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all-things-mlqc · 4 years

Note

The five boys react to an overweight MC that works as a nutritionist but struggles a lot to lose weight? It might be strange but it happens sometimes. PLEASE!!! Btw, I love your work❤️

This was really fun to write about. Knowing that these guys are so supportive of MC and want to help her in any way possible with whatever she’s struggling with is just so sweet.

Thank you for the love and support as well! 😭 I’m usually just memeing it up out here so writing HCs is very new for me but your support helps so much! I did meme a lot while writing this as well because what’s life without memes, so you can find all of my inner thoughts crossed out~ Hope you enjoy!

HC below the cut~

Gavin:

Gavin loves and supports MC through everything. He’s constantly watching and confronts her whenever he believes something is wrong.

After noticing her sulking at herself in the mirror, he asks what’s troubling her.

“Nothing really! You don’t need to worry about me.”

She gives him a small smile and turns away from the mirror.

He figured it had something to do with her figure given the way she was looking at herself.

He remembered her mentioning how even though she’s a nutritionist, she still struggled with her own weight.

She didn’t seem all that down back when mentioning it, but the expression she had in the mirror said otherwise.

He stood up from the sofa and asked if she wanted to go with him during his morning jog.

“Why would you want me to do that? I’d only slow you down.”

Gavin: I don’t mind. If it’ll help, then I’ll do anything I can.

This man isn’t one for small talk. He gets straight to the point. He observes, finds the problem and seeks out a solution. There was no need for MC to confirm his suspicions about wanting to lose weight; It was all in her expression.

“I don’t really want you to go out of your way for me... Besides, it’s important you don’t slack off with your training.”

Gavin: I wouldn’t be slacking off. Training with you would only make me work harder.

A NATURAL ROMANTIC BUT ALSO A FUCKING MORON WHO GAVE HER A BLOOD SOAKED LETTER. IM GONNA BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF YOU YA DUMBASS

MC takes up on Gavin’s offer considering how adamant he was. He also didn’t seem concerned in the slightest about MC being a burden BECAUSE SHES LITERALLY THE LIGHT IN HIS LIFE AND WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR HER

After they go jogging, they stop for a healthy meal of MCs choice because Gavin doesn’t know what food is. Have you seen his kitchen? INSTA NOODLES EVERYWHERE. Boy is literally the type to throw a lunchables on the dinner table and give thanks for his beloved meal. Omg nononono I’m thinking of all these sad things now about how Gavin was literally homeless for a while as a kid so he probably just got used to eating something small and simple every day. BYE IMMA GO CRY NOW

While eating, Gavin comes up with a few more ideas to help and offers to take her to his gym every other day.

They come up with a plausible schedule that could seem efficient to MC’s wish of losing weight.

This also gives MC the chance to make sure Gavin is taking care of himself as well.

Kiro:

Kiro and MC meet up when he finally has free time and manages to escape from Savin.

Like their normal days together, they end up walking around Loveland City, going to some sightseeing locations. They just enjoy each other’s company.

When stopping to buy a snack, Kiro grabs two bags of chips and beams up at MC only to see her forced smile. He immediately gets concerned given how positive she always is.

Kiro: Are you ok? What’s on your mind?

“No, it’s nothing. I’m just trying to narrow down on the amount of junk food I eat.”

Kiro: Why is that? You’ve always told me to live to the fullest.

“Well... I’m trying to lose some weight but it seems more problematic than I had originally thought.”

With MC looking ashamed of how little progress she has made thus far, Kiro places both bags back on the shelf with a bright smile.

Kiro: Well if we both work together then there’s no chance we could lose this fight! Besides, Savin has been at my throat lately considering the mount of junk food I’ve been eating recently too.

“Kiro...”

MC stared at Kiro, dumbfounded, who seemed so positive. This gave MC a boost of confidence, herself.

She quietly thanked him while giving him a genuine smile.

They spent the whole day doing fun activities. In a way, this was part of Kiro’s plan to help MC. He knew how much this mattered to her so he wanted to keep a smile on her face while secretly help her from the shadows.

It’s honestly what he does best. It’s hard to tell in the game since we don’t get to see every expression he makes or how he reacts to things, but take a good look at his reactions in the anime. You can see how serious he really is behind his happy facade.

He continues to silently help her every time they spend time together as well as send her encouraging texts and reminders.

Nobody is more positive and encouraging than Kiro~

Lucien:

Lucien knows everything nutritionists know, let’s be real. This man was a child prodigy who skipped half of his school life, going straight to college.

He knows EXACTLY what MC needs. The one problem is, so does MC.

She knows what she needs to do but doesn’t have the kind of support she needs. She easily becomes discouraged when things don’t work out after trying so hard.

Luckily, Lucien is also a wonderful supporter minus when he just “what’s a magic? Don’t know em. No thoughts. Head empty. Only science and death”. Uhu then what do you call that flying cop outside the window? Where’s your science behind that? Lucien: “Well you see, there is a certain DNA mutation that—“ DO NOT ANSWER THAT YOU FOOL I KNOW ITS SCIENCE BUT MAGIC IS EASIER TO ACCEPT RN BECAUSE MY BRAIN GO BRRR

But considering it’s MCs health, he is very supportive and even explains that many people struggle with the same problem. There’s not exactly any problem with how someone looks unless it is overall affecting their health for the worse but he will gladly help MC if she wishes to lose weight.

Knowing that Lucien views it this way immediately gives MC more confidence.

An enormous amount of stress has been lifted off her shoulders which will ultimately help her reach her goal.

Lucien comes up with a solid workout plan and diet that is easy for MC to follow and even offers to make her some special meals to help with weight loss because Bill Nye over here has the solution to everything

I also highkey imagined him whispering in her ear like the first day they met that if she follows his plan without any casualties, he would give her special rewards and yes I do mean THOSE kind of rewards because this man is K I N K Y. I don’t even like him, I blame my friend who’s constantly giving me these ideas about him. You’re lucky you’re a bitch or I’d probably be on the floor for you too.

Victor:

Victor’s biggest struggle is vulnerability. He is very blunt and says what comes to his mind without always thinking it through.

Because of this, he upsets MC when talking about her weight.

He meant no harm from whatever he may have said but notices MC’s sorrowful expression after lifting his eyes from the papers on his desk to meet her gaze.

He immediately acknowledges what he had done and puts everything away for the day, offering to take her to Souvenir.

“What..?”

Victor: I’m done for the day. If you don’t have anything else to do, you can come with me.

“But why?”

Victor: You’re still you regardless of your weight, but if it’s something you want to change, I’ll help.

The man wanted to tell her she’s beautiful and amazing no matter what, but hahaha we all know this man can’t compliment for the life of him. Jkjk he can but like I said before, v u l n e r a b i l i t y. He struggles with expressing his true feelings.

MC responds with pure shock on her face,

“Really?? You’d help me?”

Victor: Only an idiot would ask a question like that. You should count on me more when you’re struggling with something like this.

Baka this baka that. If I don’t add it somewhere, than this whole HC isn’t accurate at all. All you thirsty Victor hoes go watch his baka clip if you want more *spray bottles*

He tidies up his desk and grabs his coat, heading towards the door while MC stumbles over her thoughts.

He only stops halfway out the door to look back over his shoulder at MC.

Victor: Well?

“I— I’m coming!”

She rushes over and follows him out the door.

Victor ends up making MC a delicious and healthy meal, one he knows is a special meal for a weight loss diet.

Cooking was never that important to him. He only learned because of the little girl he once knew. But now... Now he has a new reason to continue cooking.

That girl had come back to him and he would do anything in his power to make her happy.

Shaw:

He watches MC intently as she talks about how difficult it is for her.

Right before MC finishes, he places her on his skateboard and takes off without giving her time to protest.

She shouts in fear ofc. Why wouldn’t she. I’m terrified every time the game says he puts mc on his skateboard just—

Shaw chuckles with amusement in her ear and then tells her to push off with her own feet.

“ARE YOU INSANE?” yes, yes he is

Shaw: I won’t let you fall but I won’t stop until you push.

“Fine fine!”

With the help of Shaw keeping her steady, she’s able to smoothly push off the skateboard a few times.

After getting the hang of it, there’s a slight smile taking place of her feared expression from before.

Shaw’s expression, however, doesn’t change in the slightest. That teasing smirk rests on his face as she continues to push them down the park sidewalk.

As they reach the main road, she yells back to Shaw when the skateboard doesn’t slow down.

“Shaw—!”

It’s all she managed to get out as the fear she once had returned again.

MC shut her eyes with panic as the street grew closer and closer, only to feel an arm wrap around her as the cold wind hitting her face dissipated.

When her eyes opened, she saw Shaw giving her the same mocking smirk he always wears. However, his eyes showed signs of gentleness he doesn’t often express.

He offers her one of his skateboards for workout purposes as well as being her workout partner.

