoya Soetsu, the boss of one of the biggest syndicates in the city that deals with human trafficking, and he’s been tied against a random tree in one of the forest patches at the outskirts of the city. Or what used to be a forest; unfortunately, every other tree in the vicinity seems to have been uprooted, so it’s less forest and more barren wasteland.

Yahaba is starting to notice a trend.

When Minatoya finally comes to three days later, he gets sent for a gruelling round of interrogations with Ennoshita as per department protocol. It goes pretty smoothly, mostly because the guy recognises that he’s fucked and has nothing to lose, and if divulging more information about the syndicate means that it’ll lighten his sentence, then he’s happy to roll with it.

It goes smoothly, that is, until Ennoshita wraps up the conversation with, “So, about the circumstances of your capture.”

Minatoya freezes. He darts his eye around the room with an expression horribly reminiscent of a trapped animal, as if expecting someone to leap out from the ceiling and shout “Surprise!!!” before beating him into a pulp. Privately, Yahaba thinks it’s a rather befitting expression, given Minatoya’s track record of trafficking kidnapped children.

“We need you to tell us about the Mad Dog,” Ennoshita says, and that’s when Minatoya loses it. He starts to laugh.

He’s still laughing, ten minutes later, when he’s escorted out of the room by a disturbed looking Watari.

    This continues for two months; not a single week passes where the Mad Dog won’t stir up some sort of trouble; by then, Yahaba’s already resigned to cleaning up after the guy forever with no hopes of capturing him. Not that there’s any real impetus to: the thing is, there’s a definite trend in the way the Mad Dog operates. He’s always by himself, never there at the crime scene, only deals with the shadiest of villains, and he never, ever gets innocent civilians involved.

The sheer amount of architectural damage, though. Yahaba's never known Nametsu to be anything but ridiculously self-possessed, but there had been a few moments where she'd almost, very narrowly, lost it, courtesy of her ever-growing budget-related despair. 

“I don’t understand,” Futakuchi says despairingly, for the fifth time in a single hour, during which he’d tried and failed to retrieve any information regarding the Mad Dog. It drives him mad, it does, when Futakuchi doesn’t understand. “What’s he doing this for? Because it sure as hell isn’t fame or money. Why’d he appear now? Where’d he come from? It’s been two months, so why can’t we capture him?”

Yahaba’s only answer is to shrug and spoon ever-increasing amounts of shitty tasting instant coffee into his mug.

    Because there is no god, Yahaba’s beeper goes off on Sunday, at four in the morning. The saddest part about the entire affair isn’t even that Yahaba has to drag himself out of bed; the saddest part is that Yahaba is already out of bed, and is, in fact, already in the midst of a clean-up mission. There’s been a fight between three heroes and a pyromaniac at one of the bars in the heart of the city, involving a lot of fire, explosion, and the general idiocy of drunken men.

The heroes are lying in a pool of their own blood, the pyromaniac is nowhere to be found, there are no fatalities but a lot of people have been injured, and the fire is still raging on.

 “We’ve a report from a civilian,” Nametsu tells him wearily from the other end of the receiver. “Construction site three miles away from where you are. There’s been a fire and we need you to investigate it; I suspect the Mad Dog’s involved. Bring someone along with you.”

“Got it,” Yahaba tells him, and looks at the scene. Practically the whole team is there, minus Futakuchi who’s back in the base. Ennoshita’s using his hypnosis to help calm down hysterical civilians. Shirabu’s definitely needed at the scene; they need his power to help put out the fire, and he’s barely making progress because fuckers thought it was a good idea to set off a fire in the middle of a bar. Watari’s nowhere to be seen, probably tending to injuries or retrieving people who are still trapped in the fire.

Yahaba curses inwardly, hops onto his motorbike, and makes his way to the construction site alone. If Futakuchi’s intel is to be trusted – and Yahaba can count, on one hand, the number of times Futakuchi’s intel has actually failed them – then it’s probably the doing of the Mad Dog again. Which, given Mad Dog’s track record, means that there perpetrator will be knocked out cold and draped across the ground like an offering on the plate, there will be minimal civilian involvement, the Mad Dog will be gone, and he would’ve left the site annihilated in his wake.

Which means that Yahaba will probably be safe, even if he’s going over alone.

As it happens, he is deliciously wrong.

The first thing Yahaba sees when he reaches the construction site is the pyromaniac that’d been responsible for the fire at the bar, lying on the ground in a semi-conscious state while making pained, groaning noises. Yahaba doesn’t see the second thing so much as he senses it; it’s one of his abilities, after all. Another Super’s lurking nearby, his aura so overwhelming that Yahaba can only arrive at one conclusion.

Mad Dog’s at the scene; he’s hidden amongst the rubble a few hundred metres away from where Yahaba’s standing, to be exact.

Strange; it isn’t like the Mad Dog to lurk around after he nabs his prey and destroys whatever can be destroyed. And the construction site’s layout is complex enough that he’d probably be able to slip away without getting noticed, even if someone else were around (barring, of course, his knowledge of Yahaba’s sensing abilities.) That leaves two explanations: one, he’s injured and can’t run. Two, he’s lying in wait to ambush Yahaba.

The wisest course of action, Yahaba reflects, would be to grab the pyromaniac’s body, and run the hell for his life.

As it happens, Yahaba does not make the best life choices. If he did, he would be sleeping in bed, on a Sunday morning, because that was what normal people with regular nine-to-five jobs did. Not chasing after half-crazed lunatics with a penchant for destroying everything on sight and biting their enemies to death.

Slowly, Yahaba makes his way towards the general direction of the Mad Dog. He’s about twenty metres away from the other guy when the Mad Dog jumps up from behind a piece of rubble.

“Fuck off,” the Mad Dog says, and spits a thick wad of blood onto the ground. Amidst the dim glow of moonlight Yahaba can briefly make out blond hair and dark, feral eyes. The corner of his mouth is still dripping blood. Yahaba realises, with no small measure of surprise, that the Mad Dog can’t be any older than he is.

Yahaba, through sheer force of stubbornness alone, refuses to back down or look afraid. Refuses.

So many dumb ways to die.

“You’re -” Yahaba struggles to think of a phrase to complete the sentence. The Mad Dog. The vigilante hero. The reason why I’ve been having the worst tension headache of my life for the past three weeks. “You’re injured.”

Mad Dog’s hands are angled in a grotesque manner, there’s a cut across his left flank that’s still oozing blood, and a gaping wound on his thigh wide enough that Yahaba can see the tendons underneath it.

“Fuck off,” Mad Dog snarls, and scrunches his face up, as if bracing himself for something. Then he blinks, surprised. On his face the expression looks strange; it makes him look younger than he already is.

“You can’t use your power on me,” Yahaba tells him. Nullification is Yahaba’s trump card, the second ability of his, and probably an important contributing factor as to how he’s managed to stay alive so far despite his disastrous decision-making skills. (The other important factors include Watari, Futakuchi’s intel, and the fact that if he kicked his bucket prematurely the entire team will never forgive him, and will probably take turns to spit on his grave.) “I can stop people from using their powers within a certain radius.”

Mad Dog stares at him for an uncomfortably long time. Slowly, his expression gives way to a disturbing smile. “Then I’m just gonna have to do it the hard way.”

Mad Dog lunges forward, with a speed that should not be possible given the state of his grievous injuries. Luckily, Yahaba’s hand-to-hand combat is nothing to scoff at, and he narrowly dodges the punch by a hair’s breadth.

If the hit had landed, Yahaba would probably have ended up concussed into the next century.

“I’m not here to fight,” Yahaba says, desperately, which is the truth. “Or to capture you.” Which is less truthful, but sometimes Yahaba’s not beneath lying a little to save his ass from pissed-off vigilantes determined to pummel him to death.

Mad Dog glares at him suspiciously. Fair enough.

“Look, can we take care of your injuries first?” By the looks of the surroundings the guy must’ve lost a good litre or two of blood. Yahaba wonders if he’s still standing upright through sheer willpower alone.

Mad Dog’s look of suspicion morphs into flat-out disbelief. “You wanna nurse me? The fuck for?”

“Because you’re injured?” Yahaba wishes Ennoshita were here instead. Or Watari. Hell, anyone else in the team would be better at diplomacy than he. Expect maybe Futakuchi, who’d probably get his head bitten off three sentences into the conversation.

 “You lured the guy out here,” Yahaba says, slowly, and he’s not even sure what he’s trying to prove, “So that you could deal with him alone, away from the civilians.”

Mad Dog studies Yahaba, expressionless, for a good ten seconds. Then he lets out a raspy laugh and lunges forward before Yahaba can react; it’s way too late for Yahaba to dodge, so he shuts his eyes and braces for the impact, but Mad Dog grabs his shoulder and flings him out of the way, out of line from a blast of fire.

Yahaba whips his head in time to see the pyromaniac spitting out another fireball from behind a scaffold a hundred metres away; he’s too far away for Yahaba to nullify his abilities. Yahaba curses inwardly. The guy must’ve come to while Yahaba was distracted, and now they’re going to burn into a crisp.

Getting roasted to death by a crazy pyromaniac because he got distracted arguing with a crazy dog-guy ranks pretty high up in Yahaba’s list of Dumb Ways To Die. The top five, in fact.

He is so going to have his grave spat at.

“Stop your nullification!” Mad Dog snaps at Yahaba. “I need my powers-”

“I already did,” Yahaba shoots back. No point keeping his cool now, what with the fact that they’re going to die and all.

With that, Mad Dog lets out a bloodcurdling howl, plants his palms onto the ground, and splits the ground between them and the pyromaniac cleanly. It doesn’t stop there; the sheer impact of the ground fissuring sends a shower of scaffolding onto the pyromaniac, who gets buried in ten seconds flat.

Yahaba’s poor head is still reeling from the aftershocks of the quake when he realises that he’s miraculously unscathed from the general chaos surrounding him. That’s when he realised: Mad Dog’s made sure that the ground directly around Yahaba - and the ground supporting the scaffold above his head - has remained intact, something that must’ve required a ridiculous degree of skill. Yahaba turns around, opens his mouth to speak to Mad Dog, but the other guy is already sprinting away at incredible speed. Even then, and even in the dark, Yahaba can tell that he’s favouring one leg over the other.

“Wait,” Yahaba yells, but of course Mad Dog doesn’t hear him. Or even if he does, like hell he’s going to stop for Yahaba.

As always: Yahaba’s left alone, amidst the dark of the night, in the aftermath.

