#gathered from random places on the internet!

[imaginaryf1shots]

Who is he? | Charles Leclerc

Charles Leclerc x reader

WC: 3.1K

Warnings: goggle translated French, unedited?

AN:This could have been longer but I don't like my one shots to be too long. so here you go, I hope you like it!

Based of THIS request

Masterlist

The music was so loud it was hard for anyone to talk, but who’s at a club to talk anyway? You have a few drinks in you, not drunk but tipsy. Your best friend had a disastrous date last night and as a way to get her out of the mood she was in, your group of friends decided to hit the club to just have a girl’s night out, but here you are now, a few hours in and your best friends is dancing with some random guy and the rest are all doing their own thing. You for one was on the dance floor having the time of your life, you don’t know how, but in the low light of the club and in between the sweaty bodies of people on the dance floor, your eyes meet a pair of green ones. His eyes are on you and hold his gaze, it’s clear he’s been watching you, and now you’ve seen him you can’t take your eyes off him. So with a smile his way you continue dancing while maintaining eye contact. 

The guy moves through the crowd and he’s suddenly right in front of you, it didn’t take any encouragement from either of you to start dancing. His hands were placed on your waist as you moved left to right swaying with the music. One song in, two songs in, three songs in and his hands have wandered to your lower back. Your hands moved from his chest to his shoulders to around his neck, bodies flushed against each other. 

“Wanna get out of here?” You whisper in his ear and lean back to his dimples poking as he nods.

“Yeah, my hotel is close.” He says and pulls you away from the dance floor and waits until you grab your clutch and tell your friend at the table where you’re going before you’re out of the club and into a cab. “I’m charles by the way.”

“(y/n).”

Both you and Charles were sober enough for you to remember him but too drunk to think about safety of any kind, but it was a night to remember that’s for sure. And that’s not because of the amazing sex they had, which it was, no but because of the two pink lines she’s staring at.

“What does it say?” Your best friend asks coming into the bathroom, she sees you standing there in shock, looking over your shoulder at the pregnancy test, there it is. Your life is changed forever, from that moment on, your life went from revolving around yourself to revolving around the little human you’re growing inside of you. You knew instantly that you’ll be keeping the baby, no doubt about it.

‿︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧ - - ୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵

“Seriously, how hard is it to find someone in the age of the internet?” Your friend asked, like on the day you all went out, you’re all now gathered again, your friends hand wine while you drank juice/water. All in your PJs with your latest craving all on the table, phones and laptops out. All looking for every possible Charles in your area, and then moving outwards. Looking for your oblivious baby daddy. Yes the clear possibility of him being from a different country is prominent especially since you went back to his hotel room not his house, but for the sake of being hopeful that’s a possibility you’re trying to ignore, for now.

Your friend’s words were proven wrong seeing as all your attempts of finding Charles were hard, you knew absolutely nothing about him besides his first name. You did spend long hours crying, because how foolish are you to go sleep with a random person you know nothing about but his first name, if it was even his real one. But alas, you’re going to have a baby, that you found out is a boy on one of your scans, which you were never alone to, because you best believe one of your friends was there with you.

one thing that came out of this for sure is, how amazing your friend group is, you’ve all grown closer, forming a bond that you knew will withstand time. all your schedules were synced and organised for someone to be always with you, for all your cravings to be met for you to just never feel alone, and the moment you gave up on finding Charles you knew that you’ll be okay and that your baby will be loved. 

And he is, now at two months old, he’s the most spoiled kid there is, new clothes every week, new toys always being carried and dotted on. He needed nothing. 

You were spending the day at one of your friend’s house that she had with her boyfriend, sitting on the sofa and just lounging around since baby Noah was down for his nap time. you and your friend were gossiping while her friend had his TV on to watch his favourite sport. You really weren’t paying attention, engrossed in the latest gossip happening, but his voice caught your ear, your eyes strayed to the TV for a split second, before you went back for a second look.

“What? what happened?” Your friend asked, confused as she looked at the TV then at you.

“That’s him.” You whisper but she picks it up, she doesn’t have to ask who you’re talking about. at the bottom of the screen Charles Leclerc is written.

“What are you talking about?” Her boyfriend asks, confused.

“That’s Charles.” You say almost breathless.

“Yeah, that’s charles Lec- wait Charles as in your charles, your baby daddy charles?” He puts it together, he really looks at charles.

“Yeah, that’s him.” You want to cry and scream at the same time, you found him, you finally found him, but how in hell are you going to be able to reach him. He's an F1 driver, he;s an athlete.

“I see it.” Your friend says and holds your hand giving it a squeeze. The eyes, the nose, the colour of the hair, they're all things your son and his dad share. no doubt that the older he gets the more he’ll resemble his dad.

“You better assemble the troops, we’ll need all the help to get to charles.” Your friend's boyfriend said and sighs.

‿︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧ - - ୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵

Truer words were never spoken, because why is it so hard to reach a single person on Ferrari’s F1 team? you found out so much about Charles the moment you knew his name, one google search and you found out that he’s from Monaco, found out everything about his family and who his friends are. But you still had no way of reaching him.

So what would any sane person do, is book a trip with your friends and their SOs to Nice where you’ll be staying while venturing into Monaco. Was this the most practicable thing? no. but you all took time off from your jobs/school scraped all your money together and enter; mission: find Charles Leclerc. supposedly now is the start of the month-long summer break, so he was in Monaco spending some time with his family. 

You had fun the first two days, visiting all the new places, Noah was having fun, you took all the cute pictures while venturing around Monaco and Nice. Every single person in your group had a picture of you on the night at the club and another of Noah to confront Charles and tell him if they somehow stumbled upon him or any of his family members.

On the third day your friend group split up, you and your best friend were going to a salon where it’s supposedly managed/owned by Charles’ mother, so you found it on the internet. To keep appearances and spend a bit more time there your friend was getting a trim and her hair done.

You sat with Noah in your lap on a sofa near where your friend was getting her hair done. Noah was babbling and talking all sorts of nonsense, at six months he’s starting to sit up with little help, so he’s having the time of his life with this new point of view. 

“How old is he?” an accented voice asks, you look up from Noah to meet the woman you were looking for.

“Uh- he’s - he’s six months.” You tell her glancing at your friend, who gives you a discreet thumbs up. This is in fact Pascale.

“He’s super cute.” She tells you and looks at Noah who is now fascinated with her. Being a baby that is constantly surrounded with so many people has made him a social baby, he’s always happy to meet new people.

“Thank you.” Taking a deep breath as you think of ways to bring up that he’s in fact her grandson.

“Are you on vacation here?” Pascale asks warmly, you find her a very loving person, her dimples are ones your son shares, it takes everything in you not to tear up. Finally, you’re just one tiny step away from Charles.

“Not really… it’s a little complicated.” You tell the older woman, she looks intrigued. To Pascale she doesn’t know why, she can’t really place it, but your son reminds her of something, of someone and it’s on the tip of her tongue it’s so close. “My son’s dad doesn’t know about him, we had… we had a one night stand.” You don’t see any judgement in her eyes, which gives you comfort to continue. “And I just found out that he lives in Monaco, and my friends and I are trying to find him, a bit silly but I feel like he deserves to know.”

“Not silly at all, that’s really admirable of you to come to Monaco to look for him.” Pascals gives you a comforting smile and once again she asks you a question that saves you from asking you about Charles. “Do you know the dad’s name?”

“Yeah, it’s Charles.” It clicked, who your son reminds her of, how she wasn’t able to see it will remain a mystery for her. Her second son. Charles, no doubt in her mind that sitting on your lap is her grandson. 

“I-I think we should go somewhere more private.” Pascale says and she’s unable to look away from Noah, her first grandson. grandchild period.

“Yes, please.”

‿︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧ - - ୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵

Pascale took you, your best friend ,Sohpia, and Noah(ofc) to her house, she called Charles and told him to come over. So here you are in your son’s grandma’s house looking at all those baby pictures of Charles and his brothers, and you just can’t get over how much Noah looks like him. Pascale and Sophia were playing with Noah while you were having a moment in the bathroom, in desperate need to hype yourself up and to calm your nerves. yes you wanted Charles to know but all the fears of rejection of this all being for nothing came crashing hard on you, so many women were forced into being single mothers and you don’t know Charles, Pascale did say that she wants to a part of Noah’s life but it could all change when Charles finds out. it didn’t take long for the front door to open, and a very familiar voice called.

“maman, je suis là.”(mum, I’m here.) all eyes in the room snapped up to the figure that just rounded the corner into the living room. Charles stopped in his tracks, he saw an unfamiliar woman and a baby with his mother all sitting on the floor, he frowned a little before giving a polite smile. “Bonjour, je ne savais pas que nous avions de la compagnie.” (Hello, I didn’t know we had company)

“English Charles.” Pascale informed her son.

“Ah, sorry, I didn’t know maman had company.” He told Sophia and she understood now why you went with him that night, he seemed so kind and had this calming and trusting aura about him.

“It’s okay, this wasn’t planned.” Sophia said with a timid smile.

“Why did you call me, maman?” Charles turned to his mother confused, just then Noah started babbling away, he barely started to learn how to crawl but everyone could see that he was trying to reach someone, Charles turned to see where the baby wanted to go and he saw you. It did take him a second, he knew you from somewhere, but it came to him, that night at the club. his confusion reached a new high, what are you doing here? How do you know his mother? Why are you here?

You passed Charles and went to the baby scooping him up in your arms, in practised moves, like it was second nature. Charles took a look at you and Noah, your eyes met his and you gave him a nervous smile.

“Sophia, could you help me with the tea?” 

“Certainly.”

That left the three of you together, mother, father, and son.

“Hi.” You said timidly. “I don’t know if you remember but we met last year-“

“Yeah, yeah I remember.” Charles cuts you off, you nod and take a deep breath.

“Look, I don't know how to say this but…” You fidget staying silent for a moment before you regain your courage to tell him. “I got pregnant after that night, and I tried to find out who you are and where to find you, but it was hard.” Charles says nothing, his eyes are on the boy in your arms, he takes him in, the eyes, the nose, the hair, the dimples, everything. “I know it’s hard to take in, and I can understand if you don’t believe me, but-“

“I believe you.” Charles breathed out, like his mum he knows this is his son, he took almost nothing from you and is all Charles. “can I- can I hold him.”

“Yeah.” You breathed out as Charles moved closer gaining his son’s attention, Noah went right to Charles, who held him securely and just smiled at the baby, both father and son were looking at each other intently. “What’s his name?”

“Noah.”

“Noah.” Charles tried out the name before he smiled, it was all a shock, he has a son, he has a son, he’s a father now, a father, his mind tried to compute this new information as fast as it could, but his heart, his heart fully accepted it, a new type of love that is completely foreign to him started to form and take shape. You let Charles have this moment in silence watching them, Noah placed his hands on Charles’ cheeks feeling his stubble and being fascinated with him, charles smiled making Noah smile and then giggle. This just warmed your heart and every single thought that ever doubted coming here went away.

“Do you want me to take him? I’m guessing there’s a lot of talking that you need to do?” Sophia came in after a few minutes and you gave her a thankful and grateful look. Once you were left alone, Charles turned to focus on you. You don’t know why you got so emotional but you did, you were wiping your sweaty hand on your trousers all while fighting your tears away.

Being the kind and loving soul that he is, Charles couldn’t fight pulling you in for a hug. your arms wrapped around him, a few tears slipped from your eyes but you managed to stop the rest.

“It must’ve been hard to do this alone.” Charles said, running his hand up and down your back in a comforting motion.

“It was hard, but I had my friends with me.” You said and pulled back,wiping your tears away, you gave him a teary smile before you both sat down next to each other angled so you’re facing the other, knees barely touching. “Finding you however is somewhat harder, all I knew was your name, and I never realised how many Charleses are out there.” 

You went on to tell Charles about when you found out you were pregnant, a short summary of your pregnancy, how your friends helped you during and after the berth of Noah, how you found who he was and what you did to reach him and all that. Charles listened and asked questions, he wanted to know everything, as much as this was all a shock you’ve had it harder, you lived it, you’ve been living not knowing if your son will ever know his dad or not, not knowing what the future will hold and not knowing is so much harder than anything. 

‿︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧ - - ୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵

You extend your stay in Monaco, even after your friends all went back you stayed, this is Charles’ summer break after all. He cancelled all his plans out of Monaco, and practically turned one of the guest rooms in his apartment into a nursery. You moved from your hotel in Nice to one of the rooms in his house. You did meet the rest of the Leclerc family and safe to say Noah has some amazing and loving uncles.

Noah is just the centre of attention in every room he’s in, he’s taken to Charles so fast, you’re sure he somehow knows that this is his dad. He'd sleep in his arms on his chest and just lean away from you while you’re holding him to get into his dad’s. Noah had so many ferrari and cars themed toys and clothes in the span of a couple weeks it was hilarious.

On a serious note, Charles wants to be a part of Noah’s life and you want him to be too, and one of the things you agreed on and came to is that finding a job in Monaco is the best plan at the moment and just moving there. With the help of Charles you were able to find a job, you knew that Noah will forever be taken care of by Charles, but you had to find a job for yourself, even if you and Charles are now a couple, I mean did you see him with Noah? Did you see him, period? It’s no secret you’re attracted to him. Noah is a big testament to that, but it wasn’t just his looks, once you got to know Charles you couldn’t help but like him a bit more everyday. So when he asked you to just stay in his apartment you couldn’t say no. He's out of the country a lot anyways so most of the time the apartment was for yourself and Noah with the constant visits from and to the rest of the Leclercs.

#f1 x reader #f1 fanfic #f1 imagine #f1 scenario #charles lecrelc #charles leclerc one shot #charles leclerc imagine #charles leclerc x reader #dad!charles leclerc

[mindmelter]

The Body Wearing Convention - Las Vegas

The BWA (Body Wearing Alliance) was formed 20 years ago when the internet was just starting to get popular. Those born with the rare ability of reducing people into wearable skins didn't knew there was more like them out there, but with the help of the internet they started to find others with the same ability, and soon it was created the BWC (Body Wearing Convention)

The Body Wearing Convention is a clandestine event that happens a few times every year, hidden from the prying eyes of the public, It is a secret event where they can gather, share stories, and find solace in the knowledge that they aren't alone in their power.

The BWC happens in a different country every time, for safety reasons, and the main two rules to participate in the convention is: To be a Skinwalker (That's how they call themselves) and to wear the body of a local from that place, that means you can't bring with yourself skins from home.

Currently the secret Alliance is made up of 130 men around the world. But among these 130 members, there are 10 men who are very close friends with each other, they all share one thing in common: They are all gay.

Surprisingly they are the only gay guys of the entire Alliance, while all the others sought power and money, these 10 friends only care about getting hard in a new sexy body, It was like a sport for them. That's why they created an online group chat, where they can talk and share pictures of their current bodies with each other.

The location of the BWC this time is: USA - Las Vegas.

The 10 friends all arrived individually at the city in an early Friday, the convention would occur during the weekend, so they had to find a new skin quickly, and so they went straight on a hunt for a random local body.

Think of the BWC as the Met Gala, but for people who can turn you into a wearable hollow fleshsuit in a blink. There was this unspoken competition among them, to see who was wearing the hottest or richest skin, and this group of friends clearly didn't care about the last one...

_______________________________________

Carl is a 46 years old married gay man, he is part of the BWA for 17 years, and there is nothing Carl love more than wearing the bodies of fit straight guys. His husband knows he's a skinwalker and is totally fine with it. But because his husband is not a skinwalker, he is not allowed to go to the conventions, so Carl always travels alone.

(Friday, March 1st. 8:19 AM) Carl Sent A Photo

Carl: I just turned this hot Latino stud in the hotel parking lot. He was walking towards his car while talking on the phone with his girlfriend. That's when I slowly walked behind him and turned him. What do you guys think? Do I wear him well?

Harold: You're looking so hot. You always pick the most hottest guys.

Elijah: Wow, you already found a body? That was fast.

Joel: He's not that impressive, I would give him a 6/10 lol

Elijah: Stop being a jerk Joel. This guy is clearly a 9/10

Carl: Don't mind him Elijah, he's just jealous of my pick.

Joel: He's not really my type, today I'm looking for a sexy tough looking guy to wear.

Peter: Hot choice of skin Carl! Show us his dick please!

