#I kinda like to think he's either a volunteer or he has them donate what his paycheck would be to charity or something

[incorrectprodigalsonquotes]

One thing I'm not sure the show ever really confirmed is that... does Malcolm actually get paid for being a profiler for the NYPD? Or is he just a very qualified volunteer?

#because like he's old money so I don't think he's ever worried about paying bills or choosing just one Tom Ford suit to wear to work #I kinda like to think he's either a volunteer or he has them donate what his paycheck would be to charity or something #or he does that himself #malcolm bright #prodigal son

[mildkleptomaniac]

brunch — jj maybank x kook!reader

𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭:  “ Can you do a jj x reader? He's a waiter at the club and her family is there for brunch, her parents don't know about their relationship and are kinda rude to him. Reader's done with their attitude and deffends jj and reveals their relationship by accident and her parents get mad. Love all your fics, you're so talented! ”

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 1.6k

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: just some angst and an outburst! rude parents

𝒂𝒖𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒓'𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒆: sorry this took forever to get out! school semester just started, along with a new job. and I’m finally in the process of feeling better. I’m posting this on mobile so sorry if they layout is weird, but I hope you enjoy!

Y/N sat at the table, her parents sitting across from her as they stared at the menu. According to her parents, the world ran around them. They didn’t seem to care that they would take more than enough time to order and then usher the waiter over whenever it would be convenient for them. They would manage to make brunch turn into dinner with the amount of time they would sit at the table and slowly pick at the bread for an appetizer while slowly sipping their mimosas.

Y/N enjoyed going out for meals, but never with her parents. Sometimes she felt like she had to babysit them, especially with how they treated employees. She always apologized whenever the waiter would catch a glance at Y/N and she would give them an apologetic smile. Not to mention the amount of times she would slip in a few extra bills for the tip. Her parents were harsh when it came to the working class, which she didn’t quite understand.

But today at the Kildare Country Club, Y/N’s boyfriend would be their waiter.

JJ Maybank.

Y/N’s secret Pogue boyfriend. He was the boy that her parents would fear for her to fall in love with because they knew all too well about his family and their history. Her parents would remind her of the “better” selection of boys to pick from, which either included Kelce or Topper. Luckily her parents never mentioned Rafe Cameron—it’s almost like they knew in their gut that he wasn’t the best candidate to date.

Y/N’s parents feared that Pogues will just use her to get further in life and that she’s just some doormat to her friends. But that wasn’t the case at all, if anything—Y/N was the glue to the friend group after she began dating JJ.

A few lies a week would keep her parents fooled, thinking she was spending her time studying or volunteering when in reality, she was relaxing at the Chateau or lounging on the HMS Pogue in JJ’s lap as they sipped on cheap beers.

“Good morning, folks. My name is JJ and I’ll be your waiter today. Can I start you off with anything to drink?” The blonde flashed his smile at the table, his eyes meeting Y/N’s. A comfort washed over the girl, his gaze always soothed any tension built in her body.

“Isn’t it Mimosa Sunday?” Her mother glanced upwards from the menu, voice flat.

“Yes, m’am. Bottomless Mimosas all Sunday.” JJ replied.

“Then get it started. Y/N would have a glass of water.” Her mother’s eyes flickered back to the menu. Y/N pursed her lips, shifting in her seat.

“What would you like to drink, miss?” JJ asked Y/N, ignoring her mother’s statement. Her eyes widened and she cleared her throat.

“I’ll take a sweet ice tea, please. With a side of water, please.” She made sure to emphasize the word ‘please’ around her parents. A term to slip their vocabulary whenever they were brought face to face with the working class.

“Y/N, don’t waste your calories on a drink.” Her mother shook her head.

“It’d be okay and I don’t want to talk about that right now in front of the waiter.” She remarked through her teeth, eyes looking back between her parents and her boyfriend.

“One sweet tea and bottomless Mimosas coming right up.” He jotted the order on his pad before turning on his heel. Y/N’s father cleared his throat and it caught JJ’s attention.

“Young man, we weren’t done ordering. We would like to place an order for an appetizer.”

Y/N could feel her shoulders ache from how pinched they were with tension. Her parents absolutely embarrassed her to no end with their lack of consideration or manners. She’s surprised they got this far in life by treating people like this. They were no different than any other person.

“We would like the Mini Herb Smoked Salmon Frittatas with Deviled Eggs.” Y/N’s father read off the menu.

“I’ll get that in as soon as possible, sir. And I’ll be right out with the drinks.” He smiled before walking away. He glanced back at his girlfriend and sent her a reassuring smile, trying to let her know that he was doing okay.

She knew her parents weren’t the worse to deal with, but they could be difficult.

“I’m surprised they allow a Maybank to work at this establishment. He probably steals all the soaps and colognes from the bathroom and sells them on the street.” Her father laughed, shaking his head.

“Oh honey, you’re probably right. His father is such a sleaze, I wouldn’t be surprised if he makes the boy bring home scraps from the dumpster!”

“I’m sorry, but what the hell is wrong with you both?” Y/N questioned, her eyebrows furrowed as she stared in distaste at her parent’s banter.

“Excuse me, young lady. Watch your language.” Her father reprimanded.

“Excuse me? Excuse you! You don’t even know JJ and you’re talking poorly about him. Obviously, he is working hard to make money. Bold of you to assume that he isn’t a hard worker—but he is. Do you not see him mowing lawns for the neighbors? Helping Hayward run groceries on the docks? If his family’s wealth is such an issue to you, why not help donate clothes and food to him?” Y/N’s outburst caught other tables' attention. She stood up in her spot, her hands clenching the table cloth.

“Y/N, you are causing a scene. You need to sit down right now or else you’re in major trouble.” Her mother’s voice was sharp.

JJ walked to the table, pretending to be oblivious to his girlfriend’s statements, which the whole restaurant practically heard her defending him. “Here are the Mimosas and the sweet tea. The starters will be out shortly. Can I get you anything else in the meantime?” He faked a smile.

“I don’t care if I’m causing a scene, because you’re causing a problem! You’re being rude for absolutely I reason towards JJ.” She remained standing and JJ stood there awkwardly, unsure of what the right move would be in this situation.

“Why do you care about this, Pogue? He has no meaning to our lives—he doesn’t benefit society, sweetheart.” Her father spoke in a softer tone.

“You’re unbelievable, dad! JJ Maybank is a human being who works to survive! He isn’t some scummy person and—in fact, he is my boyfriend! Mom, Dad, meet my boyfriend, JJ Maybank.” Y/N finally snapped and she gestured towards the blonde who stood there. He looked like a deer in headlights.

“Y/N, stop embarrassing the poor boy at work and yourself.” Her mother’s face grew red—she wasn’t sure if it was from anger or embarrassment herself.

“I’m not embarrassing myself, mom. This is my boyfriend. We’ve been dating for a few months now and this is where I’ve been. I’ve been dating a Pogue. You’re sweet, precious daughter is dating this Pogue. And he is actually fantastic and cares about me—more than you two ever do!” She threw her fabric napkin on the table before reaching into her purse. She pulled out a rather large dollar bill and stuffed it into JJ’s pocket. “Here is a tip that they won’t be giving you, babe. But I think you deserve it.” Y/N kissed his cheek before walking away from the table.

JJ cleared his throat and looked around the area, “would you like a different waiter, today?”

Y/N went inside the Country Club and paced around the entrance way. She ran a hand through her hair and she tried calming herself down. She had never had that much confidence to confront her parents like that, but she knew she would face the consequences when she would go home.

A hand clamped down on her shoulder and she turned around to face her boyfriend.

“JJ—I am so sorry all of that happened and—“ He interrupted her by cupping her cheeks and pulling her in for a kiss.

“You’re so hot when you’re mad and defending me.” He whispered against her lips. She let out a light laugh and they kissed once more. “You don’t need to apologize babe, what you did was awesome. Insane, but awesome.”

“My parents are going to kill me,” she laughed again. The reality setting in quickly.

“Then stay at the Chateau with me tonight. What’s gonna happen that’s not already? Plus, we can sleep together and I can have you tell everyone how you had a scene at brunch.” He teased, his fingers playing with the ends of her hair.

“That…that sounds nice.” She sighed, closing her eyes. JJ pressed a kiss to the temple of her head.

“I also put in your breakfast order if you wanna eat at the bar. I used the money you gave me for it.” He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. She looked at him gratefully.

“You’re the best, J. I love you,”

“Even if I’m a Pogue?”

“Most definitely if you’re a Pogue. I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

taglist: @abbyg217 @taylathornton @lemur46 @urdadsapussy @webmeupspiderdaddy  @rosarosse @5sos-fic-recs @littlethingsinmymind @pogueslandia @mrs-cameron @starduststarkey @jjshoeobx29872 @caswinchester2000 @starksvixen @mrs-talia-cameron @newtpsd @rottenstyx @professional-busboy @hallecarey1 @alwaysclassyeagle @cake2coke @siriusbutalsono @princessmaybank @wolfstar-lb @jorja-cameron @emeraldheartbreaker @nicavass

#jj maybank #jj maybank imagine #( jj maybank ) #jj maybank x reader #outer banks imagine #obx imagines #jj maybank x kook!reader #kook!reader

[wrenseyeview]

I truly don't want to be a doomer. I don't want to be exhausted and full of impotent rage. And I think that state of mind is actually solvable, and in great part due to not having any control or options for action. So, why are so many of the calls to action still exhausting and upsetting?

Going down the line:

Vote! - did that

Volunteer for a political campaign! - did that

Email and call your elected officials! - did that

Donate to relevant groups/funds! - did that

Talk to your family to convince them! - did that, wish I didn't, never ends well

Get informed on the issue! - did that, maybe blissful ignorance would be less depressing? (/j... mostly)

Volunteer for local relevant groups! - pin in that for below

Go to protests! - second pin

Okay. So. Out of that list, I've done most of them and try to continue doing them when able, and this general tidal wave of shit still keeps coming. So how about the last two?

Volunteer has a few issues depending on location. Where I am, I'm an hour drive each way from the little LGBT+ center downtown, and it has kinda limited meetings or offerings. I still want to get involved, but it'll take some planning and a lot of effort to make anything regularly when I'm tired after work, and their events tend to be small group meetings to just chat. The nearest Planned Parenthood, also over an hour away, burned down, so.... the next nearest one is at least 3 hours away. Nearly every community impact type of group I've found through local news and bulletins have been through churches or Republican/conservative clubs. The exceptions are an animal shelter and maybe Habitat for Humanity, though I think that one's also managed by churches here. The most I can have a local impact is probably via the Friends of the Library donations or conservation groups for certain strips of woods. None of which help ensure I get to keep legal rights and access to healthcare.

Protest is... so. I just. Really don't understand how it's effective. There have been protests around here of various things, like a group of maybe 30 people stood in downtown in favor of Ukraine. Okay, I guess? What's our city council gonna do about that?? Do they even care about 30 people with some signs standing outside for a few hours? If it gets to summer 2020 levels maybe, though I actually don't know how much actual action resulted as compared to the harm endured by the protestors (not at all to disparage their efforts or their rage).

Ultimately the entire political landscape feels like job hunting. That complete drudge of putting out effort after effort with no indication of reaction or even receipt, just slowly hitting your head against a brick wall at a steady beat for months on end. It's the same feeling of exhaustion and is this even worth it and what if I just disappeared into the mountains and forsook human society and concepts like money or gender and... yeah, not a great thought cycle. With the extra added bonus of having mostly old white men continually spew diahrettic levels of smug hipocrisy while remaining unfortunately out of nut-kicking range. If he wants to legislate my uturus so badly, I should be allowed to kick Alito in the nuts at least once.

Anyway! Yeah, so it feels like the main issue of doomer-ism around all this comes down to lack of options, lack of control or impact. Which is naturally not helped by these measures being centered around taking away control and options. So what are more options besides those usual ones above that either aren't doing much, or at least not much in immediate view?

Well there's the individual self care kind of level, of doing something small and immediate where you can see the impact and feel those good brain chemicals of having influence on your life. This is the step of stop doomscrolling and go sew something, cook something, color, garden, put out bird seed, feel the results of your will in your hands. Be intimately aware that you are not a passive object in your life.

Okay, so now we're a little more present, a little less a disembodied cartoon cloud of rage and despair, we have hands again. Now we can look past individual present to individual future. What do you personally need to feel insulated at least a little from the danger and uncertainty carried on this tidal wave of shit?

Individually, I can:

Have the locations and approximate budget written down for driving to stay with a friend in a state that protects abortion

Research options and potentially order abortion pills now

Ask my doctor about options for a hysterectomy

Any or all of these may not actually be options, largely depending on cost. Hopefully there's actually more options I'm just not thinking of because that's a short list and there's a lot that's left outside of individual control, but at least having the information is a start. Make plans, know where the fire exits are. If we can establish some level of firmer foundation of individual safety, then we can free up some of that anxiety brain space to think more about community and society options.

So after figuring out my fire exits and a few more laps around the self-care track to maybe eventually get more energy for all this, what are some community-level actions besides that first list? What actions can insulate your community from harm imposed by larger society?

Okay. Let's see.

Keep some money set aside for requests for aid from your specific community (narrowed down to your pride center, religious group, dnd group, something small enough to know the people and feel like you are fostering a community that will also support you in turn, reciprocity rather than charity, and ideally in person)

Make a list of who in your small group can offer what kind of aid (who can drive places, who can babysit, who has medical knowledge, etc.)

Meet with the small group on a regular basis. Foster connections, bring food.

Trade favors, establish the gifting cycle among the group, so no one feels bad having to ask for help. Of course we can pool money to help get you a trip a couple states over, because you helped fix my fence because I watched your kids because you brought soup when I was sick because. Everyone should feel important and like they're not relying on charity if they need help.

So all these ideas come down to what ends up formally as mutual aid, but that often feels a little too expansive and hard to get into as a community rather than charity if you start at the "look up local mutual aid groups" level, hits the same problem as the top list in my experience at least. So this is more of a bottom-up approach of turn your friend group into an informal mutual aid network, aka make friends in real life. Which... is hard, it is, but it's gotta be worth the effort and is really the best starting point, and also good for you.

So after all that, it looks like my steps for getting out of the doom cycle are

Stop doomscrolling

Find my hands again by making stuff

Make some emergency plans to file away

Go find some more in person friends and bring food

As much as I am the kind of person that very happily will stay in my house alone for way longer than the average human being, it's fundamentally necessary to feel the support structure of "there are at least five people within a 30 minute drive of me that would not kill me for a corn chip, and in fact would provably prefer that I not be killed" when it feels like the entire rest of the "doing stuff" arm of society would happily kill you. You spitting at the government isn't going to have any impact you can see, but if you make your friend a scarf, he has a scarf now, and he might be the friend that keeps a stocked medicine cabinet.

#long post #current events #mutual aid #personal? #idk what to do at this point #but there has to be an option besides just stewing and wanting to beat a supreme court justice with my steering wheel #donating to abortion access funds is good but doesn't solve the individual safety step #ordering abortion pills is fine but what if I'm overweight and abortion is still banned once they expire #I had to vote in a republican primary for local elections because no democrats ran at all #so we are well away from just vote around here #everything feels pointless which means it's time to go back to basics

[warmau]

★ donation request: rich kid!au hongseok

judging by the huge amount of applause that’s just come from outside of the gym

you assume that means that the star of this show has just arrived

other volunteers start running around, frazzled and worried

this one - yang hongseok - is known to be a bit of a,,,,,,,,handful

which you don’t understand 

the guys just another athlete like everyone else 

granted he has won an insane amount of titles in such a short amount of time

and is currently the world champion of his boxing class

(oh -  you know - is well on his way to being a self-made millionaire)

you just ,,,,, don’t get it

how can you be moody and snappy when your life revolves around punching people - like get your anger out in the ring, dude.

either way, scoring such a huge star for your charity work is amazing 

so you’re going to bend to his every will, even if you spend the majority of the time hating it

hongseok strolls in, followed by his manager - kino - who you spent most of your time talking to on the phone in order to set this up

you introduce yourself to him and shake his hand, he’s been nothing but nice 

your worry is all but focused on hongseok

your charity is all about working with kids and helping them get into free sports programs

which means a lot of the people in attendance are innocent children 

so you hope hongseok keeps it ,,,,,, together

he shakes your hand - but seems almost annoyed by it - taking the glasses he’s wearing off and chucking them toward kino

“how long is this gonna take?”

is the first thing he asks and you’re already gritting your teeth

“only half an hour, we want you to talk to the kids about how you got into boxing and then take some photo-”

“kino, did they say photo-op? i never agreed to that.”

kino looks like he’s gritting his teeth too, but he’s probably so used to the treatment that he just pats hongseok’s shoulder

“it’s only two or three photos. it’ll look so good for your publicity hong”

hongseok shrugs his hand off, but veers off toward the table where your volunteers have set up drinks

kino gives you an apologetic smile as he follows suit and you just stand there gripping the clipboard in your hands so hard you think you might break it

it’s only been 5 seconds and i already know - i hate him.

you turn you attention away from hongseok though, you’ve got to make sure the gym is prepped and the kids who’ve come out to hear hongseok speak are all here

as you pass by, you hear hongseok mutter something about how this place is subpar and hot 

you wish you could tell him to shut it, he’s an athlete - a little sweat won’t hurt him

but instead you remind yourself: you need this, and the kids need this.

when you’re done and you’re ready to introduce hongseok to the eager crowd

you walk over to let him know, he has his glasses on again and when you tell him everything is ready 

he barely reacts - just stands up and takes off the denim jacket he’s wearing

it’s hard not to stare - the shirt is black and tight, and he’s a boxer so his body looks like its been carved from marble

but you make a point to focus your eyes on your clipboard and not on his dumb, beautiful face

hongseok notes that you aren’t oggling like just about everyone else 

as you lead him toward the gym, you have the urge to say something - to beg him not to put on that bravado hes known for when hes both out of the ring and in it

sometimes, he gets a little scary and mean, and these are kids so -

you skid to a stop and turn, hongseok raises an eyebrow and an annoyed look paints his otherwise (stupid, but godly) face

“um,,,,,,just so you know - the kids out there respect you, and they all think you’re cool so im hoping you can just,,,,,be professional?”

his mouth thins into a line

“oh, so you think im going to go out there and act like a jackass?”

“no-”

yes, that’s what im worried about genius.

“no, im just - theyre all young so-”

he doesn’t bother to let you finish, instead he walks right on past you and out into the gym

the kids roar into applause and you pale - you were supposed to go out there and introduce him!!!!

but its too late, and you swallow the horror that building up in your stomach 

because you feel like you just made everything so much worse-

“hi kids, im hongseok and im here to teach you that everyone in this room can follow their dreams! i followed mine and now im a?”

he points the microphone toward the crowd as everyone cheers out the words “world champion”

hongseok laughs, a big and warm smile on his face

and you blink in surprise because

oh my god, he’s doing really well actually?!!??!

the whole event goes so smoothly that you almost dont believe its happening

hongseok not only connects with the kids and plays with them well, but the photo-op he was dreading so much - is so sweet

hongseok is letting kids hang off his bicepes, he’s picking kids up on his shoulders, he’s letting them play with his boxing gloves and even has kino bring out some merch he has signed to give out

you’re in awe - this is not the snooty, flashy dude you saw half an hour ago

and whose been splayed across online news pages since he debuted in the boxing scene

he’s just,,,,,,,,,,,,nice

but then again - you remember what kino had said:this is good publicity

it could all just be an act

one of your volunteers, tall and often lost looking yuto, taps your shoulder and asks if you can go get some supplies from the charity van you guys have out back

you agree, rushing over to get the things and as you’re piling out the boxes full of tshirts and applications packets

you hear the back door open

you’re half hidden by the car, but you immediately recognize kino’s voice and ,,,,,,, hongseoks?