#my fics #kyouhaba #haikyuu!! #kyoutani kentarou #yahaba shigeru

[itsclowreedsfault]

Huge Tag Meme Masterpost pt 1

aka I’m finally doing all the tags I was tagged at some from months ago orz

under the cut because this is really really long 

Tagged by @okita-senpai. Thanks Minnie! <3

1) Coke or Pepsi? None 2) Disney or Dreamworks? Disney 3) Coffee or Tea? Tea 4) Books or Movies? Books 5) Windows or Mac? Windows 6) D.C or Marvel? Marvel 7) Xbox or PlayStation? PlayStation 8) Dragon or Mass Effect? Idek what those are haha 9) Night Owl or Early Riser? Night owl! 10) Cards or Chess? Cards 11) Chocolate or Vanilla? Chocolate 12) Vans or Converse? Hmm, both 13) Lavellan, Trevelyan, Canadash or Adaar? What is this xD 14) Fluff or Angst? Fluff 15) Beach or Forest? Beach (only because there are probably less insects there) 16) Dogs or Cats? Definitely cats :3 17) Clear Skies or Rain? Rain <3 18) Cooking or Eating out? Eating out 19) Spicy or Mild Food? Mild 20) Halloween/Samhain or Solstice/Yule/Christmas? Christmas 21) Would you rather forever be a little too cold or a little too hot? Too cold, get the heat away from me ugh 22) If you could have a superpower what would it be? Mind reading! 23) Animation or Live Action? Both 24) Paragon or Renegade? Don’t know what these are either haha 25) Bath or Shower? Shower 26) Team Cap or Team Iron-Man? Iron-man  27) Fantasy or Sci-Fi? Fantasy 28) Do you have three or four favorite quotes it so what are they?  'Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?' (from HP) /  ‘People are mirrors. If you smile, a smile will be reflected.’ (from AkaYona) / ‘It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.’ (from HP) 29) YouTube or Netflix? Both 30) Harry Potter or Percy Jackson? Harry Potter 31) When do you feel accomplished? Lately it’s whenever I actually do smth tbh xD  32) Star Wars or Star Trek? Star Wars 33) Paperback book or Hardcover book? HARDCOVER <3 <3 <3 34) Fantastic beast or Cursed Child? Fantastic Beast  35) Rock or Pop Music? Pop 36) What is the most important thing in your life? My family, my friends, my boyfriend, my cats <3 37) Mountains or Sea/Ocean? Mountains 38) How do you express yourself? Very poorly usually lol 39) What’s the first book/film that really counted to you? Harry Potter 40) What’s your element (air, water, etc)? I have no idea... air or water I guess? 41) If you could travel anywhere, where would you go? New York or Japan  42) If you could have any job in the world, what would it be? Writer 43) If you were granted three wishes, what would they be? Be able to get by without having to work, have all the books on my wishlist, get rid of my anxiety  44) If you had to eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be? I want to say pasta but I’d get fat really fast lol 45) What’s your Spirit Animal/Patronus? Cat 46) Would you kill yourself and save your friends or kill your friends and save yourself? Save my friends 47) If you had to become a mythical creature which would you be? Dragon 48) Your favorite song? Changes all the time xD 49) A4 or A5 notebooks? I don’t really have a preference, I rarely use them haha 50) If you had to give up on someone you love, making this person forget about you, and never see him/her again, to save his/her life, would you do it?  Yes 51) Did you ever wished to become someone else? If yes, then what would you do to make yourself better? Hm, yes, I guess? I always wanted to be someone who isn’t hindered by anxiety or who knows what they want to do with their life. 52) If you had to live with one fictional character of your choice, who would it be? Jae-ha (damn it’s so hard to pick only one!!)

Tagged by @tartan-llama, @yukination, @takasukis, @kaemutsumi and @harashins. Thanks my lovelies <3

RULES: Tell is your favorite character from 10 fictional works (Shows, Movies, Novels, Etc.) & tag 10 people! 

1. Jae-ha from AkaYona / 2. Todoroki Shouto from BNHA / 3. Fai Flourite from TRC / 4. Howl from Howl’s Moving Castle / 5. Osamu Dazai from BSD / 6. Undertaker from Kuroshitsuji / 7. Viktor Nikiforov from YoI / 8. Seven from Mystic Messenger / 9. Nezumi from No. 6 / 10. Mizuki from Kamisama Hajimemashita

Tagged by @kuroosukii. Thanks Mooza! <3

Last Movie I Watched: Princess Mononoke

Last Song I Listened To: Fanatic of Night (by the Sakamaki bros from DiaLovers)

Last Book I Read: Gemina

Last Thing I Ate: Italian bread with cheese and tomato sauce

If I could be anywhere in the world I would be in: NY or Japan

Where would I want to time travel to: The future

Fictional characters I would hang out with for a day: The Happy Hungry Bunch <3

Tagged by @aileenaison, @takasukis and @kaori! Thanks bbs <3

rules: you can only say guilty or innocent. you are not allowed to explain anything unless someone messages you or asks you.

asked someone to marry you: innocent

kissed one of your friends: guilty

danced on a table in a bar or tavern: innocent

ever told a lie: guilty

had feelings for someone whom you can’t have: guilty

ever kissed someone of the opposite sex: guilty

ever kissed someone of the same sex: innocent

kissed a picture: innocent

slept in until 5pm: innocent

fallen asleep at work or school: guilty

held a snake: innocent

been suspended from school: innocent

stolen something: innocent

done something you regret: guilty

laughed until what you were drinking came out of your nose: innocent

caught a snowflake on your tongue: innocent

sat on a roof top: innocent

sang in the shower: guilty

been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on: guilty

slept naked: guilty

made a boy friend/girl friend cry: guilty

been in a band: innocent

shot a gun: innocent

donated blood: innocent

eaten alligator meat: innocent

eaten cheesecake: guilty

still loved someone you shouldn’t: guilty

have/had a tattoo: innocent

been too honest: guilty

ruined a surprise: innocent

ate in a restaurant and got so bloated you can’t walk after: guilty

erased someone in your friends list: guilty

dressed in a man’s clothes: guilty

dressed in a woman’s clothes: guilty

joined a pageant: innocent

been told you’re beautiful by someone who meant it: guilty

still have communication with your ex: innocent

cheated on someone: innocent

got totally drunk the night before an important exam: innocent

a total stranger treated you by paying your fare: guilty

got so angry that you cried: guilty

tried to stay away from someone for their own good: innocent

actually murdered someone: innocent

thought about mass murder: guilty

actually committed a mass murder: innocent

rode in a stranger’s vehicle: guilty

stalked someone: innocent

had a girlfriend: innocent

had a boyfriend: guilty

totally drunk during a holiday: innocent

Tagged by @kirei-na-jinsei​ and @kaori​. Thanks my lovelies <3

🍓 fave fictional character: how am I supposed to pick only one ok so my most recent fave is my son Todoroki Shouto from BNHA

🍰 fave book: Harry Potter (all seven of them, yes haha)

🎃 fave game: Mystic Messenger? I mean it’s the only one I play so haha

🎈 fave sport: I don’t like sports lol

🎠 last song i listened to: Fanatic of Night

⭐ first language: Portuguese

Tagged by @takasukis and @yurioplisetskies. Thanks dearies! <3

Nickname: Tha Zodiac sign: Aries Height: 1.63m Last Thing You Googled: goodreads Favourite music artist: 100 Monkeys, The Pretty Reckless, Wave & Rome, and others Song stuck in my head: Gaston from the Beauty and the Beast soundtrack Last Movie you watched: Princess Mononoke What are you wearing right now: PJ’s What do you post: Manga, anime, stuff about writing  Why did you choose your URL: because CLAMP ahaha Do you have any other blogs: Yeah, it’s always on queue though @brazilianbookishgirl What Did Your Last Relationship Teach You: idk Religious Or Spiritual: Neither Favorite Color: Blue, purple, black Average Hours Of Sleep: I have no idea, around 5-6 hours maybe? Lucky Number: Don’t have one  Favorite characters: Fai, Jae-ha, Soo-Won, Howl, Todoroki, Bakugou, Viktor, Dazai, Chuuya, Yue, Undertaker, the list goes on forever How Many Blankets Do you Sleep With: 1 Dream Job: Writer

Tagged by @yukination. Thanks Yukina! <3

Name/Nickname: Thais Relationship Status: Taken Favorite Greeting: Hey! Pets: Two cats (and another one we’ll adopt when we move less than two weeks from now <3) Last song I listened to: Fanatic of Night Favorite TV Shows: I don’t watch any anymore First Fandom: Harry Potter Hobbies: Editing, writing, coloring, listening to music Books I’m currently reading: Soundless by Richelle Mead Worst thing to have graced my tastebuds: Fish Favorite place: My room

Tagged by @dazaisosmu. Thanks Dessa! <3

1. favorite anime? AkaYona, BNHA, YoI, BSD, Natsume Yuujinchou, and others

2. your worst anime? Super Lovers

3. do you read the manga that goes along with the anime you watch? If I really like the anime then yes :)

4. most favorite genre? Fantasy, idk maybe action??

5. least favorite genres? Sci-fi

6. favorite character? Fai, Jae-ha, Soo-Won, Howl, Todoroki, Bakugou, Viktor, Dazai, Chuuya, Yue, Undertaker, and others (yes I totally copied the list from above lol)

7. least favorite character? Atm Mineta from BNHA

8. qualities you like in a character? I don’t know xD I like a lot of different type of characters

9. short or long anime? Short, I don’t have the patience to commit to longer ones anymore orz

10. anime or manga? Both

11. how do you choose the anime you watch? Usually by reading the summary and seeing if it interests me

12. skip or listen to intros/outros? Skip unless I really like the song

13. how do you cope if your friends or family don’t like you watching anime? I don’t really care, I’d keep watching anyway :P

14. do you stop an anime midway if you don’t like it? Yes!

#yes this is only part 1 haha #i'm never letting these pile up again #sorry it took me so long to do them guys! #tag

[scriptmedic]

Scripty Saturday #3 (Part 2): Everything NOT Mrs. Scripty

Whew! You guys sure did like to send questions this week!

Let’s keep it rolling on in.....

Dog Questions

princessofharte said: HI AUNT SCRIPTY! I JUST WANTED TO SAY THANK YOU AND ASK YOUR OPINION ON SHIH TZUS. What is your opinion on shih tzus?            

My opinion of Shih Tzus is that they, like most dogs, are Good Dogs and deserve Pets and Treats.

And you are most welcome for whatever it is I did!!!

pomrania said: Scripty Saturday: re dogs, do you prefer floof or curls or short coat? Large enough to hug, or small enough to fit in your lap? Affectionate or standoffish?

I tend to like bigger, sweeter, affectionate dogs, though coat doesn’t matter so much to me. My ideal dog would be a hypoallergenic pibble, because they’re SO CUTE AND SWEET, but I have the immune system of the Devil himself, so I’m allergic to pretty much everypuppy. I would also love to have a mastiff who thinks she’s a lapdog and just glompfs on me, because that is basically my idea of heaven.

Scripty and Mrs. Scripty and Pupper make 3. Except between my allergies and my landlord, pupper has to be an imaginary pupper.

(By the way, Mrs. Scripty is OBSESSED with the name Steve for a dog. Any dog. Doesn’t matter what type, what sex, she will name our first dog Steve or die trying.)

Anonymous said: What's the silliest thing your dog has ever done? Have you ever considered getting a different pet (fish, cat, bird, turtle, lizard)?

Sorry to say, anon, Steve the Pibble is only in our imagination. (See? She’s even got ME calling it Steve!!).

I grew up with cats and dogs--my first resuscitation attempt was on a dog I considered my brother, and I only recently had to put down my other (feline) brother, a cat who lived to be old enough to drink.

But the dog, when he was around, was named Pirate, because he would anchor himself in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room in order to trip his humans and acquire Noms(TM), which are basically a dog’s sole purpose in life. So that was pretty cute.