Carl: You will have to wait until the Convention to see it. But i'm telling you, he's really big and thick, I know you're gonna love sucking it.

_______________________________________

David is 34 years old and he is part of the BWA for 13 years.

He first found out about his ability when his homophobic stepbrother was trying to beat him up, David closed his eyes and tried to protect his head, but when he opened his eyes, he saw his hot stepbrother lying on the floor completely deflated. David had the most fun years living the life of his douchebag of a stepbrother, until one day, his stepbrother just "disappeared"

(Friday, March 1st. 9:46 AM) David Sent A Photo:

David: I made two new bodysuits. I saw the handsome blond one at the hotel's pool, he was trying to seduce some girls by showing off his hot body, he just didn't knew he was actually seducing a skinwalker. To get him, I first had to convert this cute room service attendant, after I put him on, I got access to his room and walked inside. I think I'm going to use the attendant tonight for some fun.

Elijah: Oh, the good old room service method. It works every time.

David: It was you who taught me this method back in 2011 when I was still a new member of the BWA.

Damian: It brings back good memories from that one time where we all stayed at the same hotel in the 2011 Convention. Good times.

_______________________________________

Peter Is a 40 years old gay bottom who love to turn big hunky men into Bodysuits and act like a slut in their bodies. He is part of the Body Wearing Alliance for 9 years.

(Friday, March 1st. 11:28 AM) Peter Sent A Photo:

Peter: Do I look cute? This is Ramón, I turned him at an alley while he was jogging, he's a bodybuilder. I'm gonna make such a good use of his muscles. I'm sure you guys are going to love the muscles in his ass the most.

Joel: I love how you always pick the most biggest guys.

Daniel: I feel bad for this poor bastard, of all the Skinwalkers, he was picked by the most perverted one.

Peter: lol

Carl: He's huge. I'm going to enjoy burying my new thick latino dick in your bodybuilder's ass.

Harold: I really like his pecs. I want to suck on them when we meet tomorrow.

Peter: It's always the pecs for you isn't, Harold? lol

Harold: You're not lying. Actually I just saw this hot guy at the mall and he seems to have very big pecs. I'm going to follow him.

_______________________________________

Harold is a 28 years old scrawny gay man, he has no muscle definition, but he love pecs and it was what he first looked for in a body: Their huge pecs. If the guy didn't had two big meaty pecs, he wound't want them.

He went to the local LA mall to hunt for a body, he knew that the mall was always the perfect place for hunting skins. And he was proven just right when he saw this big and tall hunk walk inside a clothing store. Harold smirked as he entered the store and followed the man.

(Friday, March 1st. 1:05 PM) Harold Sent A Photo:

Harold: Who want some milk boys? Daddy got all the milkers now.

Peter: Oh my god, look at the size of these tits. I will let you suck on Ramón's tits if you let me suck yours.

Harold: This sounds like a good deal.

Carl: Very nice choice of skin! Good job, Harold.

Peter: Can you send a video of you playing with those hairy tits and pinching his nipples? Please?

(1:15 PM, Harold Sent A 20 Seconds Video To The Group Chat)

In the vídeo he was in the middle of the store, squeezing his new pair of meaty hairy pecs, he lifted one of them and let go, watching them bounce, then he pinched his left nipple and let out a deep loud moan. Without feeling any shame for being in a public space. It wasn't technically him who was being humiliated in public, so he didn't cared.

_______________________________________

Damian and Rashad are a black gay couple (47, 49) they have been together for 11 years and they both had met each other during a Body Wearing Convention back in 2013. It was very known to everyone that they only turned white men into Bodysuits, it was their favorite type of skins. So there was no diversity in their Bodysuit closet, only white men.

(Friday, March 1st. 3:07 PM) Damian Sent A Photo:

Damian: You guys know how Rashad and I love to hunt white boys, so what better place to find some white skins than at the LA beach? We saw this group of young frat boys surfing and we converted these two 19 years olds, they were just the most handsome ones in their group. Turns out they are twin brothers.

David: This is such a hot pair, and the fact they are brothers makes it even more hot!

Carl: I want to fuck the long haired one with my thick latino dick while I pull his hair.

Damian: I like this Idea. His long hair would be great to use as a handle for a hard fuck. I might even try It later tonight.

David: Send us a video if you do.

_______________________________________

Joel is the youngest one of the group, at only 19 he already has a count of 86 Bodysuits, and he's part of the Body Wearing Alliance for only 1 year. That's why, the BWA leader tasked Elijah, a veteran in the art of wearing bodies, to watch for Joel and not let the young man expose their secret society.

(Friday, March 1st. 5:14 PM) Joel Sent A Photo:

Joel: My new bodysuit is still deflating. I can't wait to finally wear him and show him to you guys. He's so hot.

Carl: You gave my bodysuit a 7/10, so he better be a 10/10.

Isaac: Wow he's packing.

Harold: When he deflate, please send us a pic of you in him. I want to see if his front looks as good as his back side.

(Friday, March 1st. 5:40 PM) Joel Sent A Photo:

Joel: I'm inside him now. I saw this sexy daddy at the hotel's bar. I waited for him to go to his room and then I followed him, as soon as he opened the door I converted him, right there at the door's entrance, I mean, of course he took a bit longer to deflate, so I had to drag him inside. I actually wanted to wear a scary looking soldier that I saw at the bar, but Elijah didn't let me. Still, I'm very glad with my pick.

Harold: Holly fuck!!!

Peter: He's a very sexy bodysuit. Wish I was there to give him a very special room service.

Carl: Where is Elijah by the way? Should he not be with you?

Joel: Elijah Is outside, I don't know where he went, but he said he was going to be back soon.

Carl: Did he picked a bodysuit already?

Joel: Yes he did, a young and hot fuckboy. Let me send a pic of him.

Joel Sent A Photo:

Joel: This is the body Elijah picked to wear at the convention tomorrow. I think he got this one at the hotel's bathroom maybe? I'm not sure. I hope he don't mind that I'm wearing his brand new skin.

Elijah: Boy, you're in big trouble!

Joel: Shit, I'm sorry, I thought you wouldn't mind. I'm gonna take him off.

Elijah: Don't you dare taking him off, I'm not going to wear him anymore, I found a better body to wear tomorrow. wait for me, I'm getting up there right now.

(Friday, March 1st. 6:22 PM) Elijah Sent A Photo:

Elijah: You don't want to disobey me in my new body, boy, so you better be on your knees when I get inside, I'm horny and this guy have big balls full of cum.

Joel: Yes sir!

Peter: Oh yes sir indeed!

Carl: lol you're fucked Joel.

_______________________________________

Isaac is a 24 years old gay man, and like everyone else in this group, he was addicted to wearing hunky men. He is more reserved and shy, and don't talk much in the group chat. However, he enjoys jerking off while viewing the photos his friends would send to the group chat.

He might be the most shy and reserved in the group, but once he's wearing a handsome hunk, he becomes a whole new different person, a more dominant and cocky one.

(Friday, March 1st. 8:37 PM) Isaac Sent A Photo:

Isaac: Seeing you guys wearing such hot bodies is getting me so freaking hard. I can't wait for tomorrow. I got this one at the gym's lockerroom. Who wants to take care of my boner?

Peter: I do! I want to get on my knees in Ramón's body and let you use his slutty mouth.

Harold: You're looking so damn hot, Isaac, good pick.

Carl: Was you working out? Your skin looks very sweaty.

Isaac: I was. I wanted to test out my new muscles.

Carl: Great. Can't wait for the convention tomorrow, where we can finally see each other's bodies in person and have the orgy of the year.

#bodysuit

[artsekey]

Hi, very random question - would you have advice for naming and organizing files? I saw your reblog of how to turn off the Windows 11 internet search thing and had my eyes bug out at the amount of files you have. I struggle to keep things organized after like....twenty...

Sure thing! Before I got into 3D, I didn't pay much mind to my file names or where I saved things. After getting into 3D, where those things have an impact on your ability to work on your projects, I was forced to tighten up! 1. Folders are your friend. However you want to organize things is up to you; depending on what I'm working on, I group things by project or subject first. So, for example, on my computer I might have a folder titled "DND". Inside that folder, I have a sub-folder for each campaign, and inside that folder I have a sub-folder for things like maps & documents, and then another for character art with sub-folders divided by character. 2. Decide a naming convention for your stuff. This could be something like "projectShortName_pg#_MMDDYY", or "characterName_portrait_MMDDYY". Having an identifier that makes it clear it's different from other files with similar names is really helpful, and keeping it in the name itself (instead of relying on "last modified" can be a good move. 3. Keep it short, but keep it useful. This is something you might not want to implement-- I use it all the time because it's part of the 3D pipeline, but shortnames are big for knowing what files are "at a glance". Like instead of something like, "Legend of Zelda Link Fanart 112123", I'd go with something like "TLOZ_LFA_112123". This is most useful when the folder structures are in place; if you have a Legend_of_Zelda folder, TLOZ will likely click as "The Legend of Zelda". 4. Don't be afraid to clear it out. Every few months, I gather everything I'm finished with into a folder titled "DSKT_CLEAR_MMDDYY". All of my folders are moved into the core folder, that folder gets moved to my external(s), and I move on.

Doing this when you've never done it before is a hard habit to establish (again, I was only able to do it because it was required while I was in school and now that I'm teaching the same subject), and going back to organize old stuff can be really intimidating. For that reason, I'd suggest gathering everything you currently have, moving it into a "Folder_Holder" folder, and then trying to implement these tips in future file management.

Let me know if you have any questions!

#file management #data management #ask

[a-bucket-of-trash]

Kelvin “military analysis” - Sons of the Forest

First rant: Everyone talk about how sad is that Kelvin is not entering to a cave with us, but dude... there is a good reason. He is DEAF, right? So his main way to avoid dangers is by SIGHT. Hell, he point the damn mutants way easier than us.

How in hell he will do anything inside a cave if WE BARELY CAN SEE SHIT? Half of the times inside caves, we have to HEAR the mutants because is dark af. Now, if the main Kelvin’s sense is his eyes, he, in a cave, will be not only full useless but also dangerous for him and to us.

Kelvin inside a cave is like he being deaf AND blind. Go and play in a cave with mutants, deaf and blind, without weapons, and see how long you will last.

He stay outside because is the logic action. He is not enough braindead to enter in a cave.

But now, what matters: what kind of soldier is Kelvin?

Someone point that in the opening, Fisheye and us are looking the info in the pc as Kelvin is chilling listening to music.

My theory is: Squads tend to have different “specialities” with different skills, which come extremely handy in a situation like in the game.  

Fisheye have part of his face covered. Usually, members of the Infantry would cover their faces to protect their identity in front of strangers. He is covered inside the helicopter can maybe be a hint of he being a “stranger” with any other member of the team (just like others members are covered too).

We don’t know if we are covered or not, but our skills on combat and weapons could be a hint that we are also Infantry. Plus, that both, as Infantry, be learning about the mission in the flight, at minutes to “deploy” is just a way to say “We are just muscles and guns, as soon we know how the subjects look, the rest don’t matter. We are here to shoot, kill and leave to our respective previous squads”. We are basic fight dogs.

Also, very high chances their (and our) names (Fisheye and Kelvin) are not real names, but codenames (Military call signs) based in the NATO phonetic alphabet (Each codename of each member start with a different letter to make it easier. F is Fisher, K is Kelvin, which it can be used in the trackers, so we can spot more easily the different members of the squad in the island).

Interesting fact, in some places, like the United Kingdom military, these letters also can tell what specialities they have. Fisheye use the F of Foxtrot/ Foxhound, this last one used to sign Infantry.

As also internet says about Kelvin: “His true name is speculated to be Robert, as he often appears in the game files as Rob or Robbie and in the game console as Robby.”

But our boy “Kelvin” is uncovered and chilling. That mean 2 basic things:

1 - Uncovered units are the ones who had to interact face to face with civilians. High chances he is one in charge of mediate with the Pufftons.

2 - He is not paying attention to the info in the pc, neither to the audible orders. The only reason to him to don’t pay attention is the fact that HE KNOWS the info. We are a militar squad rescuing a rich family, they will get the best of the best, so they will not get a lazy random Kelvin in the team. He is useful to the mision. He chills because he know the Pufftons already, knows the map (since he is not looking at it), and he knows the orders. Is not a civilian, or he wouldn’t have militar clothes, neither the previous info, neither will using the K Tag.

Now let’s add the fact that he doesn’t fight in the game, at all. He aims, run, hide, but don’t fight. But he do gather a lot, run fast, fish where is no fishes (lol) and find sticks in the nowhere.  

Putting his highly possible brain injury a little aside (which not only made him temporarily deaf and mute, but also could reduce a lot his capabilities), we can now speculate that his specialty is not in combat, is not from the Infantry because he don’t fight (not even as a instinct, many soldiers keep their fight reflex even after years out the field).

His skills in gather and build, carring logs for hours, even with his brain damage, can be a hint that his basic training was as Quartermaster. Hear this definition: The Quartermaster Corps officer plans and directs the activities of Army units and organizations engaged in the acquisition, receipt, storage, preservation, and issue of equipment, repair parts, fortification/construction material, subsistence, petroleum products, water, and other general supplies.

And his “chilling instead watch the info” can be a hint that he is now from some branch related to Intelligence or Logistics.

So, my theory is: Robert ak Kelvin - Logistics Quartermaster Officer with a Degree in Brain Injury.

And I love him.

#kelvin #sons of the forest #sons of the forest kelvin #sotf #sotf kelvin #the forest #game theory

[quintessencewrites]

Quintessence Writes

essence 23 pansexual Welcome, Lovelies <3!

This blog is full of original stories, random reposts, and mindless thoughts. I write about what I like. Fanfic is a creative outlet for me that I enjoy beyond words and I don't see myself stopping anytime soon.

Feel free to stay a while, get comfortable, talk to me, and become one of my loves

Rules: I do write smut, so this blog is 18+ ONLY!!! MINORS, DNI!!!!

I write about characters, not real people. For example, I will write for Shuri and Jamie, but not Letitia Wright herself. I'm just not comfortable with it.

I admittedly mostly write for Shuri and Riri, unless otherwise stated, but I will absolutely write for someone else if you guys have any suggestions.

I AM A BLACK WOMAN WHO LOVES BLACK WOMEN (and they/thems, she hers/, he/his, I don't care really)... I write for POC readers, unless otherwise stated.

I do take requests and try my best to respond to them in a timely manner, HOWEVER, I am a nursing student with a full-time job. With that being said, just bear with me, your requested story is coming.

I WILL NOT WRITE ABOUT DISTURBING TOPICS, for example, (TW!!), incest, domestic violence, sexual assault, etc.

There is no hate on my little side of the internet, so be nice and just enjoy so everyone can have fun

ShuRiri x OC (Sade Davis) Series

*REWRITE IN PROGRESS*

Put Me in My Place Riri Williams x OC (Sade Davis)

I feel my body tense, realizing I’m in the arms of my biggest competition throughout high school. I try to pull away, but Riri holds me tighter. “Please,” she starts. “Don’t go.”

You Up? Riri Williams x OC (Sade Davis)

“I told you to take it off. I’ll buy you a new one.”

Sorry For Breaking Your Hearts Riri Williams x OC (Sade Davis)

“No, no, please! My girlfriend, I-I haven’t seen her all day, I haven’t heard from her. I think something’s wrong.”

Two is Plenty, Three’s a Crowd ShuRiri x OC (Sade Davis)

“Sade, it is nice to meet you finally,” came the voice again, and at this point, the speaker was back on the table.

Somehow, I found my voice. “Pr-Princess Shuri.”

Ally? Ally. ShuRiri x OC (Sade Davis)

I face her and evenly reply “You drowned, huh?” Riri’s face flushes and she stammers, struggling to gather her words.

My Love, My Fury ShuRiri x OC (Sade Davis)

“What’s it say,” I ask. Shuri’s smile grows genuine and she responds, “Sade, sithandwa Sam. Sade, my love in my country’s alphabet.”

Breathe ShuRiri x OC (Sade Davis)

"It's like deja vu, isn't it baby?" Riri questions giddily, arms thrown around my neck.

Vanish-Giveon

Vanish ShuRiri x reader

"Nisale kakuhle zinkosi zenu (Goodbye, your majesties.)” You bow and exit, leaving the Queens in their despair. 