MCs chuckles out of amusement from the idea of HER riding a skateboard by herself. totally a reason why Shaw made this offer. He feeds off of entertainment.

She politely declines his offer of skateboarding but hesitantly asks if he would help her in other ways.

The question needs no thought from Shaw but he doesn’t want her to know he made up his mind to help long ago. ah yes, his one weakness as well, vulnerability

Shaw: I suppose being of assistance to you may turn out entertaining.

MC: Is that all I am to you? A source of entertainment?

She pouts at him half jokingly but he pays no mind to it as he kicks up his skateboard and continues walking ahead while suggesting a few things they can do to help with weight loss. Daring but not enough to scare her away. He actually wants to help but needs her to comply with his suggestions

Shaw is the type to help those he cares for without making it obvious. He believes personal relationships is a weakness for someone like him so he always keeps people at arms length; He always wants a possible way out for when he has to push people away.

While this is true, he’s also struggled with vulnerability his whole life. Considering the type of person his father was, growing up with a man like that not only puts pressure on Shaw, but also forms this broken and terrified personality under his overconfident facade.

Someone please just hold this man, he’s trying his best and needs healing

Their solution for MC is to try some fun activities together. Fun enough for MC to believe that Shaw isn’t going out of his way for her but also not as extreme to the point where MC won’t participate.

#mlqc #mr. love queen's choice #mr. love #mlqc hc #mlqc gavin #mlqc haku #mlqc kira #mlqc kiro #mlqc victor #mlqc zen #mlqc shaw #mlqc lucien #mlqc simon #asks #thank you <333 #man may i just say that i wrote this at the worst possible time #i had EVERYTHING written out and ready to go #woke up the next morning and my phone said ‘haha Apple phone go brrr’#rest in peace 5000+ videos and pictures #all my game data #*thankfully i got most of those back*#all my notes #g o n e #it was a tragedy #but WE’RE BACK AND I REWROTE EVERYTHING SOMEONE JUST END ME ALREADY #but man im sorry this took longer than expected oTL #anywho writing kiro’s reminded me about who he really is #and probably not in the way you guys are thinking #only people with his newest rumors & secrets would know what im talking about #but damn i want more info on that and cannot WAIT for the anime to cover what most of us know

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m00nchildthings · 5 years

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I love you more Mezo Shoji x reader

Authors note: ahh something new!!!!!! This was a request by @bitch-im-shook that I actually really enjoyed doing, I tried my hardest to make this nsfw and you can we see where I took a sharp left lol this is probably the most fluffiest thing I’ve ever wrote and I was blushing the whole time, I hope that you like it 😊😘🤞

Shoji was honestly a man of mystery; it was one of the many things about him that had originally drawn your attraction to him. He always held a calm disposition, rarely talked unless he felt absolute necessary, and that ever present mask that he wore covered the bottom of his face. At first, when you had just begun flirting with him you teased him over it, cracking jokes about how he watched way too much anime for his own good even going as far as to call him Kakashi-sensei when you were feeling cheeky. But as time grew on and the two of you grew close, you assumed that at some point you’d see what he was hiding. When the two of you decided to be official and committed you thought for sure then he was going to show you his face. It had been five months and you had quickly realized that he never took the damn thing off.

You had been on dates together, spent nights in each others dorm rooms, walked nearly everywhere together and not one time had you seen him without that pale blue mask. It was beyond irritating, how many girls could say that they had a steady boyfriend that they had never kissed, not once? You were happy with Shoji of course, he made you happy but that mask, you had deemed it your enemy and were determined to have him take that mask off tonight.

The two of you had planned a movie night in your room, as his room was pretty bare, and you had picked a very, steamy, movie. You wanted the atmosphere to be perfect you thought as you fluffed your pillows, you had even picked out your cutest (thinnest and most skin showing) pajamas to try to attract to him. You heard a couple of slow knocks on your door and you knew it was him. You took one last look around your room before spraying it and yourself with some body spray.

Opening your door, you were greeted with the sight of your (MASKED) boyfriend Shoji standing there as coolly and kept together as ever. You smiled up at him eyes warming up at the sight of your boyfriend (even with that damned mask on) reaching up you wrapped your arms around his neck and hugged him as his multiple appendages wrapped around your waist lifting you up.

“Hello handsome,” you grin up at him moving to cradle his face in your hand. You swore you see his eyes crinkle in a smile through his hair.

“Hello gorgeous,” he says nuzzling into your hand and holding you tighter, you hear him inhale deeply as his eyes close “you smell great”

“Thank you,” you say, the two of you stay like that for a second just staring into each other’s eyes as he holds you tight off the floor, and it’s nice. And then he puts you down and walks inside your room.

“So, what are we watching tonight” he asks one of his limbs playing with a magical girl bauble placed on your dresser. You walk over to him and place a hand on that limb affectively pausing him. A small smirk pulls on your lips as you walk closer to him until your pressed together, he stares down at you quizzically.

“It’s a surprise,” you say leading him to your bed.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

You spend the entirety of the movie paying rapt attention, not to it but to your boyfriend, who seems surprisingly bored. Two sex scenes have come and go each leaving you a little bit hotter than the last, and Shoji has stayed as collected as ever, it’s beyond infuriating. The boy hasn’t even shown a hint of a tent but your sitting right next to him with a flood between your thighs. A slow sultry tune begins to play over the movie and it’s apparent that if you don’t make a move you were gonna spend another five minutes awkwardly rubbing your thighs together. You really hoped that Shoji would have made the first move but well, every once in a while you have to grab the bull by the horns, or in this case the boy by the balls. The couple on the screen begin to try to eat each others faces, and you place one hand lightly on the inside of Shoji’s thigh.

“You know Shoji we’ve been together for an awfully long time,” you say grinning up at him seductively, you move to straddle his lap and resting your butt on his thighs you lean in close to whisper in his ear “ I think we should maybe take our relationship to the next level” you lathe your tongue over the shell of his ear. Four pairs of hands place on your waist and hips and inwardly you squeal as you feel him grip you tightly, right before your unceremoniously dropped on the side of your bed.

“You don’t want that, trust me,” Shoji says smoothing your shirt down your stomach with one of his limbs.

“Yes, I do” you say smiling up at him coyly, you grab his hand and drag it down lower to just above your mons. Shoji grunts and snatches his hand away before pinning yours down with his other two.

“No, you don’t,” he says staring down at you pointedly. You stare back at him defiance painted all over your face, you feel your lip tremble though, was your boyfriend just not attracted to you? Many doubts begin to fill your brain and soon tears begin to slip out and down the side of your face as you try to turn away. Shoji’s eyes widen and he immediately tries to stop your tears.

“Shh shh don’t cry it’s not you babe it’s me,” he says enveloping you in two arms and wiping your tears away with the another two. His words only make you cry harder as you try to push away.

“Oh, shut up that’s-that’s the corniest line you-you dummy, you don’t ever touch me I know you don’t find me attractive,” you say through tears as you try to wriggle out of his grasp.

“But I do I think you’re beautiful, you’re so fucking beautiful babe,” Shoji says pressing you closer and nuzzling your neck, you know he’s simply trying to placate into being quiet, but you stubbornly continue.

“Then how come you won’t kiss me,” you say pouting up at him “It’s been five months and you haven’t ever kissed me.”

“It’s, complicated.” Shoji says one of his arms scratching the back of his head as he looks away from you not being able to handle your sad puppy dog face.

“What’s so complicated, either you want to kiss me, or you don’t which one is it?” you lean in close giving no other choice but to stare at you. Shoji drags a hand down his face groaning as he rests you down on the bed beside him.

“I do want to kiss you; I just don’t know if you’ll like what you see when I take off the mask babe,” he brings a hand down to pet at your hair “ I’m just not as pretty as you,”

You pause staring up at him with your tear streaked cheeks in shock, you couldn’t believe that Shoji of all people was insecure of his face, he never showed any sign of caring about what others thought. To you and to many people he was always a man of mystery, you wondered if he did so to keep people from coming to close.

“Shoji,” you say placing a hand on his shoulder comfortingly “ I like you a lot, I don’t care about what you look like, hell I don’t even know what you look like and I’m still into you,” you rub his arm and he stares down at you, before reaching up behind his neck to pull down his mask.

Shoji’s face is not what you were expecting, in the sense that you first aren’t able to notice what’s supposed to be embarrassing, until his expression shifts, and you see it. Thin lines run across his face pale and jagged around his nose and around his mouth as if someone took a pin needle to his face and tried to cut octagons out of the lower half. He stares awkwardly to the side unable to meet your gaze, and your heart bleeds for your boy. You gently place your hands on either side of his face cupping his jaw and bringing his face down to yours. His face reddens and it’s so cute you just have to kiss him or you’ll probably melt on your own bed if you don’t.

“Shoji, can I kiss you,” you say breath fanning his face eyes on his lips, and he looks so cute and startled eyes wide and face red and you just love being able to see all of him.