“i want to sponsor all of the kids.”

“hongseok, that’s gonna be a hefty check you know?”

“doesn’t matter, but don’t put my name on it - just make sure the charity people know those kids are all going to be able to pick whatever program they want and ill pay for uniforms or baseball bats or whatever they need.”

“alright, ill go find the manager.”

you almost drop the box you’re holding - there are over fifty kids in there and he’s going to sponsor all of them?!?!?! and not for the free publicity?!?!?

you rush back inside, dropping the boxes in yuto’s hands who gives you a confused look as soon as you ask where hongseok is

he tilts his head and you turn toward the gym, through the door you see hongseok is taking a couple of more photos and waving goodbye to the kids

kino finds you, and asks if you two can talk for a moment, but you shake your head

“i need to talk to hongseok.”

standing out back in the parking lot, you thank him - embarrassed about how you had acted before

“i heard you say you wanted to sponsor all the kids, and im going to be honest i -”

“you thought i was an asshole, just the way i am when im boxing or on a late night tv show right?”

you kind of give him a - can you blame me? kind of look and hongseok laughs again

up close, its brighter and more comforting then you imagined

“being a ‘softie’ doesnt get you far in my sport - so i act out, everyones like if you have abs like that whyd you ever be humble you know?”

you try not to giggle, but hongseok says its true 

“well thanks again, and i know it was rude of me to tell you to ‘act professional’ you-”

“listen, id do the same thing. plus, you are probably the first person with the balls to say it to me - you do know im a boxer right?”

you kind of fumble a little, because you dont know what to say

his tone is kinda flirty, but you’re trying not to think to much into it 

kino suddenly appears, reminding hongseok of another event he has to get to

he smiles and says another goodbye to you, before you have to ask

“wait- why don’t you want people to know you donated so much to us?”

“ah, same reason. the guys arent going to let me live it down when these photos of me letting kids crawl me like a tree get out so i cant imagine what theyd say if they know i spent most of my championship money to help out these kids and not buy like....a yacht.”

he waves again and you cant believe it but you feel something in your heart twinge

that night you get a voicemail from the number you’d used when talking to kino

you assume its a message from him about the event, but you’re surprised to hear hongseok’s voice when you play it

‘aside from the fact i donated a buttload to your charity - do you wanna have dinner sometime? i actually have enough money left over for that?’

you don’t believe your ears and play it back one million or so times

in the morning you drag yuto into a corner and play it for him

“do you thin its a prank?”

yuto scratches his head, “no - i think yang hongseok is interested in you.”

#pentagon scenarios #pentagon imagines #pentagon au #hongseok scenarios #hongseok imagines #hongseok au #member: pentagon #ptg scenarios #ptg au #hongseok #pentagon #sfw #donation commissions

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #479

“war sends our sons to slaughter  /  another failed attack; there is no turning back”

Have you ever boycotted something? Yes: Chick-fil-A. Homophobic, transphobic pieces of shit. Has anyone ever borrowed something from you, and not returned it? Yes, a video game when I was little. I was so mad, lol. Do you vent a lot on social media? No. I don't want people to get annoyed with me. What was your first bill you started paying on your own? I haven't been responsible for any bills yet. What is your favorite charitable cause to donate to or volunteer for? I can't/don't do either really, but if I could, I'd probably donate to uhhhh... suicide prevention organizations. As for volunteering, definitely something with animals. Have you ever dated someone who wasn’t at all your usual type? No. What is something you have no patience for? Waiting at the doctor's office. Have you ever received a misdiagnosis? Yes. What’s that you’re listening to? I'm watching Gab play The Evil Within 2. What kind of relationship do you have with the last person you kissed? We're a couple. What is your biggest accomplishment in life? Still being alive. What is one thing that you really wish you could understand, but don’t? Political stuff. Economics. Have you ever been tutored or tutored someone yourself? I had an Algebra tutor the last time I was in college, and I had to strangle an anxiety attack down because I wasn't understanding the material AT ALL and felt so dumb and annoying. I never did it again. What was the last thing you said out loud (singing doesn’t count)? "It's really embarrassing," to Mom. It really is fucking humiliating that my ankles are swollen from walking/standing more and pushing my desk chair back against the resistance of the carpet. That's pathetic. I'm trying to focus on the fact it's good my body is even reacting to moving more, though. Is everything you have on actually yours? Yep. Do you ever just randomly drive around when you’re upset about something? I don't drive, but if I did, that would NOT be my method of de-stressing. What was the last act of creativity you displayed? Writing an RP post. What’s your favorite department in Wal-Mart? Uh, I guess where you can go see the plants and flowers. Do you find kite flying boring? I LOVED it as a kid. I'd still probably find it kinda fun. Do you have any interest in visiting Japan? Yes, but it's not a massive interest. I've heard the humidity can kill a bitch, and I am NOT into that. Have you ever run a cash register? Yes. I sucked. Have you ever worked as a server? No. Have you ever done the Bratz challenge on YouTube? No, but I saw James Charles do it and it was v unnerving, holy shit. Would you rather paint or carve a pumpkin? Carve. What was your worst experience in high school? My depression as a whole. How much did your senior prom dress cost you? I don't remember. Have you ever been in a serious romantic relationship? Three, if you include my current one. Which part of your body is the most muscular? Uh, nothing? What is the first site you check when you get online, generally? KM. Are you good at creative writing assignments? That's my forte. In elementary school, I actually won a I think county-wide creative writing short story assignment. Not to brag, but I've always been very proud of that, ha ha. Or would you rather just do an informative essay? That's easy for me too, but I prefer writing creatively. Are you more attracted to the badasses, or the goody-goody types? Definitely the goody-goodies. The "bad guys" have never appealed to me romantically. Do you raise your hand or participate in class? I did if I really wanted to ask something or was confident in an answer. What is something BIG you want to do with your life? Make a difference, somehow. What do you think of people who own wild animals? Do NOT just casually take in animals from the wild. That's selfish and just generally disgusting. If you're going to keep an animal generally described as wild and undomesticated, you'd better have a license and deserve that license. Know what you're doing and be certain that keeping the animal in captivity is in the animal's best interest for its unique case. Are you good at explaining things, in general? NOOOOOOOOO, I suck at that. Do you like visiting the mall? Why or why not? Not our mall, no. Its stores suck/are extremely limited, and SO much crime has happened there. Do you like window shopping? Why or why not? YESSSSSSS, mostly on Morph Market, a mostly reptile selling hub online. You can browse TONS of breeders and literally thousands of reptiles, especially ball pythons. They even have a tarantula section I like to look at sometimes. If you lost your job/home/etc., who would likely help you? If I'm losing my home, I'm assuming my mom is gone, so my dad. Why did you first kiss the last person you kissed? We were a couple and I felt like I was supposed to. At that time I didn't see him romantically, but I desperately wanted to. Funny how we're back together and I've no reservations against kissing him now. Feelings change, for sure. Plans for tonight? Girt and I will probably play some WoW Classic together. We've started playing that together, and it's lots of fun with him. :') Has anyone seen you kiss the last person you kissed? Actually, no. Have you ever been kissed in a car? Yeah. Do you think anyone has feelings for you? I know Girt does. Is there anyone in your life that knows right away something’s wrong with you? My mom. Who last made you smile? Girt, 'cuz he's a sweetheart. Where is your mother? She's in bed in her room. She feels like shit. Like, you would think she WASN'T vaccinated, though her long-time doctor has said she'd probably be dead without it while having Covid. Would you rather look at clouds or stars? Stars. Think about your biggest mistake, would you go back and change it? I absolutely would. Are you dating the person you last kissed? Yeup. What is the most immature item you own and actually use? Um. Idk. Do you always take a shower after you have sex? I... didn't know people did this? Like I know women are advised to pee after sex, but full-on showering? No. Do you like chocolate popsicles? Oh hell yeah. Are your parents proud of you? They claim to be. I don't see how. Are you interested in the ocean? Yeah; it's inarguably so fascinating. Hot dogs or hamburgers? I prefer burgers. Have you ever been to a Chinatown in any of the cities you’ve been to? No. Have you ever been to couple’s counseling? No. Do you have any dietary restrictions? No. Have you ever turned down a job offer? No. What’s the largest animal you’ve ever had as a pet? A dog named Cali that was a boxer mix. Do you ever pray, even if you don't believe in God? What exactly is the point if you don't believe in God...? Anyway, I don't. Have you ever been to Mexico? No. Have you ever gotten stuck in quicksand before? No. What's the shortest or longest length you've ever had your hair grow? To around the small of my back. The last nest you saw - was it a bird nest or a hornet's nest? I think a bird's? Do you enjoy Jeff Dunham? I don't know if I'd like him as a person, but I do think he's a funny comedian. Who is your favorite character from Frozen? I was never into the movies. I do think Elsa is kinda cool (no pun intended, lol), though. I like that she has her flaws. Did you finish high school? If not, do you plan on doing so? I did. Have you been in a simulator that mimicked a submarine or rollercoaster? A rollercoaster, yes. How often do you go out to eat instead of cooking for yourself? Mom and I try to avoid fast food for our health. We do a pretty good job at it, but sometimes for convenience's sake, we do eat it. What is the largest family of siblings that you know of? This is probably gonna come across as very judgmental, but... it really bothers me. I don't know how many kids she has now, but one of the dance moms from the studio has SO many children; I've completely lost count. Now if you want that many kids and can provide for them, that's cool. But that's not the case. She uses the "if God wants me to have a baby, then it will happen" mentality, and I'm just like... um, no hunny. Poor choices are leading to kids you're not adequately providing for. She uses no methods of protection and literally has twins whose room is a fucking closet. Ugh it just really bothers me. What foreign languages were offered to you at school? A whole lot. Only Spanish and I believe French were offered as in-school courses, but there were lots of online classes. If you were required to take a course right now, what would you choose? Photography. Team Biden or Team Trump? Over my dead body would I have voted for Trump. My vote went with Biden. What is an animal native to your country that may not exist in others? Bison are factually exclusive to North America. Note that bison and buffalo are different. What are some of your favorite autumn activities? Taking pictures of fall scenery. <3 What are some of your favorite winter activities? Going out in the snow. :') Especially with a camera. Do you eat a shit-ton the week before your period? uuugggghhHHHHHH yes Wendy's, McDonalds, or Burger King? Wendy's. What's the weirdest question you've ever asked Alexa? I've never asked Alexa anything. Do you prefer your apple cider to be warm or cold? I've actually never had it. Do you prefer your coffee hot or iced? Y'all know the story of me and coffee. Can you sing the alphabet backwards? I can't. Have you ever sent flowers or chocolates to yourself before? Ha ha, no. Is there any meat that you won't eat? Yeah, fish and ANYTHING that comes from a wild animal. Does your cat use anything other than it's scratching post as a scratcher? When we got him a scratcher WITH CATNIP, the lil butthead ignored it. -_- He scratches the carpet instead. Did you go through a vampire craze before? Are you still going through it? Nah. Have you ever forged your parents' signature on a poor test paper, etc? No. Has a bird ever pooped on you before? Omg, no. I'd die. Have you ever been sprayed by a skunk before? No. Are black jellybeans delicious or disgusting? I HATE them. Have you ever rolled down a grassy hill before? I have! I miss that.

#survey #surveys #random questions #lyrics: ''black rain'' by ozzy osbourne

[eerythingisshaka]

Ficmas Day #3 “Misfit Wakandans”

[T’Challa x OC]

Word Count: 1.2k

“You won’t win!  You’re just a toy maker, no match for Santa!  Now leave before you’re reindeer food!”

Akini looks over the script in her email as T’Challa claps.  “I don’t think the reindeer food line was part of it, Ezzy.”

Ezzy shrugs, hopping into her father’s lap as she twists her braid.  “They said we can make up some stuff sometimes if we want.”

Akini holds her daughter’s cheek.  “That’s good.  Maybe try something different because reindeer do not eat people, right T’Challa?”

T’Challa appears to mull it over.  “Given the barren environment of the North Pole, it could very well be in the interest of the animal to survive-”

“Well thank goodness this isn’t a nature documentary.  I would just stick to the script for that  part, baby girl.  Just so no one is confused.  Now go wrap your hair and brush your teeth.  Your father will put you to bed in a minute.”

Ezzy deals out kisses to her parents before scurrying to her room.  Akini turns to T’Challa suspiciously.

“Now, what is the meeting so important about that you must go right before our daughter’s first play?”

T’Challa’s hands splay over his knees as he breathes in deep, avoiding Akini’s eyes.  “There are a couple of businesses willing to donate to our center for the holiday.  It won’t be long until that time comes.”

Akini nods, reaching for her husband’s chin to pull his gaze to meet hers.  “You cannot, by any means necessary, be late.”

T’Challa nods, but Akin tugs his chin hair this time.  “I mean it.  The crowds are horrendous at this American school, I won’t be a part of a mob for Kumkani, ok?”

T’Challa wraps an arm around his beloved, resting his other hand on her thigh as he stares lovingly into her eyes.  “I won’t be late.  I promise.  It will all be worth it in the end.”

--

“Stop.  Just here is fine.”  T’Challa opens his door and glides out swiftly in front of the elementary school entrance area.  His heart beat picks up as he sees his wife standing outside the front door, arms folded in a tight cross under her chest.  Akini’s  billowing afro hides her expression from him as she looks in the opposite direction while Ayo stands idle by.  Before T’Challa can signal her to remain silent, Ayo’s lips move, alerting Akini to his presence.

Okoye lets out a low whistle next to him.  “That almost scares me, kumkani.”

Akini’s eyes lock onto him as she stomps her booties towards him.  

“Why weren’t you kimoyo beads active?”

“My love, please slow down,”  T’Challa says calmly, approaching to meet her halfway.

“Calm - T’Challa, I have told you to not be late for our daughter’s performance for weeks, the last time being this morning, yes?”

T’Challa puts a finger to his lips, holding Akini’s arm to escort her to the school.

“I know, I know.  But something came up, this has happened before.”

Akini stops walking to turn and face him down despite her short frame.  “Heh!  I know it has!  Ezzy has been practicing her American Christmas recital for so long.”

T’Challa nods, hanging his head slightly.  “She has shown me at home.  She is quite good.”

Akini claps for emphasis.  “And when it actually counts, where is her father?  And you know she hates a scene.  If you got here when I asked, I wouldn’t worry about people gawking at you instead of paying attention to the children.  Now there will be a fuss over your presence.”

T’Challa holds out his hand for Akini to place hers into.  “It will be fine.  Has it started?”

Ayo speaks up.  “Five minutes ago, but Ezzy will not be on for another 15 minutes.”

T’Challa nods approvingly.  “Then you and Okoye secure an area in the balcony, front seat.  Maintain a distance on the east and west until it is time to dismiss.”

Okoye and Ayo open the doors to the school for Akini and T’Challa to enter.  A starstruck volunteer hands T’Challa  a program before they make their way up the stairs to the balcony.  T’Challa doesn’t let go of Akini as they walk hand in hand to their designated seat.  A musical number begins to taper off as Ezzy makes her way to the stage.

Akini points.  “Look!  Look at her!  Oh, she is the cutest looking ragdoll isn’t she?���

T’Challa smiles warmly, seeing his daughter under the bright spotlight with crimson circles on her cheeks and her natural hair in braids and bows.  Despite taking the appearance of a ragdoll, her costume was more of an abstract art piece than rags.

“Santa needs our help to get the toys to the children!  Who is with me?”  Ezzy commands, stamping a buckled shoe on the wooden crate she stood on over the cheering crowd.  

“Aye, you hear her?  She speaks clear and strong, just like I told her.  She studies me well, eh?”  T’Challa beams with pride as she leads a march toward an evil toy maker’s cave who tries to end Christmas but fails thanks to Ezzy and her crew.

When Ezzy had practiced the play before, T’Challa was not sure if the story would measure up enough to carry a performance worth watching, but Ezzy livened the cast in a way that was infectious to the crowd as well.  When the curtains closed for the end, the crowd erupted in loud praises and whistles as the cast took a final bow.

“We should go now,”  Akini says, standing up in her seat and motioning for Okoye and Ayo to follow.  Soon as T’Challa and Akini start their journey to the lower auditorium, the crowd begins to notice the King of the richest country on earth.

“Whoa, look!”

“T’Challa!  I seen you on the news!”

“Hey King!  I’ve got an investment opportunity you may be interested in!”

T’Challa has good blinders for these kinds of hassles, but Akini struggles, shushing people and turning them down for conversations and pictures and autographs directly when anyone is brave enough to talk past Okoye or Ayo flanking the couple.

T’Challa grips her hand tightly, mouthing that everything is fine but they couldn’t get to their daughter fast enough to make their exit.

“Baba!”  a big voice from a tiny frame calls out.  T’Challa follows the sound of his offspring’s voice, expertly finding her in the hoard of children and parents buzzing with excitement.

“There she is!  Come here!”  T’Challa takes his arms wide, letting Ezzy jump into them.  Akini pats her back for attention.

“I was here first, you know!”  Akini pokes out her lip as Ezzy looks down from her father’s arms and reaches for her mother.  Akini takes her into a tight hug.  “You did exceptional, my girl!  Let’s get out of here so we can talk all about it.”

Ay and Okoye helped them safely outside and began to make a path for the car until T’Challa felt something shift.  He turns back and sees his wife appear bewildered and stumble.

“Aye!  Come!”  He pushes through bystanders, holding Akini close as Ezzy climbs into his arms.

“Someone pushed Mama,”  Ezzy says.

“I’m fine, let’s go,”  Akini says flustered.

“Hey, King!  I said wait up!”  A middle aged white man tries to close the gap before Okoye’s staff separates him from his target.

“Do not touch the king or his family,”  Okoye warns.

He holds his hands up.  “Hey, I didn’t know they were together.”

“That does not excuse your actions,”  T’Challa says curtly.

He stammers as the crowd around him notices the drama.  “Sure, I just got too excited I guess-”

“That is no one’s problem but your own.  You have nothing more to say to me.”  T’Challa turns to leave, holding tight to both of his girls as they get into the car for a safe ride home.

“I’m so sorry Akini.  You were right.”  T’Challa confesses, looking down at his daughter resting her head on his chest.

Akini holds his hand to her face affectionately.  “I was too harsh with you.  But I will accept the win nonetheless.  WE are going home, that’s what matters.”

Ezzy looks up at her father.  “Baba, remember in the play when the toymaker tries to make the toys think they are better with him than with Santa?”

T’Challa thinks for a moment.  “I do.  Why?”

“You kinda sounded like me talking to that pale face guy.  I think you could be an actor.”

T’Challa grins.  “No, I could not because that wasn’t an act.  I love you and your mother very much and no hurt will come to either of you long as I am around.”

Akini lays her head on his other shoulder.  “While also teaching our daughter to protect herself...she is lucky to have you as her father.”

T’Challa kisses his love’s hand, inhaling the sweet smelling oils in her hair as his calm nature begins to cement.

Ezzy puts a hand to her father’s ear.  “Did you get Mama’s present today?”

T’Challa puts a finger to his lips, nodding.  “Mama thought I was late, but I still got to see you.  She is lucky her birthday and Christmas are on the same day; she may forgive me.”