Vanish pt. 2 ShuRiri x reader

“Aneka, you will lead this mission.

General,” the word comes off her tongue like a tease, knowing she’s driving a spear through Okoye’s heart. “Fall back.”

Yes, Daddy

Y-yes, Daddy stud!ShuRiri x black!fem!reader

“I’m daddy,” Shuri growls and you sink into her body, melting at her vernacular. “Understand, baby?”

You make the mistake of nodding first, catching yourself quickly. “Yes,” you correct. 

“Yes, what?”

“Y-yes, daddy.”

Y-yes, Daddy pt. 2 stud!ShuRiri x black!fem!reader

Hmm, Shuri hums. “You look so damn good walking away, y/n, but that don’t mean I like it when you walk away from me. You wanna explain that shit?”

Escapism Shuri x Riri Shuri brought her hand up between their too-close bodies, tapping at Riri’s chin, then her cheeks. “Alright, alright. You’ve proven yourself. Breathe before you pass out.”

Y-yes, Daddy pt. 3 stud!ShuRiri x black!fem!reader

Her eyes sent the message that her lips didn’t; they couldn’t, too busy being bitten to the flesh between Riri’s perfect rows of teeth, the gold on her lower set mirroring the gold around her neck.

Jordan Peele’s Nope.-Emerald Haywood

What’s Up, Doc? Emerald Haywood x reader

"You see a therapist?" OJ asks. "I fuck one," Emerald responds dismissively. 

Desire

Desire Pt. 1 Shuri x Stripper!reader

"Ladies and Gents, we got a treat for yall tonight! So much cake, it'll make you want to lick the icing first."

"Please help me in welcoming Desire to the stage!"

Desire Pt. 2 Shuri x Stripper!reader

“Ndiyakunqwenela.”

“I desire you.”

“Kudala ndikurhalela.”

“I-I’ve been craving you"

SOS-SZA

Nobody Gets Me Riri Williams x fwb!reader

How am I supposed to tell ya?

I don't wanna see you with anyone but me

Nobody gets me like you

Happy Valentine's Day

Riri's Love Letter Riri x black!fem!reader

Do you remember what I said to you?

I know you remember that corny ass pickup line. 

“Do you have a name, or can I call you mine?”

Little Panther

Little Panther Shuri x black!fem!reader

And collect my son I do, adorning his little fluffy figure in kisses. "None for me?" Shuri pouts, eyes begging.

"Uh, uh. You told me to collect my son, not my girl."

Brain-Break

Brain-Break ShuRiri x Wakandan!fem!reader

“No, my Queen. If you will not indulge my idea for a moment to give you peace, then you will, at the very least, not work in such silence that you stress yourself anymore. Understood?”

Riri stifles a giggle at your words, sending Shuri to return to her work obediently, grumbling under her breath as she did. “-going to speak to me like that in my own lab.”

She Loves Me-Valkyrie

She Loves Me Shuri x reader; Valkyrie x reader

She loves me. Even though whenever I say it, she doesn't say it back.

Heavy is The Head-Queen Ramonda Heavy is the Head Queen Ramonda x Wakandan!reader

The nonchalant shrug makes a return. "She said I'm not a doll."

Your hands raked through her tight curls, expertly. "You're my doll."

Save Her

Save Her ShuRiri x Wakandan!reader

“Griot,” she started slowly. “Who is piloting Fighter 009?”

“Y/n, Your Majesty.”

Finally

Finally ShuRiri x black!fem!reader

“Remember that promise I made you?”

Riri nods, hands running through Shuri’s curls, lips tucked between her teeth in excitement. 

“I’m ready to act on it.”

My Princess

My Princess Shuri x black!fem!plus size!reader

“You heard her,” she started to the stunned girl on the other end. “So we good on whatever shit you was trying to offer her. It ain’t nothing compared to what I got.”

King-Queen Ramonda

King Queen! Ramonda x King!reader

“Your Highness-” “King. Do not be afraid to say it.”

I'm IronHeart

I'm IronHeart college student! Riri x college student!fem!black! reader

“You gon stop fucking up my pretty face-”  “You only like it when its pretty?” A smile broke across both your faces, her shiny rows of perfectly white teeth winking at you from between the prettiest brown lips you’d ever seen. “It’s always pretty,” you ran your fingers down her cheeks once more.

Mama Shuri

Unyana Mama!Shuri x Mommy!reader

"Shuri, put your child to bed," you exclaim, bouncing down the stairs.

"Huh?"

Man-Man

Man-Man drug dealer!ShuRiri x black!fem!single mom!reader

“Hey, baby,” your soft voice cooed. You had his undivided attention and his wide eyes followed the index finger of your free hand as you gestured to the girls standing above him.

Pernicious

Pernicious toxic!Shuri x reader; OC x reader

“Nah, baby, just getting a taste.  “Fuck y-” “I told you, you can’t do this shit better than me.”

Lil Hobie- Hobie Brown

Lil Hobie atsv Hobie x thick!black!fem!reader

“God dammit, Hobie!” “‘Hobie dammit, Hobie’ is kinda a redundant statement, love, don’t ya-”

#riri x reader #shuri x reader #black panther #riri x oc #shuri x oc #shuriri #smut #black panther smut #blackpanther2 #blackpantherwakandaforever #blackgirlmagic #letitia wright #dominique thorne #original character #riri williams x reader #letitia wright shuri #original story #queen shuri #riri #riri x shuri #riri williams smut #shuri #princess shuri #nope movie #nope film #emerald fic #emeraldhaywoodfic #emerald haywood #emerald #18+

[viidemoo]

Just letting you know your anon asks are turned off!!

Besides that, maybe some headcanons for Michael ( 1978 is good but 2018 version would be ++++ ) stalking a potential victim that actually- for some weird reason- is infatuated with him? Like, they have pictures of him from newspapers and the internet taped onto their bedroom walls, write about him in their journal, etc.

BTW I feel like I have to say that I don't agree with people that do this with real-life serial killers because that's fucked up it's just a fictional idea 💀

Not what he was expecting..

An: tysm for letting me know! Sadly I haven’t seen the 2018 Halloween yet but you could probably interpret this as any Michael you want. There’s not gonna be any like “relationship” stuff in this btw! And not proof read cause I’m lazy asf 😛

You were just like any other victim. There was nothing too special about you, just an average person. He did the same thing with you as everyone he had killed in the past. Watched you walk care-free down the street, look around for a quick second, then go into your home and lock the door.

He waited a few minutes before walking around your house before welcoming himself in threw your back door. He looked around and saw nobody; however, he did hear the sound of water running. You had gotten in the shower as soon as you had gotten home.

Seeing as he had nobody else he planned on killing today, he decided to wait this one out. Let you relax in the shower, then kill you when you entered your room. A pretty simple plan he had done many times before.

As he walked down the hallway, he saw one door slightly open, your room. Well that was easy to find. He placed him hand on the door as pushed it open lightly.

To say he was put off guard as an understatement.

You had a whole wall dedicated to the killer. Articles, cutouts, you name it he saw it. Michael was not an easy man to startle. But you managed to do it.

Michael wasn’t fully sure what to do. Did he continue to look around? Did he leave? Did he just kill you now?

He went with the first option, he had never seen anything like this before so why not investigate a little bit.

As his eyes scanned the room they landed on a propped up notebook, with the words “ Micheal M.” Written on the cover. Carefully he walked over and picked up the book. He flipped it open to a random page and read,

“A new article came out today about Michael. He killed 5 people last Saturday. I know most people would be and are totally freaked out and scared by this but it’s honestly kinda cool. Like how does he do these horrible crimes and NEVER get caught?? (Ngl he’s probably cute under that mask)”

Michaels eyebrows were furrowed and mouth was slightly open. What in the world. Michael had never seen someone who wasn’t afraid of him, let alone thought he was cool and cute. Just when he was trying to gather his thoughts the water shut off. He threw the book back on desk where he had found it and quickly left the house.

He’d come back later and kill you…maybe.

#micheal myers #halloween #halloween 1978 #halloween 2018 #Michael myers x reader #michael myers x you #slasher #slasher x reader

[littlemisspascal]

Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere

pairing: modern-ish Pero x Female Reader

summary: In which Reader is a newspaper columnist with few self-preservation instincts, Statesman is an insurance company with a catchy jingle, and Pero is the insurance agent assigned to look after you. Except only two outta three of these statements are true.

word count: 3k+

rating: T

warnings: Reader is nameless with no description except for being shorter than Pero, language, blood, violence, guns, non-major character death, Author’s poor attempt at humor, Author knows nothing about insurance and/or a career in journalism, mistaken identity, supernatural elements, worldbuilding

author note: this is what happens when I watch Puss in Boots The Last Wish and then a Statefarm commercial and then random inspiration sparks. It’s borderline a crack fic, but hey, sometimes that’s what the muse wants. I even have more scenes outlined beyond this so...Hopefully someone out there enjoys this 😊 

The story of how you wound up in Wader’s Rest is a rather boring chain of events that can be summed up as follows: you graduate with a journalism degree, spend the next five years trying and failing to convince a major news outlet to hire you all the while typing up fluff pieces for your hometown’s website so you can afford food and other necessities, receive a job offer out of the fucking blue offering you a columnist job in a town hundreds of miles away, decide screw it let’s go and…yeah, that’s about it. For these last six months, Wader's Rest has been your new home.

Wader's Rest is a medium-sized-ish community settled along the southern coastline, perpetually smelling of freshly caught fish and sea salt. It’d be a decent tourist destination, in your opinion, if it wasn’t also a hive of criminal activity, crawling with smugglers and drug dealers and fugitives. The city can be split into two types of people: crime-doers and crime-avoiders. 

Oh, yeah, and then there’s you in a solo category of your own making: crime-seeker. Insert trumpet fanfare here.

There’s a grand total of one newspaper responsible for updating residents on all things Wader's Rest-related. Wader’s Reader has a staff of twelve working all hours of the day in an ugly brick building on the corner of Main Street, right across from a coffee shop you’re 65% sure is a front for black market antiques but it’s also the only place that doesn’t judge the ungodly amount of sugar you pour in your drink so. Until that percentage rises up to 100%, you reckon it’s alright giving them a pass in the meantime.

In a time where a quick search on your phone or computer can answer any conceivable question you have in seconds, the residents of Wader's Rest are strangely protective of their newspaper. Like, Gollum my precious! kind of protective. The most likely reason is probably because the internet access out here is so painfully slow it’s practically nonexistent, but you like to think they actually look forward to reading your column. No more writing about baking contests and music festivals, not when you’ve discovered the addictive adrenaline rush of investigating the many, many, many crimes of Wader's Rest. Nothing else gets your blood pumping as much as witnessing an illegal exchange of weapons in the back parking lot of a Wendy’s. 

So it isn’t uncommon then, to spend your nights crouched behind dumpsters (or sometimes even inside them) or picking locks or doing other shady-as-hell-if-you-had-any-other-job activities in order to gather all the facts and details you need to write the perfect piece for your loyal readers. Insert inspiring quote here like fortune favors the bold or whatever.

It also isn’t uncommon for your nights to end either in the hospital or covered in so many bandages it looks like you spent the night in the hospital. You’re on a first name basis with most of the staff, including Dr. William Garin who’s got such vibrant crystal blue eyes he could’ve been a glasses modeler in another life. Shame he’s got such overwhelming heart-eyes for your boss or you’d be severely tempted to shoot your shot.

Anyways.

See, the problem is, you’re not exactly a master of subtlety yet, and also some of your column subjects don’t always appreciate being watched like they’re zoo animals—they appreciate it even less when you point out that conducting their illegal business in creepy alleyways and abandoned warehouses doesn’t magically make them invisible. Really, any Average Joe could stroll right in and watch the proceedings.

You grunt, head banging against a cement wall so hard you see stars. A meaty fist tightens its grip on your shirt, holding you high enough the toes of your sneakers barely scuff the ground, while the owner of that fist—so massively muscular he’s more of a grizzly bear than a man—glares down at you through narrowed eyes.

Yeah, all those Average Joes really don’t know the fun they're missing out on. Concussions plus bruised, possibly cracked ribs equal exciting times

“Hey Big Mac,” you wheeze, blinking until your vision’s more or less clear and his unimpressed face swims into focus. “Did you get more muscles? You look like you got more muscles.”

If possible, his unimpressed look increases. 

Big Mac’s been a recurring foe since your first week in Wader's Rest when you went out for a midnight McDonald’s run—you have a weak spot for their McFlurries, alright?—and discovered him throwing bricks at the neighboring weed shop’s front window. Where he got the sack of bricks remains a mystery, but upon shattering the glass he was in and out in a matter of thirty seconds with an armful of edibles before disappearing into the darkness of night. You’d been so stunned by the whole ordeal not only had you forgotten to call the police, but your McFlurry had melted before you’d even tasted it.

You’ve lost count at this point how many times he’s been featured in one of your columns. Big Mac’s like a really nasty stain on a white shirt, impossible to ignore, but he’s also smooth as fucking butter, sliding out of cuffs before any charges can stick. You don’t even know the giant’s real name (don’t care to learn it either, the nicknames you hand out like free candy add some extra pizazz to the writing)—just that he likes edibles and that when he’s not breaking store windows he can usually be found working as a henchman for any one of the twenty something crime lords in the city. Apparently they don’t mind sharing lackeys so long as there’s no loose lips. Snitches wind up in ditches after all. 

Tonight you’ve interrupted a clandestine meeting in the factory district between Big Mac and a new fellow you’d decided to call Stringbean due to his lithe frame—you never claimed to be creative with your nicknaming ability. All it took was accidentally knocking over a trash can with a deafening bang and here you are, helpless as an overturned turtle, hoping you can talk your way out of this predicament with as little bloodshed as possible.

The telltale cocking of a gun immediately dampens those hopes.

Both you and Big Mac look to the sound, finding Stringbean aiming a pistol your direction. He’s a nervous-looking thing, sweat shining on his brow, and there’s few things in life as scarily unpredictable as a twitchy man with a loaded gun. 

“What are you doing,” Big Mac rumbles without any inflection in his tone.

“We agreed no witnesses,” is the breathy, slightly nasally response. Nothing about Stringbean–aside from the weapon in his hands–screams bad guy. He’s thin, bespectacled, suit too neatly pressed like it’s his Sunday best clothes. You estimate him lasting about a week before the bigger sharks gobble him up and spit out his—you squint, oh good lord—his bumblebee patterned bow tie as the only evidence of his existence. 

“Witness?” you pipe up. “Witness to what exactly? Care to shed some light–ugh!”

The rest of your sentence ends in another choked wheeze as Big Mac shoves you against the wall again. Yep, something’s definitely broken in your body now. He’s not even looking at you, the bastard, like you’re not even a worthy enough threat to keep an eye on for any devious tricks.

Instead, Big Mac says something to Stringbean, probably some kind of grumbling threat about tearing Stringbean’s head from his shoulders if he doesn’t put the gun away, but the thunderous whooshing of blood in your ears prevents you from hearing if that’s right or not. It’s a good line though, the kind of line that tempts you to sneak it into your draft and hope your boss doesn’t cross it out with that damn red pen of hers, possessing a special sixth sense for sniffing out bullshit.

Stringbean retorts something that’s also lost on you–God, you really need to invest in a tape recorder, or some sort of phone app–but whatever he says has Big Mac dropping you without warning, lunging at the smaller man like a lion after a mouse. You fall on your hands and knees with a faint yelp, gritting your teeth at the instant blooms of pain shooting along your nerve endings. It takes you a second to collect yourself, but it’s a second too long to have wasted, remembering too late how dangerous your situation is—

Bang.

A scream escapes you, cowering against the wall in a scrunched up ball. Big Mac’s lying on the ground, unmoving, a chunk of his shoulder missing and gallons of blood gushing out like a damn river. Oh shit. Oh holy fucking shit. Stringbean’s on the cusp of hyperventilating, seeming unable to process his own actions, and then those anxious, too-wide eyes lock onto you. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“I’m sorry,” Stringbean says, and he actually sounds sincere. But the effect is immediately dulled when he lines up the gun directly with your face.