“Uh, y-yeah sure if, if you want to,” he stutters eyes frozen on your own.

You lean in and cautiously press your lips to his, and you feel yourself melt, but not as much as Shoji. The boy keens the moment your lips touch and his arms encircle you pressing the two of you together. Your lips move against each other and his are so soft you love it and he’s holding you so tight like he’s scared that if he lets you go, you’ll disappear, and he just can’t risk it. You don’t know how you’ve gone this long with dating Mezo Shoji without kissing Mezo Shoji, but you know that after this you won’t ever not be able to. Cautiously you feel his tongue graze your lower lip and you happily oblige opening your mouth for him.

Shoji’s tongue is tentative in your mouth but none the less he begins to take charge of the kiss lapping at your tongue and teeth like he’s trying to taste you. Your head is swimming as you reach your hands up to pull at his hair to ground yourself and he groans pulling you impossibly close. You want to keep him right like this forever, and you know it has to end when the first bit of lightheaded hits you. You begin to pull away and Shoji follows a low whine coming from him at the absence of your lips on his. You chuckle cupping his chin in your hand.

“Shoji I have to breathe,” you say as he kisses the inside of your hand lazily. Shoji blinks and immediately pulls back in embarrassment loosening his grip on you. The two of you share a moment silent sitting on your bed and just staring into each other’s eyes, the movie playing behind you completely forgotten.

“So, you don’t mind?,” Shoji whispers bending down to press his forehead to yours.

“Mind what,” you say softly.

“How I look,” you stare up at him and he looks the most vulnerable you’ve ever seen him, you think you like your boyfriend with no mask.

“Shoji I think you’re the prettiest boy I’ve ever seen,” you say staring him deeply in his eyes you reach for one of his hands and intertwine your fingers together. He smiles, and his smile is so beautiful and you love it and you love him so you say it.

“I love you, Shoji, I love you a lot,”

“I love you even more,”

#mezo shoji #bnha mezo #boku no hero academia #bnha #bnha x reader #shoji mezo x reader #mezo shoji x reader #fluff #so fluffy #choke on this cotton candy sweet fluff #my writing

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irmacornelia · 4 years

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I had a Kalinor fic that I never got around to finishing that im going to cannibalize ideas from for my longfic, so have some of the bits I do have and will probably never finish;

Title: Untitled Kalinor Drabbles Pairings: Kalinor, Cassidy/Nerissa Tags: Pining, minor language, canon-typical violence and angst Rating: T-ish

Apparently everyone has been having the same dream. For a week and a half straight.

Nerissa laughs and suggests magic.

You retort that if you had some fancy magic power, how come you burn the toast every other morning?

Cassidy grins and tells you that you are just bad at cooking.

Three months later you are fighting for your life with your friends at your back. This is a much better way to burn energy and rage than tennis. You think that this is the last year you will have an extracurricular like that (or at all -what with how Kandrakar doesn’t give a damn about your education).

You duck a sword and twist heat and sparks into your palm to shove into your assailant's chest. Fluid and practiced, Kadma twists around and slams a boulder into him as you lean out of the way. A brief moment of eye contact and half-formed :feelings: thrums between you and you both leap back into the fray.

You work well together, your brawler-esque fighting compliments her fluid and reactive style. Yan Lin flits about to deliver death from above and to watch out for threats as Nerissa commands the most amount of attention by your enemies to divert from Cassidy going for the objective. Nerissa is very flashy and does her job well. It’s worked enough times that you and your companions have it down to a routine. You and Kadma pull the grunt work, Nerissa is a massive and threatening distraction tossing lighting and energy blasts, Yan Lin scouts and provides air cover, and Cassidy does the stealing/activating/rescuing. Not that you and your friends can’t do other jobs, but it works best that way. Everyone has a task to do without any prior organizing. Nice and neat and simple(if fighting could be called neat and simple).

Searing another few vaguely humanoid bird-ish enemies and ignoring the acrid tang of burning feathers, you feel like you could do this forever.

You have been doing this for a year now and it shows. Strangers are afraid to make eye contact with you, and you have toned muscles underneath your obligatory dresses. You do average in school and while your parents aren’t too happy at the slight drop, it’s doable. You are often tired and busy, and you are quite a bit more confident (because you can kick most everyone’s ass and you have bigger problems) and get into fights a lot during downtime.

You are so much closer with your companions now, as well. You wouldn’t have dared sitting that close with anyone before. You wouldn’t have dared to lean against Kadma while Cassidy braids your hair and chats about most anything.

Its helped, in part, by the telepathy. You and yours had begun to lean on it quite a bit to explain motives and :feelings:. Twining your Presence with someone mentally was oddly pleasant and comfortable, like a sort of warm hug but for your feelings and not your body.

Explaining this caught giggles from your friends.

Kadma was pretty when she laughed.

You were so screwed and couldn’t ever explain why.

A week later you are nimbly jumping across rooftops with your wings aflutter (they are now almost two feet long each and feel a bit sturdier, but they can only slow your fall a bit). You follow Kadma and Yan Lin with Cassidy on your heels as Nerissa blows up the front gates to a stronghold.

You try to avoid the thought that you would be so very lost without being able to fight for your life.

It’s been two years since you became a Guardian and you are nearly an adult. You have never dated anyone (you couldn’t -you like girls) and Things are going wrong. You don’t know when they started going wrong, but they are. Maybe it started when Nerissa began a harsh training regimen after a close shave on some world you can’t even begin to pronounce the name of(all harsh clicks and sounds no human throat can make for long without becoming hoarse). Maybe it started when The Council refused to give important information one time too many. Maybe it had always been bad, but no one noticed.

Cassidy came to you one day and told you that she was worried about her.

“Sometimes- Sometimes she talks about scary things, Im not really sure I should say what, but I-i’m really worried.”

She wrings her hands and leans back on the park bench.

“I- um We, um, w-well, she sometimes wakes up screaming and-and I think our, ah, Job,”

Cassidy says with emphasis in-case anyone was listening in,

“Is-Is getting to her. You, ah, you know she does risky things but I can’t help but fear it going to get worse. I, ah, I care about her. A lot. And I don’t know what to do.”

Cassidy trails off toward the end into a whisper. You suppose that’s confirmation enough that they are involved with each other.

“I know.,” You say, “I’m not sure what to do either. Maybe the others might be better help, but we can get through this.”

You both are very much aware how the last group of guardians all died before you were even appointed.

You don’t talk about it.

Your research spree to try to find things to aid Nerissa served more as nightmare fuel than solutions, so help from outsiders was out. Thus you ask the others what to do about Nerissa’s increasingly snappish and reckless behavior the day after.

Yan Lin offers up the idea of distraction during downtime, and you all jump on board. If you can distract her from your other life, perhaps she would relax a bit.

And so you and the others spent a lot of time in-between missions trying very hard to be ‘normal teens’. Cassidy taught the group how to dance over the course of a few afternoons and you all end up at one of the local soda fountains about once a week. Nerissa also spends her time composing songs on her flute again, she names one of them after herself and gives Yan Lin a handwritten copy of the sheet music when asked.

For awhile you feel like it’s like it was Before, and you feel happy and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves, but you still feel extra energy to burn curling in your gut. You know Yan Lin is always paying more than a little attention to what’s going on, who is where, and where all of the exits are. Cassidy is stuck to Nerissa’s side like glue and Kadma barely speaks half the time.

(You still all walk silently and twitch at the sight of flashing lights and the sound of metal screaming on metal)

You get a few group shots of the five of you and pretend that the flash didn’t feel like magic firing on you.

You had been spending quite a lot of time with Kadma these last few weeks. In the effort to wind down from constant missions from Kandrakar to far off worlds, you had all tried to do only mundane things with mixed results. You’re pretty sure Cassidy leaves glamours on her bed in the mornings to go sleep at Nerissa’s house without getting caught.

You yourself use telepathy with the others nigh-constantly and your tea never goes cold.

You learn that Kadma can sometimes get :Impressions: from animals while you and her go feed birds at the park. Simpler than ones from you and the others, she says, but there all the same.

You brush your magic against Kadma’s and inch closer.

“Can you show me?”, you say.

Her hand brushes against yours in return and sparks of flame burn along your spine.

The corner of her lip curls upwards and she passes along :Impressions: from the Dove pecking at a sunflower seed a few feet away.

You feel more distracted and fuzzy than you have in ages and Yan Lin grins at you the next day like she can tell and you shoot her a :??:.

She rolls her eyes and replies :Warmsafefuzzy-Presence more-than-before:.

She taps her fingers gently on her desk and leans back a bit, :Kadma-and-you?:.

The thrumm to that last Impression nearly made you choke on air.

You suppose that would be fitting considering whom you are Communing with.

:Almost:

The teacher begins her lecture and that was the end of that.