Lizards and birds just don’t do it for me, I’m afraid, I think I’m a mammals kind of girl. Though the trend towards cute sneks on Tumblr is making me pretty happy.

Miscellaneous Questions

pomrania said:   Scripty Saturday questions: What superpower do you think would be the most useful for particularly your work? (Like, not medics in general, but you with the particular stuff you get frustrated with or whatnot.) What superpower would you like to have, unrelated to work?

Oooooh, this is a good one, Pomrania!

I think for work something akin to X-ray (really closer to CT) vision would be very helpful when it comes to making diagnoses, but if we can step away from the superhero archetype ones for just a moment, I’d really like the ability to lay on hands and heal. I think that would be stupendous.

As for non-work related ones... I’m not entirely sure. I’ve learned in life that doing anything different, and particularly if you do something especially well, it automatically makes a kind of loneliness, which is something I already feel too much of.

I really wish that I had more friends, and had basically anything in the way of social skills at all. To me, people who can socially adapt and fit in and not push all the time are the equivalent of superheroes, so I’ll go with that one.

starlightswitch said: This might be a Scripty Saturday question? It's definitely not a consult. The question is: In your answer to the bloody cough question, you referenced "the most estoteric medical show ever written" as if you had a particular show in mind. If so, what was it?

I was indeed referencing House MD. Because it’s the most esoteric, randomly.... medically strange show going. It’s so far past the level of comprehension of even most medical providers (in terms of the medicine) that I’m not entirely sure how on or off accuracy most of it is. So I can still watch it, shrug my shoulders and go “sure, magic medicine” while still actually enjoying the show, especially the first couple of seasons.

But it is indeed the most esoteric medical show that possibly will ever air.

firecoloredwater said: For Scripty Saturday: what's your favorite place/time to write?  And when/where do you actually do most of your writing?

It’s interesting, because I don’t have a solid answer for this. I haven’t yet found my optimal workflow. (Even when I was answering a dozen asks a day, I hadn’t found it yet).

I work at the endcaps of the day--either in the morning or at night after Mrs. Scripty has gone to bed. It makes it easy for me to be alone with my thoughts. So for example, I’m writing this at 4am (I got up about 9 today, and will again tomorrow).

Mornings are hard because the ScriptX Family Discord chat is always very active, and it makes it hard to get work done, because there’s constantly something going on: something to celebrate, a troll to roll our eyes at, a Bucky to d’awww over. But when I can shut that out I get a TON of work done.

I definitely do not ever write in an ambulance. NOPE. Neverrrr. (Actually this is basically true; it’s been so godsdamned busy I barely get time to think let alone write...)

Anonymous said: For the Saturday thing: What are some life experiences that you're glad you learned/lived through?

Ooooooof. This is such a hard question. It’s a very worthy one, but it’s hard.

My first real relationship came at a truly vital time in me figuring myself out, and I’ll always love and cherish my ex for supporting me in that timeframe. He’s a great guy, and I’m so excited because he’s getting married soon! (He was at my wedding too, so relax, Mrs. Scripty likes him also). I’m  glad I lived through our relationship.

I.... so much of my life has been bad, in a way that I don’t know how to justify? So I can’t say I’m glad I lived most of my life.

I’ve had a lot of depression, lots of suicidal ideation, some really rough patches with my family life,... Each individual piece of it is hard to swallow as “glad”, but together they’ve made me strong and resilient. And I’ve achieved a lot of what I’ve achieved in spite of them.

I’m really proud of my mom for the way she reacted when I came out, and I love her a lot. And I’m glad I came out, and chose to be myself and love who I love. It took so much time to get to that point, but that’s how I feel.

I’m glad I took a chance on a girl from across the country and let myself fall in love.

I’m really, truly glad that I dropped out of college. Both times, actually. Because it wasn’t right for me, because I wasn’t right for it, because it was deleterious to my mental health. Because I’ve done better than most of my friends who did finish college.

Here I am, a college dropout, but I’ve got the top certification in my field, I’m doing a fellowship no other paramedic has ever done before, I’ve got a good income and a wonderful, happy marriage, and a blog that’s taking off well beyond what I could have imagined or hoped for.

And in all that time, in all those nights of fear and loneliness... I’m glad I chose to live. Life has been so interesting these past.... 20+ years since the first time I mentioned suicide.

pomrania said: Scripty Saturday: what type of flower do you think looks the best, and what type of flower do you think smells the best?

The flowers that look best are the red and white roses my wife and I wore as pins on our wedding day (she wore a shirt and pants, I wore a dress), and the flowers that smell the best aren’t flowers at all, but the crook of her neck when we hugged for the first time as lady and wife.

I will always cherish that day.

Anonymous said: What's your favorite book? What do you like to write? Thank you for answering so many questions!            

My very absolute all-time favorite book is American Gods by @neil-gaiman.

As for writing... I write a lot of things.

Apparently I write, and am successful at, nonfiction work.

But in my original dreams of making it as a writer, it was always with fantasy and science fiction. Typically it’s lesbian urban fantasy (I wonder why), but I’ve experimented with crime/thriller type writing, sci-fi, and angel noir.

Then there’s culinary fairy tales for children, of which I wrote one story (which is really really good, actually, I’m proud of it, except I need to cut like 20% of it).

Blog and Writing Questions

Anonymous said: Scripty Saturday question: do you ever resent that the ScriptX family blew up and a whole bunch of others came from it? I remember at one point you said something like people making new ScriptX blogs was "fucking awful" or something, but now you guys all seem to be okay. I just am super grateful that you all exist, but I'm wondering if you ever don't like it?

First of all, I went back and checked. I never used the words “fucking awful”. I never even came close--I didn’t even use the word “awful”. This is a very open post about my feelings in the moment: http://scriptmedic.tumblr.com/post/154336495611/for-the-first-time-ever-ive-let-my-queue-run

So some of you are new to this blog, and won’t understand the question. I actually had someone tell me they wish they’d found the ScriptX blogs when they were younger, which made my heart go all twitterpated, because I’ve only been around for 3 months, and most of the other family members, for less than two.

For those who don’t know the story, the ScriptX Family did not spring out of the ground fully formed and cohesive and happy. When it started, it was kind of a mess.

Once upon a time it was just me. I started ScriptMedic, I answered questions, I was happy, I was healthy, I was fine.

Then about a month and a half in, along came Jess from @scriptlawyer​, who asked (very nicely) if she could start her blog with that naming convention. We talked, I was excited! My blog was having a baby! And so I said yes.

And then... came another. And another, and another, and they stopped asking first. By this time I had a couple thousand followers, almost a thousand posts, and I had busted my ass to get where I was.

So all of these blogs, cropping up, naming themselves after me, was... hard. It was complicated. They were nice, and wanted to do a good thing. But it was also my name, a thing I had built. They wouldn’t be naming themselves that if it wasn’t for me. And there was a lot of pride there--imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and I was inspiring all these people to help writers with everything.

But also it felt really disrespectful to piggyback on my name and not even drop me a line, in a lot of cases. It hurt.

I still call this time the Blitz, because I think there were something like 30 blogs in about 72 hours that cropped up before I finally started broadcasting PLEASE STOP MAKING SCRIPTX BLOGS all over the place.

And then I went back and organized. I talked to the bloggers. Some changed their names; many stay and are the family we know and love today. Some blogs were asked not to use the ScriptX moniker. Some changed for other reasons, and we miss them, like @sciencefic-to-fact (formerly ScriptPhysics) and ScriptGambling.

But out of this.... this chaos, this madness, rose the ScriptX Family. And it really is a family. Most of the blogs are involved in a BIG group chat on Discord (though some choose not to join in; we miss you in there, guys!!).

And I’m really proud of that family. We have content guidelines. We have ethics guidelines. We do cite sources and check facts, we don’t reblog fandom or give real-world advice. We do try to distill huge concepts in our fields down to what writers need, we don’t judge or yell at our audience (though sometimes we get trolls, and it gets hard not to).

We built an application process, and we’ve been able to be pretty strict about it. We’ve even started implementing a mentoring program to make sure that new blogs are up to snuff on quality and technical prowess.

And that means that the blogs we do approve have been really high quality, solid, writer-oriented information blogs.

So there was a period where I felt super stressed by them, bombarded and overwhelmed and scared and angry, but what’s come of it is this tremendous resource for all of us. And it’s just... it’s amazing. And I’m so, so proud of all of them!

If the word resent comes up now, I think it’s only about people who have the audacity to just go “I’m Script.... Whatever!” without talking to us first, and I can only think of only a couple of blogs that have started up without talking to us. In those cases we’ve reached out and been like “hey, there’s a system in place for this if you want to be a part of the family”.

Because the truth is, a lot of people want to start these blogs because they’re trendy, not because they have a passion for educating  writers. And behind the scenes we’ve bounced some blogs that weren’t there, or were obviously there to poach our audience and not for actual writing advice. We’ve had some near-misses on things that could have been disasters.

But as for the Family? I love them. I’m glad I met them, and I’m so, so proud to call them my second family.

Whew! That’s it for January’s Scripty Saturday!!

Thanks so much to everyone who wrote in!! We’ll see you back here in February!

Do you want to see this again every Saturday? Did you have a follow-up question? Throw them in the comments or drop me an ask!

xoxo, Aunt Scripty

[seriouslyhooked]

Souvenirs (A CS AU) Part 4/14

A Modern CS AU where Emma has grown up in Maine her whole life and runs a store with Ruby and MM. Killian Jones is the new guy in town, who just bought the local bar. Only Emma and Killian have met before and now she can’t help but wonder if their past has influenced his plans for the future. Includes tons of fluff and a happily ever after. Rated M.

Part One Here, Part Two Here, Part Three Here

A/N: This chapter includes the after-effects of the first date and Emma has a flashback to the night she and Killian met. It also features fluff and smut and gossip amongst friends, so really just your typical fare from me. Hope you guys enjoy and thanks for reading!

Never in her life would anyone have accused Emma Swan of being a romantic. In fact, the only place she truly showed a softer sight was in her design work. She had a reputation as someone who was fiercely loyal to her friends, hard working, and a little guarded. That was the person she portrayed to the world, and doing so had long made her feel more in control.

This past weekend had easily destroyed that reputation. After a fantastic first date (and first night) with Killian, Emma had been positively glowing and even she could admit it. Everyone got an extra bright smile and a chipper ‘good morning.’ Perhaps she could have kept the cause for the good mood under wraps, but it was a dead giveaway since most of the weekend, as she was passing those surprised townsfolk, she was walking hand in hand with Killian.

What started out as a single date expanded to essentially a full weekend of them being in each other’s company, and come Sunday night when the real world was knocking at both of their doors and the reality that she had work the next morning set in, Emma was sad to see the happy bubble they’d been in go.

“I should have known you’d be the type to parade your boyfriend once you finally found someone half decent to like.” Ruby’s comment pulled Emma back from thoughts of this weekend and into Three Fates once more.

“I didn’t parade him around.” She totally had.

“Oh really? I got ten texts from five different people over the course of two days with different Emma and beau sightings.”

“Beau? It was the gaggle of ladies at Granny’s sending you those updates?!” Ruby nodded.