One would think, being mere seconds from a bullet entering your brain, that you’d have some kind of epiphany about the meaning of life. See flashes from your childhood, hear an angelic chorus, that kinda thing. The odds aren’t in your favor. There’s no healing from a headshot at this close range. You are going to die and the only stupid fucking thing you can think about is that damn catchy jingle.

Squeezing your eyes shut, words tumble out of your mouth at a frantic speed, “Anytime, anyplace, anywhere Statesman is there!”

Stringbean pulls the trigger.

—

Statesman designing a new kind of workers compensation insurance specifically catered for your risky lifestyle had been your boss’ idea. She knew the head guy of the company, some old bearded fellow straight out of a Wild West Eastwood movie called Champagne (no last name, just like Cher), pulled a couple of strings (which is probably code for glared him into submission), handed you a pen, got your signature, and boom—as of three days ago, Lin proudly informed you “You’re completely covered. Cuts, broken bones, rabid squirrel attacks, the whole shebang. Now get out of my office.”

You’d liked your old insurance and had been quite happy with their care, thank you very much. But there’s no arguing with Lin when she gets that glint in her eye like some kind of bird of prey. And besides, forcing insurance on you is a sign she cares, right? That’s what you’ll keep telling yourself anyways.

The commercials are enjoyable, you can admit that at least. Especially the ones where there’s some kind of dangerous situation involving rampaging bison or avalanches or whatnot and the agent, whose uniform includes a leather jacket and cowboy hat, swoops in to the rescue after the poor would-be victims shout out the jingle Anytime, anyplace, anywhere Statesman is there!, then teleports everyone to safety.

Entertaining? Yes. 

Realistic? Hell no.

—

There’s a high-pitched ringing in your ears, rattling around inside your skull. 

“—ime for this. Get up.”

Huh? Who’s that? 

“I don’t like repeating myself. Get. Up.”

Oh no. Eyes still shut, your hands search for a wound, for blood, patting all over your head, then your chest and torso. Nothing. Fuck, you’ve died and crossed over into the afterlife. That’s why there’s no injury or pain. Your life is over. The end. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. You can’t—

Something hard hits your leg. “You’re still alive.”

Your eyes snap open, surroundings blurring into focus. You’re in the warehouse still. Stringbean’s on the floor near Big Mac, sightless blue eyes staring back at you, a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead revealing blood and bone and brain matter. Immediately you avert your gaze, tasting bile in the back of your throat, and it’s only then you see the pair of boots by your legs.

A man stands over you, dressed in a leather jacket and jeans with soft-looking, unstyled brown hair and a stubbled jawline sharp enough to give papercuts. The words ruggedly handsome come to mind and stay there, banishing all other thoughts. Brown eyes so dark they’re verging on black stare down at you beneath furrowed brows, the perfect image of silent judgment. What the hell. He might just be the most attractive person you’ve ever seen, beating Dr. Pretty Eyes Garin by fucking leagues.

“Did you just kick me?” you ask before you can stop yourself, rising to your feet. Your head barely reaches his chest—a very broad chest, you can’t help noticing, leather straining at the shoulders to contain him—and you have to crane your head up to continue meeting his dull, half-lidded gaze.

“You weren’t listening,” says the stranger with a voice like the scrape of a butter knife on toast. Your heartbeat stutters, discovering a new favorite sound, and it takes you an embarrassingly long moment to realize you’re staring at his mouth with way more intensity than a person should look at another person’s mouth.

“Uh, yeah, well I-I thought I was dead. He was going to shoot me.” Your eyes drift towards Stringbean again, frowning at the gun in his hand. It doesn’t look like a pistol anymore, metal mangled and warped. “What the hell?”

“Backfired on him. Rare, but it happens.” He shrugs a shoulder, unconcerned, like he’s seen a thousand bloody incidents and he’s numb to the gore. And that’s…a scary thought to consider.

“Right...” You eye him a bit more critically now, taking in the scar dissecting his eyebrow. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“I didn’t throw it.”

Irritation flares, momentarily overtaking the budding apprehension. It brushes against your journalist instincts, insisting you’re missing something here. “Alright, Mr. Nameless, do you want to at least explain what exactly you’re doing here in the middle of the night?”

“Same as you. Work,” he answers curtly, glancing at his wrist where an expensive-looking watch is wrapped around the tan skin. Your fingers twitch with the urge to touch. “When I’m called, I show up. No matter the time or place.” His eyes flicker around the room with thinly veiled disgust. “Even if it means coming to shitholes like this.”

He goes where he’s called? That’s an interesting and ominous choice of phrasing. What is he, some kind of hitman or secret agent or—

Wait a minute.

Dangerous situation. Popping up out of nowhere. Wearing a leather jacket. Your life is saved despite all the odds stacked against you.

Understanding hits like one of Big Mac’s bricks, finally connecting the dots together and good lord it’s so fucking obvious you fully deserve the forehead slap you give yourself. “Holy shit the jingle actually worked.”

His scarred eyebrow lifts. “What?”

“How did I not know this was a real thing?” you half-ask, half-demand, hands settling on your hips. “You’re proof teleportation is fucking real! I feel like this is something more people should be talking about. Unless…Unless not everyone has this kind of coverage. Oh my God, is this some kind of extra health protection bundle attached to my new contract written in the fine print?” 

That stupidly attractive eyebrow lifts even higher.

“Don’t give me that look. Nobody under seventy-five reads all those tiny words, especially when the whole stack is five hundred pages front and back. All those poor trees…Also,” you point an accusing finger, “you’re missing a cowboy hat so I really can’t be blamed for not recognizing you.”

“A cowboy hat?” His face screws up at that, and somehow he makes the expression of someone who stepped in dog shit look attractive. Seriously, how is this guy even real? “I’d rather die than wear one of those.”

You stare at him, slack-jawed at his bluntness. “First of all, too soon, man, too soon. There are dead bodies literally right there. And secondly, wow,” a smidge of awe slips into your tone, “you must have some balls, rebelling against the big boss man like that.”

Oh to have been a fly on the wall seeing Champagne’s reaction to the refusal to comply with the uniform policy. You’d only met the old man for a hot second, but considering his love of westerns it wouldn’t surprise you if he challenged his opponents to quick-fire duels at high noon. Water guns or foam pellets instead of actual bullets, of course. He might gargle with bourbon and use a spittoon, but that doesn’t mean he’s a total heathen.

You snort a quiet laugh, then wince at the ache in your rib cage. Oh, yeah. There’s that fun pain again. The nameless agent turns away with what you think is an eye roll, but it’s too fast to tell, and looks down at Big Mac and Stringbean.

“I-I guess I need to call the police,” you say quietly, stomach churning when a sideways glance reveals a growing pool of blood beneath the bodies. Scary to think how close you’d been to being one of them.

“If it makes you stop talking to me, go right ahead,” your companion quips, uncaring of the scoff he gets for it. 

You find your bag by the trash can you’d hidden behind before Big Mac seized you. Bag is a generous term for the accessory that’s more duct tape than fabric after being dropped, kicked, and run over amongst other unfortunate fates. Still, it does a good job of carrying your stuff so you’ll keep on stubbornly holding onto it until the bitter end.

Pulling out your phone, you open the keypad only for the whistling notes of a song to have you freezing in place. Literally, your body feels like it’s become a block of ice, goosebumps rising along your exposed skin. As surreptitiously as you can manage, you sneak a glance at the agent, and it shouldn’t be fair how someone can look so seductive with puckered lips while whistling such an eerily haunting tune. The sheer contrast is enough to make your brain hurt.

Or maybe that’s a side effect of your skull smacking against the wall.

“Did you forget it’s three numbers?” he says abruptly, startling you, and the way he’s now looking at you gives the distinct impression he thinks you’re an idiot. “Two, technically, since one repeats itself–”

“I know what to do,” you snap defensively, turning back to your phone with a huff. Deliberately you slam your thumb against the three buttons, but find yourself hesitating to press call.

Looking up, you find the nameless agent already staring back at you. His head tilts, displaying the same confusion of a dog not understanding their owner’s behavior. It’s…almost ridiculously cute.

“Thanks for, um, being here and stuff,” you tell him, barely restraining yourself from doing something awkward like giving a thumbs up.

He blinks, a flash of something you think resembles surprise crossing his face, and then he’s back to blankness. “I had to come,” he replies.

“Well, yeah, ‘cause of the magic jingle,” you wave a flippant hand, words tumbling out faster than you can keep up with them, “but still, it’s nice, you know, having someone to watch your back, even if I don’t know who you are–”

The sound of your name has your jaw shutting with an audible click. For a second time you think about the unfairness of the situation. He has access to your file, knows your name and personal details, and what do you get to know about him? Bupkis.

“...Yes?”

“Make the phone call,” he says, an edge of amusement in his voice that produces a funny warm feeling in your stomach. Nausea, you decide, that must be it.

Grumbling under your breath, you look back to your phone and finally hit the button, listening to it ring. 

“See,” you say, purposefully smug, turning around, “I’m not an idiot–”

The man is gone. 

Didn’t even say goodbye, the ill-mannered jerk.

And as the operator picks up, asking what’s your emergency, you can’t help but think your insurance agent is a bit of an enigmatic asshole. All intimidating and sour-faced to ward off unwanted attention. Probably thrives off confusing his clients like he’s some kind of damn Rubik’s cube personified. 

Which is good for you since you thrive off of solving mysteries and inserting your nose where it doesn’t belong. You’ll know his name, his birthdate, hell, his entire history by the end of the week.

You eat Rubik’s cubes for breakfast.

#pero tovar #pero tovar fanfiction #pero tovar x reader #pero tovar x you #the great wall fanfiction #pedro pascal character fanfiction #pedrostories #my fic #my writing

[fluffer5]

Reverse Summoning

Technically, this is my 7th Humans Are Space Orcs even though this is more of interdimensial summoning...

Anyways, more fun to think how terrifying we can be I guess...

So, I've seen one story prompt like this in the past but forgot where and who wrote it. This one would center more on the "what if we are summoned on a place kinda similar to Earth but seems more magical and is also stuck in the Renaissance or Medieval period?"

Cuz I've seen a post on TikTok saying "What if Earth had rings like Jupiter and other planets? What if those rings would be space rocks due to our close proximity to the sun? Our internet connection would go poof! and even if we have satellites, the transmission to Earth would buffer due to the magnetic disturbances possibly emitted by said space rocks".

Such is why I wrote this asking myself, what if humans are sorta classified into legendary creatures that could do a lot of things despite our weak looking bodies?

So, sorta like the usual isekai summoning but with the fact that they need to put certain "elements" to get the human familiar that they want though it doesn't translate well to our language, thus, they still get to have randomized humans qualities. Example: Earth, time, patience where they wanted someone as sturdy as the Earth, could manipulate time, and have patience for serving them equates to a farmer.

You get the gist of it lol.

Imagine this scenario… you are someone with an abnormal sleeping schedule due to a major project with an approaching deadline. You've been drinking caffeine and various energy drinks to the point that your stomach, liver, and kidneys would cry and curse you if they could speak. Your nerves are frazzled and your anxiety level is through the roof to the point that one wrong move could either send you through an enormous breakdown or a volcanic meltdown.

You were down to the last details of your project, the most crucial moment where you can finally end your torture and pass out on your bed for hours on end when suddenly, engravings appeared under your working area and a bright light was the last thing you saw as you cursed at the world for suddenly feeling faint (a side effect of the summoning) to the point that you felt as if you're hallucinating the bright engravings on your floor because ain't no way you have a shining marker anywhere near your table.

On the other side, a creature with humanoid features and chicken bird wings (nah, just kidding… the summoner have wings similar to a hummingbird) was feeling sweaty from the length of time it was taking for you to be summoned. Other people surrounding them was also waiting in anticipation.

Note that in their world, the longer the length of summoning, the higher the resistance force of the summoned being (yes, we can resist), and this means the greater the summon's capabilities are.

When the children (they look almost like us but due to their constant use of the leylines had certain additional features on their bodies, as featured with the chiken wings of the summoner) finally saw a body drop on top of the large summoning sigil.

They all held their breath as you gathered yourself from the disorientation.

They could see someone whose flesh isn't covered by scaled or hardened by muscles. No signs of any crystal either which is needed to harness the power of their leyline energy. To be honest, the summoned familiar looked as if its on the verge of death (looking zombified from the stress). They feel like you're about to keel over at any moment and instead of a summon, they'd have a corpse to clean up.

Of course, you, feeling delirious at the plethora of unique looking creatures, still sleep-deprived, and absolutely pissed off from suddenly being taken away from your work looked at them with bloodshot eyes and launched off a tirade of curse words that goes down to at least the 3rd generation of their family.

They know a few of our language given that they have attempted the same ritual over the past few years (though depending on the leyline used, time either goes too fast or too slow in our world, in other words it's more of a time travel hotspot).

They could understand words like "intestines" and "murder" and "deadline" and "kill" but the other words feel more different (the last summon that agreed to teach them was a pissed off Russian woman who was inwardly cackling as she incorporated a lot of random words that didn't match her place of origin as she's very happy to screw with people who are wasting her quiet time with her beloved wine).

The teacher though… the more he's looking at the translation orb in his hand, the more he feels the blood drain from his face.

They did summon someone important. Someone resilient and capable. Someone who's been able to go through harsh moments and still smile as they work through an entire cycle of hatred and cursing of their self, life, and world.

The greatest familiars usually come from what you call as "procrastinators".

Well, procrastinators are their own breed of legendary so it's not as if they're wrong.

Still, the summoning teacher felt like quitting that very moment when said summon brandished a sharpened pencil as you charged towards them shouting how you'll rip them limb from limb with a fudgin pencil if you have to.

Violence was one of the things in your mind and spite was the only thing left fueling your deranged soul as you chanted, "You messed with the wrong person, b!tch!" before diving forward at the squawking student who immediately casted defensive shields...

That shield did help deter you for a bit before you heaved, rounded them, and internalized all hate in your soul and stabbed the pointy end of your pencil at their mighty shield, laughing like a wild hyena as you watch the barrier crack open like your last piggy bank when you're left with no money in your pocket.

Their screams were glorious!

.

.

.

.

The school finally banned calling onto procrastinators until further containment considerations on their part after they sent home a crying, plucked humanoid hummingbird.

#humans are amazing #humans are awesome #humans are crazy #humans are space australians #humans are insane #humans are deathworlders #humans are space oddities #Summoners #humans are strange #human nature #humans are terrifying #humans are weird #humans are space orcs #humans are space fae #humans and aliens #people being people #who wouldn't be pissed off #If I go down you're going down with me #Fight or flight #Stressed humans would choose fight #Send us back or you'll taste the wrath of a stressed human #Otherworlders #ley lines #Magic #Isekai #Summoning #Reverse summoning #Thou shall not piss off humans

[swearyshera]

So we are at the end of the road on something that has always been about the journey, not the destination.  I’ve taken my time to gather some thoughts.  This blog has meant a lot to many people, not the least of which is me.  I’ve had a hard time these last few years – I think it’s been hard times for everyone, in one way or another.  Personally, I seem to remember discovering this blog not too long before I had a breakdown and handled it very poorly, making bad decisions that cost me a lot of friends, or at least people whom I thought were my friends up until a breaking point.  (Your blog was unrelated to this).  When I came out of hospitalization I had a few things to rely upon – a video therapy group was one, certain family members and, well, as silly as it sounds, hitting up tumblr for my daily dose of Sweary She-Ra to make me laugh. And then in mid-January, 2023, one of the people who was closest to me in my entire life died suddenly of technically unknown cause but considering his health issues, probably a heart-issue. It was sudden and devastating.  We shared She-Ra and the Princesses of Power together because he was kind of curious about it and I was a nostalgia-fan of the ‘80s series.  We both became massive fans of Entrapta.  In fact, my nephew / best friend got me into the fandom in the first place because he had a silly idea for a fanfic about Entrapta wrecking havoc in the Fright Zone just post first-season and had little confidence in his fanfic writing, but decided to pass along said idea to me, an inveterate fic-writer for many fandoms.  I was put through the wringer this year – it’s the first time I’ve been in partial charge of a memorial service.  I am feeling better now than I did at the beginning of this year because I’ve found the strength to keep doing things that he and I liked to do together and time helps.  And again, in all of this, I had a silly little comic where a sparkly purple princess calls people “twattingler,” others make liberal use of the word that originally meant Fornication Under Consent of the King, one character swears all the time but apologizes for it, one character is contractually obligated to use Ned Flanders style cursing and there’s a fourth wall breaker and an incompetent boss with indecipherable accent and Marxist unicorns and all the rest.  No matter what was happening with my emotions I could just… take a little break and look at the funny fancomic.  Sweary She-Ra for me has been like a warm mug of tea on a cold day or a bowl of baked macaroni and cheese with a butter-cracker crust made out of the old 1960-70 something Betty Crocker cookbook.  It’s been Internet comfort food that has been sorely needed at times.  So thank you.  I just want to thank you for this funny little fan project.  I don’t think you have any idea how much it has meant to your audience.  @freedfromthegalactichivemind

And I don't know if the audience has any idea how much it has meant to me!