The rest of the group knows you can heat your body temperature to nice and toasty levels and this is exploited mercilessly once Heatherfield started getting chilly. You are only slightly affronted the first time Cassidy ‘calls dibs’ on one of your shoulders. When Kadma leans against your other shoulder your half-formed complaint turns to smoke on your tongue and you just obligingly turn up the heat.

Yan Lin gives you a wink from her spot at the stove next to the teapot when Kadma shuts her eyes and humms in contentment. You nearly throw the nearby pillow at Yan Lin for the following eyebrow wiggle, but you don’t want to ruin the moment.

#w.i.t.c.h.#kalinor #.txt #star.txt #my fic #fanfic #yes I know I said id finish this like 3 years ago and then never did sorry the historical parts never seemed right #and I am nothing but a worldbuilding hoe and if its not right I didnt want to put it out #so unless I get super good at 40s and 50s history this is staying where it is #maybe one day ill finish a kalinor specific fic lol

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stardustizuku · 6 years

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well i guess we’re doing this

@skating-jellyfish @scintillant-h @quasargirl

ASK AND YOU SHALL RECEIVE

The Westernization of Magical Girl Genre

By StardustIzuku aka me

AKA the 2k magical girl essay people wanted me to talk about.

A lot of people were asking about this, wow.

Magical girls. Glitter, cutesy names, stuffed animals, and puns. What is there not to love about them?

It was only bound to happen for it to be tried in the west. Much like transformers, which were a westernization of gundam, Magical Girls are going through their rocky paths to that idolized version of Magic targeted towards small girls.

There are a few shows that are borrowing these themes today in children’s cartoon, so I wanted to talk about them. How they managed to miss the mark with some fans, and why their following is significantly smaller of the likes of Sailor Moon.

Here you have today:

The Westernization of Magical Girl Genre

The thing about Magical Girls is that the plot is often very predictable. It, quite frequently, does not have that much of a great romance, and its villains are basic to the core.

So, why do we like them if they’re, supposedly, so shitty?

Well…The answer is

Two Things:

The feeling.

The message.

This is the core of the Magical Girl’s success. If it has a nice feeling but no good message, you get things like kamichama Karin. If it has a bad feeling but a good message, you get things like Madoka.

(Which are in my opinion the two worst things that could have happened to Magical Girl genre)

And having said this, there’s two shows I wanna talk about today. One is SVTFOE and the other is Miraculous Ladybug. Two westernized versions of the Magical Girl genre…And both fail to recreate the very specific beauty of Magical Girls. As they struggle with its own voice, they get something that feels genuine but ultimately disassociated from the genre.

I will first start with the easiest to tackle.

Miraculous Ladybug;

It does everything right in the regard of plot, romance and villains. It’s a real classic of Magical Girl storyline that could be easy to get behind.

And while I do watch it, I do not feel the love I know I could for it.

The reason is simple: because of the feeling it gives off.

I think the biggest mistake Miraculous did was making it 3D. This means it’s technically easier to make, yes. But it also deteriorates the very particular aesthetics Magical Girls have. And this makes it drop quality.

It feels less magical, and more real. Less sparkles, more concrete. And taking into a count the fact that it’s set in Paris? This show should be looking ethereal. But instead it looks very plain. It feels…wrong even.

There’s also a very key aspect that I think it’s missing: the team. It’s taking them way too long to form the team. Time that could have been spent making the team -Ayla, Chloe etc- feel closer and work through their difference is instead focused on them individually.

And that’s good, since it has a “Monster of the Week” narrative. But it lessens the impact. We are two seasons in, and we have a very lacklustre incomplete team.

By episode 43 -the time im writing this- Sailor Moon was already meeting Sailor Venus -the last Sailor Scout- and heading to the final battle. Sakura was friends with Meilin and biding goodbye and saying thanks for the memories. In Tokyo Mew Mew Zakuro and Mint -the closest girls on the team- were having one of the most emotional fallouts in anime history. Even Amu had finally unlocked her god damn Amulet Diamond and was essentially already friends with the “evil” Utau.

But 43 episodes in Miraculous ladybug and we have three out of the supposedly five characters of the team, queen bee is loosely alluded to, and we haven’t seen Ayla interact with them as superheroes that much.

Its strange, if you ask me, for a team to be presented this way. When are we going to see them start trusting each other? When are we going to see them work together? Ladybug and Chat are good, but how could the team as a whole even remotely begin to feel so close?

Ladybug has the heart and the intention to be a good Magical Girl adaptation…but it simply lacks the resources to make it actually work. It’s wasting so much time in stuff that does not advance the plot, or round up the characters. It has more useless filler than sailor moon.

And that’s not even kidding, because by this point, may I remind you, Sailor Moon is like two episodes away from ending its first season.

Over all, it just feels a bit plastic and stiff.

However, credit where credit is due.

They nailed the romance.

When it comes to romance in MG it falls under two categories:

1.- The straight forward plot with pinning girl. (eg. Sailor Moon, Mermaid Melody)

2.- The dreaded love triangle between the bad guy and the nice guy. (open a shoujo manga)

And Miraculous Ladybug did a pretty interesting thing, fusing the “bad guy” with the “good guy”, in chat and Adrien.

It’s like telling you Ikuto and Takase are the same person. Or Kishu and Masaru are the same guy.

Pretty crazy, if you ask me.

It also solves the “who will she chose” narrative that drives everyone insane. Instead it’s replaced with a slow burn that makes you keep watching. You know they’ll end up together, but you want to know how.

It also keeps the “he’s in love with my alter ego” trope that to this day is a MUST in any magical girl, just because its super fun and never gets old.

So Miraculous Ladybug is very close to becoming the true magical girl adaption we all wanted. I would say it could be better, but there’s a reason why it has a large following.

It did many, many, things right. It just needs a push. I’d rank it number two in Magical Girl Goodness.

Now, let’s jump to a more difficult thing to tackle.

Star Vs The Forces Of Evil;

At first glance, you’d think SVTFOE is a love letter to classical Magical Girls. And while it does borrow a lot of aspects from animes like Sailor Moon and Sakura Card Captor... The more I look into it, the more I see it as faulty westernization of it.

As I said before there are a few things that make a Magical Girl show shine.

The feeling, and the message.

And while Star certainly has the feeling, making it feel crazy but fun and cutesy, the message is…

Very different.

As a matter of fact, I don’t think SVTFOE has a bad message. On the contrary, it’s a pretty damn good one…But the thing is…It’s not one MG often have.

Magical Girls messages are one of two things -although they sometimes mix:

Finding yourself, and the power of girl’s friendship.

Messages that are really cliché, but they thrive because in a society where girls are shamed for being who they are, Magical Girls encourage them to be brave. To seek solace and friendship in one another.

SVTFOE is…different.

Something that really pisses me off, is how Star’s only female friend is Ponyhead, someone who doesn’t really give emotional support.

Girlfrienship is being thrown away, shown as toxic. While Marco and Star’s relationship is put in a high pedestal. Despite being clearly a romance.

Star’s message is nice in a superficial level. Fight racism and stand your ground.

But, it’s also about doing it alone. That no other girl will support you, and that even your mother sometimes will leave you alone. In recent episodes, even Eclipsa left Star.

This is teaching girls to be brave on their own.

The antithesis of typical Magical Girls.

But, we as girl are stronger together. We are not alone, we shouldn’t have to fight alone.

It also shows that fists are more powerful than kindness. It’s kind sad, from my point of view.

The message in SVTFOE is ultimately flawed.

There’s no team. It’s just Star and Marco.

Which brings me to another point:

The plot is good, the romance is the worst I have seen in my life, and the villains are very complex.

Nothing like a sample MG anime.

The romance specially, has jumped through a lot of stages. First being the straight forward pinning girl narrative, then switching to the bad guy vs nice guy (tom vs marco), then switching the roles of the good guy vs the bad guy…And honestly who knows what comes next.

SVTFOE has thrown away any pretence of being a magical girl adaptation long ago. Nothing it has comes remotely close to what a magical girl storyline is. For fucks sake, she doesn’t even have a stick now.

WHEN HAVE YOU SEEN A MAGICAL GIRL WITHOUT A STICK THINGY.

It’s, overall, a very individualistic tale. As a westernization of the genre…it speaks more about the culture we live in than the concept.

I’d place it right below Miraculous Ladybug as an adaptation, maybe 3rd place.

But there is one cartoon that is a neo Magical Girl I love.

The first seasons of Steven Universe;

It has everything, from the healthy girl’s friendship message, to the aesthetics, the kindness on its core, to the monster of the week formula.

Early seasons of steven universe did this phenomenally. Capturing the true essence of Magical Girl. And even then, I would not be able to tell you when exactly it stops being a westenazation, to when it is its own thing.

The actual lesbian romance is without a doubt the best adaptation they could have done, since there’s obvious subtext in early magical girl’s.

But even in episode that are relatively new, you see the contrast. Escalating villains, healed with compassion and offering a hand (Blue and Yellow Diamond), and a Big Bad Villain (white diamond) that needs to be stopped. Not to mention Rose being the Pink One™ and having an alter ego, which was the one Greg fell in love with.