“They tweeted about it too.” Mary Margaret’s off-handed comment from the back pulled a groan from Emma.

“Of course they did.” Emma sighed as she organized the layout of the jewelry case, but she could feel the stares of her two friends, as if they were waiting her out. She had two options. The first was to tell them everything they were no doubt dying to ask her, and the other… well basically she could try to run and miserably fail because Ruby was taller and faster and in way better shape.

“So…”

“It was perfect, okay? Is that what you want to hear?”

“Yes!” Both her friends happily yelled as they did individual happy dances. It was borderline hysterical since neither of them had any shame or any rhythm, but Emma knew the moment would end and an interrogation would begin.

“Where did he take you?” She told them. Queue the expected dreamy sighs and protesting of jealousy.

“How did you end the night?” They hadn’t technically, and the admission gained favor from Ruby and surprise (but less judgment than anticipated) from Mary Margaret.

“What took him so long?” Since Emma didn’t really have an answer to that, an awkward lull passed between them all for a moment.

“I think it was something to do with his brother, but I didn’t really push.”

“Good for you. He’s here now and that’s what counts right?” Mary Margaret was so good at keeping positive, but Ruby looked less enthusiastic.

“Not knowing doesn’t bother you?” Emma considered the question.

“No. I know he’ll tell me when he’s ready and honestly, the person I was then might not have given him a fair shot.”

“The person you were?” Ruby asked skeptically.

“You know. Closed, guarded, nice but isolated.”

“Emma, you were literally that person the day he came in here.” Okay, maybe. But Emma liked to think that those moments just before he’d come in, the Universe had readied her, prepped her for the possibility. She was going with that.

“What did he do that convinced you to let him in?” Mary Margaret’s question was sincere, like she really wanted to understand why the chance at love would be on hold.

“We met at a bar my last night. I told you guys that.” They nodded. “I was two full weeks into my trip abroad and the entire time I’d been alone. Even surrounded by people at the conference and at the sights, I was by myself. Then he sat next to me at the bar I’d finally been brave enough to walk into and he saw me. He didn’t let me duck away, and I didn’t want to.”

“I knew I liked him.” Ruby announced decidedly.

“Here here!” Mary Margaret toasted her cocoa as an influx of customers came into the store for them all to attend to. The afternoon was very busy, but in the moments of quiet that came and went swiftly, Emma thought back on that night, trying to remember everything she possibly could.

……………………………………..

The pub was packed. Clearly Emma had chosen a spot that was off the beaten path enough to keep tourists from flocking, but nice enough to entice the locals. She’d managed to find a stool along the bar and was currently nursing a drink that was surprisingly fantastic given how many options their menu had. Emma selected one at random, named after the pirate ship in Peter Pan and was already wanting another. That being said, the crowd was loud and she was tempted to ask if they had to-go cups, which of course they wouldn’t.

“Considering if a fast getaway is your best option, love?” Emma turned to a man who sat beside her in a miraculously open stool at the packed house. It took no time at all for a fierce reaction to set in. Her eyes widened slightly, her breath caught, and she felt a low flutter in her stomach that was so foreign she couldn’t remember ever having felt it. The man was sinfully attractive – blue eyes, black hair and a smile that was simultaneously roguish and charming? Check. Clearly fit? Check. Accent to die for? That too.

Oh shit, Emma thought to herself as she tried to gather the courage to respond.

“You say that like you know me or something.” Now the smile changed and she saw a flash of humor in his eyes.

“Perhaps I do, love. Well aside from the particulars, like your name.”

“Smooth. I’m Emma.” She extended her hand and he took it in his, sending a charge of pleasure coursing through her.

“Killian.”

“So what do you know?” He quirked a brow up at her in question. “You said perhaps you know me. So?”

“You’re beautiful but you hate that to be the first thing people comment on.” She had to work hard to keep her jaw from dropping. That was dead on.

“Yet you did.” He scratched behind his ear in what she could only assume was a sign of his embarrassment.

“Aye, to prove myself. You’re also smart and talented but it’s a mix of natural inclination and drive that keeps you going. People call you kind, but distant and sometimes don’t understand you but assume they do. You’re traveling alone, clearly in a foreign country from whence you hail, so you’re independent. You could have people with you, but you chose not to. And you’re already mourning the end of a trip that’s still going on.” There was no stopping it this time. She was gaping and she didn’t care. Was he a psychic?

“Anything else?” the words were more a whisper than anything else.

“You hate that I got all of that so quickly and now you want to run again.” He looked defeated at the prospect and she couldn’t help but like that. For whatever reason she could tell he was genuinely interested in getting to know her. Call it a sixth sense or a superpower or whatever, but she knew he wasn’t lying.

“That’s the first incorrect assumption you’ve made. I dislike that you seem to know me so well, but if I run, I can’t even the playing field.” He smiled at that, clearly relieved.

“I apologize for analyzing like that. It’s a hazard of my profession, I fear, and I’m a bit nervous.” She smiled, appreciating the fact that it was a sense of being off balance that prompted him to do this.

“What do you do? Shrink? Detective? One of those facial expression specialists you only hear about in bizarre international crime cases?” He laughed at that and Emma loved the sound of it.

“I own this bar.”

“That… I did not expect.”

Emma had always thought herself so good at reading people, at figuring them out, but she couldn’t explain this simultaneous craving for more information about him and an inability to surmise it on her own. He was intriguing. A little dangerous, at least to the cold, austere vibe she was always putting out. And he was fuck-me hot which her body wouldn’t let her forget. Maybe she didn’t need to know everything for once. Maybe she could just go with it. After a while she said it.

“I think you should take me home.” Emma nearly slapped a hand over her mouth after the comment, and she couldn’t even blame it on the alcohol. She’d been careful to drink minimally so as not to lose her head and her chance at this. Yet watching the heat that tore through Killian’s expression made the momentary embarrassment disappear.

“As you wish, love.”

The entire night had been exactly that – a study in every possible thing Emma could have wished Killian would do to her. She had never been as turned on or as utterly sated as she was with him. Everything was a revelation, a coming to the light. The chemistry between them was huge and scary and breathtaking. It made Emma wish for more than one evening, for more than what felt like a stolen moment.

While the sex was incredible, though, it was the connection that made leaving hurt worse. He was right, she did keep people at a distance and yet whether it was because he lived so far away or because of those bright blue eyes that Emma could read each and every truth in, she had given him a piece of herself. Come morning light, when she grabbed a taxi to the airport and said her goodbyes, there would be no taking it back. But the memories would be worth it. One perfect night with him would be worth the heartbreak of later.

……………

When Emma was eventually done at the store for the day, and the door to Three Fates was locked behind her, she finally considered what tonight would hold. She was exhausted. It seemed round after round of really good sex all weekend followed by a restless night and a long day at work would do that to a person.

Emma turned around back out to the street, still contemplating what the future might hold, when she noticed Killian standing there leaning against his car arms crossed and grinning at her. As always, her pulse sped up at the sight of him and she couldn’t contain the big smile that appeared on her face. Not that she wanted to. He was dressed for the meetings she’d known him to have today, looking all together too good in a three-piece suit. He was so formal and all Emma could think was that she wanted to rip every one of those fancy pieces of clothing from him immediately.

“Hey. Did we have plans?” she asked.

“Explicitly? No. But a man can dream that the woman he fancies might find some time today for him.” He really did look so hopeful that even if Emma hadn’t wanted exactly that she probably would have caved.

“What did you have in mind?” She asked as she made her way right in front of him, stopping just before they touched.

“I was thinking I’d cook you dinner. Perhaps convince you that you were as miserable without me last night as I was without you, and beg you to take pity on me this evening by staying over my place.”

There was no convincing necessary. The reality was that she hadn’t slept as soundly without Killian beside her last night. Even with their… interruptions… the actual sleep she did get with him was exactly what she needed and precisely what she didn’t want to turn down.

“I think you should take me home.”

She ran a hand up the lapel of his suit, reveling in the change it caused to his breathing. She’d used the same words from that first night they met back in London and she watched as he fought for control. This was a side of Killian she so dearly loved to see, and truly enjoyed provoking.

“As you wish, love.” With that they were off, to grab some things from her home first and then to a night that would no doubt be more fulfilling than the one before it.

He made pasta from scratch and Emma sat there staring at him like he had three heads through the entire ordeal. Not only had a man never made something like that for her, but she couldn’t seem to understand why he would know how to do this in the first place. Despite Killian’s explanation (that most of his friends were likewise restaurateurs and had chefs who had given him some tips), Emma couldn’t help but wonder at how a guy like him could still be single.

“You’ve got to have something wrong with you. Something I haven’t seen yet,” she said as she nearly moaned pushing away the heavenly dish he’d concocted and she’d devoured.

“Why do you say that, Swan?”

“You cook, you’re thoughtful. You look – well like that.” Emma waved her hand at him as if that would be all the explanation she needed. “What’s your deep dark secret Jones? Because I have to say, this isn’t making much sense to me.”

Whatever she’d expected him to say, he didn’t, instead opting to get up from his spot immediately and pull her to her feet. He tilted her chin up so she was looking in his eyes, forced to see the sincerity in them. She felt captivated by him and the feelings that moments like these provoked and Emma held her breath as she waited for his reply.

“I have faults enough, Swan. I’m by no means perfect, but my secret? My secret is that I let love get away from me once five years ago and let life become the excuse not to fight for it.” Emma gulped. Did he just say love? Okay shit, well… she could work with that.

“Something happened with your brother, Killian. I know you did what you had to. I don’t blame you for anything.”

She traced the line of his jaw as she said the words and in seconds his lips came crashing down against hers, demanding her connection as his hands roamed along her body. Emma felt a spark of raw energy pulsing through her, and she went from somewhat relaxed to frenzied in mere moments. It wasn’t until he pulled back that Emma thought to take a breath.

“You’re wondering why I love you, when I’m standing here wondering how I’ve somehow managed to gain your trust, thanking every God I know of in the process. You are everything, Swan, worth more than a home cooked meal and my personal charms. But I’m not questioning it this time – this time I’m striving to deserve you.”

Killian’s words were so big, his gestures had proven to be just as enormous, but right now, Emma needed a way to express how she felt too. The words wouldn’t work. They were still catching in her throat and forcing them would cause her to misspeak, so she’d have to show him too. Only she wasn’t exactly the pasta-from-scratch, or a thousand flowers type. She started slowly unbuttoning his vest and felt his muscles tighten beneath the material as he waited for her.

“You really want to work for this, huh?” He nodded and she smiled at the tick in his jaw as he bit back any more professions. She pushed the vest off of him and started working at the shirt. “I can think of a couple of really persuasive moves of yours that I particularly like.”

He growled low as her hand touched the bare skin of his abdomen and she let herself be distracted by the hard lines of his muscles there. That distraction was all it took for him to gain the upper hand again. Swiftly, he removed her top and he traced the black silk of her bra in appreciation.

“I aim to give you what you want, Emma, but I can’t promise anything but hard and fast this time.”

“Good.”

The whispered word between them had Killian lifting her up onto one of the cleared portions of the dining room table. Emma squeaked. This was not what she’d been expecting, but then his lips were back on hers and his hand was snaking its way past the hem of her skirt, making its way to her waiting sex and she was all for the new course of action.