When I started this, things were pretty shit, weren't they? Here in the UK we'd just come out of the second Covid Lockdown, with the third expected to happen imminently; the weather was miserable, we'd barely seen our friends in months, the world in general just sucked. And I'd love to say that I felt a calling to break through that with some humour, but no... it was nothing like that. This is what happened...

And so it all went from there.

I almost just went for random scenes as I thought of them, rather than starting from the beginning. But I thought "Eh, fuck it, let's see how far I get", and the rest is history.

Even as the storylines got more complex (bear in mind, I started purely with the intention to do the original script with a few swear words peppered in), I always wanted to keep things upbeat. The painful moments are those 'this is the good stuff, hurt me more' moments rather than actually horrifying things - I know there's been a couple of exceptions, but in general it's held true.

But I've always been driven by one thing - the world isn't very funny right now; it's stressful, sometimes downright terrifying. And if I can alleviate that for ten, twenty seconds per day and make that tiny bit of difference to someone, then I consider that a job done. I'm not out here claiming to have the cure for depression, or some kind of plan to save the world, but I (hopefully) can make a few people smile in the midst of all the shit that's happening, even if it's just for a moment.

So much has changed in the last three years, but this blog has been such a central part of my world, it'll be weird when it's over (maybe that's why I don't want to stop there!). But if this coming Friday really is the last chapter in this part of my life, I'll still be happy that it happened. And if you've ever smiled or laughed at the blog, I'm happy that happened as well.

#sweary she-ra origin story

[schismusic]

Joy Division, or: how I learned to stop worrying and love New Order, too

Spring is weird as hell because one time you have this glaring sun that powers you up like being plugged into a wall outlet, then not five minutes later clouds begin to gather and you feel like you're going to die if anything goes south. So the most obvious combination to represent two sides of this same coin, emotional and meteorological, is Joy Division and New Order.

Sometimes you need Transmission or Shadowplay for the sunny days — impassioned jolts, sparks flying everywhere. Sometimes The Perfect Kiss hits harder on a cloudy afternoon, coming back home and in need of that extra push to not fall asleep in the train. It's surprising to realize the versatility displayed by both bands, or the same band in two different iterations according to whomever you ask. Peter Hook says, as late as 1993, that the laziest member of New Order is Ian Curtis. Or again this other person, in the comments under the Atmosphere official video on YouTube, who went to see New Order (Hooky-less New Order, which might be a relevant distinction) at the O2 Arena a couple of years ago and they gave an encore, says "Those of us who stayed got the privilege of watching Joy Division perform three of their songs". Interesting outlook on the matter. I personally saw Peter Hook and the Light play both Joy Division records and, I'm pretty sure, an encore comprised of just Love Will Tear Us Apart at the Arti Vive Festival in Soliera, back when it was still free to attend some of the events. I remember being pretty mad that Hooky had stopped to take pics with basically everyone and then left exactly as I was approaching. In retrospect I don't exactly blame the man, it was like midnight anyway. I remember nothing of the back trip home.

My first contact with Joy Division happened when I was thirteen and very much in my prog era. I was in Rome staying at an aunt of mine's place for my fourteenth birthday and she told me I could get a CD, since I had gotten some money saved up over time. Some Facebook page dedicated to Pink Floyd I'd liked (yeah, Facebook at age thirteen — I literally just wanted to play a fucking Flash game, back when Facebook allowed them, and I ended up getting to be terminally online. Crazy how things turn out) used to share a lot of memes and fanart relating to the Unknown Pleasures album cover, and me being a massive Pink Floyd head at the time I thought "I mean, if these guys are pushing this band so hard, that's gotta mean something". The album cover was pretty striking, admittedly: a far cry from the paisley ass paintings that I had grown to accept as the gold standard for the music I liked, but its simplicity struck a chord closer to The Dark Side of the Moon, or perhaps The Wall. Those were records I liked a lot, probably called them "the best records ever made" to more than one person, not like they aren't but that's a very bold statement to make when your listening experience consists exactly of

Madonna's Confessions on a Dance Floor when I was six;

Daft Punk's complete discography (minus Random Access Memories, which wasn't out yet) when I was twelve;

Pink Floyd's complete discography, courtesy of a CD collection coming out with some Italian newspaper, that same year;

a couple random classic rock records recommended to me by older friends and relatives usually well into their fifties or sixties at the time, random people on Internet forums — which, for clarification, I did not actively attend, preferring to just lurk from time to time — and the OndaRock "milestones" page.

So browsing through the surprisingly expansive CDs section of this electronics shop in Rome, and being mesmerized by a vinyl rack in the days when Music on Vinyl was the final frontier of pretending you could re-analogue the digital ("you mean to tell me these are like CDs, but bigger? Whoever designed these truly lived in the future"), I came across that very same album art that had stricken me so hard. I had listened to the first seconds of the album on YouTube, but that weird drum sound — so echoey, so distant, ultimately not particularly powerful, meaning it didn't really sound like Bonzo: it sounded more like my own band, which at the time didn't even exist yet — I didn't really know what to make of. This store I was in had one of those preview listening machines that would scan the barcode on the CDs and give you a small snippet of the song. I pull the CD up to the scanner, the scanner lights up green, I put on the headphones and the solo from this comes up:

Clearly they had to be kidding me. I had come to know, sneaking into infinitely many rehearsals with the band from my mother's town, what it sounded like when someone tried to play lead without something else filling up the arrangement (even though I didn't really know all that, or at least lacked the vocabulary to properly express it) and, for Christ's sake, didn't these guys notice rehearsing? It sounded empty, weirdly so, and it wasn't my thing, I thought. I put that CD away and picked up a band I knew I'd like — Genesis, specifically. So Nursery Cryme became the first CD I've ever paid with my own money, the very day I turned fourteen. Not a bad pickup. I remember being very impressed with the fast blurring lead guitar on The Musical Box and digging the sweet pastoral atmospheres of For Absent Friends and Harlequin. I still think of that record more often than one would probably assume looking at this blog, or my most played on Spotify. At the time, that was the best move I could take, really: why beat my head against a record that, as your average prog nerd ballbreaker, simply wasn't speaking to me?

Then all of a sudden in August of the same year my friend's dad hands me a 16 gigabyte USB drive, full of random music from all eras of rock. A lot of it remains inscrutable to me for a really long time, most notably Tom Waits (see related post), but I spent the whole month reading random folder names, seeing if something catches my eyes, and at one point I come across the Mars Volta. Open the folder up, read the names of their first three records, and my first thought is "Christ, these guys look incomprehensible. I'm about to have some fun". Long story short: I end up having a lot of fun, the Mars Volta turns into my favourite band at the time and finding out that they had previously been called At the Drive-In makes me gain some measure of respect for punk rockers: if they tried hard enough, I must've thought, they could prog as hard as anyone. In the meantime the ghost of Joy Division remains at the back of my head. I feel like I'm missing something, for the first time in my life: it's not them, it's me. Too bad that same realization didn't occur to me when it came to the people in my life until much, much later, but that's being fourteen for you I suppose. Early King Crimson and the Mars Volta were the pinnacle of violence to me, and not even the very few Metallica songs I'd downloaded just to see what would happen scratched that itch. It felt a bit too cauterized for some reason (I would later find out I had been looking in the wrong direction the whole time: the Black Album "sucked", according to my favourite metalhead of the time, who somehow catalyzed my interest from the very second I saw him in the school's courtyard. Hard to imagine why I would imprint on people like puppies do, but what the fuck, not like I've ever outgrown that anyway, I've just gotten better at managing it). But I felt there was more than violence to this, or different forms of violence. When Christmas came around and my relatives tried to get me presents, my mother asked if there was anything specific I was interested in, and I basically told her "look, if they can get me some CDs off of this list, I'm golden". It had some bangers on it, namely Noctourniquet by the Mars Volta — it's one of their best and I will die on this hill, be warned — and The Downward Spiral, which might as well warrant its own post in an ideal world. But the best of them all I think came from a random purchase, once again with the little money I had lying around at the time.

Closer appears to be, right away, a bit more concrete, and if there's something inexperienced music fans like is a pretty packaging that conjures a strong emotional response before they've even played the record. Compare a color-inverted graph of pulsar emissions to a literal funerary monument. Opening up the booklet I was shocked to see that Genesis was used as a negative point of comparison (bad omen, I thought) by people close to the band, and I came across much more detailed information about Ian Curtis's untimely demise — at that time, something far too removed from my experience to be faced with the delicacy and attention it deserves. Atrocity Exhibition hits like a ten-ton truck, a reference which at the time I wouldn't have been able to make for obvious reasons, and Isolation exposes all the nerve tissue under the skin. Passover comes in and strips everything even barer, and then A Means to an End turns… danceable, for some reason? Big emotional moment with The Eternal and Decades, which I thought actually took them closer to my usual tastes. And yet at the same time I kept looking at Colony, Heart and Soul and Twenty Four Hours as the most compelling cuts. Geometric assault sounding like sheet metal if it were music; rhythmically driven emptiness that serves as a minimal backdrop for depressed poetry, and finally a rocking ebb-and-flow that would probably inform a lot of my interest in GY!BE-like post-rock in the coming years. Very interesting to think that the same guys who'd done Unknown Pleasures could think of this. To this day, when asked, I still do think that Closer is the best Joy Division record, but what does it even mean when the records are exactly two, compilations notwithstanding?

It was around this time that it came to my attention that both Joy Division and another band called New Order had a record called Substance out, both published by the same recording company, both coming out within a year of each other. Looking it up, it turns out it's fully intentional, because New Order is simply Joy Division minus Ian Curtis. It would turn out to be a tad bit more complex than that. Anyway, I look New Order up and kind of have to do a double-take. Synthpop? In my Joy Division? More likely than you'd think, considering Isolation exists. But yeah, that sort of seals it — I wouldn't care about this New Order for a million years. Until all of a sudden a couple of years later David Sylvian bursts like a comet in my face, which of course leads me straight to Japan, the same year as I'd come across Berlin-era Bowie, and you can probably guess where this is going, right?

Well, you'd be wrong. I still don't check out New Order. There's a whole new world open to me — vaporwave and therefore R Plus Seven come to my attention, which leads me to dissect that record like an alien tool of unclear purposes. This of course leads me onto an ambient tangent, taking me back to my Tim Hecker listens of that same year, which has the effect of renewing my interest in "pure" electronic music and the then-rising post-dubstep movement. The sheer experience of sound, the dazzling modernity and innovation, is what's in at the time. I have no time for nostalgia-pandering dimwits: the future awaits. Then all that jazz from the first Godflesh post hits, then God pulls the funniest gag in the history of viral infections to my memory, and I have some time to actually look back, a bit less prejudiced. As it turns out, synthpop is not the devil, as some of you might have surmised by now, and as I relisten to Blue Monday I realized I have never listened to either of the Substance record. I do know some, most perhaps?, of the tracks on the Joy Division one, and I do think the New Order one has the more striking cover art — not to mention I knew, by this time, that this was the one to give Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance its name, and that Your Silent Face soundtracked one of the most memorable moments in Nicolas Winding Refn's Bronson. As the ultimate Hideo Kojima stan, I couldn't let this slide, so I pop the record on and get hit with this:

Way to go, guys. Holy shit. I knew that Ceremony was a Joy Division cut before they could record it, but what the hell — Bernard got it, too. It wasn't a matter of singing ability with songs like these, it's just getting it, finding the right energy. They had that right energy. And then it hit me just as many times these dudes have made Blue Monday over and over again before actually getting it right, and everytime I look into it it's funnier and funnier to realize just how many different attempts it took them to finally be Kraftwerk, but augmented — with the stellar results we all know. Everything's Gone Green, 5 8 6, Temptation potentially, all lead up to this one moment in the history of dance music where somehow three dudes and a girl hailing from Manchester managed to out-gay the Pet Shop Boys (by their own admission, apparently), to shake the whole world's collective booty, to do whatever it is they were supposed to do in this last comparison that would ideally make the previous one a bit less obnoxious but whatever, it's 3am as usual, you know how it goes by now don't you? But then after Blue Monday the record keeps going, and thank god it does, because it's banger after banger. How do these guys keep doing it?

So I spend some time with that record, then it fades down, then it comes back up last month, when the weather calls for it and its parent company. Which is when I find myself watching the Control movie for the first time, surprisingly enough seeing as I already enjoyed the work of Anton Corbijn as a photographer. Looking at all that, it is revealed to me that Joy Division never really having died is not a bug, it's a feature. Everyone is gasping, I get it, but please pick your jaws up and check this out: the band has never learned how to play their respective instruments. One might go so far as to argue they play their own stuff their own way, and that's basically it. Nothing could be further from the truth. These guys jammed, a lot; that's how Joy Division wrote songs, that's how New Order wrote songs, even going as far as having Bernard Sumner fucked up on acid so he could find the chorus to Temptation or the whole band bombed out of their minds on X in Ibiza clubs to write, basically, the entirety of Technique — and even then, not really, there's a couple jangly tracks that the X would most likely render unlistenable but what do I really know? Point being: it might now have been sparked by a music teacher or instructor, it might not have been the product of a process comparable to that within Television, which led them to organically seek out better, more "by the book" musicianship, but New Order were incredibly familiar with their instruments, had formed an element of comfort and understanding that counterbalanced the alien-ness to music terminology.

Peter Hook recently uploaded a Yamaha-sponsored video to his Instagram, which I am pretty sure has a say in running, where he jams on a Yamaha bass and, you know, it sounds like Hooky alright, but it's never a discernible bassline until he kicks into the A major strumming that opens Love Will Tear Us Apart. Before that, he just strolls around the neck, leisurely strumming away at power chords imbued with that thick chorus and reverb combo he became renowned for. I would never, in my wildest dreams, have imagined I'd find myself thinking "okay, awesome, stop talking — I want to hear you jam a bit more" referring to one of the musicians who were part of possibly two of the craziest storiest in the history of contemporary rock'n'roll, also notorious for playing the rockstar whilst carrying the minimum possible baggage of technical knowledge he could. Once again, this is nowhere near a knock to the man — quite the opposite. Ian Curtis asked "persistence, well, what does it matter?", and Hooky (and, of course, the other members of New Order) found a way to constructively answer that question. Moments before Coil, but a bit later than Israel Regardie, they said "persistence is all" and built a brand on finding a way to consistently sound like splendid, eternal, golden children: "like crystal", impassionate, tightly-knit performers with the purity of a child's heart. Ian Curtis had, in certain ways (at least artistically), the purity of a child in his heart, which some might even argue was a distinguishing feature of most of his literary idols — if you think about it, William Burroughs could be your dirty-minded classmate who walked in on his parents sharing an intimate moment in the bedroom (had his parents been gay men, the metaphor would probably fly better, but that most definitely wasn't the case). So the heart of Joy Division remains untouched, if a bit more naked. Heroes of post-punk, sons of the silent age, you can sleep soundly tonight.

#schismusic #music #musica #long form content #schism writing #joy division #new order #post punk #new wave #Youtube

[vanshookie]

Pairing: Nanami Kento/reader

Word Count: 5865 words

Summary: Moving into a new town is anxiety inducing, but it helps when kindness of strangers occurs.

Content/Warnings: Slice of Life, Drabbles, Fluff, sprinkles of Angst, Gender Neutral

Series Masterlist

No matter how organised one can be, moving house is always super stressful. You could fine tune every detail and likely something will still go wrong. And due to the high pressure of moving, even just a coffee order going wrong could shoot up blood pressure.