Ezzy eyes widen with wonder.  “Two presents?!  Is it the moon and sun like you always say you want to give?”

T’Challa shrugs.  “You and her will see,”  he whispers.  “You’re a big girl for helping Baba with this task.”

Ezzy snuggles under him.  “I know.”

#t'challa fic #shakafic #ficmas

[aquvmarines]

[ MASON GOODING, CIS MALE, HE/HIM ] shh ! CAMERON “MACK” MCKINLEY, the TWENTY year old SECOND year BUSINESS major from EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, is known as an AQUAMARINE around here. HE was invited to join because HE IS BEST FRIENDS WITH HIS OPAL, and now, they’re here to stay. HE reminds me of THE SMELL OF FRESH BAKED COOKIES, WARM HUGS, LAUGHING UNTIL YOUR STOMACH HURTS.

ok so i THINK i have all of the necessary info in here and it’s STILL like.. way too long 🙄 can someone PLEASE tell this bitch (me) to shut up?? but in case you all want to read even MORE for some reason... here is my app!! 

background

his dad comes from a long line of attorneys. his family owns a huge law firm and they’re old money! his mom was a caterer at an event when they met. they fell in love but his family never liked her because she was from a lower class and didn’t fit in.

being a housewife/being of a different class/already having deep-seated insecurity issues and a temper got to his mom. she convinced herself her husband was having affairs and started to pick really nasty fights. these fights scarred young mack and made him into the conflict averse people pleaser he is today!

his go-to method of diffusing tension and stopping fights is humor! king WILL make a joke in any situation to try and distract people from whatever they were arguing about. he does have other conflict resolution skills or whatever and will try and get people to compromise or like see the other side or something these just will not be his first reaction!

there was an instance where he realized he inherited his mother’s jealous streak. he’s ashamed of it and overcorrects so he doesn’t ruin anything by being possessive. 

mckinley men go to strathmore 😤 and yes mack only got in because he’s a legacy and money has been donated to guarantee mckinley men go to strathmore! mack knows this and is kinda like eh whatever! 

he’s majoring in business because if he was an attorney he would immediately roll over and concede whatever the opposing party wanted but there’s room for him in the financial department of mckinley & sons. 

but he really has no interest in business or being a financial guy.. like he’ll do it because it’s what his family wants. his passion is in baking :D he would like to be a pastry chef with his own bakery, or a cooking show, he’d take either! but he thinks that would be a waste of his family’s resources :( 

personality

for a long time, mack was the boy that got “...but he has a great personality.” which to be fair, he does. it’s easy to look at him and point to a number of admirable traits — kind, funny, patient — but he was a late bloomer looks wise and that left him a little bit scarred. much like his mother, the sinking suspicion that he’ll never be good enough haunts him. this isn’t something that’s easy to pick up on, as he presents himself with an air of easy confidence, but it’s there. 

mack is a flirt. once he grew into his looks, he couldn’t help himself. mainly, he likes the banter that comes with flirting; the witty back and forth. both the ego boost he gets from feeling desired and the opportunity to make someone else feel just as good are big fun to him.

that being said, he’s not so easy and fun once things get any more serious than casual flirtation. worried about coming across as possessive, he overcorrects and often he turns something with potential into nothing. in general, he struggles with managing the difference between playing it cool and seeming indifferent, even if the reality is he’s very much invested and cares a lot.  

he’s a very grounded presence. yes, he’s goofy and sometimes annoyingly positive, but i think his optimism would remind people not to take life too seriously, that problems aren’t as big and insurmountable as they might seem, and i think that bringing people back to the moment and encouraging them to stop stressing is grounding and reassuring. 

like, yes, he’s an optimist, but he’s not a delusional optimist. he can pick out the good that exists in any situation and remind you of that, he doesn't bury his head in the sand and feed himself and others fantasies, you know? the bigger picture he paints is a bright one, but it’s not one that could never exist. 

but i also don’t think it would be unreasonable for people to read him as delusional. especially someone more pessimistic or colder! 

he is everyone’s cheerleader. he’s very supportive and always up to do things, so if there’s someone that needs a companion for anything, he’s definitely the person to turn to

i outlined how he fits in with all the aquamarine traits on my app if you want some more details for any reason KFLWJELFK

headcanons

he chooses to believe in the loch ness monster, please don’t talk about nessie like she’s not real in front of him. 

going out first year was a blur of drunken one night stands, all to prove something that no one had asked him to prove; that he was attractive, that he could pull, that he wasn’t pathetic. the irony of course, being that his motivations were pathetic. somewhere along the way he grew out of it and slowed down; recognizing that no one was paying attention and it wasn’t making him feel any better, but he still has trouble resisting the ego high of a someone beautiful’s attention.

once lasted just under five minutes on a mechanical bull. to this day, it’s one of his proudest accomplishments. 

in his spare time, he volunteers in the kitchen at a hospital. it’s cooking, not baking, but it does the trick. 

during his first year, some of his friends discovered that they could all play different instruments, and naturally, that meant they had to form a band. mack was their frontman, not for any outstanding musical talent, but because no one else would do it! he has a nice enough voice, and could charm a crowd, but it’s not some previously unknown talent. he was just the one his friends knew they could ask.. they ultimately disbanded, citing “creative differences” to anyone who asked, but really, they just got bored of playing the very few songs that they all knew.

i have some wanted connections on my app but i’m really open to anything!! pls come hmu to plot i love all of you 🥺

#opalsintro #THE GIRLS ARE INTRO POSTINGGG 🤪

[rubycygnus]

GOSSIP GIRL REBOOT: character review/ first impressions

i watched the gossip girl reboot episode 1 last night and i wanted to rant about the characters so here i am writing a review no one will see :D 

JULIEN CALLOWAY aka the gen Z Serena 

RATING : 4/5

From the main cast, she is the only one that seems ‘nice’. that could also just be façade she is putting on to be a more likeable ‘influencer’ (yes she is an IG influencer). she is seems alright but are followers are sooo annoying omg. i deducted half a point because there is a scene in episode 1 where here boyfriend and her have a fight and he is about to leave the party AND YOU KNOW WHAT SHE DOES??? she says ‘ you promised me a story’ so her followers take a picture of them for her instagram story!!?? it was so awkward and also very annoying. no wonder people hate influencers lmaoo

AUDREY HOPE aka gen Z Blair

RATING: 3/5

this episode wasn’t really focused on her. she doesnt have many lines but every time she opens her mouth she is a bitch; be it to julien or chuck bass equivalent. she has a boyfriend but she has a thing for max wolfe who is the chuck bass of the reboot. this i think they just stole from og gossip girl because blair was dating nate but she secretly had a thing for chuck? i dont have much to say about her because she is kinda irrelevant in episode 1.

MAX WOLFE aka the chuck bass

RATING: 2/5

a mellowed down version of chuck bass because we all know if they made a character like season 1 chuck bass in 2021 no one would like him and he possibly would get dragged on twitter lmaooo. the reason i gave him two points is that he is a BISEXUAL MALE. which is so rare in media?? because they always make males either gay or straight. THERE IS NO OTHER OPTION!!! he has a thing for audrey AND her boyfriend??? what are they going to do?? have a threesome??

OBIE BERGMANN IV aka rich Dan Humphrey 

RATING: 4.5/5

he is the only sort of likeable character tbh. he is guilty because he is rich so he donates and volunteers at charity which is great and everything but that’s all he talks about?? that’s his only personality trait?? he dated julien and now has a thing for her sister?? what the fuck? he has potential of being my favorite character if he changes almost everything about him.

ZOYA LOTT aka possibly jenny?? idk

RATING: 3/5

julien’s half sister, also a self victimizing bitch. she has the same ‘ im so much better than you rich people’ as dan humphrey from og gossip girl. she is most defintely a pisces which makes her 10 times worse than everyone. maybe im just carry forwarding my hate for jenny onto her ... who knows

Aki Menzies aka Nate Archibald

RATING: 1/5

ditto og nate, no personality outside being in a relationship with somebody else

i think i was a little too aggressive lmao sorry oops. its only been 1 episode so hopefully within the next 5 episode i find a favorite character because it feels weird rooting for no one. anyways byeeeeeeee

#gossip girl

[quickspinner]

MLHolidays2k19 18. Elves

Another Lukanette meet-cute. Stay tuned for part 2 in prompt 19. Naughty or Nice. (don’t get too excited, it’ll still be SFW)

Edit: Here’s part 2!

Trouble was brewing. Marinette could feel it in the tips of her fake elf ears. The children currently taking their turn in Santa’s lap were not happy, but that was Alya’s problem, not Marinette’s. Marinette’s worry was the next in line, a little dark-haired cherub with pretty blue eyes and a dress made of red velvet and dripping with ribbons. Her father was crouched next to her, talking quietly, but the pout on the little girl’s face and the way she looked at the bright signs across the way suggested an explosion or an escape was imminent. 

Fortunately, Marinette was prepared. She jingled over, bells at her feet and wrists ringing.

“Hi sweetie,” Marinette said, twirling a stick with sparkly ribbons tied on the end to catch the attention of the little girl. “It’s soooooo hard to be patient when you’re excited, isn’t it? You’re doing such a good job. I need a happy little girl like you to help me sprinkle some Christmas magic on this place.” She demonstrated, swishing the stick back and forth to make the ribbons dance. “Do you think you could help me?” 

“Is magic,” the little girl repeated, reaching for the stick. Marinette handed it to her and she giggled, waving it, and promptly turning to jiggle the ribbon over the velvet ropes marking the line. It actually wasn’t very busy at the moment, only a couple of older children behind the little one who had long ago learned that they had to be patient if they wanted to get their wish lists to Santa. 

“Nicely done,” the little girl’s father said, getting to his feet. “I was starting to get a little worried she wouldn’t make it.” 

“That’s what I’m here for!” she said cheerfully, smiling up at him, and for an instant she froze. He was...really nice looking, tall and fit with black hair dyed blue at the tips, nice shoulders, and kind blue eyes. He was casually dressed in jeans and a hoodie over a t-shirt, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. His smile grew a bit as she looked at him and Marinette found her voice again, blushing at being caught staring. “Thank you for being so patient, sir.”

“We aren’t in any hurry.” He shrugged. “Seems kinda dumb to come to an event like this and then get riled up over kids being kids,” he added, eyeing the grumpy grandma whose grandchildren Alya was desperately trying to charm into smiling for the picture. 

Marinette giggled, and he smiled at her. “It must be a tough job,” he commented. “Keeping all these people and kids happy.”

“It’s an experience,” she shrugged. “Honestly, a lot of people I deal with at work might as well be children, so this isn’t that much different from my day to day.” Marinette grinned. “Most of them can be distracted by sparkly things too.”

“I take it this isn’t your full-time gig then?” he asked, glancing at her elf costume.  

“Oh, no, I’m a volunteer,” Marinette replied cheerfully, waving to the sign announcing that Santa was visiting to collect donations for the local children’s hospital in exchange for pictures. “I’ve been volunteering for this event for the last couple of years.” 

“Really.” That seemed to surprise him. “You enjoy dressing up as an elf?” 

“I enjoy the kids,” Marinette replied with a shrug. “The outfit…” she lifted the corners of her scalloped, bell-topped skirt to spread it out. “Well, I make do.” She’d made the outfit herself, actually, both hers and Alya’s, and it came together in layers so that she didn’t have to look too ridiculous riding the subway. 

“I can’t imagine anyone else making it look that good,” he commented. Marinette’s face burned as she jerked her head up to look at him. He seemed to realize what he’d said and blushed himself. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “That was probably inappropriate, I didn’t mean to, uh—“

“Up, up!” The little girl danced on her toes, reaching chubby baby arms toward Marinette. “Up elfie!”

“May I?” Marinette asked, looking at the father.

“If it’s okay with her, it’s okay with me,” he nodded, folding his arms across his chest, and those were nice, too. Marinette couldn’t help a glance at his hands. He wore a ring on the index finger of his left hand, but no wedding ring. That didn’t always mean anything nowadays days though. 

“Well hello, little Christmas angel,” Marinette said, sweeping up the child. “Are you doing a good job spreading holiday cheer?” She suddenly felt like a terrible person for hoping this child was being raised by a single parent just because she thought the girl’s father was hot--cute! He was cute. Just cute.

“It looks like they’re almost done,” Marinette said, looking back to where Alya finally had the kids on Santa’s lap smiling and laughing. “Alya’s so good with kids,” Marinette sighed. “I wish I was. I love them but I’m an only child and kids just don’t seem to take to me the way they do her.”

“Well, Angelique seems to like you,” the father smiled at the toddler currently inspecting the bells on Marinette’s collar. 

“Aww, she’s so sweet though,” Marinette said, bouncing a little on her toes and feeling accomplished when the little girl giggled. “Your daddy has such a cute little girl!” Marinette cooed. “Yes he does!”

She glanced up when the daddy in question chuckled. “Angie’s my niece, actually,” he said, flashing a smile that should be illegal. “My sister and her wife both have the flu and Rose—my sister-in-law, That is—really wanted to have these pictures, so here we are.”

“Oh,” Marinette blushed, more from the sudden knowledge that he was, in fact, single, and she didn’t even have to feel guilty about wishing for it, than from embarrassment at the mistake. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed.”

“I don’t blame you, it was the obvious conclusion, but I don’t have any kids myself.” He winked at her. “No wife, either. Or girlfriend. Just me and my guitar at the moment. My name’s Luka, by the way.” 

Oh God, was he flirting with her? It was kind of obvious bait, but Marinette didn’t mind. “You play guitar?” she asked innocently. “What kind?” 

His grin broadened a little at the question. “Electric usually, but I play acoustic too. My band’s playing Saturday at La Sable upstairs if you’d like to hear. Our set starts at ten.”

“Oh,” Marinette’s eyes widened slightly. “I’m not sure, Saturday’s kind of a big day for us and I’m on shift till closing, I don’t know if I’d make it.” She looked down at herself. “I definitely wouldn’t have time to change.” 

“That’s okay, you look cute, just come like that.” He grinned. “At least you’ll be easy to find.” Luka glanced over her head. “Looks like we’re up. It was nice meeting you, Marinette.” 

Rather stunned, Marinette let him take the child from her arms and watched him carry her over to Alya. After a few doubtful looks and some gentle persuasion from her uncle, Angie allowed herself to be placed in Santa’s lap, and smiled happily while she sprinkled Christmas magic on Santa’s beard (and nearly up his nose). They were done in mere minutes, and as Alya directed them towards the exit on the other side of the North Pole, Luka leaned down and spoke to Angie and they both turned and waved at Marinette. 

Marinette waved back automatically, shoulders hunching self-consciously, and then quickly turned back to the line. “Okay, who’s next!” she cried with almost too much enthusiasm.

Here’s part 2!

#quickspins #mlholidays2k19 #lukanette #i am lukanette trash i admit it #luka couffaine #marinette dupain-cheng #ml fics #miraculous ladybug #miraculousladybug #promptfic

[flirting-with-psychology]

Has the person you like ever seen you in your pajamas? Yes

Did the last person you kissed celebrate your last birthday with you? He was celebrating thanksgiving with his parents during my birthday but he called me

What’s the first word of the last text message you received? I

Do you think you’ve changed at all over the past year? I’ve gotten more anxiety and gotten fatter

Is there a song that reminds you of your ex? Do you still listen to that song? I Almost Do, Red, and If This Was A Movie (all by taylor swift). Yes I still listen

Did you tag anyone in your last Facebook status? Not in the post I shared, but in my last original post I tagged my boyfriend

How do you behave when you’re drunk? Usually giggly and overexcited

What is your least favorite type of chocolate? White chocolate

When was the last time you felt disappointed? What was the reason? Disappointed that the gym won’t let me cancel over the phone and might still charge me for february

Is there someone that can make you smile, even when you feel like crying? Not always

Is there a certain person on your mind right now? Tell me about him/her. My boyfriend

You’re getting ready to go to bed, and the last person you kissed shows up, what do you do? Get into bed with him

What was your last thought before you went to bed last night? Being annoyed at my dad’s snoring through the walls

Do you think someone is thinking about you right now? Maybe

Are you okay right now? I haven’t been okay this whole year

What time did you get up today? Like 1:30

When was the last time you saw your mom? The other day

What is the last thing you drank today? Water

Do you dislike/hate anyone? Donald trump and Mitch McConnell

Where is your best friend right now? At home I assume

When will your next kiss be? As soon as we get negative test results

Will you be up before 7 am tomorrow? No

Does anyone completely understand you? No

Who was the last girl you hugged outside of family? I don’t remember, it’s been a long time

Have you held hands with somebody in the past three days? No

What will you be doing in 3 hours? Probably wasting time

How often do you straighten your hair? Never now, I used to when it was short

What are you currently looking forward to? The costume sale that hopefully I will be able to go to

Is tomorrow gonna be a good day? What are you going to do? Lol probably not

Who did you last hang out with? My dad

Did anyone see your last kiss? No

Could things possibly get any better? I fucking hope so

Do you know who you’ll even kiss next? I assume it will be my boyfriend

Do you ever sleep in jeans? No, that sounds really uncomfortable

Name something you dislike about the day you’re having? Stress

Did you get a full 8 hours of sleep last night? No

Are you in love lately? Not sure

How often do you see your ex? Rarely

Who was the last person to text you? My boyfriend

Did you like anyone last summer? Yes, my boyfriend

Do you replay things that have happened in your head? Yeah

Who was the last person you stayed up with till 2am? My boyfriend

Do you want a boyfriend or girlfriend? I enjoy having one

Are you currently in a relationship? Yes

Do you use a full length mirror daily? Most days

Would you be shocked if the person you have feelings for texted you? No

Is there anyone you wish you could fix things with? I would like to reconnect with my friend Shaina

What are you planning on doing after this? Idk

Is there a girl you would do anything for? No

Who IMed you on facebook last? My mom

How old are you? 26

Do you love dogs? Yes

Were you finished childhood and teens when Harry Potter movies came out? No, they started coming out when I was in elementary school

Did you keep all your VHS tapes? Probably

Do you think Jack Nicholson is a good actor? Yeah I think so

Have you ever watched an episode of “The Honeymooners”? No

Have you ever owned a pair of high-top Converse? No

Do you have rain boots with a cute pattern on them? I have cowboy rainboots

Would you rather eat an apple or an orange right now? Apple

Would you rather do a cartwheel on land or a backflip in water? If I could do either of them, a backflip in water would be cool

Have you ever performed on stage in front of people? Yes

Were you kinda scared of the goths in high school? Not scared, just didn’t have anything in common with them

What size is your mattress?(single,twin,double,queen,king) Full size

Do you eat foods from all 4 food groups everyday? Lol no

Do you sleep in PJs? Yes

Do you prefer watching TV or listening to music? Watching TV. Listening for music needs to be accompanied by another activity

Would you rather watch a movie in theatre or at home? Theater is fun, but right now at home

Do you prefer brown or white rice? White

Do you like spaghetti? I love spaghetti

What about lasagna? No, I don’t like red sauce

Do you celebrate Christmas? No

Is your Thanksgiving celebrated in October too? Who does that?