“You’re already wet for me, love.” He groaned as his fingers bypassed the damp silk of her panties to where she wanted him most and Emma moaned into him, gripping at him tighter in silent reminder that he’d promised fast. She was in no mood for teasing right now. Killian didn’t disappoint her, making her reach that first release with his hands like no one else ever could. He broke away from their kiss and knelt before her, removing the scrap of silk before kneeling down before her and kissing her inner thigh.

“Killian.”

She closed her eyes and his name passed her lips like a prayer. Her skirt at this point was pushed so far up her hips, she just wanted it off, but the feel of him, licking and sucking and nipping at her was so consuming, she couldn’t care. She gripped the edge of the table tightly, writhing beneath his ministrations until he blessedly let her catapult into another stunning climax. She was never going to get used to that.

“Been thinking about taking me on this table for a while?” She asked.

“Only since I bought it, love.”

Emma shimmied out of her skirt and removed her bra as he shed his remaining clothes. With anyone else, she likely would have been worried about being naked in the middle of a well illuminated dining room, but the unbridled passion in his eyes had her feeling confident and entirely too turned on considering the two orgasms she’d already had.

“Don’t be gentle.”

Those were the last words she could get out other than a string of curses and repeating his name as he gave her everything she’d been hoping for in a good old-fashioned table fuck. Hell, who was she kidding, it was fantastic. The best part, though, came after everything when he’d caressed her cheek lovingly, looking at her like she hung the moon, and then picked her up and carried her to bed. She’d fallen asleep in no time at all, so fast that Emma didn’t note the happy smile that Killian couldn’t seem to stop as he held her in his arms, planning out how to make her his always and forever.

Post-Note: Just fluff everywhere, and declarations of love, and happiness and smut and just everything you guys know I am a sucker for. Expect more of the same from your next installment. Hope you guys enjoyed and are having a great day! Thanks for reading!

#captain swan #captain swan au #cs modern au #captain sawn fic #captain swan ff #cs au #cs fic #cs ff #cs fluff #cs smut #emma swan #killian jones #ruby lucas #mary margaret blanchard #ouat au #souvenirs #souvenirs cs au #souvenirs 4 #seriouslyhooked repost

[hellofastestnewsfan]

By the time I moved to Chicago’s North Side, true dive bars had become rare as pearls in a sea of fakes. The wood paneling, fluorescent beer signage, and Spartan restroom facilities of the imitators conjure the working-class homeyness of the American classic, while the prices, clientele, and subsequent atmosphere undermine that nostalgia wholeheartedly. The transformation—from earnest to faux—is, of course, not unique to Chicago’s gentrified North and West Sides, but is a broadly urban phenomenon synonymous with the rise of brunch culture. Nearly two years ago, in Eater, Matthew Sedacca mourned the decline of the “great American dive bar” as it once existed in urban environments, hustled on as neighborhoods get hipper, rents go up, and middle-class patrons care more about a working-class aesthetic than the down-to-earth folks and cheap beer that occupy true dives.

On either side of economic crisis, dive bars traffic in fantasy. The supposed relic of Americana purity still exists in solidly ethnic neighborhoods and across the massive rural swaths of this country. Dive bars are romantic like pickup trucks are romantic, cherished as a symbol for a certain national way of life presumed to be fading. The fakes capitalize on this rosy vision, trotting out yellowed baseball memorabilia and putting American lagers front and center (never mind that that lager will run you $6). In turn, these icons have begun to suggest something different than what they previously stood for. The distinct blue and yellow of an Old Style sign, for example, was once a beacon for a certain kind of chill, affordable, neighborhood establishment, and sometimes still is. But now, it might also hang outside the type of bar where one would only order Old Style ironically, but more likely not at all.

Another increasingly common feature of these establishments threatens to further unravel the dive-bar aesthetic—the digital jukebox. More specifically, the TouchTunes digital jukebox. By no means the only digital commercial jukebox (other brands include AMI Entertainment and NSM Music), TouchTunes made itself a visible front-runner in a jukebox revival of sorts, in part because it allows users to choose music from their phones. In March 2016, the company—which has since merged with PlayNetwork—debuted an overhauled version of its mobile application which now “allows users to be the DJ and take control of TouchTunes’ jukeboxes” in 65,000 locations across North America. Through the app, these locations delegate musical, and therefore atmospheric, control to patrons and profit in the process. For dive imitators, these devices make it harder to maintain their neighborhood-bar veneer, while actual dives start to resemble their faux peers. TouchTunes erodes the premise of quaint regionalism as bars of all kinds transform into Top 40 danceries.

TouchTunes began simply as a more convenient version of a pay-for-play jukebox. Launching its first prototype in 1993, by the late ’90s TouchTunes distinguished itself as a leader in digital jukeboxes, anticipating the MP3 as the next wave in music storage and playback. “We at TouchTunes envision a world in which the hassles of operating a jukebox become a thing of the past,” said the company on a 1999 version of its website, “where operators effectively manage their jukebox and use that information and free time to really do business, to watch it grow, sit back, and enjoy music once again.” Compared to the CD disc-changer standard, with selections limited by available space, TouchTunes jukeboxes allowed businesses to download and store hundreds of songs for a lower cost. “You guessed it—THERE ARE NO CDs,” TouchTunes enthused in 1999, “(that is what we mean by digital).”

Decades later, the jukebox remains a visible feature of the brand, upgraded and multiplied across a range of fluorescent-lit products, which sometimes include additional features like a photo booth or karaoke, or perhaps the thing that most sets the company apart—integration with its app.

The TouchTunes app, working in conjunction with its jukeboxes, allows users to pay-for-play from the comfort of their barstools. Users “check in” at an establishment with the assistance of a Foursquare property called Pilgrim SDK that’s integrated into the app. Pilgrim SDK is a sophisticated approach to location intelligence more precise than just GPS that uses time stamps and foot traffic to determine a user’s likely location. Pilgrim SDK also allows TouchTunes to send alerts to users in range if the app’s location services remain enabled when the app is not in use (“There’s no wait! Play your songs now and see what’s hot at Generic Tavern!”). The check-in requirement forbids users from, say, fiddling with a jukebox several states away. (Not that anyone would want to do such a thing ...) From there, patrons interact with the playlist much the same way they would with a physical jukebox, purchasing credits and using them to add songs to the queue. Credits can be purchased in $5 (12 credits), $10 (24 credits), or $20 (48 credits) increments via credit card, PayPal, or Apple Pay. Song prices (in credits) are set by the venue and credits purchased are limited to that venue. (So if you purchase $20 worth of credits and your group decides to hop over to the next bar, you’re out of luck until the next time you visit the first bar.)

Like so many apps, there’s an obvious convenience to doing a seamless transaction via device that once would have required cash or a card swipe as well as actually standing up. Aside from in-app control, “I also like the anonymity of requesting a song on your phone,” Jessica Slavik, a 26-year-old account manager living in Lincoln Park, told me via email, instead of “walking up to a jukebox where everyone can see exactly which songs you’re requesting.” However, the anonymity works better in theory than in practice, I’ve found. (It’s hard to remain anonymous when you’re the only table belting the lyrics to Celine Dion’s “That’s the Way It Is,” to use a hypothetical example.) The app does consolidate the time otherwise spent flipping through the catalog, or waiting for someone else to finish their turn. Many customers can have the app open at once, purchasing credits and adding to the queue when it suits them.

Other in-app exclusives include bonus credits rewarded to frequent users and foresight into upcoming songs in the rotation. Slavik, at “Emerging Artist” status (achieved after playing 100 songs through the app), can see the next five songs queued at a given venue and considers this her favorite feature. “I am a Headliner,” a frequent user of the app, Patrick Murphy, a 27-year-old accountant who also lives on Chicago’s North Side, told me via email. “Is that good?” At his current status he can see the next six songs. (An “Opening Act” like myself, meanwhile, can only see the next three. Users begin as “Debut Artists” only able to see the next song in the queue.) This is a useful superpower to have, as anyone who’s ever been stuck in the bathroom just as a certified jam began to play can imagine. Users can avoid jostling the vibe by interrupting a series of soft-rock anthems with something from the party-rock family (or vice versa). It also helps avoid a close-quartered set of repeats, in the case of users who might otherwise request the same song. “Sometimes if I like the songs I won’t have to actually buy my own credits,” says Slavik. The curatorial responsibility becomes an exercise in communal playlist management, not unlike the jukebox of old.

An app, however, unlike a traditional jukebox, introduces a tension between the cooperative end result and an interface primed to make things personal. Accounts keep a running archive of prior check-ins, plays, and favorited songs, organized in the proprietary folder “My Music.” The app can also sync with users’ Spotify and iTunes accounts. These “personalization features,” says TouchTunes, are intended to “combine each user’s play preferences with the venue’s vibe to help users discover the music they have in common with each location.” The admixture makes itself known in a folder called “Hot Songs You Like Too,” popular songs at a given venue that a user has also favorited. But for the most part, users’ personal tastes outrank whatever “vibe” they’ve checked in to. Below the “Now Playing” queue, a hierarchy of scrolling rows sort activity into sections like “My Recent Plays” and “My Top Plays,” with “Hot At [Whatever Venue]” third in the list. Unless user and bar are already a match made in heaven, it takes real effort to attenuate one’s inclinations to match the location at hand—though what incentive is there to subsume your preferences to a greater vibe when you’re paying for the playlist?

With the older jukebox model, selection was necessarily limited but in tune with the character of a place. “No matter how much work was put into choosing a bar’s jukebox music, it was a selection. Certain music fit in certain bars,” Philadelphia magazine’s Dan McQuade lamented in 2012, after his favorite watering hole fell to the TouchTunes revolution. “Every bar’s jukebox is becoming the same.”

In an October 2009 column, The Bollard’s Chris Busby had a similar gripe: “TouchTunes dictates and homogenizes the experience of listening to music,” much like commercial radio.

But something about the nature of Busby and McQuade’s complaints smacks of rock-ist romanticism. Music is never a neutral topic and the staunch protection of a certain way of doing things resists cultural evolution and can amount to a subtle form of discrimination. The songs played on jukeboxes, be they radio hits or dad-music antiques, are selected by real people. But even with TouchTunes installed, some bars have found ways to protect their vibes—or seen another way, filter out certain clientele—with the targeted exclusion of certain genres. Last year, Gina Heeb of the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s The Daily Cardinal found that over a dozen popular rap artists—such as Drake, Lil Wayne, Kendrick Lamar, and Kanye West—had been deleted from the TouchTunes listings of prominent, campus-adjacent bars. One owner didn’t want “gangster hip-hop” at his establishment, which was, as he told Heeb, a “safety-driven” decision—a not-so-subtle implication that black music, which attracts black patrons, means danger. Not all vibes are good vibes.