However, despite your organisational prowess, you still had everything going wrong. The rain was heavy, everyone cancelled and you can’t even have a instant coffee due to the fact that you packed absolutely everything last night.

The goal was to handle as much as possible before people came to help. Making sure to pack everything up and sealed them tight in the early hours of today. It was to avoid making anyone work too hard but now has come to haunt you. With no one here to help, the only person who benefits from your all nighter is apparently you.

You were not feeling like it helped as you feel the disks in your back grate against each other as you try to maintain the correct lifting form in your zombie state.

Mid-way to your car you question if you even brought your keys. that was another fun part of today was the atrocious memory, you had already done this walk 5 times and forgot yours keys and this time it was a box of dry food you didn’t want to soak in the torrential rainfall.

Oxygen re-enters your lungs when you see you left your car door slightly open, ignoring the normal anxiety that internet horror stories taught you; to fear something sneaking in while you were away. You place the last box of kitchen items and slam the door happily.

Then you check your pockets for the keys. They are not there. Lucky it was open you guess… Where are they then? You quickly look to the ignition and pray you haven’t just left your keys in the car.

They are in the car.

Clearly that was the cars fault, so it is met with a swift kick and then a scream angrily echos the neighbourhood cause damn that was a good kick to smash your foot.

The place you are leaving is a high rise apartment but the parking is not under the building. It is across the street so everyone got to see you furiously yelling in the storm. Of course when you live in an area like this; no one cares.

You check all the car doors handles with anxious passion. None of them are open. You check the backseats for the horror story stalker to help you, they sadly weren’t there when needed. You check the trunk and it opens!

You shove yourself in and open the centre seat window. All you got was to see the keys in another perspective cause no way were you squishing yourself through. As you were doing this, the previous uncaring people around you when you were having the breakdown can now speak up.

The poetic phrase they jeer is “nice ass”, and normally you would have a few choice words to say and wish you could say them but life decided smacking your head while trying to get out and do that was a better alternative.

Hopping out you feel the tears to start to gather again, why is it going so wrong? Throwing up the middle finger as you walk away, you walk into the lobby of the building to the elevator.

Thankfully, unlike the car, you did not lock your apartment as nothing much to steal right now. The movers had already picked up all the large furniture and a few boxes that you did not think you could fit In your tiny car.

Thinking ahead, you only left the things that were essential and did not want to re-purchase if anything got lost. You see only three more small boxes and a few ikea and daiso bags packed with random things.

The counter was clear apart from your phone on there charger. Grabbing it you call the person you need most.

“Shokoooooo, I need youuu” you immediately cry as you hear the phone dial tone stopping.

“Sorry I can’t get to the phone right now, most like in surgery if you can’t reach me”

This is it, you finally have reached the limit. You lie flat on the ground and let the tears fall. Everything this morning was planned to a finite detail yet all you are brought is suffering.

Admitting defeat an uber is ordered. Trying to still somewhat be helpful, you type a long winded message explaining how much stuff you have and that the car will need to fit it. The driver gets there rather quickly. He introduces himself as Iijichi.

Honestly he was highlight of your day, he did not want you to carry anymore things so he told you to stay as he did the trips, leaving you with just your handbag to worry about. He came back with only sweat on his brow and a strawberry and cream lollipop.

You both do a double check together, nothing really to note apart from a few things you thought may be nice for the next tenants. Then Iijichi finds something that makes you want to return to the floor, your spare car fob.

You feel your head go red and want to faint but Iijichi helps you see the bright side. He can head to the address alongside you and help you bring the boxes in. It initially causes you to feel a bit suspicious, maybe he wants to steal your very exquisite random assortment of house supplies. However he walks the carpark and begins to move your things in from your car.

He explains during this that he actually knows a few of the people at your new place. This lifts your spirits even more!

“Oh that’s brilliant! What kind of people are my new neighbours?” You help him move some of the stuff but once again he only leaves you the easy bags to lift into the front seat.

“Hmm there’s a bunch of brilliantly minded kids and some very respectable men” He says with his eyes shifting. He sees you lift your brow again and quickly covers himself.

“The owner is kind of an obnoxious guy but he means well, however trust me that if anyone messes with you, the others will likely have your back”

“Oh that’s nice! Hopefully I fit in” You feel reassured but slight anxiety rises, it sounds like this is a very established neighbourhood, hopefully your presence does not bother them.

With that, Iijichi makes sure you are ready and wearing your belt and gets in his car, ready to follow.

———

You arrive at the apartments with several missed calls, Iijichi quickly catches up to and asks what’s the plan.

“Um I have to catch up with some calls, can I give you my keys and you start moving this?”

“Sounds good!” He smiles and begins his task.

He doesn’t even seem to need to check the keys and knows where to move your stuff.

You quickly move under the cover, near apartment 1B. The neighbourhood despite being talked up by Iijichi, is actually very quiet currently. Nobody actually seems to be home, or the eyes that you feel on you are hiding as well.

(3) missed calls, (70) messages

Oh god that’s a lot of messages, mostly from Shoko but have to prioritise the movers.

“Hey sorry for missing your call! I was driving” You quickly apologise.

“All good, i’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news but due to the weather circumstances, we can’t bring your belongings tonight but hopefully it clears up in the morning.”

“Ah okay that’s alright, there won’t be any additional costs right?”

“Not at all… apart from potential added time of travel as the cost is calculated from the hourly rate, the truck will keep your stuff untouched at the facility under cover free of charge, we should have rescheduled this morning when the weather was showing signs of storms”

“Well to be honest, im very glad you didn’t cause I had to have the place cleared tonight, I hope your workers have stay safe in the storm” You can hear your own customer service voice and cringe inwardly.

“Thank you for your kindness, will see you once the weather clears” The man ends the call and you pause,

see you once the weather clears

Does this mean that if this doesn’t clear up, you won’t get your stuff for longer. You feel a headache come on and pinch the bridge of your nose.

You hear footsteps behind you and go to greet them. Yet your phone has other plans and blasts Shoko’s personal ringtone; Barbie girl.

You fumble the phone in embarrassment, hoping that it is just Iijichi behind you to get more boxes, the being watched feeling just must be lingering anxiety.

“Shoko! You scared me, I hate the ringtone at this point” You grumble and clutch the phone to your head and hunch, acting as if anyone cares to listen to your conversation.

“(Y/N)!! You do not have room to complain! You called me earlier and it was just a voicemail saying you needed me! I’m normally very happy to have you flirting but you sounded not okay!” Shoko complains at you, you can almost hear the cigarette burning away as she neglects it on the other hand.

“Oh! I didn’t think it sent, I’m sorry” and you genuinely meant it, you knew better than to stress Shoko at work.

“Hm, I expect more apologies when I see you, you must grovel” She chides.

“I promise I will, full bow on my knees at your feet, I really didn’t mean to worry you”

You hear the steps behind you pick up again, Instead of the lovely Iijichi, it was a blonde man. He wore a tan suit and navy shirt. You feel your face go red, praying he only just showed up.

He doesn’t seem phased though and begins to also help you lift stuff, Iijichi catching up and smiling at the man and turns to you with a thumb point at the man. You shyly give a thumbs up and point to the phone.

Iijichi nods with a mock salute while the blonde mans disposition does not change as he passes boxes to Iijichi. His face is flat and seems to be used that resting face as the creases of stress on his face direct it to be true.

“(Y/N) are you listening? I asked what was wrong? I was in surgery and getting a voice call like that scared the life out of me” Shoko’s voice is flat but knowing her better, she really is somewhat affected at this.

“Again I’m so sorry Ieiri-chan, It’s moving day and everything went wrong but Ive got it handled now!”

“What went wrong? Do you still need my help?” You can hear her grab her keys and pace.

“No, it’s okay, weirdly enough my uber driver is helping me”

“(Y/N)!! You know better than to trust strangers, let alone men!”

“I knooooow, but he knows my neighbours! I called cause I lost my car keys and he helped me!! Then he found my keys, honestly he saved my day”

You hear her click her tongue and sit down, successfully calm her down.

“What happened to my help? He said he’d be there” You guess she lights a new cigarette by the sounds of a lighter flicking.

“Yeah seemingly no show, it’s okay, I was also supposed to have more help and the weather was not my friend today”

“I’ll kill Gojo next time I see him I swear” You hear her mutter.

“Don’t! Its okay, I have to go to help them but Ill call you in the morning okay?”

“Okay, wait what do you mean them?!-“ you hang up before she finishes, oh she’s gonna be pissed. You quickly type a message.

‘Iijichi seems to have got one of my neighbours to help! Don’t worry, I’ll text you when i'm done’

You quickly trot to the car and look to see what you can hold, again you are meet by just your handbag and grocery bag of linen.

Huffing you lock the car and go up stairs to your new home. Iijichi is waiting next to the Blonde man in the kitchen section.

“He-“ You begin to greet but are interrupted.

“Nanami-san, this is (Y/N), your new neighbour everyone has been talking about!” He gives a little show off gesture to you.

You feel your face crease confusion yet ‘Nanami’s’ does not. He takes off his lenses and gives you a light bow.

“Nice to meet you (Y/N)-san, I’m glad to be the first to meet you”

You lift your hand up to give a handshake, which he accepts with a firm one back. If you had to rate it, you would say it was the optimum business handshake, all bosses would be incredibly impressed by his handshake finesse.

“Pleased to meet you! Thank you so much for your help, I can’t thank you enough” You nod your head in thanks as well.

“All is well, I apologise for almost interrupting your call, it sounded… important”

Oh no… he heard your grovelling to Shoko, so unfortunate out of context, or even with it.

“Haha ha… It’s okay! It was my friend, she was very worried after I had an unlucky day”

“That is most unfortunate, I hope our help was a positive”

“I really can’t thank you both enough, it was a highlight if my day!” You clasp your hands. “Oh! If you want I can make you a hot drink as a small thanks!” You begin to look for the coffee maker.

“That would be lovely, but I have to continue lifts” Iijichi itches his cheek.

“My goodness, I’m sorry! I held you back so much”

“No! don’t worry, I'm glad to be this helpful, trust me Nanami-san is one of the men I talked about” Iijichi winked and began to head off. You see Nanami raise an eyebrow at that but you turn to walk Iijichi to the door before questioned.

You wait for Iijichi to leave and quickly check the app to give him a good tip but it looks like he canceled! Way to dodge getting appreciation, you will get him back.

“Well, do you want one?” You swiftly turn to Nanami and he nods.

You begin to look at the boxes and suddenly feel worry rise again. You didn’t label the boxes!

Sensing your emotions, Nanami approaches. “What is wrong, if you are tired you don’t need to make me anything” he reassures.

“It’s not that, I seemingly forgot to label these boxes, I did for the moving truck” rambling on and almost sob, why is everything constantly going haywire.

“Oh… don’t stress, I can help you sort if you don’t mind?” He asks. You only nod and collect yourself again. You start with the bags. He leaves. You continue to place it in the linen cupboard accordingly.

Wait… He leaves???

You walk to the front door and see him walking back, but with a notebook and brio with him.

“Um, what’s that for?” You stand next to him as leans a arm on the counter and begins writing. He lists rooms with space given to write underneath.

“Im making a list so we can efficiently make sure you have everything” he answers.

“Oh!… why?” his answer only brought more questions.

“So you don’t need to worry about losing anything or forgetting anything, keeping track will help you not do overtime” he continues.

“Oh-kay, I trust you” you turn and smile at him, he looks down but his face only slightly changes. His mouth slightly upturns but that’s about it.

———

You finish around 7pm, it was only 5 boxes and 3 large bags of linens/towels and your ‘emergency potential guest’ futon. You were hoping you would just get your bed to sleep in tonight, but life had other plans, so you are thankful that at least some of your overplanning worked.

“Is this all?” Nanami checks, during the couple of hours, he has removed his jacket as it was damp from the storm. In this time he showed you the aspects of the apartment. So you took his jacket and placed it on a chair near the heater in attempt to dry it quickly.

You set up a makeshift table with a box and began to look at the list you made together. So far you had your bathroom set up with essentials, your kitchen utensils and coffee maker set up (important priority) and a make shift bed for the night.

You ticked off the these things and added a few that you are waiting for. Nanami sat himself across from you and politely place his hands on his thighs.

“Are you missing anything? Apart from the truck stuff”

“I don’t think so, hopefully the rest is here tomorrow” You press the pen to your lip in the thought. You look at Nanami and see his eyes flicker to your pen.

“Ah totally forgot this is your pen! Sorry!” You wipe it on your shirt and place it down with the notepad.

“Don’t worry about it, do you want to write a shopping list? You said you have time off so getting that ready before returning to work is wise” Nanami grabs the pen and begins writing one anyway.

“Um Sure! I’m going to make the promised drinks now! What would you like?” You get up and head to the kitchen, its mostly bare apart from hot drinks ingredients and some quick meals packets.

Unfortunately, you have lost most of the refrigerated foods you had but thankfully Nanami brought you milk earlier so you can share a coffee after a long day.

“Black Coffee please, no sugar” He nods and starts writing the foods he noticed in rubbish bags. You pause, why did he bring milk then if not for himself. Already Nanami seems so selfless,even subtly helping you in very thoughtful ways.

You tap the spoon on the side of the mug and place it in the sink. Sitting back down in your spot, you hand him his coffee. He accepts and pleasantly hums as he takes a sip.

“Are you sure you don’t want to take my bed? I don’t mind swapping spot for the night, you must be sore after all this” he asks as he writes more down simultaneously.

“No its okay, you have helped more than enough”

“It’s nothing, I got to get off work early today so I don’t mind”

Wait… he helped even after a workday, you choke on your coffee at the realisation and he swiftly pats your back. Taking your coffee and placing it lightly on the box-table.

“Careful” he chides as he rubs your back.

“My bad, I just thought you said you worked a full day” You dead panned at him but his face remained the same, concerned for you choking but not for him overworking.

“I did, but I’m happy to help” He seems to challenge your glare and definitely wins.

You huff and sip more coffee spitefully.

“I’ll move on for your sake” You glare and he seems to show a somewhat smug face. “What’s on the list” you turn the notepad and see a very organised list. It is sorted into aisles and has question marks next to things he wasn’t sure of.

“Wow this is an immaculate list, is this your job or something?” The stars in your eyes seem to make him laugh, even if it only was a slight blow of air to people unfamiliar. Despite only knowing him this evening, it is quickly catching on.

“No, unfortunately list maker is a competitive career, I’m a mentor of sorts but I used to be a Salaryman”

“Oh wow! That’s so cool!” Your words seem to be the most shocking thing he’s ever heard.

“…Cool?”

“Yes! You must be all your students favourite!”

“Thank you for your kind words, honestly you may meet some of them, a few live in the apartments” He shares and you feel excitement bubble in your stomach.

He gets up and takes your empty cup. He washes all the dishes from this and puts them away. His manners constantly just leave you frozen in awe.

“Did I get everything?” He turns and leans on the island bench to face you.

“Yes… for what?”

He laughs lightly and gestures to the list.

“Oh yes! you did, and the formatting is amazing, I don’t think anyone could beat this list and they will all be enamoured at the shops when they glance at it, thank you!” he must have found gratefulness a tad unconventional actually made him laugh out loud.

You feel goosebumps raise at his laugh, it’s very nice. It’s a genuine warm laugh.

“Good im glad, the local store must know your status” He jests as well. You can already tell that Nanami is going to a neighbour you are constantly thankful for, already plotting ways to pay him back.

Despite everything being done, he stays and explains the neighbourhood to you. Where the landlord lives, areas to go or where to avoid, and the neighbours names with the apartment number. As he speaks, he writes it neatly on a new page of the notepad.

“Would you like to take a photo for this memory” Nanami raises his eyes to meet yours with his question. Again, quickly reading your expression he continues. “I noticed the polaroids and frames, thought you may want to capture the memory” He stands and grabs the camera he placed on the shelf in the lounge.

“Oh my gosh yes!” You jump up and place yourself next to him. He looks confused but you lightly grab the polaroid and point it into a selfie position.

“Smile!” You laugh and press yourself into his shoulders, lifting the camera high to get the both of you in the photo. You take a photo with a giggle and quickly place it upside down on the bench so it develops well.

You feel him lightly take the camera and position it in a better position and repeat your words. Before it flashes you turn to him with a shocked flushed face that he has now immortalised.