There’s an ethereal beauty that followed Steven Universe during its earliest seasons and that’s why I do think it’s the best westernazation of Magical Girls so far.

#idk what you were expecting #2k magical girl essay #magical girls #star vs the forces of evil #svtfoe #miraculous ladybug #ml #steven universe #su #magical girl

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notobsessed-justobservant · 6 years

Text

Mission Impossible

Pairing: Peter x Stark!Reader

Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark, the Avengers (mentioned), Vision (mentioned), Aunt May (mentioned), Daughter/Stark!Reader

Word count: 2,380

Summary: Peter wonders what his next mission from Mr. Stark will be, but he’s in for a surprise- it’s not a matter of what, it’s who.

Warnings: none, just fluff

A/N: im alive! well, I've arrived, more like, cause no one in this fandom knows who the hell I am. Hi, I’m Luna, and I’m in love with peter parker. Usually, you can find me at @dean-the-smol-bean writing supernatural fanfic, but lately, my love for Marvel (and our favorite Avenger-in-training) has exploded, and it’s made me want to write for him (and possibly other Marvel characters) as well. So, here I am- can’t just start off easy am i? this is chapter one of what will be a who knows how long series. I hope you’re intrigued! anyways

PS- TYSM to my love @justawaywardwinchester for helping me edit my absolutely horrendous amount of spelling errors and generally get my life together even when it’s not her fandom. ♥️ u always

Send me an ask if you want to be added to the tag list!

“Mr. Stark, thank you so much for bringing me in on this, I won’t let you down, I promise you won’t regret this-”

“Yeah, yeah kid, whatever, listen, this is the most important mission I have ever put you on, okay, so don’t get too cocky. Keep your head straight and keep your eye on the prize.”

Peter gulped, taking a deep breath as he trailed behind Tony eagerly. Ever since his help in defeating Thanos, Tony’s been putting a lot more faith in him, and to say it’s been amazing would be an understatement. Today, he’d called him in for a new mission- the third major one thus far. He wasn’t a full Avenger quite yet, he was still living with his aunt May, ‘staying on the ground’, as he put it. However, each time Peter’s phone flashed the name of Happy Hogan or Tony Stark, he found himself practically jumping from his chair to answer it and fling himself into whatever battle was asked of him.

Which brings us to today.

“Alright, through these doors is the thing most important to me, my most prized creation, the one thing that matters most to me in the entire world- you’re most crucial mission.”

Peters' eyes went wide as Tony stretched out a hand, pushing open the double doors, a combination of excitement and fear fighting for dominance in the pit of his stomach.

To his surprise, however, all he was met with was what looked like a classic New York studio apartment- a little out of place in the modern, high tech, Avengers compound, but not otherwise significant.

He was quickly greeted by what felt like a hoard of animals- two gigantic Doberman pinschers came bounding forward, jumping upwards and attempting to lick at his face.

“Whoa- wha-?” he smiled, laughing a bit as they sniffed him up and down, awkwardly petting them in return as they nearly pushed him over.

“Hey, down boys! Down- down. Jesus, I am so sorry,”

Suddenly, the dogs were off of him, and Peter chuckled, closing his eyes and wiping the slobber from his face as he responded to the unfamiliar voice.

“It's cool! I love do-” halfway through his sentence, he opened his eyes, only to be halted in his tracks by the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. He’d know your face anywhere- anyone would- you were Y/N Stark. But like most people, he’d never had the pleasure of seeing you in person- and god was it certainly a pleasure.

“-w-whoa-” he breathed out, and Tony turned, giving him a searing look, but neither of you seemed to notice as you ushered away your pets, and Peter watched every movement. You laughed, soft and sweet in his ears, unlike anything he’d ever heard before.

“Well that’s good, but who doesn’t, I guess? I mean, if anything I’d take it as a compliment that they like you so much, they’re very picky.”

“Huh… yeah…”

Peter seemed to be in a daze like he had been staring at the sun for too long and suddenly his vision had gone blurry. Tony glanced between the two of you, tapping his foot impatiently.

“Anyways…” he interjected, and you turned to face the both of them, “so, Y/N, this is my new intern, also known as the ‘Spider-Man’” he waved his hands in a dramatic arching motion, emphasizing the name teasingly. In any other circumstance, Peter would have objected- ‘it’s just- just Spider-Man. Not the-‘ and no doubt he’d be muttering something about the dramatic speaking of his name, but today, that all just passed him by. Instead, he found his focus unyieldingly centered on you.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you Spider-Man. Tell me, does Spider-Man have a regular name? Or have you just been climbing up buildings and swinging through New York since birth?”

Peters' eyes widened, snapping from his gaze realizing that the sweet sounds coming from your lips were directed at him.

“Oh, uh, yeah, yes. I’m Peter-man- I mean Spider-Parker- shit- I mean-“

You laughed, a sugary sound that dripped through the air like warm honey, making Peter feel as though he didn’t care if he was making a complete fool of himself if it meant he could hear that sound again.

“Nice to meet you, Peter-man Spider-Parker. I’m Y/N Stark. Sorry, I don’t have a cool superhero name like you to insert between my boring person name,” you joked, and Peter found himself chuckling at you- the thought of having the last name ‘Stark’ and feeling anything but super practically baffling him. “And you’ve already met the dogs-” you turned, nodding your head towards the two, giant animals lying on the sofa behind you. “-Sirius and Remus.”

Peters' eyes lit up, crinkling a bit at the corners as his lips fell into a lopsided smile.

“You named your dog after the Marauders?”

You snickered, nodding.

“Well, half of them. But yes, I did. You read Harry Potter?” you inquire, and suddenly Tony feels as though you’ve forgotten he’s there.

“Do I read Harry Pott- uh, yeah.” He said, incredulous. “Do you breathe air?”

You giggled, and a grin spread across his face for making you laugh

“Of course. It was a stupid question, what house are you?”

“Hufflepuff! And my wand is 13 inches with unicorn hair core, what about yo-”

“Alright, as… magical, as this conversation is, you and I have got some talking to do about your newest mission,” Tony raised his eyebrows at Peter, and he understood. “I just thought you two should meet. Sorry for the interruption, princess. How’s the project coming?”

“Good. It’s definitely gonna need some more work- I just can’t get the background colors right for some reason.”

You frown, frustrated, and it’s at this moment that Peter registers your paint smattered shorts and oversized hoodie- the Stark Industries logo smeared with bright blue paint, splotches of varying colors splattered all across both its fabric and your skin. He’d been so taken aback by you that he’d nearly gotten tunnel vision, barely registering anything else.

“Well, don’t worry kiddo, you’ll figure it out, you always do. I’m sure it’ll be beautiful.” He reached out, ruffling your hair a bit, your bun flopping from side to side. You scrunched up your face, half-annoyed, half-endeared, giggling.

“Well, we’ll leave you to it. Parker?” he turned, pointing towards the doors they had entered through. Peter nodded excessively, glancing between his mentor and the girl in front of him.

“Nice meeting you, Peter,” She said, and the most angelic smile graced her lips. He let out a shaky breath, nodding.

“You too- nice meeting you too-”

“Parker” Tony called after him, already out the door, and waiting.

“Right, sorry.”

“Now, Peter,” Tony began.

They were back in the lab, and Peter was trying not to fidget too intensely as he sat awaiting his instruction. “Like I said before, through those doors was your most important mission.”

Peter furrowed his brow, thinking about what Mr. Stark had told him just before he introduced him to you.

“Oh yeah, what was that? You never actually got to show-” Tony raised his eyebrows, staring at him. He swore, for a kid genius, this boy could be incredibly slow sometimes. It took him a second, but Peters’ eyes went wide.

“Oh- you meant-?”

“There we go, good job kid, you got there.”

“But how is she- my ‘mission’? What the hell does that even mean?”

“It means, that girl is the single most important thing to me in the whole world, and nothing- I mean capital ‘N’ Nothing can ever happen to her.” He got up from his seat across from Peter, turning to face the gigantic, wall-sized window overlooking lush, green, upstate New York. “And… as much as I’d like to say being Iron Man is all kicking ass and getting chicks… it’s not. Being a hero is dangerous, and it creates a lot of enemies. Enemies who would do anything to get what they want.” He paused, taking a deep breath. “So I need someone to protect her. Someone I can trust. High-level security team just won’t cut it and I can’t exactly have the entirety of the Avengers just trail her around. So, that’s where you come in.”

Tony glanced over his shoulder at Peter, who straightened up, immediately, trying to hide his incredible excitement at the statement ‘someone I can trust’.

Tony turned completely then, his stiff stance relaxing a bit, and Peter wondered if anything had happened to you before to bring on this high tension in Mr. Stark. He hoped not.

“Plus, I think it’d be good if she had a little… friend, or whatever. Someone her age. Her only friends can’t be the super-human freakshow we call the Avengers and her dad, it’s just not right.”