Do you like chocolate bars? Yes

what about ice cream? Mostly, although sometimes the plain flavors are boring

Have you ever been stung by anything? What was it? Wasps a few times

Do you get tired easily? Only in the morning

Or do you always have plenty of energy to spare? No

Have you ever done volunteer work? Where? I volunteered as a teaching assistant What about court-ordered community service? No

Have you ever worn contacts?(even just to try them out) I tried but it made my vision all swimmy

Would you wear contacts on a daily basis? Maybe if I got some that worked

Are your ears pierced? How many times? One on each ear

Do you have GOD-GIVEN(not dyed) natural brown hair too? I have natural brown hair but I don’t believe it’s god-given

Or were you born blonde? No

Have you found a gray hair on your head or body before? I don’t think so. Both of my parents kept their hair color for awhile so hopefully I got that gene

Have you ever had any suspicious moles removed? Yes, on my arm

Have you ever been screened for STDs? Yes

Are all your wisdom teeth pulled? Yes

Did you have your tonsils taken out? No

Did you have your appendix taken out? No

How many kidneys do you have?(have you donated one?) I have both of them

Would you(to save someone)?^^^ I'm not sure. If it was someone I loved and there wasn’t one already on hand, maybe

Have you ever found a bug or slug in your salad? ewww no

Do you like Harry Potter? Yes

What about Twilight? It was ok, I liked it at the time I read it How do you feel about Lord of the rings? I like the movies

Are you going to see ‘The Hobbit’ when it comes out? I did

Do you have a glass that says 'Molson Canadian’ on it? No

Do you have any collector’s glasses or cups or mugs? I have a bunch of shotglasses from places I visit

Would you rather have a white fridge or a black fridge or a stainless steel fridge? Stainless steel

What size shoe do you wear? 7.5-8 womens

Do you have a wide foot or a narrow foot or just average? Kind of dorito-shaped, so some shoe types just don’t fit

Do you bite your nails when you’re stressed? No

Do you have to take an allergy pill daily in order to live normally? No

Are you on the birth control pill? No

Or are you trying to get pregnant? I’m trying not to get pregnant, but I use condoms instead

You’d rather wear black sneakers or sneakers in a bright color or pattern? Probably bright color

Has anyone ever told you they were attracted to you? Yes

Can you swim well in water way above your head? Decently

Are you afraid of thunder & lightening? No

Have you ever experienced an earthquake? No

What about a tornado? No

Are you closer to your dad?(more so than your mom) I’m probably a little closer to my mom

Were you your parents’ first born? Yes

Do you have a child? Is the father still with you? No

Did you trade stickers at recess when you were a kid? No

How old were you when you had your first crush? Do you remember their name? I was like 5 the first time I put a word to it and his name was Aidan, but I probably had sort-of crushes even before that

Can you even remember what the hell they looked like? Blond, bowl-cut at the time. He actually grew up to be really hot so I guess I knew how to pick em

Have you ever operated any type of motorized vehicle before? A car

Are you going to drink alcohol tonight? Maybe

Have you ever heard of the Canadian kids show called “Mr. Dressup”? No

What about the kids show “Fred Penner’s Place”? No

Did you hate Sesame Street when you were little too? A little

Were you born perfectly healthy or with some(or a lot) of health issues? I might have had some minor things

Do you collect DVDs? Not as a collection, but I buy movies I like a lot

Do you download music? Yes

Or do you still go to stores and buy CDs? No, those are like twice as much

Did you skip(jumo-rope) a lot as a kid? No, I was bad at it

Did you ever catch any bugs or insects with your friends as a kid? Only roly polies

Didn’t you just LOVE art class in elementary school?! Yeah

Have you ever played dodgeball? Yes but not well

What about Red Rover? No

Have you ever played “What time is it mr. wolf?”? It sounds familiar but I don’t remember it

Do you hate your weight? Yes

Have you ever struggled with a mental illness? A little

Serious question, peanut butter or nutella? Peanut butter for a sandwich, nutella for eating straight out of the jar

Have you ever stepped on a snail? No

Do you prefer baked potatoes or mashed potatoes? Mashed

Do you prefer ankle socks over regular socks? Ankle socks

Last movie you’ve seen in theaters? I can’t remember

What is your oldest sibling’s middle name? I don’t have one

Have you ever been to Disneyland or Disney World? Both

Would you ever go backpacking across any country? Probably not

Would you prefer to travel around the world by yourself or with a friend? With a friend

Do you like breadsticks? Yes

Do you usually wear shorts around your house all year long? No, but I do wear short sleeves year round

What state were you born in? Colorado

Have you ever had a nose bleed? All the time

How far away do you live from your birthplace? Like 15 minutes

Do you have a weak stomach? No

Do you know anybody who has been diagnosed with cancer? Yes

Have you ever had to take care of an intoxicated person? Yes

Have you ever considered becoming a lawyer? Slightly but not really

Do you *really* like donuts? Yes

Do you think Disney World could ever get old? At some point

If you could, would you hookup with the last person you texted? Yes

What are your favorite things to spend money on? Jewelry and nerd stuff

Will you talk to the person you like on the phone tonight? I am talking to him right now

What do you usually order on a pizza? No sauce, cheese, garlic, pinapple Do you and your boyfriend/girlfriend fight a lot? Not really

Who’s the first person with the letter “m” in your contacts? Mac

Which would you rather have a new puppy or kitten? Kitten

How old will you be on your next birthday? 27 yikes

What color are your underwear? Turquoise

Do you ever feel self-conscious when you eat around other people? If it’s messy

#survey

[britishassistant]

But I Like One Piece (17)

Unsurprisingly, they stay in for the rest of the day.

Naruto and Lee badger her to show them more of the “singy thing language”, so she writes out the alphabet for them.

It’s actually a bit difficult to translate individual letters back into the language of this world, which is based on grouping sounds that all involve vowels. The idea of singular consonants without that does take a bit for them to grasp.

Eventually she just grabs paper and some pencil and shows them how to write their names.

Lee’s name is easiest, and he delights in how quickly he masters the curves of the “r” and “e”s to write it out over and over again, each version getting a little bit more of a flourish.

Naruto struggles a bit more with his, given the larger number of letters in both his first and last names and his insistence on trying to write the cross of the “t” and then the stalk, like it’s a hiragana character.

“But why can’t I write it that way?” He whines.

“Because that’s not the way it’s written.” She replies primly, avoiding her mother’s knowing gaze and memories of being gently scolded for writing hiragana characters like they were “t”s.

Years of giving up pudding cups have proven that she’s weak to Naruto’s whining, so eventually she just gives up and lets him write it whatever way he wants to.

It’s not long until the adults join in as well.

Okaa-san’s handwriting is flawless like her calligraphy, producing the most legible iterations of her name once she’s got the spelling down.

Gai-sensei produces the most written versions of his name, though that’s probably her fault for telling him his name could either be spelled G-A-I or G-U-Y. He seems to have decided to claim both spellings for himself, if his dedication to making sure he can write each properly is anything to go by.

Otou-san is just worrying over whether his name looks better with or without the “u” on the end.

Gai-sensei is also very interested in directions as well, for some reason. He makes her go over «left», «right», «up», «down», «behind», «ahead», «go», and «stop» until he, Naruto, and Lee have them all quasi-memorized.

Then her mother asks her about English swear words.

It isn’t until she’s finished running through them all and Okaa-san sweetly says, “If I catch you saying any of those, you’ll be banned from cooking for a week, alright?” that she realizes she’s been tricked.

Otou-san and Gai-sensei are awful at muffling their snickers.

They end up preparing a very late lunch/early dinner.

Turns out divulging her biggest secret and trying to guide her family through the travesty that is the English language is long and hungry work.

A few filets of the lamb come out to rest for an hour, because Naruto asks about some of the dishes from her past life.

While the idea of making a Proper Roast Dinner on her own still turns her stomach, she figures she can at least adapt the meat into the “plate-2-bowls” format.

She crushes a clove of garlic and takes a generous donation from Habu-san to prepare a marinade. “So, any more questions?”

“What kind of training did you do in your Springtime of Youth?” Lee asks, eagerly.

She feels sweat trickle down the side of her face as she finishes marinating the meat and sets it aside to rest before grilling. “Ah, not much really. I was more the... scholarly type—I’d rather have my nose in a book than do much physical activity.”

The thought of her past self trying to tackle anywhere near the amount of exercise she does now...

“I would die.” She states. “That me would die even trying to do a half-lap around our training field.”

There’s a moment of silence that feels highly judgmental.

“...That’s kinda lame, Mayu-chan.” Naruto says.

“I know.” She hides her face in her marinade-covered hands. “Can we not talk about it please?”

“You were the one who opened the topic of conversation, sweetheart.” Okaa-san says, putting the rice on.

“Regardless of the folly of the past, your determination to fulfill your creed has allowed you to blossomed into the Springtime of your Youth!” Gai-sensei shoots her a thumbs-up and a reassuring beam.

She smiles back weakly as Otou-san starts wiping the bits of rosemary and garlic off her face with a wet cloth and a chuckle.

After the marinade is cleaned off and the meat is grilling, she’s left to puzzle over what side dishes to make.

Traditionally, the lamb would be served with root vegetables—potatoes or turnips or swedes, parsnips roasted in honey—but alongside the rice, that many carbohydrates in one meal would be far too heavy, especially for the others who are used to smaller, more balanced portions.

Just as she’s wondering what to do, a bunch of green onions appears on the counter in front of her.

Her mind ticks over possibilities. They’re not leeks, but maybe roasted and served in miso soup...

She grins and grabs a knife.

The onions are diced into perfectly even rounds, sizzling to a perfectly browned texture before the dashi comes to a boil and tofu is cubed and dropped in alongside the onions and some dried seaweed to mellow the flavor.

Somehow a red cabbage appears under her knife, and is chopped into manageable slivers, joining orange slices without the skin and a light vinaigrette that tastes a little sharp, like lemon, on the plate.

The lamb filets come off the grill, each one a warm pink in the middle when they’re sliced against the grain.

The scent of cigarette smoke is barely noticeable under the delicious smells of food.

The cuts of lamb are arranged against the little piles of salad, the umami of the meat and its marinade balanced by the more refreshing flavors of fresh fruit and vegetables.

The miso barely splashes as she pours it into six bowls, onion and tofu bobbing merrily as she spoons generous portions of rice into the rice bowls.

She turns around, ready to serve—

Only to find the other occupants of the kitchen staring at her, frozen.

Gai-sensei’s mouth is hanging open. Otou-san has a hand on his bokkem.

Lee’s eyes are wide and starry. Naruto’s mouth is curving into an excited grin.

Her mother swallows and takes a breath to compose herself. Her voice is slightly strangled.

“Mayu. Let’s talk about boundaries for y—for those deities to follow when they’re interacting with my little girl, alright?”

A shiver goes down not-her spine at the look in Okaa-san’s eyes.

Late lunch/early dinner is delicious, even with the revelation that she had had help (Sanji’s help!) for cooking a lot of it.

According to Lee and Naruto’s enthusiastic descriptions, he’d actually appeared behind her, washed out and slightly blue and see-through, like an underdeveloped photograph, but there. He’d nudged ingredients towards her, steadied her hands while cutting and pouring, then looked over to them with a press of his fingers to his lips and a wink before vanishing just as she turned around.

She has to cover her face with her hands and turn to the side in her chair so she can kick her legs wildly at the thought of receiving Sanji’s unseen aid, let alone him actually touching her.

Her cheeks feel like they could melt snow, they’re so hot.

Gai-sensei volunteers to search all over Konoha in order to find Sanji for her mother, who is not very happy that the chef escaped before she could Have A Word with him.

To be fair, if she were Sanji, she’d probably run away before her mother could Have A Word with her too.

Lee is also on board with this plan, though both he and Gai-sensei are stumped when Naruto asks where to start looking.

Otou-san suggests they build a shrine for the StrawHats in the back garden.

“After all,” He says, swallowing a bite of lamb. “Providing these deities with a place of worship might help...ground them, somewhat, lessen anything nasty if they’re accidentally offended. It’ll give us a sure way to contact them whenever we want too, rather than just waiting for them to pop up willy-nilly.”

“An excellent idea, Jirou!” Gai-sensei cheers. Her father flushes bright red and shoves more food into his mouth.

On Monday, she goes to the Academy flanked by Naruto and Lee.

The masks are in the branches of practically every tree they pass.

She keeps her gaze on the ground and clutches Lee and Naruto’s hands a little tighter in her own.

Lee doesn’t seem to want to let go when it’s time for them to go to their separate classes. She gives him a hug, and that seems to placate him a little.

Naruto just doesn’t let go.

For the entire morning.

Even when it becomes difficult to write down notes for Iruka-sensei’s lectures, he holds on tight to her hand or her wrist.

She feels a bit bad for feeling grateful when they take their usual places at either end of the lunch table, but she was beginning to get worried he wouldn’t even let go if she needed to use the restroom.

Everything seems to pass as normal, even with Sakura’s strange behavior and Chouji’s continual bouts of summer flu. She’s getting quite worried about his health at this point.

They stay behind after the Academy day ends to ask Iruka-sensei about shrine-building. While he personally doesn’t know much about it, he very helpfully points them towards a few stores that do specialize in that sort of thing.

Okaa-san and Lee are waiting outside the gates to walk them home.

She sleeps in the big bed with Okaa-san and Otou-san like she did over the weekend.

A week goes by.

Nothing out of the ordinary happens.

She trains with Gai-sensei in the mornings, they all eat breakfast together, she, Lee and Naruto go to the Academy, she and Naruto eat with their friends at lunchtime, either Okaa-san or Gai-sensei escort them home, the saga of convincing a store to sell them the components for shrine building continues, they eat dinner together, and she sleeps in the big bed.

The problem isn’t that shrine components aren’t available for sale. They are. There are even little kits for mini home shrines that people can build.

The problem is that those shrines are all designed to be dedicated to this random sage guy or to dead people. And she doesn’t really think it’ll be well received if they make a dead person shrine for any of the StrawHats except maybe Brook.

But making one of those for him and a different one for everyone else would also be discriminatory and break his heart. Except he doesn’t have a heart to break.

Yohoho, Skull Joke.

Only Otou-san finds that funny. She sulks a little, but digresses.

Even the store owners who make personalized shrines get suspicious when they hint that maybe they would like something for worship that wasn’t dedicated to the sage guy.

They’ve been turned down in three stores so far, and outright banned from one.

In her defense, she wouldn’t have said anything about the owner’s mother if he hadn’t called Naruto a demon and those other awful things.

She gets another cooking ban anyways.

By the start of the following week, her parents don’t quite look at her like she’ll disappear if they take their eyes off of her.

Naruto and Lee stop keeping a death grip on her hands as well, though they do still hug her a lot more than they used to.

She likes the hugs, so she doesn’t bring it up. She’s mostly just glad she gets to sleep in her own bed again.

Chouji’s illness seems to be clearing up too, slowly but steadily. He still has a few hot flushes, but he’s a bit more alert now. When her current cooking ban is over, she plans on making him some chicken noodle soup to help speed up his recovery.

Shikamaru keeps laughing when she tries to enlist his help in identifying if there’s any flavors he particularly likes or doesn’t like, which is beginning to irritate her a little bit.

Sakura’s...not getting better. At all.

Ino’s face seems to be set in a smiling rictus these days, desperately trying to bridge the growing distance between her and Sakura.

Shikamaru and Chouji have been doing more stuff with her, like partnering up for group projects and walking home together, which helps a bit she thinks.

Naruto and Kiba are just on eggshells. Naruto is tiptoeing around them, trying not to do anything that sets off another scolding.

Kiba’s reached the stage where he’s yelling back in self-defense the moment Sakura turns to him and opens her mouth, though every argument leaves both of them looking even more miserable than before.

Hinata’s tried having a word with her, but she just reported back that Sakura either genuinely doesn’t seem to think there’s anything wrong or is doing a very good job of pretending.

She’s putting money on the latter, because the idea of the former being true is too unpalatable for her to swallow.

The weirdest thing is that aside from Ino, Naruto and Kiba, Sakura’s been treating the rest of them like normal.

It does throw her off kilter somewhat. Still, she, Hinata and Shino do their best to adhere to their plan of “be civil, but shut down any attempts to belittle Naruto and Kiba before it gets too bad”.

Uchiha has surprisingly been the best enforcer of this particular policy. All it takes is one disapproving look from him, and Sakura freezes in the middle of what she was saying like a rabbit in front of a hunter, then quickly turns to talk to Hinata about something.

She’d never thought she’d say this, but borderline assaulting chunin together may’ve been the best thing to happen for the three of them.

Still, Sakura is their friend after all. They’re not just going to abandon her. Even if she’s going through...whatever this is.

She’s asked Okaa-san and Otou-san covertly, but apparently all is well in the Haruno household according to Kizashi and Mebuki Haruno, so she’s at a bit of a loss as to what could be going on.

It had better not be a weird, warped form of puberty, courtesy of parasitic chakra somehow turning people into jerks. She’ll—she’ll—she doesn’t know what she’ll do if it is, but she won’t be very happy, that’s for sure.

To add to this confusion, this year boys and girls get split up for lessons after lunch.

The girls are taught by a different teacher to Iruka-sensei, a mousey woman with glasses who tells them that they will be learning how to blend in to civilian society as kunoichi.

She had no idea what that word means.

When she asks the teacher, the woman looks like she might burst into tears for some inexplicable reason. She then refuses Hinata’s offer of a tissue violently, as if the poor girl had offered her a bomb instead of something to blow her nose on.

It does not get better from there.

She’d anticipated that getting The Talk from Otou-san and Okaa-san, or from Gai-sensei, would be awkward enough. She thinks that even Gai-sensei would do it better than this teacher though.

At least he wouldn’t cry at every mention of the word “sex”. Probably.

She makes a mental note to give her friends the less confusing version later.

Hinata is constantly praised in this class for her ability to appear harmless and ladylike, while Ino is chastised for being too overtly “ninja”, whatever that means.

She gets told that, while her feigning ignorance is extremely credible and will serve her well on intelligence missions and under interrogation conditions, she needs to work on being less... memorable.

She’s...fairly certain that’s positive? Relatively certain. Kinda.

The way the teacher’s lower lip is set to a permanent wobble makes it hard to tell.

#but i like one piece #my writing #naruto #one piece #reincarnation #isekai #naruto uzumaki #rock lee #maito gai #one piece sanji #black leg sanji #sakura haruno #kiba inuzuka #akamaru #ino yamanaka #choji akimichi #shino aburame #sasuke uchiha #hinata hyuga #nara shikamaru #naruto oc #ketsugi mayu #divine possession #shrines

[ladylynse]

The Trouble with Ghosts: Part VIII [FF | AO3]

For @chocobijou -- as a thank you for their donation to my ko-fi. (@queenofhearts7378, I owe you a chapter, too, so you get the next one.)

<<  <  Part VIII

Lancer sat down abruptly on the bed. He hadn’t heard wrong. The Red Huntress worked for Vlad Masters.

True, their prestigious mayor had once put a one million dollar reward on Phantom’s head, but Lancer had assumed Mr. Masters had had a change of heart because the reward had been lifted.

Did Vlad believe, as the Fentons did, that all ghosts—Phantom included—were a menace? Despite Phantom’s continued protection of their town? The Red Huntress clearly had no compunctions about hunting down Phantom, and she was an ideal person to hide behind. Unlike Jack and Maddie, no one knew her true identity—except, of course, the mayor. And possibly Phantom and his friends, given how much else they seemed to know.

“It’s…. I guess it’s more of a surprise than I thought it might be. Given what you know, I mean.”