But if there’s a happy collaboration between past and present, old and new regulars, I’m still not sure TouchTunes is it. The very features that make the app feel liberatory transform it into an un-fun experience for the bar at large as selfishness takes over the deeper into the night you go. Murphy admits he likes to “feel like the bar is at my mercy” when using the app, and while Slavik will defer the playlist when the songs align with her interests, “on the other hand, if I hate the songs, I’ll often spend extra credits to jump the queue and have my songs played first”—a feature called a “fast pass.” On a slow night, this places the song up next, but as the queue grows longer and these fast passes accumulate, you might still have to wait a while, even if you pay extra. “It does get annoying when so many people are also fast-passing that you get added to a 15-song fast-pass queue, which defeats the purpose of spending the extra money,” says Slavik. Fellow bar-goers can turn to adversaries, each one trying to get their songs played first. Sometimes a fast pass is the only way to ensure a song will be played before closing time.

While it’s a comfort to know that you will not be at the mercy of one bartender’s iPod, playing DJ isn’t all TouchTunes promises it to be. The app replaces the predictable rhythms of a local bar environment with the possibility of something choppier, if or when someone decides to supersede the sonic lay of the land. The classic contract between bar and patron is dated, but practical. You provide liquor and ambiance, I offer legal tender and agree to not make a mess. But while TouchTunes undermines that agreement, the most disruptive force is enabling people’s own desires. The age of social media and customized entertainment primes users to expect their tech to adjust to their habits and preferences. Just as auto-fill in web browsers intuits our favorite websites and Netflix adjusts to our tastes, TouchTunes most simply makes the personal more immediate.

Unlike its peers, however, TouchTunes projects the personal into a physical space, a synecdoche for the ongoing instability of what it means for a space to be “private” or “public.” Private enterprise is enfolding many once-public spaces—schools, transportation, and public-works projects, for example. Meanwhile, many private businesses, while not exactly making themselves more accessible, foster choice in a way that at least suggests an individualized experience—letting a public made of walking personal brands assert their tastes in privately owned places. But the ability to “build your own” sub sandwich or playlist comes with a surcharge. It seems many are willing to pay it. A new contract is at work here. They who fill the space control the vibe.

from The Atlantic https://ift.tt/2HXILOI

#Blogger

[yasbxxgie]

One of Cinema’s First Black Superheroes Is Not Who You Think It Is

An ahistorical claim has been making the rounds as of late, falling from the mouths and keyboards of people earnestly, yet clumsily, trying to explain why Black Panther has become a cultural juggernaut unlike anything we’ve ever seen. It goes something like, “This is the first ever big-budget comic book film starring a black superhero.” That’s a lot of qualifiers. And it’s not entirely accurate—sure, the movie’s budget is twice as big as Catwoman’s, but that feline-centered campfest was still made for $100 million in 2004, hardly a small, or even medium, budget at the time. Even ignoring those qualifiers, however, there’s a danger in inadvertently isolating Black Panther by ignoring its predecessors. Thankfully, a few have used the occasion to remind us that there have been movies about black superheroes long before Ryan Coogler and Disney brought us King T’Challa: Spawn, Meteor Man, and the Blade trilogy, to name just a few.

And yet before all of those exceptional characters made their way to the big screen, there was Abar, a character I only just recently learned about thanks to a great film series on black superheroes currently playing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Abar, the First Black Superman, in fact, as the movie’s title handily spells out. A long-forgotten, low-budget blaxploitation flick from 1977, Abar is about the dissipation of race relations, consolation, segregation, dispensation, and more. It’s defiant, didactic, and occasionally delirious. The cast of amateurs seems to be competing for whoever can give the stiffest, most incoherent line reading of the fantastically terrible script. And you should definitely grab a friend or two, some intoxicants, and check it out.

Here’s the scoop: Dr. Kinkade (J. Walter Smith, also credited for the story) moves in to a posh, all-white Los Angeles suburb with his wife and two kids. At first, two nosey Gladys Kravitz types from next door, assuming that they are “the help,” greet the family pleasantly and inform them they are planning a luncheon for their new neighbors. But when Mrs. Kinkade reveals that they are, in fact, the new neighbors, the welcoming committee turns indignant. “I won’t let them!” an enraged Mabel retorts to her friend. “I won’t let them move into our neighborhood!” As she spews more hatred about burning the house down herself, Mr. Kinkade attempts to calm Mabel down by slowly reaching for her shoulder, but she tumbles dramatically to the ground and yells, “Get your black hands off of me!” Awkwardly abrupt dissolve into a loud group of white people picketing outside their homes, marching in circles and carrying signs.

As the demonstrators hold court and the community board plots to push the Kinkade family out of their home, in steps John Abar (Tobar Mayo), leader of the Black Front of Unity, a grassroots band of fly-looking motorcyclists who work to “help the brothers and sisters down in the ghetto” and preach nonviolent self-defense. (So basically, a fictionalized version of the real-life Black Panthers.) After hearing about the Kinkades’ troubles on the news, he and his team arrive at their home offering protection from the white people outside. But there’s a catch: Abar wants the family to consider moving back to the ghetto, so they can uplift their own people. Dr. Kinkade isn’t interested, and Abar and his men leave disappointed. Nonetheless, Abar returns sometime later, just in time to fend off a couple of white guys who are attacking the doctor on his doorstep. (He throws them in a garbage truck to the tune of that familiar wa-chicka-wa-chicka musical queue found in pretty much every blaxploitation movie.) From then on, the two develop a complicated relationship in which Abar agrees to protect the Kinkades’ home and participate in some tests the doctor is running for a prevention for heart disease (a leading cause of death for black Americans, especially). They constantly debate what is best for the black community and how things might be fixed as if they were in the middle of an after-school special.

Much like The Room, a good chunk of Abar is pretty slow going—though never not bizarre, thanks to an unforeshadowed death, a dream sequence in which the son imagines Abar as an Old West cowboy (“My friends call me Deadwood Dick, but my enemies call me Smart Black Nigger”), and the actors’ consistently delayed reactions to one anothers’ lines. But the last 40 minutes finally get us where the film really wants us to go. (Spoilers ahead.) It’s revealed that Dr. Kinkade isn’t actually working on a cure for heart disease but has developed a potion that can make a man in top physical condition—a man like Abar, it turns out—“indestructible” so that he can clean up the ghetto in one fell swoop. At first, Abar is resistant, but he soon changes his mind (although not before a surely unlicensed Martin Luther King excerpt is heard, for some reason) and drinks the serum.

This last act of the film is all over the place, with Abar realizing that the serum has worked on him after two cops shoot him for coming upon them as they plant a gun on an unarmed black man they’ve just killed. Abar’s unhurt and now roams the ghetto using his new superpowers for good. A guy steals a lady’s purse on the street and runs off? Abar squints hard and compels the thief, by telepathy, to run and tumble back to her, returning the bag. (Waka-chicka-waka-chicka.) A prostitute is being slapped around by her pimp? Abar telepathically confers on her the strength and skill to defend herself and beat him to the ground. (Waka-chicka-waka-chicka.) Troubled youths are hanging out on the street, smoking and shooting craps? The powerful mind of Abar sends them straight to graduating, emerging from a school in caps and gowns with diplomas in hand. (Waka-chicka-waka-chicka, then, generic graduation music.)

The most bonkers moment is saved for the end. Abar uses his powers to bring down a plague of biblical proportions upon the Kinkades’ white neighbors—powerful, hurricanelike winds (you should see the actors tossing their bodies around like rag dolls for extra effect), rat infestations, snakes in beds. He drives them all away, except for the aforementioned Mabel. She approaches the Kinkades in the middle of the street, meekly humbled. And then: “I want to apologize for the way I behaved when you moved in to Meadow Park. The reason I didn’t want you to live next door to me is because … I’m black, and I’ve been passing as white all these years and—”

The doctor cuts her off. “Yes, I know.” But how did he know? Well, in an earlier scene, Mabel fainted—immediately after calling their son a “little black bastard,” mind you—and the doctor was kind enough to take her in to his home and call her doctor to find out if she had any pre-existing conditions. It turns out she had—wait for it—sickle cell anemia.

She asks for forgiveness. The Kinkades look at one another and embrace her reassuringly, as MLK’s voice swoops in once again: “I HAVE A DREAM that one day my four little children …” They walk down the street together, happily, as a proud Abar looks on.

Abar, the First Black Superman is truly a cinematic marvel. It has its heart in the right place and fumbles spectacularly in every way possible—the painfully preachy dialogue, the scrappy special effects, the too long running time. But even if it’s not anywhere close to the achievement of Black Panther, it’s a fascinating product of the time and more proof that black superheroes have long existed outside the Marvel universe. And just like Black Panther, their superpowers are almost always political.

#1977 #tobar mayo #abar the first black superman #abar: black superman #blaxploitation #sickle cell anemia #dr. kinkade #dr kinkade #j. walter smith #j walter smith #los angeles #racism #film #films #slate #john abar #black front of unity #deadwood dick #smart black nigger #i have a dream #meadow park #california

[be21zh]

May 12, 2017

firstly dreamt likely in airport lounge, I with my son in queue for aboard. then it broke for awhile to let cargo unload. its likely railway cargo, emergent quilts and pillows for distressed people in problematic situation. once the queue restored, the conductor persuaded us buying sapling on the way, instead of brought it from hometown to destiny, for former mostly more resilient. after peed and returned to bed, I dreamt with my old family, relatives. we criticized each other, we enjoyed chatters, we are family. esp my mean nephew, ie. only son of my passed eldest sister who committed suicide in her mid age decades ago, who is so mean that defied my small loan request several times. we disappointed by counterpart but still we expecting. this week was a bit leisure. I picked up my zohosites and sorted them into precious assets. quite some web services allow early birds privilege more gracious than its current mature clients which generate stable product income. google apps and zoho sites are such cases. previously zohosites free charge of custom domain mapping for its sites users, but now it charges. in recent years I saw zohosites potential and powerful on web building, and more and more willing making better usage of it. so this week I enable all free functions zohosites offers for free old users, like blogs, spam control, custom form, collaborators, etc. I was so contented by the gains! in final step, I collect and sort them into my local bookmarks and web linkbook. this week also specially hard for my financially coping with coming events, weekend gathering my son, woz into dining out and monthly cinema, his coming birthday celebration, his lottery experience I promised to support on the event, and my longing for a new ring mouse to replace my old Microsoft arc touch. in God's bliss, QRRS dispatched one child policy reward, ¥60, yesterday. then I gathered courage from it to contact my niece in Wuhan, central China, for aid. she generously offered ¥400, doubles my entrust. with it I immediately ordered the innovative mouse on taobao.com. but sinking PRC surveillance again exploited and delayed near 2 days in logistics: so far since last morning my order status still remains paid rather than dispatched, or relay of expresses, which quite abnormal nowadays bragging next day delivery but usual in my case in recent years shopping online. they surveillanced my vpn in accurate in seconds: most cases under surveillances my critical submission online result in immediate time out or offline. my conversation with my son, each time broke amid, esp when I urging him adopting securer connection. however, my sweet companion of google music, these days last hours daily and that eases a lot pressure. coming weekend brings many hope of joys when I gather woz, dearest son. God, dad, I'm so contented with my life here so far, that almost leaves me more silence of harmony. bring me sooner my Royal China to be more productive. bring me Asoh Yukiko for brighter future family, and our offspring that drives the eastern Asia coming centuries. thx for sunshine outside, dad God, I know summer is soon under your shine.