Peter chuckled, in awe of the idea of even living with all those people, let alone being friends with them.

“Got that, kid?” Tony finished, and Peter nodded, straightening himself even more. “Yes- yes sir, Mr. Stark sir. Of course.”

Tony nodded, unbuttoning his suit jacket and slipping it off.

“Good, now scram, I’ve got work to do and your anxious teenage-boy energy is messing with my space.” Peter pushed himself up to stand, mumbling an incoherent ‘s-sorry’, unsure if Mr. Stark was joking or not. He turned away, reaching for the doorknob.

“Kid, wait,”

Peter, stopped turning eagerly standing at attention.

“Last thing and this is the most important thing… don’t fall in love with her. Or whatever.”

Peters’ eyes went wide, and he nearly choked on his own tongue.

“What?”

“You heard me. I saw your bubbly little interaction earlier. Any girl, kid, really, I’ll be your wingman. But not my daughter,”

Peter stood there awkwardly, feeling somewhat like he was getting ‘the talk’ for some reason, unsure of what to say. “Capiche?” Tony continued, and Peter nodded, laughing nervously.

“Yeah, yeah right. Of course sir. I would never.”

Tony remained silent for a moment, his eyes narrowing into a piercing glare. Peter felt as though he were in the scope of a rifle, and the wielder was still debating whether or not he would pull the trigger.

“Good,” Tony said, and Peter let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.

“Now scram. I mean it this time. Go do some homework or something- no spider-manning until you’ve finished all your school work alright?”

“Yes sir, of course. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow, sport.”

The door swung shut behind Peter, and he let out a long breath, feeling like he’d just stepped out of a long, intense interrogation. He shook that feeling off, tilting his chin up and squaring his shoulders as he made his way towards the front of the compound, where Happy would no doubt be waiting to give him a ride home. Just as he grabbed his backpack, someone called from behind him.

“Hey, Peter!” That same, serene voice rang out through the quiet compound, and he found himself tripping a bit as he turned all too eager to face it.

“Whoa! Easy there.” You laughed, catching him as he stumbled forward.

Peter pushed himself off you immediately, and he could feel his face warming to a bright, beet red.

“I am, so sorry oh my god-”

You only laughed, and he found himself melting like soft serve once again. “Don’t worry about it, seriously. I’m a bit of a clutz myself, always bumping into things. It’s fine.”

Peter stared at the floor, embarrassed, gripping the straps of his backpack so tightly he wondered if his super strength would tear them.

“Me too. But, you could already tell that I guess.” He said with an impish smile, and you nodded.

“Yeah, I kinda got that.” You teased, and he felt his ears go a shade darker. “But there’s gotta be something more to you than clumsiness, a cute smile, and a radioactive spider bite, Parker. My dad is super picky about who he lets meet me, so you’ve got something special in you, pretty boy.”

Peter found his stomach doing somersaults at the term ‘pretty boy’. Maybe your father's charm was genetic.

“I uh- I don’t know about that.” He stuttered, and you laughed.

“I do. Watch, you can prove it to me. Lemme see your phone.”

“What?”

“Your phone! So I can give you my number and you can tell me all about how bland and boring you are. All I do all day is lay around the compound and try to get Vision to give me a straight answer as to whether he’ll die if he says ‘control, alt, delete’, so I’ve got plenty of time on my hands. He says that’s ridiculous but I still haven’t heard him say it so I’m not convinced.”

Peter laughed, bright and genuine as he shook his head.

“Alright. Here.”

He reached into his backpack, pulling out his cracked iPhone, handing it to you. You took it, deft fingers tapping quickly across the screen as you entered in your name and number.

You handed it back to him, and he glanced down at his screen to see you’d sent out a text.

‘Hi’

“Now I have yours.” And as if on cue, the sound of R2-D2 beeped from her back pocket. Peter smiled at that. She pulled out her phone (it was a brand new the XS, which technically hadn’t even come out yet. He wasn’t surprised.) and showed him the screen. His number and the message ‘Hi’ flashed across her screen.

“Perfect.” He grinned, and his own phone beeped.

May: Home soon? Trying a new recipe. Be ready for a scorched kitchen and takeout.

He laughed, stuffing his phone into his back pocket, swinging his bag over his shoulder.

“Well, I should really…” He began walking backward pointing toward the front doors.

“Right yeah. I’ll text you?” she held up her phone, waving it.

“Yeah, totally- yes. Yes please.”

Please? Jesus Peter, how desperate can you get.

She giggled, wiping a strand of hair out of her face, and he watched as a stripe of red paint smeared across her cheek as she did so.

Oh, he was never going to be able to follow Mr. Starks rule.

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alexiss-fic-archive · 6 years

Text

The magic she loves the most

Summary: A monster shows up near Connie’s home.

Notes: Definitely not my best work, but i kinda need the show to fuel my inspiration and after 100+ days im starting to run ow on inspiration. ANYWAY, I needed to pull something out before winter and here it is.

Also available at the Ao3!

Ever since Connie and her parents moved into Delmarva, She noticed that the place had some sort of magic feeling. And she didn't thought so because of the occasional monster attack and the general activities of the Crystal Gems in the area.

She thought that Delmarva was magic in and of itself. The air was fresh, the nights were starry, the people cared for each other and the ocean breeze could be felt from a few miles inland.

This natural magic was often accentuated by the passage of time, which brought something unique to the land as the seasons pass by.

The dreamlike Winter made the air chilly and created beautiful landscapes as snow fell gently during the night. The lively Spring brought the perfume of flowers and a particular day when small flowers descended from the highest hill of the area, showering the suburban area Connie lived in pink. The warm Summer made the heat stronger, and caused the Ocean breeze to be carried further inland. It's arrival also was followed by vacations Connie would spend alongside Steven.

Finally Autumn, the season She was currently in, was a transitory period between the fun of summer and the comfy cold of winter.

The deciduous trees all around the area distorted the everyday weaker Sunlight into a yellowish reflection that gave an ambience of comfort to all the inhabitants of the suburbs. And the sight of their falling leaves as the wind gently blew through them was something relaxing.

That relaxation however was easily shattered by the sound of Steel clashing, as an insectoid Corrupted gem resembling a living yellow pages but green and made out of metal appeared nearby Connie's neighborhood.

It was about the same size as a large car, and was as fast as its slender frame suggested. It's vivid green body changed as it pleased, folding its shiny sheets into dangerously sharp appendages which tried to shred Connie and Steven in tiny Pieces. Its mantis-like visage had a few sets of compound eyes, while its shark-like maw, filled with razor sharp teeth, let out screeches so horrifying that seemed to bend the wind into its will..

Steven and Connie, The two Crystal Gems that weren’t at the other side of the world, were amazingly skilled and managed to drive the beast into a small forest near her neighborhood as Doug and Priyanka calmed down the other residents without the beast causing any damage.

Then, when they were far enough from the suburb to avoid any collateral damage, the two children engaged the creature in combat.

“This isn't what I had in mind when you invited me to hang out.” Steven said as he blocked a scythe-like claw with his shield.

“What did you had in mind?” Connie asked him before trying to deflect the spear-like tendrils that sprouted from the folds on the creatures back.

“I dunno…” He mused as the creature's attacks waned a bit. “Maybe drink some tea, Watch a Romantic comedy, play on the fallen leaves.”

“That sounds great Steven.” Connie said as the dodged a kick from the beast's absurdly sharp legs. “But I kinda want to watch the new adaptation of Dogcopter instead.”

“It’s out already?” He asked her before throwing his shield into the creature's head, which did nothing to it aside from creating a loud, metallic noise.

“Yup. It premiered last night.” She said as she tried to slash at the Creature's side. It remained unflinching as the sharp edge of Rose's sword bounced off the thin material. “Maybe we can watch it later if we figure out how to beat this thing.”

“Awesome!” He said before he created another shield to deflect a set of spears. “But how are we going to do so? It looks like paper but it is as hard as my shield.

“Hmm…” Connie mused as she tried to regroup with Steven, dodging many attacks from the monster in the process. “I think it's like an insect. It has very tough armor outside to protect his squishy inside.”

As Connie reached the boy the creature released an enraged screech, giving Steven enough reaction time to create a bubble just in time to block a powerful claw swipe that sent them bouncing across the woods, tearing their way through the few slender trees before crashing on a large tree trunk.

“Ow…” Steven said after the bubble hit the ground. “You okay?”

“Yeah. But we won't be okay if we let the fight drag on.” She said, pointing at a large crack in the side of the barrier where the beast had attacked.

“Maybe we could throw something into its mouth and hurt him from within.” Steven said as he tried to repair the light barrier.

With that, Connie's face lightened up as an Idea Struck her.

“What if you throw me there?” Connie said Confidently.

“WHAT?!” Steven said surprised. “No! That's too dangerous!”