Given what he knew. That Vlad was an old college buddy of Jack and Maddie Fenton’s, no doubt. Lancer rubbed his temples. “I wouldn’t have thought the mayor would actively try to rid the town of one of its best ghost hunters,” he admitted.

“Well….”

Lancer looked up, but Phantom seemed to think better of whatever he’d been about to say. “Well what?”

“He’s, ah, not trying to get rid of me, exactly,” Phantom said slowly.

Moby-Dick, was Phantom saying that the mayor was ready to experiment on him? That he hadn’t left his ghost hunting days behind at all? That made sense, if he truly employed the Red Huntress. Her technology was similar to but still different from anything produced by FentonWorks, yet it was too effective to have been produced without intimate knowledge of ghosts and paranormal technology. Was Vlad collaborating with his old college friends? Did the three of them intend to tear Phantom apart, molecule by molecule?

“Yeah, it’s kinda messed up.” Phantom was offering him a smile. A smile. Humour in the face of a sickening situation.

“I think this goes beyond that,” Lancer said hoarsely.

Phantom’s response was a shrug and a wince. Then, “But that’s why I’m the focus, not my friends. And why you can’t tell anyone else.”

Lancer let out a slow breath. “Mr. Masters is already aware of your helpers.” Phantom had told him as much before, but he nodded again anyway. Lancer was mostly trying to get the facts straight. “Despite this, he hasn’t used them against you? Tried to bargain with them?”

Phantom groaned. “Okay, fine, he tried using Jazz against me once, even wanted us to fight each other, but it didn’t work like he’d planned. Obviously, we didn’t want to really fight each other, so we just kinda put on a show until…. It doesn’t matter. Point is, he hasn’t tried something like that again. I think he realized that’s never going to work. Like, ever.”

Lancer pursed his lips. “If he has ghosts in his employ, what’s stopping them from kidnapping someone and holding them hostage until you give yourself up?”

Phantom stared at him. “Because I’d win. I’d find them and beat them. They all know that. Even if I had to get help to do it, I’d win.”

“Always?”

Phantom frowned. He could hear the skepticism in Lancer’s voice. “Vlad’s tried a lot of different things. Nothing’s worked, and he’s not stupid enough to keep reusing the same tactics over and over. I mean, not for everything. He knows how important the others are to me, but he also knows how easily I can get allies when it really matters. I don’t just mean ghosts, either. The Red Huntress and I have called truces before. If I brought her in on this, he’d have to do some fancy footwork to keep his dirty work from her. She doesn’t know about all the ghosts that work for him or about anything to do with me. She wouldn’t still be working for him if she did.”

“You seen awfully confident in your assessment of her.”

“I know her better than she thinks I do, including what misunderstandings led to why she hates my guts. She’s a good person, just…really, really misguided.”

“And in the employ of the mayor.” He hesitated. “Is she aware of his true identity?”

Phantom didn’t answer right away. Then, “She knows he’s the mayor, if that’s what you mean.”

Lancer had no idea what else he could mean, but Phantom clearly had something in mind. Lancer filed that bit of information away for later; instead of pursuing that line right now, he could pick apart some other information Phantom had volunteered. “You said you had allies. Am I right to assume this includes ghosts you don’t fight with regularly?”

“Well, yeah.”

“And your friends have met them?”

Phantom nodded. “I mean, I don’t think Jazz knows everyone, but the others do.”

Perhaps that explained young Mr. Fenton’s whereabouts. He’d phoned their household this morning to request an update, but he hadn’t gotten an answer until Jack and Maddie had driven past his house with a loudspeaker, alternating between calling for Danny and threatening the ghosts that surely had him. (He rather thought that was what had woken Phantom, though he couldn’t be sure without asking.)

“And will the ghosts help them?” Lancer asked carefully.

Another nod. “Sam and Tucker have stolen the Spectre Speeder to go into the Ghost Zone more than once.”

Because Danny was preoccupied or because this wasn’t the first time he’d gotten hurt? The thought gave Lancer pause. Danny had been quite insistent about not going to the hospital. Perhaps this really wasn’t the first serious injury he’d attained in his exploits helping Phantom. Perhaps that had simply been his assumption and Phantom hadn’t corrected him. Why would he, when he was trying to argue so vehemently that he could protect them all?

Had Sam and Tucker come to take Danny to a rendezvous point where he could be collected by one of Phantom’s ghostly allies? Had Jazz managed what they could not? Was Danny in the Ghost Zone right now, being attended to by the spirits of doctors who retained enough relevant knowledge of human biology to put their skills to use? He couldn’t discount the idea, not when he’d met other ghosts who were clearly the spirits of those who had passed on from this world—Phantom included, as far as he could tell.

Lancer had no idea how much knowledge and technology from their world had made its way into the Ghost Zone, but Lancer hoped—if his suspicion was right, and especially if this wasn’t the first time—that those ghost doctors did more good than harm. He’d always understood that Jack and Maddie Fenton regularly wore HAZMAT suits to reduce the risk of contamination—however many times they had to change suits for that to be the case—so if Danny were immersed in the Ghost Zone itself….

“Um, before you jump to any conclusions, they don’t only go into the Ghost Zone whenever I need help. Sometimes we explore it together, and Sam’s good friends with Dora, so she’ll go there on her own, too.”

Dora. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but Lancer couldn’t place it, and he didn’t want to fall for Phantom’s bait and ask. Phantom would only too gladly latch onto a change of topic and lead the conversation away from more important points. “Is the Red Huntress aware of what your friends do for you? Of the risks they take?”

Phantom bit his lip. “I don’t think so,” he admitted. “I mean, she’s gotta know they know their way around an ectogun, and she definitely knows they support Phantom, but most kids in school do, so that’s not really surprising. And she’s seen us together before, but I don’t think she, um, knows how actively they help me. We’re trying not to give her too many clues about who I am.”

Too many clues about who Phantom is? Or was? Back when he was…alive?

Phantom let out a nervous laugh. “It gets, um, complicated. And she might shoot me anyway. Because I never told her. About a lot of stuff, not just this. I just…. You don’t need to worry about her. She won’t hurt my friends. Or you, if she figures out you’re involved. She only has a thing against ghosts, and you’re all human. If I told her everything, she’d probably back off me, too, but I…. I can’t do that right now, okay? I can’t.”

“I would hardly force you to spill your secrets to someone who actively hunts you down,” Lancer pointed out, but Phantom didn’t look remotely convinced.

“Yeah? Even when it’s not just her who should know?” Phantom pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged them. “You don’t need to keep dancing around the subject, Mr. Lancer. I know you think I need to tell my parents.”

His parents?

“But I’m not ready yet, and I need you to respect that. That’s why I don’t want you to tell anyone, especially them. They can’t learn something like this from someone else. If anyone tells them, it has to be me, and it has to be on my terms. It’s my secret.”

My secret. This wasn’t the first time Phantom had said referred to it as such, but it was the first time Lancer had realized there was more to Phantom’s secret than the help he was getting from Danny, Sam, Tucker, and Jazz.

And for Phantom to talk about his parents so casually, as if they were here, in Amity Park….

Lancer swallowed.

He’d known Phantom was young.

He just hadn’t realized what that meant.

“Your parents,” he said carefully, “truly have no idea who you are?” He could see how it might happen. For all that Phantom looked human enough, it was highly doubtful that he was the spitting image of who he’d been when alive. Coupled with the fact that his parents wouldn’t be expecting to recognize any of the ghosts, they’d never think to see their son in one of them. Of course, Lancer had no children of his own, only his students, but he’d like to think—

Phantom shook his head. “Jazz says they wouldn’t be hunting me if they did.”

Lancer blinked. His parents were hunting him? True, far more adults than children were disgruntled with Phantom (and all the damage from the ghost fights), and most households had a few FentonWorks weapons on hand, just as he did, but actively hunting down ghosts—Phantom in particular—was a different matter entirely.

“Would…would that not be preferable?”

Phantom pulled a face. “Not, well…. I mean, yeah, but it’s more complicated than that.” Lancer raised his eyebrows, and Phantom sighed. “Please, Mr. Lancer, you just need to trust me on this.”

“You are asking me to trust you about a rather large number of things.”

Phantom straightened up and crossed his legs. “Okay, look. I know the chances of them freaking out and trying to capture and dissect me are pretty small, especially with the others to back me up so they know it’s not some trick or whatever they might come up with. But I know where things stand as they are now, and it’s not like I don’t know how all the FentonWorks weapons work. And Dad’s aim is terrible anyway. They’ve only caught me once.”

Lancer couldn’t help but stare. “I beg your pardon?”

“I know how to avoid their stuff,” Phantom repeated. “And it’s just…. It’s been so long. And them knowing would change things. I mean, even if they do take it well, even if they accept who I am, what I am, that’s not…. That’s not going to just erase everything that’s happened.”

Avoid their stuff?

This wasn’t just a matter of Phantom being unsure of how his parents might accept the fact that he had become a ghost.

“They’re going to blame themselves,” continued Phantom. “For hunting me. For hurting me. For the accident, even though it was an accident, even though they weren’t around. I don’t want to do that to them. I’ve gotta…. I need to figure out how to tell them, if I can tell them, and I’m okay with them hunting me if it protects them from the truth. Does that make sense?”

It didn’t make a whit of sense, not with what Lancer had been thinking.

“It’s…easier, I guess. Safer than changing things.”

It’s not just people, Phantom had told him. It would be everything.

This was what he’d meant.

“So just…don’t tell them. Don’t tell anyone. Please.”

All things considered, Lancer didn’t know very much about ghosts.

He was quickly realizing he knew even less than he’d thought, particularly where Phantom was concerned.

“If you’re worried about how guilty they’d feel once they found out the truth,” Lancer heard himself say, “how can you say that prolonging telling them will improve things rather than make everything worse? You talk as if you never intend for them to know.”

Phantom looked away. “That wouldn’t be the worst thing,” he mumbled. “You know how my parents are. How do you think they’d take this?”

You know how my parents are. There it was, plain as day. Lancer knew Phantom’s parents.

Phantom’s ghost-hunting parents.

Who lived here in Amity Park.

It’s not like I don’t know how all the FentonWorks weapons work.

I know how to avoid their stuff.

“Yeah,” Phantom said softly when Lancer didn’t reply. “That’s what I thought, too.”

Lancer didn’t understand. He didn’t know enough to understand.

They’re going to blame themselves, Phantom had said. For hunting me. For hurting me. For the accident.

How could this just be an accident?

Phantom was…. He….

“Jack and Maddie Fenton,” Lancer said slowly, “are out searching for their son.”

Phantom didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, “I don’t know exactly what Jazz told them. Maybe they thought she was wrong.”

No wonder at the sudden change in topic.

Because it wasn’t a sudden change in topic.

If he had asked Phantom if he knew young Mr. Fenton’s whereabouts, what would he have been told? Would Phantom have lied? Claimed ignorance? Pretended Danny was with his friends?

“They’re worried.”

“Yeah, well, knowing the truth wouldn’t change anything on that front, either.” Phantom slumped back against the pillows he’d set against the headboard. “They’re always concerned about their family, but they’re also always concerned about what ghosts might be planning. Sam and Tucker told them a ghost had stolen my face once, and they believed that, so….” He trailed off, shrugged, and let out a faint hiss of pain at the movement. “It doesn’t matter. Jazz can handle them. She knows I’m with you. This was her idea.”

Lancer didn’t know how he’d never noticed that Phantom always talked about Sam and Tucker or about Jazz but not about Danny.

“Wh….” It was hard to force his thoughts into coherent words. “Why me? Out of everyone—”

Phantom raised an eyebrow. “It’s not exactly out of everyone,” he cut in. “There isn’t an everyone. That’s the whole point. All the ghosts know, but I can count on one hand the number of humans who do. And it’s not like I’m going to go to Vlad for this when he’s the reason I’m in this mess.”

All the ghosts know. Yet none of them had ever used that knowledge against him, even though he clearly feared the fallout if they did and that fear gave them power over him. Leverage.

But while Jack and Maddie Fenton hunted down Phantom, Vlad Masters was…. He was doing more than that. Worse than that. He’s not trying to get rid of me. Maybe experimentation wasn’t far off, except—

Except Phantom talked like going to Vlad might be an option. For something. At some point. Under particular circumstances. Despite what he’s doing now.

The mayor may have discovered Phantom’s secret, may be hunting him down like this because of that, but there was something else, something more, something—

Phantom blew out a breath. “And I just…. You know. You know, but you don’t look at me differently. You still tried to help.”

You know.

But he hadn’t known.

You don’t look at me differently.

Would he now? He hoped not.

You still tried to help.

Because someone needed his help. Because that was the right thing to do. Not because—

“People of Amity Park, be on the lookout for Danny Fenton!” The announcement was loud enough to rattle the net gun on the bedside table and send ripples through the water glass; this time, Lancer surmised, the Fentons were driving down his street instead of somewhere beyond.

Phantom jerked, grimaced, and muttered, “I guess they’re still doing that. Please tell me they don’t have the giant billboard again.”

He couldn’t.

He’d glimpsed it in the distance this morning, and he doubted they’d retired it in the meantime.

Instead, they sat in silence, listening as Maddie Fenton’s repeated announcement became muddled by distance and finally faded away.

“I know they’re worried,” Phantom finally whispered, “but this?” He made a vague gesture to himself. “This isn’t even the worst of it. And if telling them everything was so easy and simple, Jazz would’ve been able to convince me to do it ages ago.”

“How is this not the worst?” Phantom was…. He was dead. That’s how one became a ghost. By dying. Whatever this was, however it had come to be, that fact wouldn’t change.

“It’s better if you don’t know the details.”

“Phantom.” Phantom still wouldn’t look at him, so Lancer continued, “You already think I’m in danger, and we’re taking precautions. Talking to me will hardly put me in more danger. We’ve been over this.”

“Yeah, but this isn’t just a one-time thing.” Phantom met his gaze now, his bright green eyes boring into Lancer’s. “And I’m still not convinced you get that. If Vlad realizes you know as much as you do, he’s going to wonder what else you know—or what else you can guess. It’s better if you just pretend I’m a normal ghost and don’t interfere after this. You don’t want to give Vlad a reason to look closer.”

“Because of all the ghosts he employs?”

Phantom shook his head. “Because he’s powerful. And he’s not afraid to use that power to get what he wants.”

Lancer let out a slow breath. “What hold does he have over you?”

“My secret,” Phantom admitted, though Lancer had already surmised that much, “but that’s fine. We’ve called a truce of sorts on that front. He won’t tell on me.”

Vlad Masters wouldn’t tell the world Phantom’s secret, and Phantom wouldn’t, what, tell everyone that the mayor was working with the ghosts he hunted? It must be more than that. It wouldn’t be terribly difficult for Vlad to lie or otherwise cover up his association with ghosts if it came to that, and his background as a ghost hunter would act in his favour.

But Lancer had seen Phantom fight, time and time again. His conviction that he could win a fight wasn’t entirely unwarranted. So why—?

“And you’re sure you don’t want to remove that power from him?”

“You mean tell my parents my secret so he can’t hold it over my head? It’s not really that simple. It’s not just this. It’s everything else, too.”

Everything else.

His revelation was only the tip of the iceberg, and Lancer already didn’t know what to do.

Phantom was young. Too young. And far more human than Lancer had ever realized. And he was—

“I should just go,” Phantom said. “Try to keep you out of danger. Jazz’ll understand, especially since I’m doing better. Since Mom and Dad are out, I could probably go through the portal and visit the Far Frozen if I have to.” He saw Lancer’s expression and added, “It’s okay. I’ve got friends there. They’ve helped me before, and they definitely wouldn’t give me up to Vlad, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Exactly how much did Amity Park’s mayor trust the ghosts he hired if he believed they would not only track Phantom down but fight his allies to get to him? Convincing the ghosts to cause trouble on his terms in this world was one thing, but in the Ghost Zone—? What could Vlad possibly be offering them in exchange for that?

It must go beyond a mutual desire to be rid of Phantom. That still wouldn’t give the ghosts free reign, not with the Red Huntress and the Fentons in town, and the ghosts could accomplish that on their own anyway. Why would they bow to the wishes of a mere human, especially when up against someone as powerful as Phantom? They might be able to overwhelm him if they ganged up on him, but Lancer had rarely seen any of the ghosts working together. If they didn’t like to work with each other, why would they work with a human?

Vlad wasn’t just any human, though. He had the same background as Jack and Maddie Fenton and a lot more wealth to throw around. To Lancer’s knowledge, the only way for the ghosts to get into this world was to cross through the Fenton’s portal—if ghosts had a way to create them, he hadn’t seen it—but the attacks were far too regular for them to have come through a single chokehold like that. Had the mayor built another portal, granting ghosts access to his city, in exchange for their help? In exchange for Phantom? Despite all the damage that resulted from the ghost attacks?

“What exactly does the mayor want with you?” It…. He had to be missing something. The risks were so great, and Lancer couldn’t see a guaranteed benefit that would be worth such potentially devastating consequences.

“It’s complicated.” He could recognize the closed tone in Phantom’s voice now. This wasn’t just reluctance to tell; it was flat refusal. “He likes to play his cards close to his chest. The Red Huntress doesn’t know, either, but she doesn’t care. As far as she’s concerned, I’m just a filthy piece of ectoplasmic scum, and Vlad’s too smart to let her know too much.”

Lancer had never noticed how skillfully Phantom could steer a conversation when he wanted to. Phantom had brought up the Red Huntress again to deflect from Vlad Masters, clearly thinking her the safer topic. And, earlier, Lancer would likely have happily pursued it—as a distraction for Phantom, if nothing else.

But now….

“How much danger are you in?”

Phantom crossed his arms, a look of defiance plastered across his face. “I can hold my own.”

“Because you’re confident you’ll always win?”

Phantom rolled his eyes. “C’mon, Mr. Lancer. You know that’s not just me bragging. You’ve seen me fight. I’m good. Sure, Vlad’s tricked me before, but he’s never won any battle that counts. He’s still losing the war.”

Lancer might question the exaggeration of the expression if he were more certain that it was a mere expression.

“But how much danger are you in?”

“Nothing—”

“How much?”

Phantom’s mask finally dropped away, and he wouldn’t meet Lancer’s eyes. “It doesn’t matter. You can’t do anything, anyway. Vlad would deny everything and then ruin you to make a point. And it’s not really any more danger than I face from my parents.”

“It is,” Lancer said quietly, “because your parents would stop the moment they discovered the truth.”

Phantom snorted. “They’d have to believe it first.”

Lancer closed his eyes and took a breath before saying, “They would test the possibility rather than reject it outright; they wouldn’t want to risk being wrong.”

He didn’t think he was wrong. He didn’t have to be a parent to have children in his life that he cared about. Knowing he’d missed something this big, this important, was bad enough, especially when he could see so many signs in hindsight that he’d misinterpreted. He sincerely doubted any truly loving relative would find reason to continue any sort of cruelty when there was any doubt to be had whatsoever.

“Fine. Doesn’t change the fact that I can handle whatever Vlad throws at me. So, yeah, I guess it’s dangerous, but not more so than usual.”

“You’re just a child—”

“I’m fifteen!” Phantom cried indignantly, and then he seemed to realize that didn’t help his case and huffed. “You don’t need to baby me. And you can’t protect me from this danger. You knowing about it doesn’t make me safer; it just puts you in more danger. Why can’t you just understand that?”

“Why can you not accept that I am willing to risk myself if I can help you? You came to me for help. You can’t deny that sometimes your enemies get the better of you, just as you can’t promise that your friends will always be safe, that anyone will always be safe, and believing you will always win is a fool’s mistake.”