May 6, 2017

first dreamt in a party where cult or mythical power shown by a mojo, likely in San Francisco or western coast of US. dark magic of superpower, manipulation of mind and fate. then in my routine space when I shitting I was surveillanced. I got up for pee. then dreamt among my senior school alumni, we saw magic robot through which one's life and properties can be exported and imported. there are several robots all can export and when you delete some information it can be restored by other robot peer. most dream details lost after sleepily got up. it's a drizzling morning after 2 or 3 days windy weather, or sandstorms, which tinted sky into brown. rains seemingly due ample but this summer scarce so far. however most plants turning green. last night I refined zhone sites on zohosites, but PRC surveillance heavily blocked me. I finished near 12am and satisfied. I also blessed in success gaining loan from dorm canteen, ¥300, for new public bathroom groupon and other small bills. yesterday bankcommm buzzed in, blamed me not return credit debt as ¥2000 as planned rather ¥1500 I paid in 2 series months. I explained my life should put first, esp my with kid while my salary under expectation. she threatened to sue me. I just can't see how ¥500 means so much for a bank, and how severe I broke my promise with ¥500 less. this noon I will visit my son, which I almost can't wait, for the relief loan, for new restaurant we found last labor day holiday, railway hotel which likely a SOE with proper standard at least we saw rich ready meals in addition luxury leisure space. and for my works review in a week. but financial situation still stern: next weekend movies, 4 gathering meals in weekends before next salary day 2 weeks out, woz's birthday celebration, etc. my sites hosting plan needs renew, ¥60/month. dad God, my life so fit that I envy nobody. let me walk through difficulties like on meadow. prepare us for greater descending, and forever uprising. dad God, bring me sooner my Royal China to overcome surreal. bring me my family clean and tidy with Asoh Yukiko, for our children coming heavenly. thx for the moisture last night and now, God, for the baptism in rough of rotten atmosphere ever seen.

May 4, 2017

first dreamt my passed mother brought me, a kid, to a training center. its a bit unreal, for my childhood never had out class tutorials in rural central China. but my son, woz, he was arranged quite some by his teacher mom. in the center an elder woman teacher whose student includes Dilraba, the hot Uygur actress in PRC now, exchanged words with my mom while I was impressed by the famous girl student. then on a train, Dilraba just aboard and seated feet apart me. she is alone and a bit unease in my gaze. I watched her and her natural beauty likes neighbor door girl, clean and untouched. when a foreigner or small English talk out heard in the carriage, she complained in murmur her English not good enough to catch up it, with which I echoed in common sense. in the dream I likely feeling collegian youth. its a brown morning. the overnight sandstorm left the air dirty and tinted. but in air dusts didn't felt. my breakfast in dorm canteen still satisfying, even in 2 series days the menu less choices on it. this early summer quite chill in Qiqihar, northeastern China. I usually have to put on winter coat against coldness in dorm. last morning I napped after breakfast in boring chill and idle. amazon video, esp old time real people movies inspired me a lot with righteous moral, standard of life and loyalty. recently quite some movies on elders' life caught me in my mindless picks. I was so enchanted that I pray God to keep me the secret of the hidden treasure of meanings and gospel. my life enriched by review of my campus loves movies aroused. I saw timeless love and purity of sanity stems out independently we were young. I saw flourishing lives in my life then and now fautless brilliant. God, dad, my son, woz, Hope of China, his birthday near in May, I promised him each birthday offer him ¥150 for lottery experience. and cake for celebration. we also have cinema agenda next weekend. and our spa groupon should renewed. dad, God, free me off trap of financial problem. with my dear sister's son's aid, I got webcam as longing after a month, I greatly refreshed by its inauguration in my workspace last 2 weeks. now I want to replace my frequently ill working microsoft Arc touch bluetooth mouse with a new innovative gear, ring mouse. aid me ¥100 for it. dad God, liberate me in this month's salary. bring me sooner my Royal China, esp my Crowned Queen, Asoh Yukiko, from Japan, to cater to our family and living. bring my children in time in our hatch before lapse of my prime time. thx for the life we enjoy so far and so frontmost.

May 1, 2017

dreamt in a dorm, Nankai campus or my QRRS dorm, I busy with my desktop. likely previously I played with water and sands through my under pants and gathered on my bottom. So I took off underpants and half naked. but Zhang Chongfu, my Nankai deputy monitor, brought a girl visitor and she waiting outside of the door. I at the moment can't find my underpants and later someone thrown me it or I found it somewhere. with almost put right I woke up. this PRC international labor day holiday almost again a disaster for me: I hardly support any treat entitles it. I ate a meal a day and still worring next 3 weekends' gathering dinning out with my son, woz, Hope of China. however passed weeks proves fruitful in heavy workload. I second time install Google Apps on woz new zte android without a single error after many failures missing in wrong files and their directories, as a false response to previous google play store pending download but forever zero traffic as penalty to region like PRC where google denied. I also deleted problemed payment account lest locked out again for PRC's shame. I also found google doesn't delete its gsuite account after our purchase for zho.io 2 email accounts phrased out due to unpaid on time. encouraged by the cheat, I applied 3 new gsuites for our new 3 domains, each claimed several GA accounts under trial period and hoping these accounts' chrome sync, contacts, custom search engines and other user data/settings maintained out of free trial period. we fatally love google's web sync service. last Friday I also found time to rip spam bots, minor errors on my dynamic sites, esp forum at bbs.zhuson.com and cms at agarten.in. after near a year running the web apps roughly familiared, I more or less more experienced with their structure, system, just like I perceived and executed, like other insights in my life so far holy grants. long time pains in ass, disorder among articles on dabbog.com, also totally relinked structurally. my son now seemingly likes to bring new smartphone with him, after many times I cursed him for unreachable online. when I can't access him I wondered why it is so painful. I saw most important thing I needed to share with him is my achievement in life stream. I need treat, celebration for holy witness and double joys devil eyes stolen most. but I prepared to live alone my stuff in my darker and longer journey ahead, in my aging world of coldness, hatred thick dusty land I stood decades. I don't afraid death nor rotten time, I only care holy bliss, and my mission here in northeastern China for future millennium, for Japan, US and my vested land of China Empire from my glorious ancestor. God, dad, its lunch time now, grant us an adequate lunch for the leisure time. bring me sooner my Royal China to outpace the curious eyes upon my legend. bring me sooner my Crowned Queen from Japan, Asoh Yukiko, for my children's cosy family space.

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[chinad]

for delayed warmth of summer 2017

May 12, 2017

firstly dreamt likely in airport lounge, I with my son in queue for aboard. then it broke for awhile to let cargo unload. its likely railway cargo, emergent quilts and pillows for distressed people in problematic situation. once the queue restored, the conductor persuaded us buying sapling on the way, instead of brought it from hometown to destiny, for former mostly more resilient. after peed and returned to bed, I dreamt with my old family, relatives. we criticized each other, we enjoyed chatters, we are family. esp my mean nephew, ie. only son of my passed eldest sister who committed suicide in her mid age decades ago, who is so mean that defied my small loan request several times. we disappointed by counterpart but still we expecting. this week was a bit leisure. I picked up my zohosites and sorted them into precious assets. quite some web services allow early birds privilege more gracious than its current mature clients which generate stable product income. google apps and zoho sites are such cases. previously zohosites free charge of custom domain mapping for its sites users, but now it charges. in recent years I saw zohosites potential and powerful on web building, and more and more willing making better usage of it. so this week I enable all free functions zohosites offers for free old users, like blogs, spam control, custom form, collaborators, etc. I was so contented by the gains! in final step, I collect and sort them into my local bookmarks and web linkbook. this week also specially hard for my financially coping with coming events, weekend gathering my son, woz into dining out and monthly cinema, his coming birthday celebration, his lottery experience I promised to support on the event, and my longing for a new ring mouse to replace my old Microsoft arc touch. in God's bliss, QRRS dispatched one child policy reward, ¥60, yesterday. then I gathered courage from it to contact my niece in Wuhan, central China, for aid. she generously offered ¥400, doubles my entrust. with it I immediately ordered the innovative mouse on taobao.com. but sinking PRC surveillance again exploited and delayed near 2 days in logistics: so far since last morning my order status still remains paid rather than dispatched, or relay of expresses, which quite abnormal nowadays bragging next day delivery but usual in my case in recent years shopping online. they surveillanced my vpn in accurate in seconds: most cases under surveillances my critical submission online result in immediate time out or offline. my conversation with my son, each time broke amid, esp when I urging him adopting securer connection. however, my sweet companion of google music, these days last hours daily and that eases a lot pressure. coming weekend brings many hope of joys when I gather woz, dearest son. God, dad, I'm so contented with my life here so far, that almost leaves me more silence of harmony. bring me sooner my Royal China to be more productive. bring me Asoh Yukiko for brighter future family, and our offspring that drives the eastern Asia coming centuries. thx for sunshine outside, dad God, I know summer is soon under your shine.

May 12, 2017

first dreamt in a party where cult or mythical power shown by a mojo, likely in San Francisco or western coast of US. dark magic of superpower, manipulation of mind and fate. then in my routine space when I shitting I was surveillanced. I got up for pee. then dreamt among my senior school alumni, we saw magic robot through which one's life and properties can be exported and imported. there are several robots all can export and when you delete some information it can be restored by other robot peer. most dream details lost after sleepily got up. it's a drizzling morning after 2 or 3 days windy weather, or sandstorms, which tinted sky into brown. rains seemingly due ample but this summer scarce so far. however most plants turning green. last night I refined zhone sites on zohosites, but PRC surveillance heavily blocked me. I finished near 12am and satisfied. I also blessed in success gaining loan from dorm canteen, ¥300, for new public bathroom groupon and other small bills. yesterday bankcommm buzzed in, blamed me not return credit debt as ¥2000 as planned rather ¥1500 I paid in 2 series months. I explained my life should put first, esp my with kid while my salary under expectation. she threatened to sue me. I just can't see how ¥500 means so much for a bank, and how severe I broke my promise with ¥500 less. this noon I will visit my son, which I almost can't wait, for the relief loan, for new restaurant we found last labor day holiday, railway hotel which likely a SOE with proper standard at least we saw rich ready meals in addition luxury leisure space. and for my works review in a week. but financial situation still stern: next weekend movies, 4 gathering meals in weekends before next salary day 2 weeks out, woz's birthday celebration, etc. my sites hosting plan needs renew, ¥60/month. dad God, my life so fit that I envy nobody. let me walk through difficulties like on meadow. prepare us for greater descending, and forever uprising. dad God, bring me sooner my Royal China to overcome surreal. bring me my family clean and tidy with Asoh Yukiko, for our children coming heavenly. thx for the moisture last night and now, God, for the baptism in rough of rotten atmosphere ever seen.