“If we Don't stop it it might destroy my neighborhood, Steven.” She tried to reason with him. “And it could even go after everyone else.”

“But you could get hurt!” He said, worried about her safety.

“I’ll be fine, Steven. Trust me.” She said, her courageous eyes staring at Steven's.

“Okay.” He conceded. Saving his worry for later. “How do we do it?”

“If we manage to open its mouth we could come up with something.” Connie mused. “I mean, It's obvious that he must use it for more stuff than screeching.”

“Maybe he has a ranged attack?” Steven said.

“You think so?” The girl said.

“Yeah. The air gets all weird and heavy whenever it screeches.” Steven explained. “Maybe he shoots pressurised wind?”

“Did Pearl taught you that?” She asked.

“Not exactly…” The blushing boy said embarrassed. “I saw a guy doing that in the ninja anime we saw the other day.”

His comment pulled out a small giggle from Connie.

“I would lie If I said I didn't thought that as well.” She smiled at him.

Steven was about to say something as well, but was interrupted by the beast's earsplitting screech getting closer to them, followed by a rather violent gust of wind .

Upon noticing the small gale conjured by the monster, Connie said: “Well, I guess that's where the mangaka got his inspiration from.”

The two laughed a bit at the joke before Steven extended his hand towards her.

“Ready to get thrown into a monster's mouth?” He said smugly.

“Thought you might never ask.” She responded similarly before grabbing his hand. Afterwards, Steven wrapped Connie in his arms and leaped upwards, ascending gracefully into the canopy of the tree they crashed into.

Once they got a vantage point, they could see the way the withering treetops seemed to create a small sea of orange and gold, expanding all the way into the meadows where Peridot and Lapis’ barn once was.

However, despite Connie's desire to stay there and watch the sunset in a few hours next to Steven, they had work to do and instead, focused her attention into finding the creature, whose large body shaked the base of the trees as it moved..

“There it is!” Steven said as he catched a green dash in the ocean of orange. “Its coming towards us.”

A moment later, the beast reached a small clearing in the forest, where both of them saw each other in detail. It sprinted towards the kids in a frenzied manner, deciding to paint the nearby trees red with their insides.

Fortunately for them they were at a height where it couldn't reach them, the creature couldn't climb the tree, and after Steven shielded it from its sheets by dropping several constructs near the trunk to defend it and bait it to use its mouth.

At some point, the monster got exasperated and decided to end it all right there. It walked away a few meters before opening its mouth as wide as it could, forcing an overwhelming quantity of air inside that started to bloat its figure like a bloodthirsty tick finishing its meal.

“There it is!” Connie said as she readied her sword to fight. “Now, Steven!”

“On it!” He said as he lifted her effortlessly. “Please stay safe, my strawberry.”

“Don’t worry, biscuit.” Connie declared, ignoring the fact that both of them just called each other by their pet names. “I’ve got this.”

And so, Steven launched his best friend into the vacuum created by the creature's attack.

As she was pulled into the wind vortex, Connie pointed her sword in front of her, in an attempt to impale the monster's vitals with the pull and Steven's strength as her only propulsion.

Connie let out a battle cry as she entered the creatures maw, piercing the back of its throat's soft tissue, inches above the square-shaped gemstone that was the core of the creature.

With another grunt, Connie forced the edge of her sword to slide across the soft flesh, causing its green blood to pour over Connie until its body finally faltered and evaporated in an iridescent puff of green smoke, which disappeared in a flash as the stored air within the monster bursted violently like a balloon, creating a wind so strong that it managed to tear the dying leaves from the entire forest in one go.

Seconds later, a rain of brown, orange and dust fell down to the ground all at once, covering the young girl up to her knees in dead leaves.

“You okay Connie!?” Steven asked as he dangled from a branch of the tree she was on moments ago. “Did you got hurt?”

“I’m fine!” She notified him before sheathing her blade. “I have the monster's gem here!”

“Cool! I’ll be there in a sec!” He said as he flung himself off the branch towards her, using his slow descent to break his fall. The boy landed next to Connie, creating a crackling noise as he stepped on the dry leaves.

“Here.” She handed the gem over to Steven, who proceeded to bubble it and warp it into the temple.

He then gave Connie a small once-over to see if she really wasn't injured.

“So…” Connie said after she was deemed unscathed. “What do you want to do now?”

“Hm…” Steven said. “We should go back and report to your parents.” He told her. “They are probably worried about us.”

“Do you want to see Dogcopter along with me then?” She asked him.

“I wouldn't watch it otherwise.” He said smiling as the pair of children made their way back into her house.

★★★★★

In many cases, watching a new show with your best friend as you drink tea under a blanket to shield yourselves from the cold wind of autumn is something considered as ‘friendship goals’.

In some others, helping clean the mess you did along said best friend after defeating a hideous creature is a similar experience.

It turns out that after the monster popped up like a balloon, the dead leaves from the trees the wind had ripped off flew into the surrounding areas. This of course included Connie’s neighborhood, which seemed to be buried under thirty centimeters of yellow and brown.

However, this didn’t bothered Connie at all.

The point of Steven’s visit was to spend a good time after all, and she already knew that steven was one of the few persons on earth who could turn a boring task into a fun game.

And true to his nature, he made the mundane task of raking the leaves into a contest to see who could make the biggest mound of leaves, only to jump straight into them regardless. Making figures on the leaves and making a tiny amethyst out of them.

This made Connie remember that Steven was also magical. Not only magical in the literal sense, but magical in the same way the land she lived in was. His natural optimism and kindness were something that never failed to shine, even through the most dire of circumstances.

And that magic was the one she loved the most.

#connie maheswaran #steven quartz universe #steven diamond universe #SU fic #connverse #it's more platonic tho #but it works #alexis writes shit

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lilietsblog · 7 years

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Strike Witches episode 1: first impression

so im gonna try strike witches: the unknown anime i chose to not familiarize myself with the premise beyond 'something like fighter pilots i think?' that i picked up by osmosis

oh hey look a discarded doll. def war is hell vibes here

cant say im a fan of the visuals from the first several seconds, the color scheme and everything seems kinda bland? the only reason im making this observation is bc i had to pause to let it load tho

oh look Very Noticable CGI

(i have a headache and am vaguely nauseous and basically am Very Cranky as a result)

man, there aren't even characters yet. it's been almost two minuets and there still aren't people for me to relate too that's a crime by which i dont mean that literally but just 'this might not be the thing i want to watch right now'

oh hey monsters okay this is better than just straight up war is hell between humans omfg in 1939 subtle 'we wanna play with ww2 era toys but without bringing up the fact japan was on the side of nazi germany' i assume sure im onboard if thats the premise

magitech??? magitech!!!

that's. their legs. in those things. are they evoking Baba Yaga and her travels in a stupa bc thats okay panty shots i think imma quit at the end of this episode

oh i. just realized this is the movie that actually makes it a bit better and gives me more hope lets try the actual first episode first

ok the first shot is of the sky and not a discarded doll that's already better

holy shit whatever this video player is it allows to load external captions from pc or url. technology progresses at an incredible pace

i love that the fighter planes are clearly shown attacking the vortex first 9u9

opening has so many girls wearing shoes but no pants. im just. this entire device's entire point is clearly to fanservice that does not mean this is bad character-wise yet ofc. i watched and liked fucking rosario+vampire. this show has a chance yet. lets see what its got

the op song is nice its also very straightforward about aesthetic of this show being 'girls without pants in absolutely non-sexual situaitons' and i can respect that

and oh look it actually does start with characters interacting right after exposition that's what im talking about

okay so now might be a good time to mention that the first context i heard of strike witches was uh. misogynist porn. like the kind that doesnt go for 'look at these relatable characters being kinky' but for 'consider: what if powerful girls got hurt instead'. so thats the context in my brain and i want to fucking overwrite it

military uniforms+panties are definitely an aesthetic and im incredibly amused by it okay every single girl here doesnt wear pants sure that actually looks like a swimsuit rather than panties and thats nice

also they are characterizing the protagonist! like i know thats not much to ask for but im going into this straight off blogging about madoka and this is just such a relief! she is kind and brave and plucky and talks gently to a scared kitten and I love her also she Does Not Think Things Through shes like the typical shonen protagonist but a girl. im in

Yoshika her name is Yoshika

and her motivation is her dad but eh sure whatever I kind of like the touch of 'it was classified military information' not sure why

theres nothing about Yoshika that qualifies her other than her personality and magic powers huh

yep thats a swimsuit aww shes a healer!

I love that the military observers rush to help as soon as they see something is off theres work and then theres helping emergencies

oh!!!! her mom and grandma are around!!! and teaching her!!! im happy!!!