He follows after you and places it next to yours.

You both wait in anticipation.

“Would you like me to bring you a nail, so you can hang up the cork board of the collage you already have?” Nanami asks and gestures to his room. He explained earlier that coincidentally, he is your neighbour in the apartment to the left of you, apartment 2C.

“Please!”

He leaves to grab his toolbox and gets back rather quickly. He sees you holding the pictures with a big smile.

“Did they develop well?” He asks as he rolls his sleeves up to his elbows. You see his toned arms and almost loose your ability to speak.

“They did! They might be my new favourites” you show him and he nods. “May I keep the one I took please?” He turns to his toolbox and begins to get ready to put up the cork board while glancing you.

“Of course! But warning I look really goofy” You say as you grab the cork board from the floor.

“Well I think you look lovely, can you please mark where you wish to hang it” He passes you the biro from before.

You seem to barely catch the first statement in your mission to be helpful. But are sure he knows when it does sink in as the blush reaches your neck.

You make the spot on the left side wall close to the front door. It means that when you get your shoe rack, you can sit on the small step and look at it with happiness. It also can be seen from the kitchen and main room as well so the memories will never be far.

“Good spot, lets get this up” he quickly finishes the job and places it for you with perfect precision.

You quickly grab the thumbtacks from your newly established everything drawer and hang up the picture just taken. It sits near the centre, right next to the photo of you and Shoko.

“Perfect! Thank you Nanami-kun” You give him a quick hug that he can barely reciprocate. You look up after and see him have a very faint blush.

“Oh my gosh sorry! I should have asked!”

“No it’s okay, you’re fine, you're welcome” He quickly covers, not wanting you to mistake his reaction.

“Anyway, it’s getting quite late, do you have work tomorrow?”

“Unfortunately I do, but don’t hesitate to get me if you need help” He gives you a soft bow then grabs his toolbox with the notebook and heads to his apartment.

You turn and see that he left his jacket accidentally, guess you now have a concrete excuse to see him.

———

You wake up to Barbie girl blasting on your phone. You roll off the futon and groggily grab your phone.

“Morning whatsup”

“Good morning sunshine, you must be super tired after forgetting to message me if you were alive” You here Shoko’s teeth grate as she says each word.

That woke you up rather quickly.

“Oh no im so sorry! Im alive I swear”

“You sound it now but I'm not so sure, I might need to get there right now”

“You don’t have to! Id love to be graced with your presence but I promise I'm good” Despite this, you still can hear her getting into her car.

“Then Christmas is early cause I’ll be there! Send me the address”

“Okay, see you soon” you yield and do so as she ends the call.

———

After having a shower you hear the specific knocks you know to be Shoko’s.

You open the door to see Shoko with bags full of groceries.

“Oh Ieiri-sama you really didn’t have to” You grab some of the bags to help.

“I appreciate the correct honorific, I am a divine being, but this was not me” she corrects and begins to pack the groceries away correctly, how she just knows is like magic.

“Oh- then who did”

“Not sure, we seem to have a mystery” She turns her head to look at you, face flat but you can see the jest in her eyes.

“Ha ha I’m sure it will be a hard one”

You check the bags and find a familiar notepad.

‘Good Morning,

I hope you find this home-warming present swiftly,

I realised last night that I wrote you a whole shopping list but then took the notepad that it was in, a silly mistake on my behalf.

I got what I thought would be safe without need a fridge to lessen your amount of worries and then hopefully this sunny day continues so I can bring the other half with me on the way back from work

Also, I realised that you will need my number to reach me obviously, don’t hesitate to use it

+81 03 XXXX XXXX

Nanami Kento (Apartment 2C, avoid 2A if you can)’

After reading you can feel the smile grow on your face. Yet you aren’t the only one.

“Ooo you already have a secret admirer” Shoko whistles and takes the notepad.

“Ugh less secret” she sneers and dodges your attempts to get it back.

“So Nanami-san lives here, that’s not the worst but explains why I had to dodge that tall prick” She turns and gives back the notepad.

“You know him?” You bring the notepad to your chest and hug it.

“Yup, we went to school together” she goes back to unpacking things. “At least you got a bunch of free food and now it’s less suss! You can trust that he didn’t do anything weird with this stuff”.

“Oh well that’s good, especially since you were already putting it away” You huff and help her once again.

“Well if it was bad, then you would just visit me at my workplace, I’ll look after you~” She smiles.

“Oh yes that’s a lovely way to see you, potentially poisoned from mystery groceries”

———

Shoko took the whole day off to help you. Thankfully the moving company were able to deliver today. It honestly worked out perfectly since you had help available today and it was a lovely clear day.

“Oh did actually bring you a gift though!” She randomly exclaimed, at the brief lunch time break after the movers got everything inside.

“Thank you Shoko-san, you really did not have to”

“I know! But I wanted to and don’t call me that” she kept a light tone despite each wording not fitting it. She got up and grabbed her handbag.

It honestly wasn’t really a typical handbag, much more a small doctor’s satchel. She took out a rectangular bag and you could quickly guess what it is.

“Really Shoko? Booze?”

“Yes, it is necessary to make the worn muscles be less aggravated” she says with a serious disposition.

“I’m not really sure that is backed up by research but have to trust the licensed professional, but I swear if I get hungover” you copy her acting,

“Exactly you always get it, even if I did technically cheat my eligibility for the medical examination”

“What?”

“Nothing”

Once again the neighbours were not present, but it makes sense now as you know many of them seem to be in school. Which implies that their parents must being working! This neighbour mystery is riveting and definitely not an attempt to take control the lack of information.

“Y’know I’ve been thinking, Ijichi-san said he knew everyone here and you are familiar with Nanami, do you also know everyone?” You turn jump next to Shoko on your couch.

“Oh yeah, kinda have to, I work shifts at their school as nurse” she says casually. She turns to see your mouth agape and laughs.

“Huh?! Why didn’t you tell me!?!” You cry and dramatically fall on to her.

“Oomph- Get off, youuu didn’t tell me this was the new apartment” She crosses her arms and tries to twist away from you.

“You have to admit that I couldn’t have seen this coming” you try to avoid a grumpy Shoko.

“I know. Im messing with ya, at least I feel safer with you being here, some of the people here are annoying but they are good people” she sits up and grabs your hand to sit you up.

“Are they only annoying cause you have to be their nurse” you laugh and she joins.

“pretty much”

———

After the strenuous day, Shoko heads home after eating dinner with you; it was a lovely delivery meal. She spent most of the day lecturing you about countless things while scribbling it in your newly acquired notebook and pen;

1. start answering your phone,

2. how to have your house, and

3. most of all avoid white haired men.

You weren’t sure why she had such a grudge against old men, the only demographic you know with white hair, but you made sure to listen and not question; mastering the ways of knowing Shoko Ieiri.

You were taking your rubbish out to the bins and then bumped into a familiar face,

“Nanami-san!” You quickly gave him a big hug. “Thank you so much but I am so mad at you” you let go of the hug.

“Huh?”

“You should not have got all those groceries! That’s too much!” You cross your arms, maturity be damned.

“Oh that, don’t stress” he raises his unoccupied hand to wave off your worries. That however, only draws attention to the bags in his other hands.

“What are those”

“They are groceries”

He continues to walk up that stairs and you follow to see him stop at your door and wait.

“Shouldn’t you put your groceries away first before seeing my impressive abode?.

He just stood there silently, gesturing to the door. You unlocked and opened it for him.

“to answer your question, no that would be putting them in the wrong apartment” Nanami belatedly replies and starts putting groceries away in the fridge.

“Nanami-san, I will get my revenge” you begin helping him begrudgingly.

“I’m sure you will” he hums and continues unpacking. After it is done, he folds the reusable bags and places them in the bag on the hook near the entrance.

“So how did-“

“Nanami, you forg-“

A silent pause fills the room, except for the sounds of someone’s car pulling it, loudly playing music.

“you go fir-“

“oh sorry, i-“

This interruption loop needs to be broken. You quickly stop and turn fully to Nanami. He seems to also have the same idea, this begins the staring competition.

That also goes terribly as you both crack up laughing. You walk to the island and pick up the notebook and the jacket.

“I just wanted to give you your stuff back, i felt bad accidentally pinching them both”

Nanami lightly takes the jacket but pushes the notebook and biro back into your arms.

“I want you to keep that, goodness knows I have enough of them, but thank you for my jacket, i completely forgot”

“I guess i’m just too fun and distracting” you wink and laugh, but Nanami just nods and smiles, his bluntness only seems to fluster.

“Jokes aside, I’m really grateful Nanami-san, this is beyond kind”

“Anything to help, yesterday seemed to be really stressful for you” He smiles at you and it’s hard to stay mad at him.

“It also makes me feel less worried about you meeting the blue eyed fool” He clicks his tongue and turns to your confused face.

“It feels like everyone is making sure im avoiding someone”

“That is cause we are… whoever we is” He nods.

“Well Shoko-chan and Ijichi-san”

“Ah yes, am glad to know we are all in agreeance”

“You guys are so weird” You shake your head, “Would you like some coffee”

“Oh no, I don’t want to keep you, it’s been a long day i’m sure, but maybe when I see you next” he promptly leaves with polite goodbyes and closes your door.

When he does that, you swear you hear another voice on the other side of the door, but it sounds like it quickly gone, after a sound of fabric being hit.

“Well, that was brief”

You do a once over of the house to see if there is anything to do but it seems like everything is pretty much done.

Picking up the notebook and biro, you flick through to see if there’s any other tasks. Yet a page stops you;

‘I look forward to being your neighbour (Y/N)-san’ was written on the last page, obviously in Nanami’s writing,

Yet there was another note, underneath Nanami’s message.

‘Welcome to the family (Y/N)-chan!!,

Don’t be a stranger ( ˃̣̣̥﹏˂̣̣̥ )!! - Satoru Gojo

(They probs called me the Albino Dimwit or something, ignore them, they are mean ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ)’

———

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a/n: hahaha the long awaited beginning lmao sorry, hope it was worth the wait T-T

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@dassmyname

#jjk #jjk x reader #jjk gojo #nanami kento #nanami x reader #gojo satoru #jjk nanami #fluff #jujustu kaisen #jujustsu kaisen x reader

[borzoilover69]

> BORZOI: READ HOMESTUCK LIKE ITS 2011 (PART 5)

We pick back up after [S] END OF ACT 6 INTERMISSION 1 (page 4390) with a fucking spectacular music number (Infinity mechanism - Thomas ferkol). I'm such a big fan of the beat that comes in when we get to see Jane looking out her window, you have no idea. Also I didn't cover the intermission because i didn't say much. I appreciate and love the beta kids and trolls but I just have more gears turning where the alpha kids are involved because they're not so clear cut and dry emotional wise as the betas. I'm pretty sure greater analysers than me have said all there needs to be said for the beta kids. All I have to add is this piece of dialog from 4359 that I liked:

KARKAT: ALRIGHT IF YOU'RE REALLY GOING TO GO KARKAT: JUST KARKAT: BE CAREFUL KARKAT: NO MORE POINTLESS BLOODSHED, OK? THAT'S AN ORDER! KARKAT: WAIT FUCK KARKAT: I'M NOT LEADER ANYMORE KARKAT: ROSE CAN YOU ORDER HER TO DO THAT? KARKAT: SAY WHAT I JUST SAID, REALLY ANGRILY KARKAT: ASSUMING YOU CAN EVEN BE ANGRY. ROSE: ...

I really love how clingy Karkat but also accepting of his friends decisions goes. It's one of his great points as a knight of blood, but it also leads to some pretty funny turnabouts as he contradicts himself and fights himself on it.

4394 GIRL LOOK OUT

4397 (call back to page 4107) Oh wait I've seen this before. That's neat.

4400: Get this shit outta the way. You're a busy bureaucrat. The clock is ticking, and time is dead kids.

Dead kids you say?

4405 Well dead kids it is. These scenes.. when i read these scenes.. with such shitty sketch lines.. in my mind I hear Buy Somethin Will Ya? from the Earthbound OST. Or Hi Hi Hi (Theme of Saturn Valley).

You should be pleased to know those nuts were super deadly! Though to be fair he doesn't know if he died from the poison, or just choked on a bunch of barely chewed peanut bits. You know what else is super deadly, you say? Knives. Sharp deadly knives you stick in people's soft torsos to make them bleed until they die.

He doesn't have anything to say to that.

Dude i love this guy like deadass him and his whimsical hats and umbrellas and whatnot. I think he's my fav besides DD.

4408

Lifey thing..

4413 IVE SEEN THIS BEFORE. HOLY SHIT!!(3220)

4419 I really like parallels in homestuck. They make the world go round, you could say, because you read things and dont feel as lost because in a way it's strikingly familiar! Which is what happens here.

4422 Oh hunny.. nobody understands how whimsical. Jane crocker is to me. Look at her. ooo. That's a face. :o. õoô She is the whimsy.

Nobody takes into account how many batshit things Jane sees and she hits them all with the ,':| ....

You guess you should feel grateful toward him for saving your life, but you know he's just as likely to rescue you from an explosion as he is to randomly teleport you across town, forcing you to call your dad and ask for a ride home, while you spend all day standing in some random field in the pouring rain while you wait hours for your dad to come and pick you up after he gets lost because he plugged the wrong place into google maps.

I really like the small bits of background we get about Jane too. Like this! Its such a nice scene. But it seems.. that uh oh! Guardian jumpscare.

He tells you to get inside this instant.

Goddamn. Now where have i seen this before.. 4430 referencing 212.

Except in this case, it's no case of magical happenstance gone awry with a server player losing internet, but a dad being.. a *tad* more serious than given with how you're so totally grounded. No wonder Jane is so stubborn!

As long as you just got done paying the piper, you might as well get busy eating all this goddamn crow. Oh so much of the stuff has gathered on your plate.

Eating the crow:  to admit that one was wrong or accept that one has been defeated.

paying the piper: bear the consequences of an action or activity that one has enjoyed.

These sayings are sooo cool too. Like I've never heard anyone use them but they're really neat!

#homestuck #hom3stuck #homestuck meta #borzoi meta #borzoi reread #borzoi talks #jane crocker #jade harley #jake english

[lilacsareinbloomagain]

I saw that you wanted some requests so could I ask for Yandere Lu!sky x reader when they're giving him forehead kisses and he's falling deeper for them?

Yes I was! Thank you for requesting :]

Notes: Just letting you guys know, unless specified otherwise I'll also make the reader be from our world.

TWs: Yanderism, Stockholm Syndrome.

LU! Sky x Reader

Soft moments with Sky receiving forehead kisses right after almost dying

The boys™ just came back from a particularly tough battle. Blood moon does that to you.

Sky was worried sick for you during the whole battle, that was why he had his shield knocked off for a few, enough time for him to get hit by one of the lizalfos. He got his arm sliced in the process, his white undershirt ripped, blood dripped from the wound onto his arm guard, the one the lizalfo "missed" when attacking him.

He was mainly worried because he couldn't exactly remember where monsters were found the last time the group passed by that place, for all he knew, while he was fighting monsters here you could have also been in danger back where they left you and Warriors. And he sure as hell didn't trust Warriors to keep you safe from more than one lizalfo.

When they finished slaying the monsters all over again and came back to where you guys were everything seemed fine, that still didn't calm Sky's mind, his eyes searched frantically for you, yelling your name as he got closer to where you were supposed to be.

You didn't expect to be that worried about Sky when you saw his wound.

He hugged you, only to be pushed back, feeling you grab his arm gently and inspect it, one look at your expression told him everything. Despite the fact you were trying your best to not show how worried you actually were about him, it showed, it showed on your furrowed eyebrows, on your slightly watery eyes and on your tensed posture. His own expression softened at your worried one, he wasn't expecting you to care about him that much.

Honestly, not even you were expecting to react that way, not to Sky that is. Not ever since you started noticing some toxic behaviors from him of all people. You weren't stupid, even if he was good at hiding it, you could still notice manipulative tendencies, it was easy to remember the amount of videos you saw about it on your tiktok for you page before you got in this world.

Still, it was hard to dislike Sky, maybe it was the Stockholm Syndrome kicking in or something, but it was hard to just ignore a Link like Sky when he was the most adorable one out of all of them. 