Phantom made a face but didn’t say anything.

“I am not asking you to tell me why the mayor is so insistent on hunting you when he knows you are a child. I am not insisting you tell your parents everything before you’ve had a chance to think through how best to do that. I am asking you to stop endangering yourself and others so recklessly, and I am suggesting that one of the ways you do so is by confiding in me and accepting my help.”

Phantom said nothing.

In the distance, they could hear the garbled words of Jack Fenton this time, asking for the help of Amity Park’s citizens in finding his son, as the Fentons circled around to continue their search for their son.

“Phantom, it’s been too long. They need to know something.”

Phantom very deliberately picked up the glass of water from the bedside table and drained it.

“Phantom.”

He replaced it without a word.

“Pride and Prejudice,” snapped Lancer, not pausing to consider that his conclusion might still be wrong, “if you don’t tell me what you want me to say to your parents, Mr. Fenton, I’ll come up with something for you!”

-|-

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@cosmic-melodies 

#danny phantom #phanfiction #dp fanfiction #fanfiction #lancer #mr lancer #danny fenton #my writing #ladylynse #snippets #dp snippet #so rather than keep going on this chapter #and it winding up much longer than intended #which it already is #I just picked a place to stop

[pyropsychiccollector]

So, to explain - this is the Danganronpa characters from Trigger Happy Havoc, listed from my favorite to least favorite. I'll go ahead and explain my rationale, a bit.

Starting with the F rank, Hagakure.... He's just useless as hell. A comic relief character that somehow managed to make it out of that shitstorm alive, and he's just not a very deep, amazing character. He's easy to panic and confuse - hell, at the start, he was so convinced the school was pulling an elaborate prank on them... despite all the signs to the contrary. And his talent of fortunetelling.... even the average of his predictions being right (30% at most, 20% at least) is pretty piss poor. Celes set him up as her scapegoat, and while that is kinda sad for him, it kinda loses its effect when you consider he begged for you (Naegi) to donate your organs on the cheap so that he could sell them on the black market so that he wouldn't need to dip into his own life savings to pay off a debt to the yakuza.

.... Like I said, not that great of a character, and I'm super annoyed out of everyone, he was one of the survivors. XD

Moving onto E rank... Fukawa's a little better off than Hagakure. She's a super downer to talk to, and will not hesitate to insult you to your face (unless you're Togami), but she's a learned girl and she made some contributions to the story, though they be few and far in-between, in my opinion. Her obsession with Togami is annoying, though, and like Hagakure she dragged out the trials at times because of her insistence on certain culprits (like Naegi, in trial 1).But.... still better than Hagakure, honestly. Her talent's hell of a lot more useful than Hagakure's, too - not to mention her growth in later games and anime.

Rank D.... Yamada just seemed so flat (an otaku to the bone), and Leon just didn't have much time for you to get to know him. You could tell he was a lady's man, a skirt chaser, and he let the life-or-death situation with Maizono get to him... But Leon did show, at least marginally, that he did have a love for his talent; he just didn't care for all the formal, traditional stuff like shaving his hair off. And Yamada... Well, he was used and thrown away by Celes; what sets him apart from Hagakure is he was actually stabbed in the back by her, and he didn't try harvesting your organs to repay a debt that was totally and completely on him for scamming the wrong people.

.... So yeah, Yamada and Leon are somewhat more sympathetic characters, but they're either flat or just didn't have enough time to flesh out.

Rank C... Ishimaru kinda started out boring with his by-the-books attitude and obsession with studying, but you could appreciate his struggle with effort vs genius - geniuses have to work, too, but in some respects they can make it look pretty easy. Having to work from the bottom up is admirable. Plus, you kinda felt bad for how he lost his best friend in trial 2.... On the surface that looked a bit fast for a friendship to blossom between two people of seeming clashing personalities, but when you consider they all had their memories wiped.... It's not that crazy; on an instinctual level, they were still probably pretty good friends, which is why they gravitated to one another again (that's just my thoughts; we don't know a lot about the time they spent at Hope's Peak pre-Tragedy).

Togami started as a prick and elite snob.... Not to mention how he toyed with trial 2 for kicks. It was nice seeing him eat humble pie in trial 4...And though he sent you to your death in trial 5, he had some development toward the end of the game. .... A little. What probably raised him to C for me was his characterization in the second game and the Danganronpa 3 anime.... Still a bit stuck-up, but he'd bonded with everyone in his own way~

Fujisaki.... You just gotta feel sorry for the kid. Had a weakling complex for much of his life, and it only seemed to get better when he got in high school.... A nice, loyal friend, and inventor of Alter Ego, who survived into the second game.... Bummer that he was the fourth one to die.

B rank... I suppose Genocider/Genocide Jill was just a fun, kooky character. No qualms about murdering, and she had a loyalty streak in her (not just for Togami, but Komaru, too). Plus, it was kinda neat her memories of the Tragedy were used to help solve the last trial of the first game. That's just me.

Asahina.... She was a chirpy, sappy, loyal girl. Bit of an airhead at times, but she made contributions to the story. She'd probably be higher if she didn't try to screw everyone over in trial 4, but that was mostly Monokuma's fault for the planted fake suicide note, so not too many demerits against her.

Kyoko... definitely one of the most useful characters, had a backstory, and all-around nice girl, if not a tad awkward because of not interacting with others much. Similar to Asahina, she'd probably be higher up there if it wasn't for how she screwed Naegi over, in trial 5... I get the desperation of surviving no matter what (to solve all the mysteries), and it being a setup from Monokuma again, but her betrayal still kinda chafed. If Alter Ego hadn't saved Naegi, I probably would have downright hated her.... XD I suppose she loses a few more points for being mostly reserved and stuck in her detective work.... But overall, she's a cool character.  

A rank... Junko surpasses Kyoko merely because she's a Joker-esque character. You still gotta hate her for being the root cause of all the misery, but the cray-cray kinda softens the blow. .... It's kind of like how the executions in Danganronpa can be funny, yet dark when you really think about them. And if you didn't have Junko, well, there wouldn't be any Monokuma.... and he can be even more Joker-esque, despite "just" being a mascot. XD

S rank.... Mondo was a meathead, and a jerk for punching your lights out in the first chapter, but he could be a real softie and loyal as hell. His guilt for causing his brother's death makes him easy to sympathize with, and his character flaw of easily losing his temper makes him pretty human. He didn't like murdering Fujisaki, and he was man enough to try and conceal Fujisaki's gender because it was something Fujisaki confided to him in good faith. A tragic character overall, but you're not annoyed by all the tragedy, like you can be with some characters (leers at Jellal from Fairy Tail).

Sakura is in a similar state. She's more level-headed than Mondo, but she can still get angry, and she had strong enough willpower to take her own life rather than murder one of her friends - and do it in a way that can make it clear so that the class trial doesn't drag on. Monokuma threw a wrench into that, of course, but it was still her intent to make it easy for her friends to live on. Her backstory with the man she loves, someone she acknowledges as stronger than her in spite of him currently fighting an illness, was pretty interesting, too.

SS rank.... Makoto's a pretty great protagonist - probably my favorite in the Dangan series. The "I'm ordinary to the cliché degree" routine can be off-putting, but he's got a strong spirit, and.... he's just a nice guy. Probably to the point of being TOO nice, and I guess that makes him a human character I can relate with... If he had even one selfish bone in his body, he probably could have gotten Sayaka to outright say she loves him, in the game. But because of circumstances, and because he thinks Sayaka is too high register for him (even though she's "interested" in him), he doesn't take the initiative and confess to her. Naegi just keeps bouncing back despite getting betrayed again and again.... Hagakure, Sayaka, Leon, Mondo, Celes, Asahina, Kyoko.... Naegi just keeps bouncing back~

And considering how I've talked about betrayals so far, you'd probably be surprised Celes is so high up there. But still, I find her to be a pretty down-to-earth character, a Queen of Liars, and a dreamer of dreams. She can be bratty, like when Yamada didn't make her "royal" milk tea, but I find her rage-induced states to be funny.... She's shrewd and cunning (save for trial 3), and I just kinda like how Naegi wormed his way into her heart, being the first of their classmates to reach "C-rank" in her hierarchy. Hell, she even joked about being pregnant with Naegi's child in that last free time with her.... You don't see any other girl doin' that in the series. XD

And finally, SSS rank.... the heavenly tier~

Mukuro's a badass and an adorable waifu rolled into one. Danganronpa 3 didn't do her much favor with her obsession to please Junko, but I do think she was loyal to a fault in that regard - otherwise, Junko wouldn't have done nearly as much damage as she had. The Danganronpa IF storyline, while fanmade, did a nice job of showing how Makoto could have affected her, and fleshed out her character pretty nicely. I still like her being a bit of a goober, being flustered at times, but I also like the badass side of her.... Not to mention her potential fierce loyalty to Naegi, if they'd had more time to interact....

And Sayaka, well.... XD I know a lot of people don't like her, but I definitely think she has more depth to her than most people give her credit for. I mean, think about how much emotion she showed in that first chapter - showed especially to Naegi of all people. If she wanted to hide her distress, her fears, why confide in him at all? If she was really plotting murder all along, why'd it take until the motive videos to "see" that potential for murder in her? She remarked how not talking to Naegi in middle school was one of her biggest regrets.... And isn't that a bit risqué for an idol to do? To reveal she has regrets at all? Japanese idols are supposed to be bubbly and love everybody, but she was pretty candid with Naegi in regards to what she thought about Mondo, after he volunteered Naegi to go find Monokuma's "motive". Sayaka betrayed Naegi, that's a fact; but it wasn't from the onset, and she most certainly didn't do it easily and without an ounce of regret in her heart. I suppose one thing for me that makes Sayaka's betrayal different from Celes and Kirigiri's betrayals is the fact she left behind evidence to absolve Naegi, to point to who really killed her (she even remembered what Naegi said about how to open his bathroom door). And what's more, she was conflicted enough that it led to her death at all. Kirigiri showed remorse over throwing Naegi under the bus, but only after the fact, and only made reparations after Alter Ego miraculously saved him. Sayaka's heart hadn't completely been in it when she betrayed Naegi, and that's something I liked; because it showed that, despite doing such a horrible thing, she cared about him. She betrayed him in a way that wouldn't physically hurt or kill him, and she hadn't intended dying on him, either; she didn't know about the class trial, and therefore didn't know she was endangering all of her classmates, including Naegi. It's very likely that had she succeeded in her murder of Leon, she would have confessed right away so that Naegi could live. For Sayaka, Makoto was a precious friend that reminded her that people can do nice things for others without any intent of getting anything in return. She loved his kindness, and was flattered he saw her as an idol worthy of worship.... despite how she confessed she'd done "bad things" to reach the top of the industry. Who knows what occurred back in their pre-Tragedy days.... The possibility for a relationship was quite high, considering how close they got to each other in chapter 1. That's just my thoughts, though.

#Danganronpa #Danganronpa Tier #Yasuhiro Hagakure #Touko Fukawa #Hifumi Yamada #Leon Kuwata #Kiyotaka Ishimaru #Byakuya Togami #Chihiro Fujisaki #Aoi Asahina #Kyoko Kirigiri #Junko Enoshima #Mondo Oowada #Sakura Oogami #Makoto Naegi #Celestia Ludenberg #Mukuro Ikusaba #Sayaka Maizono

[youswiminmywater]

reflections on past jobs, for no particular reason

for the past few days, i’ve been trying to shake off a funk, a slump, one of those holes you can fall into if you’re the depressed type. where you spend entire days in bed, or crawl out at 2pm to eat a pile of leftover mashed potatoes between a mindless barrage of youtube videos or sudoku puzzles. just drowning yourself in distractions until you finally get fed up with it and start down that familiar path of Self-Care, which is probably a little different for everybody. for me, it involves leaving the house (which i’m convinced has some paranormal draining effect on my soul, or perhaps just dust, mold, cat pee, dandruff around the house intensifies my doldrums on a base physical level), going out to eat or sitting around in a coffee shop to read. reading is always my touchstone for “getting better,” like i’m flexing some intellectual muscles that i’d been neglecting for the past few weeks, or even months. i’ve said before that i’m a terrible english major, and have a lot of trouble starting books let alone finishing them, but i just think it’s a habit that needs developing, a habit that can replace the easier, mindless ones like scrolling through tumblr or playing through a game i’ve played through a thousand times. 

a friend of mine suggested the other day that reading is equally a waste of time as playing a video game, though, a comment that really kind of fucked me up and made me feel embarrassed for trying to use it to cheer myself up. i think i’ve come to a point now where i can disagree, heartily, with that comment. no video game inspires this much thought in myself, or makes me want to write. maybe it has to do with the TV screen itself. i’ve read that the blue light TVs have sort of a trance effect on you, like how the fluorescents at the supermarket make you want to browse around and lose focus, or how phone screens trick your brain into staying awake because it’s the same kind of light that comes from the sun. it does feel like a trap sometimes, an addiction. and some video games really do manipulate you to play them as much as possible, some are just designed that way. i’m not ashamed to say i’d throw video games out of my life entirely if i could, they never have made me feel better about myself. they’ve never inspired me. maybe i’ve just had some poor experiences with them, skipping homework to play games, staying up too late, getting angry at certain levels, forgetting to eat or go to the bathroom. they just command too much attention and force me to forget about myself entirely, don’t allow me to think about anything other than the game itself. the only real positive influence they’ve had on my life is that it’s something to do with other people if i can’t physically be with them. like virtual worlds to hang out in with your friends. even then, though, it’s more about spending time with people i care about in a setting that’s comfortable for me, not about the games themselves. ANYWAY that’s my argument for THAT

like i was saying, shaking off a funk. i was at this coffee shop today, maybe been there three or four times. i don’t really drink coffee, and coffee shops have never really been my scene, but they’re great places to just sit for a couple of hours to read and write, and nobody even bats an eye at you. can’t really do that at a sit down restaurant, it’s too easy to feel self-conscious, especially if there’s a waitress depending on flipping your table as efficiently as possible. 

but the point of this story is to talk about the doughnuts they were selling at this particular coffee shop. big, fat doughnuts, a few with outlandish glazes, strawberry glaze, for example. one was just entirely purple. and when i say fat doughnuts, i mean like, when you see it, it’s golden brown on both sides, and then it has that pale ring around the outside that the oil just never got to when they flipped ‘em in the fryer. that ring is the sexiest part of the doughnut, it’s like a stretch mark to show you how plump and decadent that particular doughnut is gonna be. not all doughnuts have those rings either; if you go to kroger or something, their old-fashioned doughnuts? just dry brown rings. probably a lot of factory doughnuts lack that pale ring, now that i’m thinking about it. it’s really a sign of some gourmet shit happening behind the scenes, somebody hand-cut that doughnut and fried it themselves. that’s how you know you’re eating something nice. probably worth the $3.50 i paid for it. well, maybe, that’s still kinda steep. 

my imagination was going like this the entire time i was at the coffee shop. i had seen them when i came in, and resolved to get out only on my way out, maybe two hours later. should i ask the cashier where they got those doughnuts from? would he even know? maybe they even made them in house, i thought. now THAT would be exciting! they did have a few food options on their menu. i think one lady next to me had some fried plantains or something. that would suggest they had a fryer, right? but then i figured, there’s no way, a coffee shop this size just wants to deal with a few baristas and that’s it, any fancy gourmet stuff would be brought in. it would be such a hassle to hire a pastry chef just to make doughnuts and scones, i don’t think the sales at a place this size would justify a batch of anything. i did daydream a little, however. made me want to work there so that i could figure out the secrets behind the counter. maybe there’s a real master doughnut-maker back there, and i could pick up at least that juicy little talent from working there, if nothing else.

this is what sent me down into a spiral. flipping through all of my past jobs, half regretful, wondering what exactly i took with me when i left. the job i have right now is the only one i’ve ever formally considered to be a real skill builder, a real job that actually means something. yet that doesn’t mean i’ve just been wasting all my career-building opportunities up until this point, does it? i always imagined that jobs through high school college were just, in general, real time wasters, real whatevers. you could literally have whatever job you wanted and not feel a tinge of regret about it, as long as it paid something. internships were for rich kids, kids that had their parents plan out their careers for them and finance it all the way through. retail jobs, cashier jobs, delivery jobs, these were there for kids who were gonna figure it all out later. normal people. looking back on it now, though, i really would do it differently. i would at least like, have a theme to the kinds of jobs i was going for, you know? jobs that logically led from one to the other, building up tips and tricks that would make you way more impressive to your coworkers down the line. this is probably also a false regret too, because there are those people that change their career paths like, really late in their lives. like they were a nurse for 30 years and now they wanna learn how to be a real estate agent, just from scratch. it’s brave, and i’m sure they sometimes wish they could have gone back and done things differently too, just started with the thing they loved before they knew they loved it. or maybe not, maybe they needed to hate something before they learned what they love...who knows.

what did i learn from my jobs then? i just wanted to go down the list and put together little stories, or sketches, rather. i know this isn’t exactly the most readable thing, and i don’t really expect anybody to read it. it’s entirely biographical and probably entirely boring, but it’s a fun exercise for me, at any rate. if you’re the kind of person that enjoys this sort of thing, i’m beaming on the inside for the both of us. anyway, here we go!

1. Goodwill Associate. Cashier, stock guy, master of all trades. Or at least the shitty ones this was my first ever job, I guess when I was 18 the summer out of high school. I had a couple of school-sanctioned volunteer roles when I was younger, but I don’t really consider those as anything in a career sense. Just an extension of school. My first actual job was here in retail, and kind of like really on the bottom of the totem pole, retail-wise. It was minimum wage. There wasn’t any real structure to the product, no departments, no red tape, no security wires on the expensive stuff. It was just bare bones, donated stuff, a little bit of a Wild West vibe, if i’m being honest. prices were determined by managers in the back. they’d just write the prices on everything in marker. anything without a price tag like that, like most of the clothing, the cashiers would just guess at what products were being handed to them and ring them up like that. looks like a unisex shirt, 1.99. pants with women’s sizes on the back tag, 3.99. customers sometimes would try to haggle, and sometimes they’d succeed! you can’t do that at sears. people would just buy fake stuff knowing it was fake and not be bothered by it. the main purpose of the employees was just to clean up the mess, and make everything look somewhat organized, keep stuff off the floor.

there were a couple of roles you could take working at a place like this. first off, everybody was a cashier, but you weren’t supposed to linger at the cash register. the primary thing you’d do is run clothes, which meant, rolling out a rack from the back full of clothes that had been already “processed” and just transfer them onto the racks out on the store floor. basically until the racks on the floor were jam-packed and you couldn’t do anymore. this was my least favorite thing, and to be honest i don’t remember doing it much. the rolling racks in the back were called “z-racks,” because the bottoms of them were held together with metal  shaped like z’s. probably my first brush with industry-specific terminology. they have z-racks in culinary too, but they’re something different, still with the same z-shape on the top and bottom holding them together. 

then there was “housewares,” which meant basically that you wandered around the housewares department all day, making an attempt to organize everything within reason. put everything upright with the price clearly visible. this was a real nightmare job, but a relatively stress-free one. sometimes a haitian family would stroll through and ruin your entire day’s work. the kids really just did whatever they wanted and left every toy in the middle of the floor, the parents paying absolutely no attention. it was a real thankless job, akin to hanging out in tartarus rolling rocks up a hill over and over again just to see it roll back down the next day.

cashier was the most rewarding part, i think, just because it’s the only aspect that forced interaction with the customers. that’s still my favorite part of most jobs i’ve had, i think, the opportunity to meet people and interact with someone new. of course, at a place like goodwill, you weren’t really all that excited about most of the clientele, but you could definitely walk out of there with a few stories. i was pretty young back then too, so i was prone to developing crushes on a few regulars, even attempting to flirt now and then, which became mostly nonexistent in my later jobs because it’s just, i don’t know. inappropriate, i guess. crass. unprofessional. and, in this day and age, a little creepy. but cashiering was an easy way to pick up at least a few social skills, whether you’re arguing your way through a stubborn customer who’s trying to save a dollar on some kid shoes, or shooing away a 35 year old gay man who, for whatever reason, has the hots for you. it was a nice exposure, though certainly removed from most retail experiences, just given the nature of the place. 

i never worked retail behind the counter again after that, especially after i started working in a couple of malls, because ACTUAL retail cashiers, the ones who make commission on their sales and have quotas for how many credit cards they get people to sign up for, they always seemed like real prisoners to the system. that notion always scared me, and kept me looking towards the background areas, the stock rooms and employee-only hallways. when you got into REAL retail, i didn’t want to be a part of it.