May 12, 2017

first dreamt my passed mother brought me, a kid, to a training center. its a bit unreal, for my childhood never had out class tutorials in rural central China. but my son, woz, he was arranged quite some by his teacher mom. in the center an elder woman teacher whose student includes Dilraba, the hot Uygur actress in PRC now, exchanged words with my mom while I was impressed by the famous girl student. then on a train, Dilraba just aboard and seated feet apart me. she is alone and a bit unease in my gaze. I watched her and her natural beauty likes neighbor door girl, clean and untouched. when a foreigner or small English talk out heard in the carriage, she complained in murmur her English not good enough to catch up it, with which I echoed in common sense. in the dream I likely feeling collegian youth. its a brown morning. the overnight sandstorm left the air dirty and tinted. but in air dusts didn't felt. my breakfast in dorm canteen still satisfying, even in 2 series days the menu less choices on it. this early summer quite chill in Qiqihar, northeastern China. I usually have to put on winter coat against coldness in dorm. last morning I napped after breakfast in boring chill and idle. amazon video, esp old time real people movies inspired me a lot with righteous moral, standard of life and loyalty. recently quite some movies on elders' life caught me in my mindless picks. I was so enchanted that I pray God to keep me the secret of the hidden treasure of meanings and gospel. my life enriched by review of my campus loves movies aroused. I saw timeless love and purity of sanity stems out independently we were young. I saw flourishing lives in my life then and now fautless brilliant. God, dad, my son, woz, Hope of China, his birthday near in May, I promised him each birthday offer him ¥150 for lottery experience. and cake for celebration. we also have cinema agenda next weekend. and our spa groupon should renewed. dad, God, free me off trap of financial problem. with my dear sister's son's aid, I got webcam as longing after a month, I greatly refreshed by its inauguration in my workspace last 2 weeks. now I want to replace my frequently ill working microsoft Arc touch bluetooth mouse with a new innovative gear, ring mouse. aid me ¥100 for it. dad God, liberate me in this month's salary. bring me sooner my Royal China, esp my Crowned Queen, Asoh Yukiko, from Japan, to cater to our family and living. bring my children in time in our hatch before lapse of my prime time. thx for the life we enjoy so far and so frontmost.

May 12, 2017

dreamt in a dorm, Nankai campus or my QRRS dorm, I busy with my desktop. likely previously I played with water and sands through my under pants and gathered on my bottom. So I took off underpants and half naked. but Zhang Chongfu, my Nankai deputy monitor, brought a girl visitor and she waiting outside of the door. I at the moment can't find my underpants and later someone thrown me it or I found it somewhere. with almost put right I woke up. this PRC international labor day holiday almost again a disaster for me: I hardly support any treat entitles it. I ate a meal a day and still worring next 3 weekends' gathering dinning out with my son, woz, Hope of China. however passed weeks proves fruitful in heavy workload. I second time install Google Apps on woz new zte android without a single error after many failures missing in wrong files and their directories, as a false response to previous google play store pending download but forever zero traffic as penalty to region like PRC where google denied. I also deleted problemed payment account lest locked out again for PRC's shame. I also found google doesn't delete its gsuite account after our purchase for zho.io 2 email accounts phrased out due to unpaid on time. encouraged by the cheat, I applied 3 new gsuites for our new 3 domains, each claimed several GA accounts under trial period and hoping these accounts' chrome sync, contacts, custom search engines and other user data/settings maintained out of free trial period. we fatally love google's web sync service. last Friday I also found time to rip spam bots, minor errors on my dynamic sites, esp forum at bbs.zhuson.com and cms at agarten.in. after near a year running the web apps roughly familiared, I more or less more experienced with their structure, system, just like I perceived and executed, like other insights in my life so far holy grants. long time pains in ass, disorder among articles on dabbog.com, also totally relinked structurally. my son now seemingly likes to bring new smartphone with him, after many times I cursed him for unreachable online. when I can't access him I wondered why it is so painful. I saw most important thing I needed to share with him is my achievement in life stream. I need treat, celebration for holy witness and double joys devil eyes stolen most. but I prepared to live alone my stuff in my darker and longer journey ahead, in my aging world of coldness, hatred thick dusty land I stood decades. I don't afraid death nor rotten time, I only care holy bliss, and my mission here in northeastern China for future millennium, for Japan, US and my vested land of China Empire from my glorious ancestor. God, dad, its lunch time now, grant us an adequate lunch for the leisure time. bring me sooner my Royal China to outpace the curious eyes upon my legend. bring me sooner my Crowned Queen from Japan, Asoh Yukiko, for my children's cosy family space.

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[viralhottopics]

Everyone Wants to Make Smart RingsBut No One Knows What For

About halfway through the trailer for the 2011 movie Green Lantern—it’s presumably in the movie, too, but that’s impossible to verify because no one ever saw it—an otherwise ordinary Ryan Reynolds slides a big, blocky ring onto his middle finger and becomes a superhero. “The ring,” says an apparently important dying purple man, “It chose you. Use its power to defend our universe.” It’s the other one ring to rule them all.

Sonia Hunt’s goals for her smart ring are, let’s say, slightly more mundane. She’s the president of Neyya, which sells a chunky ring meant to be worn on your index finger. It’s meant most squarely for traveling, presentation-giving execs tired of re-wiring entire office buildings just to get their PowerPoint remote to work. The Neyya ring works via Bluetooth, and all you have to do is discreetly swipe on its glassy face to scroll between slides. It does lots of other things, too, like control your music and alert you toimportant incoming calls. But its primary superpower is in the boardroom. It’s the PowerPoint Punisher. The Keynote Knight.

Neyya is one of a number of companies that has decided there is no “wrist” in “wearable.” They’ve skipped smartwatches and fitness bands, and set their sights on your fingers. In a sense, smart rings are everything we want wearables to be. They’re jewelry first and gadgets second. They’re subtle in a way looking at your Apple Watch cannever be subtle. They’re easy and natural to use, and they become a part of you the way your wedding banddoes. Until truly great natural-recognition gesture tech catches on and we get RFID chips embedded in our forearms, rings could be the closest thing to truly seamless technology. If they work right.

If.

First, smart ring-makers must grapple with the same existential question facing the Apple Watch, Google Glass, and every other shrunken computer we’re being asked to put on our bodies: What is it for? Ring-makers have it even harder, because they can’t just slap a touchscreen on your wrist, connect it to an app store, and hope developers answer the question. Rings are definitionally smaller and simpler; you don’t have much room for anything other than a battery. Even those who can do everything realize they shouldn’t.

Josh Valcarcel/WIRED

There’s an unspoken arms race happening on crowdfunding sites as entrepreneurs vie to see who can make the most tricked-out ring. Mota’s SmartRing shows you all your notifications and has a replaceable battery! The Smarty Ring does all that andcontrols your music! Aring Pro is like having Siri on your fingers! Logbar’s Ring lets you text by writing in mid-air and scroll through Netflix queues with grand gestures! Putthe Nod on your finger and control your drone! Only a few of these are real products. Most are vaporware. One (Logbar) was convincingly declared the “worst product ever made.”

The Neyya began as a similar do-everything kind of device, hitting Indiegogo in 2014 as the Fin Wearable Ring. It didn’t look like jewelry. It was more like a super-futuristic brace for your thumb. Put it on, and you could use your fingers as a game controller, a mouse and keyboard, a remote control for your car, a personal authenticator, and much, much more. It was created by five friends, all engineers in India, fascinated bygesture technology. “Their interest was in creating something that you’re able to wear and control just on one finger,” Hunt says. Every imaginable feature was fair game.

Fin raised more than $200,000 on Indiegogo and another $2 million in venture capital. Then ithad to become a real company, with a real product. When Hunt and other seasoned pros came in, they started a true product development cycle. “You’re kind of ripping apart your own product,” Hunt says, “to see if it’s the right one for the market.” They realized that for all the cool technology, Fin wasn’t a good product. Its battery didn’t last long enough. It didn’t look good enough. Your index finger is actually a much better place for it. And try as they might, users could never figure out how to use the thing.

After months of research and testing, the ring they came up with was so different it needed a new name—so Neyya was born. Just before it launched, news leaked that Apple had applied for a patent for a shockingly similar device. “A need … exists,” the application says, “for a more discreet, safer, more efficient, or more ergonomic way to interact with touch pads or touchscreens. ” Now, patent applications don’t mean anything in terms of actual products, but “that was huge validation to us,” Hunt says. “That we did the right thing, we were thinking about it the right way.”

Drawings from Apples smart ring patent application. US PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE

John McLear, on the other hand, has been thinking about rings in a completely different way. A developer and former WordPress employee, he started working on the NFC Ring as a simple authentication tool. He raised nearly 10 times his initial Kickstarter goal with a fairly simple promise: Your ring can unlock your phone or your front door, work as a bus pass, and even share information with other people. NFC is ridiculously simple to implement, and since it requires basically no power, you never need to take it off. It looks slightly nerdy and definitely masculine, but it looks like a ring.

The ultimate goal of every smart ring is the same as any other wearable: hide the technology invisibly within the jewelry. Only a few come even close, and only Ringlyreally gets it right. The Ringly ring is obviously meant for women, and is quite nice looking. I may not be the target market, but I like how the big hexagonal semi-precious stone makes me feel like a 1970s mafia don when I wear it on my pinky. The only obvious tech is a small LED on the underside of the stone, which I set it up so that calls from anyone on my VIP list cause the ring to vibrates four times and flash a subtle pink light. An email brings two buzzes and a yellow light. It’s meant to keep me from missing important things while also slowly weaningme of the need to check my phone every time it buzzes. Ringly CEO Christina Mercado says it’s farmore useful for her. Her phone is never in her pocket, she reminds me. It’s in her purse. “Its something I have to point out to guys,” she says, “because you know, you have pockets. You feel your phone vibrate—I dont!”

Mercando never intended to make “a wearable.” That phrase seems to unsettle her just a bit. Her goal, she says, was to make attractive jewelry that happened to be smart and useful. She wanted to make something she’d want to wear anyway—but never tried to make something she’d wear all the time. “You have to think of it more like clothing,” she says, “where you dont just buy one pair of shoes. You buy shoes that we wear to the gym, we buy shoes that we wear to a cocktail party, we buy shoes that we wear to work. And I think, you know, wearables are going to take the same path.” Mercado says she’s heard from designers and manufacturers of every stripe wanting to integrate her tech into their jewelry. Even companies that make class rings are interested. (Class of 2021, your rings are gonna be crazy.)

The wearable-as-notification-machine idea is a popular one—beyond fitness tracking, it’s really the only compelling use case anyone’s come up with. But how do you communicate information without a screen? Ringly, along with more traditional wrist-bound wearable companies like Misfit and even Apple to some extent, is playing with a combination of lights and buzzes. But Neyya’s Hunt doesn’t buy it. “I just can’t even remember, like, if my mom’s calling me and it’s vibrating three times and flashing pink,” Hunt says, “or my dad’s calling me and it’s vibrating five times and flashing blue.” It was too much. “My Apple Watch, it has so many apps synced up with it,” she says. “We just didn’t want to get into any of that.” Neyya purposefully doesn’t do that stuff—if there’s no way to do it well, Hunt says, don’t do it at all.

So Neyya, like many other smart rings, has settled on a reduced set of features. Long-term, it has the same change-everything goals as so many other wearable companies, which want to use step-tracking and notifications to begin to change how we use and understand technology. But right now, for reasons both technological and psychological, the best wearables are the specific ones. Use this wristband while you run; let this light track your sleep and help you wake up in the morning; put on this ring before you give the quarterly update. Then take it off.

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from Everyone Wants to Make Smart RingsBut No One Knows What For

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