No matter how much you tried to make him stop and leave you alone, his sweet actions worked no matter how much you denied them. Him bringing you random flowers and trinkets he found when he wasn't glued to your side? Those affected you more than you would like to admit, and even as you tried to be rude to him to make him stop, saying anything less than "thank you" started to hurt you more than it hurt him at some point.

Where did it go wrong? You were so sure you would be able to handle a situation like this easily back when you read them on the internet!

Making your way back to where Hyrule had left you with his potions and pulling Sky's good arm along, you grumpily realized he had already used one or two that were there on the other's more serious wounds. Potions weren't meant to be wasted on simple wounds, even more when there were already less than 10 left on his pouch.

You pulled Sky to your side, releasing his arm and silently pointing to a reasonable sized rock he could lay his back against. He obliged immediately, staring at you with that same loving gaze you repeatedly told yourself you hated, you kept your eyes on what you were doing, not even glancing at him as you gathered gauze rolls and cotton, a small bottle of rubbing alcohol as well, you were pretty sure you overheard the others mentioning something about the monsters they fought being infected. You didn't want Sky to get his wound infected, no matter how much you told yourself you were only doing so for the sake of Hyrule.

As you gathered everything, you turned back to Sky and tried to do your thing, disinfecting the wound proved to be a hard task, not because Sky was moving around or anything like that, but you could see his face contorting in pain, small hisses passing through his clenched teeth, he was trying his hardest to not cry, clearly. No matter how strong you are or how many monsters you fought, rubbing alcohol on an open wound hurts like a bitch. Everyone knew that.

You knew that too, so as you finished wrapping his upper arm in gauze, you moved back and hesitated a bit. Noticing you weren't touching him anymore, Sky opened his eyes, ready to ask you if you were done and to thank you, only to blush darkly as he felt light kisses being pressed on his forehead. You wanted that to be it, in fact, you didn't even want to do that in the first place, knowing it would only reassure him in chasing you around more, but you figured he deserved it. After that you just wanted to forget this ever happened and go on your way.

Sadly, you were too sensitive at the moment and Sky was too hug shaped.

So when the dark blonde opened his arms to bring you into a hug again, this time a thankful one, you didn't go against your reflex of hugging him back. Only squeezing him, trying to reassure yourself he was there. You allowed your bad feelings towards him to be silenced for a moment, needing it maybe even more than him. How long has it been since you last hugged someone?

As your emotional side took the control over your body away from your rational side, Sky smiled in relief. It had been a while since he received any affection from you, he missed this, he missed the hugs. He only got those from you, considering the others of the group weren't interested in hugging, he was just as touch starved as you were. Being the only two in the group to be mutually prone to hugging and showing affection in general, even if it had been a while since you last did.

Now to your kisses? Those were new, and a whole other level of joy and comfort to him. Those showed you cared about him, as much as he cared about you.

That's why he kept trying despite you not acknowledging his constant efforts. He loved you and he knew you would eventually give in, you would love him back.

Now he felt like he was even more in love with you, if that was possible in the first place. If you had even a sliver of chance to get away before now you just didn't, not anymore.

Now, even if you managed to get back to your world, he would go after you. He would chase you to the ends of the multiverse if necessary, he already left his safe zone once for someone, and he would easily do it over and over again for you.

Sky loves you, and his love is easily bigger than anyone's else. Just give in to him already, will you? You won't be disappointed.

#lu sky x reader #lu sky #linked universe x reader #yandere x reader #yandere linked universe #tw: yandere #link x reader #yandere link x reader

[leviackermansjewishwife]

★ 𝐻𝑒𝓁𝓁𝑜 ★

• Hi, I’m Zipporah, I’m a minor from NYC, and I’m a huge fandom nerd and Jewish.

• Get to know me better!

𝒲𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝓌𝒾𝓁𝓁 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓈 𝒷𝓁𝑜𝑔 𝒷𝑒 𝒶𝒷𝑜𝓊𝓉?

• It will mostly be about all my fandoms and my Jewishness, and I might have some random reblogs.

• My main fandoms are, Attack On Titan, The Hunger Games, Grishaverse, and Avatar The Last Airbender.

𝒥𝑒𝓌𝒾𝓈𝒽𝓃𝑒𝓈𝓈, 𝐼𝓈𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁, 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒶𝓃𝓉𝒾𝓈𝑒𝓂𝒾𝓉𝒾𝓈𝓂

• I am ethically Jewish tracing back multiple generations, along with Roma. (Though I don’t consider myself Roma, since I grew up outside the culture, I care incredibly much for the community.) and I am very proud of my blood.

• I was raised culturally Christian, but my family has also retained a lot of Jewish traditions, mostly a mix of orthodox and conservative, though I do plan to fully convert to Judaism when I’m and adult, so I might make errors. I don’t observe Shabbos well, so there might be some posts on Friday and Saturday.

• Since I’m Jewish on the internet, this current war is bound to come up, and I think I would make my place pretty clear.

• I am anti-Israeli government, pro-innocent Palestinian civilians, but definitely anti-hamas, and I don’t think this conflict would be solved with my people be slaughtered, and I really hope for a two-state solution.

EDIT: I want to make this very clear, if solution to this conflict is for Hamas to win and gain control, and then mass slaughter Israelis, DNI. If your solution includes shipping all Jewish Israelis back to the countries they had to flee, DNI. Both of those solutions sound genocide and ethic cleansing of my people, which I do not tolerate.

• I might make a few posts about antisemitism and the current conflict, but nothing beyond the release of the hostages, and a quick end to this war. If you can’t deal with that, please DNI.

• If I get anything I deem antisemitism, I will block, and report depending on the level. I decide what I consider antisemitic, even if you tell me it isn’t.

𝒮𝑜𝓂𝑒 𝓇𝒶𝓃𝒹𝑜𝓂 𝓈𝓉𝓊𝒻𝒻

• This might update so be weary.

•I did not draw my header, I found it on Pinterest, so if it is your art, please show proof and claim it.

• I update blog look quite a bit so, it’s still me even if it looks different.

• Taylor Swift fan but not a swifte.

• I AM A MINOR! so please don’t bring in anything to inappropriate, don’t send me anything gory, and don’t demand any private information out of me.

• I struggle with mental health so I block easily.

• DNI: Hamas supporter, October 7th deniers or enjoyers, believe in destroying Israel, porn blog, rape fantasists, people who use gypsy knowing what it means, and really anything else you would gather I don’t like from the rest of this post. 

#am yisrael chai #jewblr #jewish tumblr #attack on titan #aot #grishaverse #six of crows #the hunger games #thg series #avatar the last airbender #atla #pinned post #get to know me

[heliads]

Hi, congrats on 7k!! May I have a 💌: love letter with Leo Valdez? I go by she/her.  I get pretty anxious when thrown in certain situations rather that be talking to a group of people or just one person. But when I get to know someone I never stop talking. I am a ranter and rambler which means I could be ranting about something that happened and then start talking about something else that may or may not be related to the original subject. Though I do enjoy listening to other people talk. I am considered the mom friend because I tend to be the most logical. I'm also a very determined, stubborn person who usually is kinda pessimistic but still has a huge imagination. And despite all the anxiety I am usually a relatively confident person and am not afraid to take up for anyone I care about. Also I am pretty good in school despite having a kinda bad memory. Also an INTJ and Sagittarius. 

I absolutely love writing, art, music, reading, and watching various shows/movies. I also really like walking around and enjoying nature. There's a few nature trails I love going on and would go to the zoo every weekend if I had the chance. Which also goes along to my love for animals. Also I do like going to random places with my friends. 

And that's about all I can think of to say, hope it wasn't too much lol. But anyways, thanks in advance :)

i am also a walking believer. i love going places

Leo always gets nervous at the campfires. He can’t help it. It’s a reflex from the machine shop fire, he supposes, flames get a little too tall when no one seems to be paying attention and he can’t help but freak out. Leo is supposed to be sitting with the rest of the Hephaestus cabin now, but he’s clinging to the outskirts of the whole gathering, knees hugged close to his chest as he tries and fails to convince himself that he is in control.

Someone’s shadow darkens the grass in front of him, and seconds later there’s another camper sitting by his side. Leo recognizes her in a second:  Y/N L/N, one of Leo’s better friends at camp. She knows enough to identify his physical signs of distress, and offers a solution accordingly.

“Distraction?” She asks.

“Please,” Leo replies. Anything to get him out of his own head.

And she talks to him. She talks to him about everything. Pop culture news she should have no way of knowing since they’re not supposed to have Internet access at camp. The training drills they did this morning. Even the campfire songs, rating them on a scale of ‘gods-awful’ to ‘put this on Spotify ASAP.’ How much she wants to explore the woods surrounding camp even though they’re totally filled with monsters.

As she continues, Leo lets the sound of her voice fill his eyes, blocking out all the stress, all the fear. He feels his fingers unclench from each other, his shoulders lose their stiffness. She carries him away on a billowing wave of her words, and Leo is alright. Of course he is.

He blinks and she’s gone silent, staring out at the fire instead of him. When she notices him looking, she grins, a slight tint of self-deprecation shading her eyes from their previous shine. 

“Sorry,” Y/N murmurs, “I have a habit of rambling. Tell me to stop next time, alright?”

“No,” Leo says a little too quickly, “No, please don’t. Keep going, actually. If you want, that is. I– I liked hearing you talk. A lot.”

Y/N flashes him this smile, and Leo thinks his heart might overload. “Well,” she grins, “if you say so.”

She remembers something that had happened yesterday, a funny story involving a satyr, four new demigods, and way too much celestial bronze. Leo tilts his head back and lets himself take it all in. The stars, the fire, her. Everything is perfect.

thank you for taking part in my 7k celebration!

#leo valdez #pjo #7k celebration

[spockandawe]

Hello, your work is beautiful! Forgive me for I've fallen down a bit of a rabbit hole and I'm not sure if this is an appropriate question, but I was wondering how you gathered and typeset the text for all the danmei/baihe you do? On ao3 there's an epub & other download options, but on most danmei translations I've seen there isn't.

Sorry if this is a silly question or I worded it weirdly! I've been wanting to get into bookbinding for a long time but it seems like such an overwhelming hobby to get into haha

It's plenty appropriate!!! So there's a variety of different methods I've used depending on when I was making the book and how the translations had been shared online. It's kind of a nightmare in how there isn't a one size fits all solution. And after jjwxc did that whole thing about offering to pay (mainland citizens) for translations of novels, a lot of the options got more complicated, unfortunately. And locked google docs are a thing I understand, but I hate them so so so much, I'm in this hobby because The Ephemeral Nature Of Internet Posts And The Looming Fear Of Lost Media, and locked google docs are a nightmare.

(the practical parts of making books are also overwhelming, just because there are so many pieces that go into it and so many ways to do it. I recommend sealemon on youtube as a good place to absorb the basic elements of how a book is assembled, then das bookbinding once you feel like you've outgrown sealemon. or on tumblr there's renegadepublishing as a place to see a lot of other fanbinders post their work, and they also have a number of resources on the process!)

Once or twice, I've functionally retyped a novel. This sucks. I don't recommend it at ALL if you have better options. You almost always have better options.

The usual approach is that I've gone to a website, copied the text chapter by chapter (usually adding footnotes as I go, it's easier to do them four or five at a time than to wrangle like sixty when you have a huge document and 'footnote 1' x30 to place). This is tedious, but meditative. I don't mind putting in the work at all, I frequently harvest ao3 stories that are being turned into anthologies in a similar way.

Some sites are now password-protected. If you have the brain space, identifying groups you're interested in that have sites like this and doing the steps you need to get into their discord group or whatever and have access, that's a GREAT chore to cross off the list. Some groups make this very easy and you can do it on the fly, and some groups are a fucking NIGHTMARE, and it can be hard to tell which is which from the outside.

Some websites have copy protections as well. Some of them will let you copy and paste, but a paragraph or two in the middle will be jumbled up a bit, just a simple cipher. I think it may just be shifting the letters, not even swapping them at random. There may be a coding way to get around this, but I barely know the first thing about coding, so I copy and paste and retype these paragraphs by hand. Some sites bluntly refuse to let you copy and paste, or screenshot, and I resent these sites deeply because a huge part of the fun of reading these things is sharing choice bits with friends to try to bait them into the pit with you. Circle back to this with the same solution as I'm about to get into.

And then there are the locked google docs. At certain points, there have been workarounds, like loading the whole page and then disabling javascript, which lets you select and copy. But last time I tried that, the workaround no longer worked. There are other people who care about this kind of thing, it's a question that comes up on forums, but much like questions about how to break amazon's drm stranglehold on kindle books, old solutions frequently stop working, and I have no idea what the current best practices are.

BIG CAVEAT here, that.... I get it. Translation is hard fucking work, and it's really easy for other people to put in a fraction of the same effort to scrape a translation and repost it. Or worse, sell it. I think translators deserve MASSIVE credit for what they do, and I try to support them the same way I support authors whose books I work with. I don't want to divert any traffic or appreciation from them, but at the same time, I've got google docs, I know it takes about two seconds for me to delete any given document I've ever posted. I am here because I adored mxtx and was very afraid the translations of her books would disappear someday and would be unrecoverable, which is kind of sadlarious in retrospect.

But that worry still applies very much to a lot of other talented authors who haven't been licensed, and hell, it applies to the fan translators who were forced to take the hard work they did for free offline after licenses were secured by someone else! It's a niche community thing, but I witnessed a SCRAMBLE to preserve those documents before they disappeared from public view! I don't think the ExR mdzs translation was perfect, but nuking it from the internet is still a huge loss, and nuking the newer in-progress translations was fucking heartbreaking. It still upsets me to think about that too hard. And for translations tucked behind copy protections, yeah, it's harder for scrapers to steal and repost, but it also becomes so much more difficult for someone with archival intentions to preserve the silly things.

So..... there are sites where free epubs of books can be found for the downloading. I'm not advocating for or against piracy, I passionately do not want to take a moral stance on this, every person has to work it out for themselves. Don't ask me why I own gideon the ninth as a purchased hardcover, audiobook, and kindle book and as an illicit epub and mobi. Maybe I need five copies of one book, don't look at me. But standards for uploading on these sites are kind of lax, and once, I noticed that hey, waitaminnit, these don't look like published translated novels, these look like scraped fan translations. First, they were, second, when jjwxc did the thing, this became much, much more relevant to my workflow.

I'm not going into specifics on my blog, because really, I am very anxious not to divert attention or credit from translators. These ebooks are usually not formatted with much love or care. The footnotes are generally a formatting nightmare or missing completely. When a translator site jumbles the text via copying and pasting, a lot of these don't correct it, there's just a patch of gibberish. The places translators post are usually MUCH more pleasant ways to actually read the goods. But. In the event that the original translator suddenly yoinks their page, if there's that kind of emergency, I can still decode that cipher and reconstruct the original goods. It's not usually PRETTY to format these things, but it's still easier than retyping a whole novel, which I am stubborn enough to do, but I'm pretty sure that's how I killed my last laptop's keyboard.

I won't go into more detail than that on the public-facing part of my blog, but hopefully that's enough to go by! I can answer private questions as well off anon, but I do realize that I should have probably expected questions like this sooner, considering my hobbies XD I wanted to make it very clear why I'm doing this, and elaborate on the tricky line to walk between supporting the fans who do this hard labor for free and (understandably!) don't want their work stolen, and preserving these works so that they can't just disappear overnight. I am constantly aware (and lowkey anxious) that it would be easy for someone unfamiliar to take a glance at what I do and accuse me of being a dirty filthy pirate who's ready to destroy this community with my Thieving Ways, but I have a genuine passion for the archival aspects of this hobby, and it really is a driving force in what I do. Capturing and formatting these cnovel translations isn't easy, and if I wasn't passionate, I would have stopped ages ago. I do it because I think it's important, I think it would be genuinely tragic to lose these stories, or to lose variations on these stories when fan translations are taken down in favor of official ones, and I passionately want to see them preserved.

#spock replies #bookbinding #adjacent #long post/ #archiving #might be a tag worth having #idk how much i'll talk about it because it's really not something where i've cultivated SKILLS #like being able to capture these things quickly with macros or code or whatnot #i'm just a stubborn ass who's willing to do a lot of manual labor once i'm set on an idea