2. Von Maur, “Stock and Housekeeping,” stay in my department? this whole damn place is my department!

this job was a nice one, i stayed for a whole year before moving on. that doesn’t sound like much, but i’m pretty sure it’s my second or third longest running job out of all the ones i’ve had. von maur was a department store at one of the malls around here, a store they call an “anchor” because it’s on the edge of the mall complex. malls are usually designed to have multiple anchors, big stores for general shopping like macy’s and sears, with a bunch of little stores all scattered throughout, stores with more specialized targets. you often have to walk through the anchor stores to get in and out of the mall to one of the parking lots, so they’re usually stores with multiple departments, something for everybody.

von maur is considered kind of a high-end store, more expensive than macy’s, more upscale brands, but it’s not like walking straight into a coach store. it has a very old-fashioned customer service feel to it. the cashiers are all required to dress in formal wear, suits and dresses, clean-shaven. very strict dress code. the customer service section is a long desk in the back of the store with multiple ladies there to help, tables right behind them for gift-wrapping, especially during the holiday season. the clothing racks are all shoulder height or lower, you can see every department from any part of the store, and each department has gilded gold lettering above each register area, with different colors of carpets indicating when you were leaving one section from the other. and each department had a special name too, not just “men’s” or “women’s.” it was Juniors. Traditional. Contemporary. Gifts. very classy categorizations that made you feel a certain way just standing there, albeit sometimes they were kind of arbitrary.

it seems silly to even point out these kinds of things, but i’ve grown an immense fondness for this clean kind of layout now that i’ve spent some time in a few other department stores. most places make no fucking sense whatsoever, they’re designed like mazes to get lost in. pillars everywhere, obstructions going all the way up to the ceiling, no way to determine exactly how big the entire store is or where your next stop should be. pay attention next time you go to a jc penny. it’s a real shitshow. even the employees seem like they’re just stranded and forgotten about on little islands, and only the real savvy ones know their way back to the stock rooms without getting lost. at von maur, you could wave to your pal in the “Better Sportswear” department without having to step a foot outside of your designated carpet area (which you actually weren’t allowed to do, unless you were going to the bathroom).

i did not work in any of these departments. i was in charge of cleaning the place, bathrooms and dock areas, sweeping the vast floors, spot removal, light bulbs. you name it. all the custodial stuff. i worked nights, so i had minimal involvement with the trucks, but i did collect transfers to other stores at the end of the night, and pack up trucks with this product. it was the first job i had where you could really get in hurt, or in trouble, if you didn’t follow procedures properly. had to lock up the truck a certain way. had to fill out the paperwork just right. had to get the million pound brick of cardboard out of the bale machine without getting crushed. had to make sure the trash compactor didn’t get all fucked up, had to make sure you were using the right chemicals on the carpets, had to learn the most efficient ways to clean all four bathrooms before any customer even noticed you closed them down. it was a very self-reliant, self-sufficient job. managers stayed out of your face because they didn’t really know what all it was you were responsible for. you carried a radio because you could be anywhere in the store at any given time, even on the roof. you were completely unfettered, you could run errands for the feeble sales associates who couldn’t leave their sections, but only if you really liked them that day. 

it was great, and the organization of the store itself helped shape your own daily routines. i worked with a few assholes, and the pay was still minimum wage, but i had a couple of pals that i looked forward to seeing every day. it was behind the scenes, but not too behind the scenes. you didn’t have to be responsible for any of the customers because your uniform said hey, i just clean the toilets lady, buzz off. the only areas of the store that really interested me were the areas i wasn’t allowed to access, which would irk anybody who has almost complete access to any room, see rooms that most managers wouldn’t even ever see. the “other” behind the scenes groups. the alterations department. the loss prevention room. there was one room called like “display” or something, which just had all of the various props and baubles they used to decorate the store with year round. they even had an entire staff dedicated to that job, but i’d see them around pretty rarely. it fascinated me seeing people who were even more hidden away than i was, and i was the guy doing shit people just took for granted. like polishing the water fountains, or cleaning the employee lunchroom microwaves.

in the end, though, it was basically a dead-end job, i mean there’s only so much you can learn about glass cleaner before you feel like it’s time to move on. some people stay at those jobs for years, whole lives, and that just doesn’t make sense to me.

3. Pizza Delivery Guy, the famous Two-Dayer

there isn’t a whole lot to say about this one. this was when i was “between colleges,” and the first time i ever tried to have a job on college campus, a school that i was not going to and had no familiarity with. it was also my only ever “spite job.” here’s the scenario leading up to it:

i was probably like twenty years old, or 19. i was involved with this high school girl i had met through??? facebook maybe, she was a quick friend of mine. her family was a real Business Starter type family, her dad and uncle had a string of restaurants that they had tried to start up here and there, with varying success. i met her around the same time i started first cooking for myself, and it was something that brought me enjoyment, so the prospect of going to business with these guys was something that began to grow on me. her uncle had just started up a new place on campus, i think it was called Fito’s, named after her grandpa. this peruvian joint with authentic peruvian street food. the first place i had ever eaten yuca fries, and i think they had an award winning salsa at some point. anyway, the plan was for me to work there as one of the cooks, which was exciting to me! because i would have a mentor and i’d be getting into a new field that i was at least partly interested in, and i’d be developing a skill that i could apply to everyday life. i was gonna be a cook. i would pop in here and there all the time, before they actually got the place up and running, having small meetings with her dad, her uncle. i wasn’t really as involved as all that, i mean, i was still just a kid.

long story short, they hired this other guy to be the cook. whatever. i didn’t have experience anyway. they wanted me to do delivery instead. i said fine, at least i get to be involved with a place i actually kind of care about. walked me through where the delivery area was going to begin and end. hadn’t quite worked out all the kinks. come back for another meeting. i’d show up for another meeting, they weren’t there, come back tomorrow. not there again, having work done. come back later. the restaurant opens. still working on setting up the whole delivery thing, just wait on it. at some point, i got really frustrated with getting yanked around by the dick all the time, so after one failed meeting, i walked two doors down the street and landed a job as a driver at this place called New York Pizza Department the very same day. job search done, you can always find an easy job in the city. i think i even started work that very same day.

the trick to the story? never trust a place that hires you the same day they meet you. if they’re that desperate to fill the role, the role probably sucks ass. and it did. my first day was on saint patrick’s day, and i did a 12 hour shift from 6pm to 6am. i was expected to learn register and some minimal oven work, but mostly do garbage work like sweeping the floors, folding boxes, yada yada. it was all kind of vague. nobody in particular trained me. i was told to just stand over somebody’s shoulder and learn how the ordering works, which didn’t do anything for me. nobody explained a damn thing. i spilled ice all over the floor trying to refill the machine, nobody had taught me the trick to it. it was a really frustrating experience because i expected to like, shadow someone, at least for like an hour or something, but there was no guidance whatsoever. i mostly sat out by the back door and pretended like i smoked. i was never introduced to the chefs, they were all mexicans that didn’t really speak english, as far as i could tell, yet i was expected to ask them for stuff. my car was parked in a mud pit in the back, and i would ruin my pants every time i climbed in. i got two parking tickets. i used my gps for everything (the days before i had a smartphone), which was unreliable, especially when some asshole student wanted a pizza in one of the address-less school buildings. it was a real mess.

i felt kinda ashamed, especially after my second day when i delivered a pizza like 2 hours late because i couldn’t find the damn place. my dad had been a delivery guy for years, and it felt really dumb that i couldn’t pick up the job for myself. it felt like i was really, really wasting my time, and the dumb place was not worth it to begin with. i only got the job to make the other guys jealous, i think. my third shift was supposed to be a 19-hour day, so i skedaddled with my sub 100 buck paycheck, where my name was misspelled. both the peruvian place and that pizza place are gone now, replaced by something else.

honorable mention: Graeter’s Ice Cream, stealing jobs from children

barely even remember this one, but i did do an ice cream kiosk at the mall for like two weeks. i quit because scooping ice cream was making my wrist hurt pretty severely, and i wasn’t aware at the time that eventually the pain stops if you just keep at it. all of my coworkers were high school kids, even the two or three people that outranked me, and it was half humiliating, half hilarious. a lot of people there were very specific with training me properly, i think teenagers love telling older people what to do, but they all said different things. i don’t think any of them actually knew the exact details of their job duties, they were all just kind of winging it. they gossiped a lot about boys at their school, which i’m pretty sure was some isolated suburb school outside of the city proper. i was 22 or 23 at the time and had very little to contribute. i don’t think i ever took the job that seriously, and pretty much quit on a whim. it was a little bittersweet, though; the day before i left, they were just about to get a real hardass old lady manager that was about to whip the place back into shape. i regret not being around for that so that i could actually figure out what i was meant to be doing, but you can’t pretend to be a kid forever, no matter how cute and young you look with your little hat and name tag.

4. Macy’s fulfillment center, dissociation at it’s finest

this job was during a kind of sad point in my life, and it was largely a desperation move on my part. i think i had just graduated college, sent out hundreds of applications for jobs “in my field,” and heard back from none of them. i had bills piling up, from somewhere, and i really needed to get back in the saddle. malls are always reliable places to get jobs, if you ever need one quick and easy, and i just wanted to get back out into the world again. i wasn’t meeting new people anymore, didn’t have any classes to look forward to, and my education was proving to be rather useless. getting back into the mall system was kind of an eye roll at this point, but i knew it was something i could do, back of the store stock work.

this time around, i was exclusively a morning man, which comes with its own requirements and adaptions. we unloaded trucks three days a week, processed damages and transfers and returns and whatnot all the other days. broke down cardboard. the entire job was basically opening up boxes, removing plastic from copies of the same coat in multiple sizes, tearing styrofoam off of handbags, clipping security rings on the expensive stuff, and calling it a day. separate everything by department and run it out onto the floor before the store opens. usually by the time the store opens, it’s time to go home. michael kors was a bad word to us stock guys, because all of his handbags had like seventeen separate pieces of plastic, tape, and styrofoam around all the various pieces of each purse, protecting every part of the bag’s anatomy from damage, dust, whatever. it was ridiculous. there were mummification jokes somewhere in there. in any case, it was a job any idiot could do. i think i was marked as a “seasonal” employee too, so i really wasn’t given a whole lot to do, or very many hours. i did eventually get a few more duties as time went on and the dock manager grew more trustworthy of me. he was this big bald guy that listened to a lot of rock music, and didn’t put up with bullshit. he had me go around the store changing the lightbulbs a few times, which is not something you just let a dummy do. at von maur, i had to maneuver this massive industrial ladder and bring a dozen different bulbs with me, know how to mark lights that had bulbs changed and needed new ballasts, knew how to remove things from various sockets, open up skylights and reach through ceiling tiles, all while not falling to my death or getting shocked. that’s how i knew this guy trusted me.

this coincided with what i would consider a mini “internship” with the duties on the second floor, where the fulfillment offices were located. fulfillment means dealing with online orders, pulling specific products and getting them processed for delivery. and by “office” i mean a room with two computers, scanners, printers a shit ton of different sized boxes and bags, bubble wrap, packing tape, and apparently a whole lot of stress. there was a single dude working up there, and during christmas time, he was overwhelmed like crazy. i think he was actually going kind of crazy, to be honest. he knew the system pretty well, but still struggled with a lot of stuff, complained like a motherfucker, sang along to the radio but made up his own lyrics because he thought it was funnier. he was annoying but i liked having him around because he knew all the secrets to this job. like a gatekeeper. i could go to any other manager in the store and they wouldn’t really know what the fuck was going on in that office, couldn’t make sense of how or why orders showed up on those computers, couldn’t navigate them without calling another store to guide them through it, which they never did. it was really weird seeing what i thought was a polished corporate system so damn shaky beneath the foundation.

anyway, the dude quit that job before things really ramped up for the season. i was the only one in the department for a long time after that, and i barely knew what i was doing. he was the gatekeeper, and he left go back to his job at the waffle house pretty much overnight. i struggled for a while. most things got sent out ok, but i had a few “express” and “two day priority” packages that sat around for a few weeks through christmas because they required some special wizardry to get those specific labels to print off the computers. basically at the beginning of each day, you’d have a list of items to collect, and would spend the rest of the time hunting for those pieces out on the store floor, bring them back to the office, bag and box them up, and process the correct labels and gift cards for each and every one. and it was a real ball ache sometimes because certain items were just impossible to find, especially if they were returns that we didn’t normally carry in the store, clearance items, fucking women’s shoes, comforters with specific thread counts, dresses with the wrong picture, or no picture at all...

i took charge, though. i stuck around, i made uncomfortable phone calls to post offices, i got down a technique for folding and packaging shirts and dresses and all kinds of random stuff, got better at finding items that would normally be lost to the void. i could find shit in departments that people who actually worked those departments could not find. i became the epitome of efficiency. i was the new gatekeeper. at the end of every day, i’d have a blank order list, because everything would be accounted for, or passed on to another store. no bullshit. definitely the most involved i had ever been at any job. nobody at that store knew how that system worked better than me.

long story short, i was still the “seasonal” guy, and i think my bosses expected i didn’t plan on working there very long. they kept replacing the fulfillment manager with other people who barely knew what they were doing, essentially requiring me, the gatekeeper, to train my bosses, which to me was just absurd. after a few months, outraged, i quit to work at a cafe, and told my manager why i was upset that i was being shafted, not given the responsibility, the hours, the sweet sweet full-time position. she was surprised, apparently, and told me she absolutely would have given it to me if she knew i was interested. a missed communication. it was too late.

i’m glad i didn’t get promoted there, anyway, or else i would probably still be stuck there. i think that position got phased out of the system (along with the entire store, eventually), replaced by having the department managers coming in like, an hour early to pick all the orders out of their separate departments. probably more efficient. and in the end, i was really only interested in the complete and total power, not in the job itself. it’s still only retail

5. The Cornerstone Cafe, welcome to the family

this was my first actual job in the food service industry, at a cafe that i frequented pretty regularly, and this was also the first place where i properly ascended “through the ranks,” as they say. my longest lasting job to date, spanned about two and a half years, i think. it was owned by this married couple from indonesia, and i was hired on to replace one of their drivers. obviously i had to fudge the details of my previous driving gig to get this one, and i still kind of lacked confidence that i was really up to the task, but at least it was in a neighborhood that i was vaguely familiar with. i was also finally working at a place where i really cared whether or not they were successful. at someplace like macy’s, graeter’s, you’re just a cog, and not a very special one. at this place, they had maybe 5 or 6 employees in total on any given day, including one or both of the owners, and each of you had to be versatile, knowledgeable, and basically on top of your shit at all times. 

even as a delivery driver, i was informed and trained on at least 3 or 4 different roles. here’s how to be a cashier. here’s how to wash the dishes in a 3 compartment sink. here’s how i need you to sweep the floors, run food to the customers, here’s how to make this drink and that drink, here’s the size of the small salad, here’s the size of the regular salad, and when you fuck up, you can be sure as hell we’re gonna get on you for it until you do it the right way. no funny business. it was the kind of direction i enjoyed, something that makes you feel secure and stable when you get it down. i memorized the menu fully in maybe two weeks, which was no small feat. on the driving side, i picked up a lot of info about how streets are laid out, which ways were east and west, which side of the street certain numbers were on, which houses tipped and which houses didn’t, which addresses were businesses, which were apartments, etc etc. every customer has a different expectation and the job trains you to adapt. think quickly. work quickly. multitask and do a dozen jobs at once. this was not a slow restaurant, folks, and if you spent too long trying to learn something, you were dead weight. a lot of dead weight got fired. a lot of dumbasses got hired, snorted coke in the bathroom, and got fired because they weren’t paying attention. even people who had been there for a few years struggled sometimes, or at least got flustered. it was hard work and really shaped my work ethic, moreso than all the nothing jobs i had before.

also the most money i’d ever made up to that point, and i felt like i was almost making like, a living? of course, i wasn’t, i just happened to be in possession of a lot of cash, like some drug dealer. delivery drivers carry a lot of cash, tips mostly, or ways to break twenties and stuff like that, and that’s what makes delivery driving one of the most dangerous jobs out there! that’s what i read, anyway. i never got mugged or anything, but i’m pretty sure i was working in a pretty pussy neighborhood. driving was the easiest part, it was easy money compared to the madness of the dish room, the front counter, the kitchen line.

it was also an intensely intimate work relationship. it was a family business. i knew every single person that worked there. i was pals with all of them. i was out of school so i could work any shift, every shift, every position. i got trained to work in the kitchen, picked it up quick. learned a lot of prep work, picked up a few dozen different ways to cut an onion or a pepper. cooked batches of hard boiled eggs like they were nothing. made sandwiches like a madman, smacked people on the hands for trying to steal a french fry, threw cashiers out of the kitchen if they were getting in my way, and made my mark as a pillar of the establishment. they really grew to depend on me, which had its positives and negatives. 

the relationships grew very personal too, which also had positives and negatives. sometimes people really grated on me, personality-wise, and i endured them the same way you would an annoying uncle. others trusted me with stuff they really shouldn’t have, became incredibly comfortable giving me their secrets. i gave rides to people. took people grocery shopping, to do their laundry, mailed packages for people, made phone calls for people who weren’t confident with their english. more than once, i’ve had to drive home the guy who makes the chinese food because he would come into work mad drunk, and he only spoke spanish, so i would have to drop him off at a kroger nearby where i thought he lived. i knew a few people pretty personally, even the owners who still cheer and recognize me to this day, still let me go in the back and make my own food if there are no objections. i’m permanently a part of that family, and i worked my way into it fair and square. they still ask me to come back and work a weekend every now and then, and i always refuse.

it was one of those jobs where eventually, you just learn how to do everything, because at some point, you gotta do everything. there were days when i would both be the sandwich chef and the driver, a really sketchy balance. days when i would be covering three people at once. there is such a thing as being too dependable, too good at your job, because then people start taking advantage of you. people calling off for nothing knowing you could probably cover for them. your boss asking you to work an extra 5 hours on any given day. the head cook quitting for a month, forcing you to do his job when you really had no interest in firing fifteen dozen bagels at six in the morning, seven days a week. and being in a position like that makes it a lot harder to leave, even when you know you have to move on to bigger and better things, when you’ve learned everything and don’t want to be stuck in one place. that was really the hard part about that place, leaving your family to figure it out for themselves. in the end, though, it’s not really your family, it’s only business. i was starting to get this idea in my head about becoming a pastry chef at the time, and i was getting antsy about being stuck there.

i quit the job on the excuse that i was going back to school to study culinary, came back a few months later anyway to work 20 hour weeks. eventually made a connection or two in college that landed me a job on the pastry team at the convention center downtown, where i work now. but i think those stories are best saved for a time when i’m not like, employed by them. i’m still looking ahead, though, and again growing anxious about moving on to develop more skills.

probably why i was thinking about those damn doughnuts at that coffee place. i feel like there’s still a lot of pastry-related stuff i need to learn, stuff that i could have picked up on along the way before getting into The Big Leagues. bakeries and cafes and grocery stores i could have worked in. tricks of the trade i missed out on. granted, i am getting a lot of that now, but the job i’m currently holding is much more suited for somebody who already had a wealth of knowledge to build off of. maybe that’s why i’m taking this weird sojourn into “well, what have i actually learned so far?” trying to work at a bakery at this point feels like i’m going backwards, settling for less money to pick up skills i should already know. the next logical would be, i don’t know, a country club i guess? people always ask about starting my own bakery, and i know i’m not ready for that. sometimes i feel like i still don’t know a damn thing about food creation, how flavors go together. the more difficult techniques, decorating cakes and sugar work. even with simple techniques i’m sure i could use some refinement. and i’m always worthless when my boss comes to me for help with writing a menu. i don’t have tricks in my back pocket beyond what i’ve learned there, and i’m not as studious as i should be with trying new recipes in my personal time. depression gets in the way of that pretty regularly.

anyway, that’s all i can think to write for now. i know it’s a pretty worthless read, but sometimes you just gotta write for writing’s sake.

#blog #personal

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #388

“i wanna stay inside all day  /  i want the world to go away  /  i want blood, guts, and chocolate cake  /  i wanna be a real fake”

Name three people who you'll never forget: I doubt I'd forget Jason even if, God forbid, I had dementia. That's trauma for ya. I HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHLY doubt I could EVER forget my mom, either. In many different ways, she's literally kept me alive and has done so, so much for me. Then there's also Sara, whose friendship with me matches no one else I've been friends with. Have you ever been told you are fake? No. What was the name of the last pet of yours that died? Teddy, my dog. Do you like pineapple? I do. When was the last time you wished the day would just get over with? I know this sounds seriously depressing, but that's... pretty much every day. My life is just currently such a drag that being awake bores me senseless. But it's funny, because then some nights I stay up late for like... no reason. My existence alone is confusing. Is there any specific number that has any significance to you? No. Do you remember much from high school? I remember a lot from high school. Where would you go for the ultimate honeymoon? Isn't there a black sand beach in Iceland or something? Take me there, man. I'd also love to go to the Bahamas, but ew humidity and also I'm afraid of the Bermuda Triangle lmfao. If you had to get a tattoo tomorrow, what would you get? The big piece I want to get on my left upper arm; it's called "Denialism" by NukeRooster on deviantART. I got her permission forever ago to get it tattooed. Do you have any alarms set? What time and what for? Not currently. Have you ever had to work while there was a film crew at your work place? No. Have you ever supported anyone’s Kickstarter? If so, what was it? No. What do you like in your omelet? Ham pieces and cheese. Have you ever boycotted something? Yes: Chick-fil-A. Homophobic, transphobic pieces of shit aren't getting my business. Has anyone ever borrowed something from you, and not returned it? Yes. Most notably a video game I LOOOOVED as a kid. I was mad salty and still am lmao. Do you vent a lot on social media? God no, not anymore after embarrassing the everliving FUCK out of myself with a suicide note. What was your first bill you started paying on your own? I don't pay any bills bc unemployed. .-. Do you watch ASMR videos? No. What is your favorite charitable cause to donate to or volunteer for? The Trevor Project. Have you ever received a misdiagnosis? Yes. A psychiatrist I had in middle school thought I had ADHD, which was ABSOLUTELY ludicrous. Most recently, my long-time bipolar 2 diagnosis has been questioned, but I do think I have it. I think. Does it bother you when others don’t share the same religious beliefs as you? No? Freedom of religion is a thing. What was your last argument about? Ummmm... I don't remember. Probably something with Mom. Have you found your first gray hairs yet? No. Somehow. You'd think all the stress would have me pure gray by now, lol. What are the names of all the pets you’ve had? Dude, I've had WAY too many for this. What’s the most you’ve ever spent on a cosmetic or skincare product? *shrug* Who was the last person that invited you to go somewhere? Did you accept? Mom invited me to come with her to Nicole's to get out of the house because at the time our A/C was still out. I didn't want to go, even though damn did I suffer, haha. What was the last food item that you toasted, other than bread? That's... a great question. I don't know if I toast anything other than bread. Have you ever named any of your pets after a cartoon character? I remember I had a cat named Taz when I was younger. What was the last thing that someone else recommended, or suggested you try? My TMS doctor is like SUPER friendly and makes the treatment go by so fast (it's exactly 22 minutes and 30 seconds; don't ask why), and recently she was fangirling to Mom and me about the show Once Upon a Time, haha. I saw very little of it with Jason, but Mom did check it out. When was the last time you wore a hat? What kind? I have zero idea. When was the last time you ate a bowl of ice-cream? What flavour? Oh wow, it's been a long time. It was probably vanilla with chocolate syrup? If you menstruate, has your cycle ever synced with anyone close to you? Yes. Tell me something positive about the town or city that you live in. ... You said "positive," right? Did your parents have high expectations for you to excel in school and go to college/university? Yes. They were pretty serious about going to college when my sisters and I were younger, but they opened up to the concept that maybe it wasn't for all of us (coughmecough). Are you a polite person? I genuinely think I am. I definitely try to be. Have you ever been in a relationship where everything with your partner felt natural and effortless? Sigh. Yeah. Have you ever been in a relationship where everything was difficult and rocky? No. That's not the kind I'd stay in very long at all. I mean yes, there are always bumps, but there comes a point where you gotta say fuck nah and find something better. When you were a teenager, did your parents set rules about dating? Other than keeping age gaps in mind, no. Have you ever committed a crime that directly harmed another person? No. Did you grow up in an urban, suburban, or rural area? My childhood home was suburban, but leaned towards rural. We were on the very edge of the town. Which disease do you personally think is the most horrible? After seeing my mother suffer from borderline stage 4 ovarian cancer, I've gotta say cancer. My mother is the strongest person I know and yet she cried so frequently from chemotherapy. It broke my fucking heart. The person I copied the survey from mentioned especially childhood cancers, and I have to agree. Like just... why. "Everything happens for a reason." Bull. Fucking. Shit. Just TRY and convince me why a young child has to deal with CANCER. Do you remember where you first drove to after getting your license? I still don't have my license, as I've said in many a survey before. What did you get into trouble for the most when you were a kid? Being on the computer too much. What is your biological sex? Female. Do you use online dating? Or do you use another method for finding dates? Nah. I'm at the point in my life where I wanna let love just find me and not actively search for it. What is the oldest gaming console you own? We MIGHT still have our old Atari? If not, it'd be a GameBoy Advance. Which accents can you emulate pretty well? Just British. Do you think you'll ever manage to do everything you want to? No. But then again, I think that sounds pretty realistic? I doubt most people check off everything on their bucket list. What do you fear most? Probably becoming truly homeless, living on the streets. Do you wear shoes around the house? No. Are you a good driver? If you can't drive yet, do you think you'll be good? I mean, I'm not the worst in the world. My mom's always pointed out though that I ride on the brakes (which I do out of fear) and I tend to speed up and slow down quite a bit. I also stop kinda abruptly sometimes. What is/was your favorite thing about school? Seeing friends. What are you most likely to spend money on? My own personal money, tattoos, lol. Have you ever been a complete fangirl/fanboy over anything? @_@ Do you hate how, when the public like a celebrity, they overpublicize them? I feel bad for them, more than anything. You breathe wrong and suddenly it's news-worthy. It's like your every inconsequential action is under heavy surveillance and judgment, and it seems so unfair. Have you ever became attracted to someone you weren’t at first because their personality made you find them physically attractive? That was Jason for me. I never thought he was ugly, but regardless, he became THE most attractive man in the world to me. Have you ever worked in retail? Yes. -_- Are you even a little bit racist? Nah man, it's 2021, baby. Were you more fond of swings, monkey bars, or seesaws as a child? I was all about the swings. Do you believe in a near-future apocalyptic event? I don't know or care, honestly. A gamma ray or whatever they're called could incinerate us all tomorrow. A black hole could swallow the earth in an hour. We don't know. Do you have a chandelier in your home? No. Do you have a bar with stools? No. Is your Christmas tree faux or real? If faux, what color? We use a fake green one. Do you eat the crusts of your bread? Yes; it's the first part I eat. Which body type would you say you had? Did you know whales can survive on land? :^) Have you ever flown a kite? Yeah! I used to LOVE doing that with Dad as a kid when the field across our house wasn't in use (tobacco was grown there). What’s your preferred flavour of jam? I just like grape. What kind of animal did you last pet? My cat! Name a celebrity that you admire that nobody would expect you to: I massively admire Jeffree Star's work ethic. Do you prefer to shave or wax? Shave. I used to wax my eyebrows, but now I just don't care. Would you ever have sex in a public place? Uh, no. Do you think Jenna Marbles’ videos are funny? I've actually never watched her. Your favourite pasta dish: Just your normal spaghetti with meatballs. Strangest thing you’ve ever seen? Probably what I'm assuming was a star (but it was green???) flickering and then fizzling out of the sky kind of like some sort of backwards firework. I'd been watching it literally grow over a few nights, so when this happened, it was a big "?????? the fuck??????". It honestly scared me for some reason so I went inside after that. Aliens? I say aliens. Ever had a crush on somebody of the same sex? Yes. Has anybody ever called you a bastard? I don't think so. Who is the last person you ignored? uhhhhhhh Would you wear feathers in your hair? So actually, for my first prom, I wanted to wear a blue jay feather I had in my hair, reason being Jason's nickname from his parents was always "J Bird." It ended up not working out because we couldn't make it look natural with what we had. When was the last time you were well and truly scared? Hm. Favourite member of your favourite band: Ozzy, obviously, haha. Who’s your favourite female rapper? I don't have one.

#survey #surveys #questions #lyrics: ''teen idle'' by marina

[your-hero-imagines]

can I request headcanons for the 1A kids helping out at a soup kitchen or a shelter or something similar? it's such a pure way to help people and very fitting for heroes in training I think!

Since Aizawa thought that some students *cough* Bakugou *cough* needed to humble themselves, he suggested it might be a good idea to make them work in a Soup Kitchen for a whole week, to learn some gratitude and humanity.

Please ignore all the logic gaps I shamefully have to admit I’ve never worked at a soup kitchen before. :/

Iida:

- Is probably the most motivated of them all, obviously.

- Will use his speed to go grocery shopping. He doesn’t need to since they have food donations at the location, but he wants to contribute something. Uses his own money.

- The fate of some of the people in need really touches him, and he admires and respects everyone working here in their free time.

- Will probably work here again later on, or at least donate tons of money when he’s a pro hero.

Momo:

- Will use her quirk to make new kitchen equipment for the cooks.

- Isn’t really used to this kind of cooking. At home she gets much more fine and delicate food, and never has to cook for herself. Doesn’t know any simple recipes because she never intended to make food with her quirk anyway since it’s kinda weird.

- Knows the Soup Kitchen because she forced her rich parents to donate money here ever since she was a kid and realized some kids at school have a way harder time than she herself has.

Todoroki:

- His ice has many uses, from being used in drinks to keep some indigrents fresh. Even manages to make Slush Ice for the kids.

- The smile a little girl gives him when she thanks him makes his heart melt. It reminds him so much of his sister.

- Feels bad for it but actually admires some of the families there. They may not have much, but they’re holding together and are very affectionate with each other. Unlike his own.

Bakugo:

- Is skilled in basically anything, from slicing indigrents to seasoning it and so on. Everyone always asks for his help and opinion.

- To be honest, his mother told him to fuck off and cook his own meals pretty early in his life. Doesn’t understand why some of the other students can’t take care of themselves. “How petty”.

- Acts like he doesn’t give a shit about all the compliments he receives by his classmates and the guests but he’ll still think about it way later.

- Gives the smaller, weaker children and woman bigger portions and anyone who calls him out gets to feel his rage.

Koda:

- Is a vegetarian for obvious reasons. Freaks out every time he even sees people handling with meat. How could they even?!

- So he tries to stay away from the kitchen and help in the dining room, or cleans up the dishes.

- He comes a bit after the cooking is done because he doesn’t like such an intense smell of meat, but stays longer to clean up.

Uraraka:

- Helps making chests and other heavy things lighter for transport, using her quirk.

- Can’t cook for god’s sake, but helps with decorating the food on the plates with much love.

- Her parents once had to go to a Soup Kitchen, too, when the times were really hard. So it’s not easy to bear with the sight for her, but that’s only more reason to give it her best!

- Knows many locations persons with financial problems can get help at, and is glad to inform people.

Mineta:

- Tries to hit on every female person, may it be another voluntee or a guest.

- Isn’t that much of a help in the beginning because he’s busy creeping around and trying to get under the skirts of the girls.

- Probably only will be portioning the soup on the plates, but isn’t allowed to talk to any of the guests. Constant supervision.

- The others will try to keep him from sneaking outside so he won’t bother the guests.

Sato:

- Oh my god this boy is a master chief. Everything he cooks is delicious so he’ll do the main work.

- Also makes some extra sweets for the children.

- Actually donates his food very often. Bakes tons of cakes for a hospiece once a month and so on.

- Insists on helping the others to carry heavy stuff but they want him to stay in the kitchen and keep up his good work.

Tokoyami:

- Can literally do twice the work since Dark Shadow helps him. Will probably be cutting indigrents or carrying plates to the guests.

- Is the perfect guy to reach for high places like shelves with his quirk.

- Dark Shadow is really struggling against it because it’s constantly depressed that it itself isn’t able to eat or taste.

- But the children there will love his birdy face and also Dark Shadow so they both cooperate in presenting small tricks to make the children laugh.

Tsuyu:

- Her tongue can reach for stuff throughout the whole room. It’s good because sometimes people cannot walk because the kitchen is so small and crowded.

- Is really talented with cooking and also dealing with children since she had to provide for her smaller siblings the whole time.

- Will still prefer making kid’s meals and bringing it to them herself, since she’s so invested in caring for them and assuring they are fine.

- Gets easily flustered whenever someone tells her what a great job she’s doing.

Mina:

- Is really good at knowing human nature. She can tell anyone what task they should be doing considering their abilities and preferences.

- Will split the teams so everyone works with people they like and are well to cooperate with.

- Has so many positive vibes and is so happy this whole time so no one really feels like they’re working.

- She herself doesn’t even do much of the work she’s just cheering at everyone to do their best until Aizawa scolds her. No one was mad at her to be the motivational support tho.

Jiro:

- She’ll be playing some nice music so it’ll feel like fun whenever she’s around.

- Can cut with her sharp earlobes but it always gets messy.

- Will be asking the guests for music suggestions and ends up making the best mood! Feels like a party started! The long-time volunteers said the people there never smiled so much in an eternity!

- Forgets her shyness every time one of the guests needs anything.

Kaminari:

- At first he’s so disinterested and tries to call in sick. His classmates will drag him out of the bed and get him there. But as soon as he sees the grateful faces of the guests it totally touches his heart.

- Helps some people charge their phones because most of them possess elder models but rarely get the chance to charge it.

- Will also do waitress work but is very sloppy and often stumbles.

- Will get many compliments by elder ladies what a sweet guy he is and that he should meet their granddaughters.

Kirishima:

- Is all fired up about it just like always. This little sunshine.

- Tells anyone about how helping people in need is ‘manly’. To him, it doesn’t matter if it’s a great fight or just a small deed. Doesn’t care about the recognition either.

- Sadly isn’t much of a help because he doesn’t know how to cook very well, and is clumsy when it comes to holding more than one plate. But he always does his best. He gives it 200% even if it’s small tasks he’s only given because he cannot fuck them up.

Ojiro:

- His cooking is pretty decent. Above average at least. So he helps in the kitchen under the command of Sato.

- Tells everyone how amazing they are and what wonderful work they are doing.

- Is really humble about every thank you he receives from the people. Has had some nice conversations and even made some new friends. He doesn’t really care about social status as long as the person is friendly.

- Afterwards he’ll come and help there at least once a week.

Shoji:

- Is very quiet most of the time and just does his work.

- But to make the children crack a smile, even he gets out of his shell. Will make them climb on his arms and stuff.

- Lowkey gets very emotional about those poor people and thinks of it all day. Will need to get cheered up later.

- When he’s a pro hero he’ll have his own foundation to make charity work. This topic never left his mind after he worked there.

Aoyama:

- My boy is really enjoying himself there. He’s good at preparing food and teaching anyone who doesn’t know how to do it right.

- Finally gets some recognition by his classmates and is integrated in the team.

- Will make many stupid jokes no one except himself finds funny but he just wants to lighten up the mood.

- Once tried to roast something using his laser but it didn’t end well. Will have to write an essay about fire safety over the weekend.

Hagakure:

- Is totally hyped but doesn’t really know what to do. Is in desperate need of leadership.

- Will do whatever task you give her and does her best. Get’s distracted very easily tho.

- Spends most of the time adoring the children and complimenting every guest about anything that comes to her mind.

- She’s overlooked very easily so she would get stumbled over in the kitchen. Will help with giving out food in the end. Talks to anyone coming to her to get a plate for several minutes. Wants to get to know anyone.

Sero:

- Is pretty stoic about the work but isn’t that invested into helping at first. Wants to fight or train or do action stuff.

- Until a woman he brings some food to tells him he reminds her of her son who’s his age and she tells him a really heartbreaking story.

- He’ll then proceed to follow that woman around and listen to her stories. Many things about that made him think about topics he wasn’t even aware until now.

- In the end, he even gifts her a keychain as a lucky charm.

Midoriya:

- Gets constant anxiety because he’s afraid his work is not good enough for those people. Really doesn’t wanna let their hopes down, and has way too high expectations into himself.

- Isn’t much of a cook, so he mainly runs around, carries some plates, chests and bottles and just listens to anyone who’s asking for his help.

- Constantly gets lost because he’s so invested in talking to the people and their backstories. His fellow classmates need to keep him from trying to help every single one of them.

- At the end of the day determined to find a way to help those people. Realizes there are so many different ways of needing help and helping and he wants to know more about it. The world is so big but he sees is as an opportunity!

______

They’ll end up raising money for that and many other social service procivers once a month, through plays they present and spending the entry fee, or selling selfmade waffles, and so on.

Every month something different is at place, and they choose together as a class what they’ll do next!

#Boku no Hero Academia #BNHA #My Hero Academia #MHA #Class 1A #1-A #Writing #Anon #Request #Soup Kitchen #HC #Headcanon #Midoriya Izuku #Momo Yaoyozoru #Bakugou Katsuki #Todoroki Shouto #Iida Tenya #Uraraka Ochako #Tsuyu Asui #Mina Ashido #Aoyama Yuuga #Fumikage Tokoyami #Denki Kaminari #Kyoka Jiro #Toru Hagakure #Mineta Minoru #Hanta Sero #Mezo Shoji #Rikido Sato #Kirishima Eijirou