Yoshika why is all that a 'but' to 'you should learn to control your power' i dont think there was any subtext of 'you shouldnt even try' there? or was it? maybe i should just trust her for now

awww Yoshika actually doesn't want to go to war <3 but this woman thinks she will because she wants to help people and she'll help people the most there I I like this ;~; I'm so happy I like this I love Yoshika's 'fuck war' instinct I love her drive to help everyone and in fact the trope of magical healer almost killing themselves to help a patient (despite it being professionally inadvisable) is actually the thing i made my very first rp character sooo :> you know. stuff something is fishy about that letter. its no coincidence it was sent just now... I love Sakamoto and her A+ social skills HA HA HA HA HA also huh... she's not in on whatever's up with that letter

Yoshika so uh alright she'll take her without enlisting her huh interesting but uh what about school I guess military and witches can override all that and it kind of makes sense to me thematically

'Britannia' gee how familiar that name sounds and i dont mean geographically

so hm could Yoshika be a military doctor without actually enlisting? how do the formalities work there i like that Sakamoto doesnt question her dislike of all things military like its unexpected but mostly bc Sakamoto's got a one track mind that has a hard time expecting anything other than what she wants to happen and beyond that its like 'sure ok a conscientous objector got it' even though its weird how there would be conscientous objectors to fighting MONSTERS its not like theres an alternative to not fight I mean also clearly Yoshika is a kid and theres room left for that in other characters' treatment of her opinions and I love that they dont get Offended that she doesn't understand and Have Proper Respect well Sakamoto doesn't at least not sure about how other people will react

man that raccoon on the road sure was convenient though. like i first thought it was Sakamoto's deliberate tactic to gauge Yoshiko's powers. she was opening her eye to i guess do just that visually and then the raccoon appeared and it just felt very natural that one follows from the other? is this foreshadowing or are the writers of this anime just unfamiliar with the concept of 'subtle' i dont mind if its the latter tbh

(im writing a ton of reflection bc the episode broke after i tried to rewind a little and i decided to download it after all, and its doing that)

so far, this show seeems nicely straightforward and fast paced. like, really straightforward. yoshiko's introduction? saving a kitten. making a ww2 era anime without difficult shit? monsters attacked in 1939. motivations and revelations are handled with all the subtlety of a hammer to the face, from the raccoon to the letter. even fanservice has the same charming quality that makes me actually be okay with the entire point of their outfits being gratuitous panty shots. making sense and having pretense is for the weak. this anime knows what it wants to be and is going straight for that. i respect that approach

also its p clear that what it wants is to be character driven and its been Delivering on that since its only half episode one and i already Love two characters personally and also some supporting cast (Yoshiko's entire family)

and like you know that in some other show GASP MIGHT MY DAD BE STILL ALIVE would be a reveal saved for like. the halfway point. but here its literally the starting point spurring everything into action bc all other motivation was just too slow to get the character where she was supposed to go. good job yo

there's this trope where the main character doesn't want to go into the main conflict (Refusal of the Call)... and very often it's handled by either 1) letting them wallow until everything goes to shit showing how wrong they were or 2) immediately conveniently wrecking everything so they have no choice now I uh. am really glad this show went a different way if just joining the conflict isnt a good enough motivation GET A BETTER ONE and IT DOESNT HAVE TO BE ANGST (and it doesn't have to be romance, either!!! why are those two the only things writers seem to be able to think of jfc)

...okay I was more like two thirds through the episode rather than half but my points stand

okay so I think what just happened was Yoshiko realized the parallel between herself and her dad leaving and got scared and her response was to comfort other people and I love that <3

I love that Sakamoto doesn't have a doubt in her mind that Yoshiko isn't going to be useless and will definitely help and also comes to her to discuss this explicitly <3

man I love Sakamoto and her absolute lack of social graces and sense of when enough is enough

and the fact that Yoshiko is working chores now and seems to enjoy it too <3

and it's when it's established that she's part of the team that Sakamoto starts showing off <3 she clearly has a dedicated well thought out campaign of convincing Yoshiko going on and its borne out not of manipulation but of clear conviction that she is right and she just has to show the girl what she doesnt know yet <3

ahaha of course showing off worked <3

so I paused and imma make a bet with myself on whether Sakamoto is going to tell her 'if you liked that you can join' right now or leave that unsaid subtly my bet is that she is, bc subtlety is an entirely foreign concept to this wonderful human being, and if i lose im going to make my bed right now not even waiting for the end of the episode let's see

oh she starts with education huh, this is not widely known? i had no idea anyway lets see if she says the thing

I love that it's her dad and it's this kind thing of 'this is what he said he was going to do, and he did' <3

huh so that was slightly more subtlety than I expected, she offered her to try them rather than trying to recruit her directly so I lost the bet gotta go make the bed now

BAM DONE YAY GOOD SELF CARE

hey more main characters!!!! I love all of you already!!! you have personality and discuss things that make sense!!! including their outfits!!! I love them!!!! the parasol girl is my favorite but also the tiny girl and the red-haired girl they are all my favorites!!!

omfg a month of travel and half a day early Yoshiko gets impatient I love her

YOU ARE A NONCOMBATANT she said with the steely confidence of a commanding officer <3

I love so much that Sakamoto respects Yoshiko's boundaries re: fighting???

OMG THE ENDING SONG I LOVE IT

I love the upbeat and airy tone this show manages to have despite the premise??? like I had trepidations at the start bc I dislike doom&gloom-heaviness of 'war is hell' narratives and I'm not a WW2 affictionado. but instead of shiny boom boom toys and angst it's all character adorableness and so much sky??? even the lack of pants ends up feeling like freedom this is the anime we all deserve

#strike witches #anime #liliet watches strike witches

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writingguide003-blog · 5 years

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The Raised Eyebrow Is the Lazy Writers Favorite Cliche

New Post has been published on https://writingguideto.com/must-see/the-raised-eyebrow-is-the-lazy-writers-favorite-cliche-2/

The Raised Eyebrow Is the Lazy Writers Favorite Cliche

I have developed a severe allergy to hyperactive eyebrows in fiction. They have become writers go-to lazy shorthand for pretty much any emotion. In novels, eyebrows do all kinds of things. Most commonly they rise. Sometimes a single eyebrow rises all by itself, but often both eyebrows rise in unison. Slightly more creative writers make the eyebrows knit or furrow or hike or tighten or pinch or wiggleor any other verb that might describe a mobile eyebrow (or two).

I like to read fantasy and science fiction novels. Unfortunately, its hard to find quality writing in these genres. But this might be short-sightedness on my part. As the American science fiction writer and critic Theodore Sturgeon pointed out, Ninety percent of everything is crap. The statement is so indisputable that it has come to be known as Sturgeons Law. Regardless of the actual universal crap ratio, Im reading too many crappy books with too many moving eyebrows.

For instance, the last book I tried to read was The Black Witch by Laurie Forest. It got stellar reviews, and yet eyebrows get a workout in the very first chapter, including: My eyebrows flew up at this. Rafe raises his eyebrows. Tristan cocks an eyebrow in surprise. Rafe turns to me, raises his eyebrows and grins.

With an e-reader, one can X-ray a book. I typed in the word eyebrow and counted the use of eyebrows 40 times in that 608-page book, which averages out to one eyebrow movement every 15.2 pages.

Next I read The City of Brass by S. A. Chakraborty, a novel that also came highly recommended. This 544-pager contained 18 raised eyebrows, plus six lifted eyebrows, plus five arched eyebrows. Thats an average of one eyebrow movement every 18.75 pages, a slight improvement over The Black Witch but still enough to make me wonder if these characters arent suffering from some kind of Tourettes syndrome of the eyebrow. And it was enough to make me want to throw the book at the wall, which would have been unwise because I read on an iPad. Why cant these writers find something else to harp on? How about, just for a little variety, some grinding teeth? Or maybe some eyes that widen in astonishment or narrow skepticallywithout any eyebrow movement?

Maybe Im being a little unfair because eyebrows are on the move even in decorated novels I enjoyed. For instance, the Booker Prize-winning novel The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton features 22 eyebrow calisthenics, 17 of which are a single raised eyebrow. As the Writers Helping Writers website points out, the lone raised eyebrow is the number one clich all writers should avoid.

These hyperkinetic literary eyebrows were starting to raise my own metaphorical eyebrows up to my hairline. I used the X-ray function in my e-reader on some of my favorite writers. Here are a few of the results:

David Mitchells The Bone Clocks: zero, not even one moving eyebrow in 641 pages

David Mitchells Cloud Atlas: one raised eyebrow in 530 pages

N.K. Jemisins The Stone Sky (from the Broken Earth Trilogy): one raised eyebrow in 464 pages

Neal Stephensons The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.: three raised eyebrows in 768 pages

The result is so clear that it has led me to formulate my own law: The crappier the writing, the more raised eyebrows it contains. If all writers would use the eyebrow as sparingly as my favorite writers do, this affliction never would have caught my attention.

I have also come across some eyebrows I didnt understand. In Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn writes that with a wry eyebrow, he even produces the chili-cheese Fritos I know what chili-cheese Fritos look like, but I cannot picture what a wry eyebrow might look like. I can imagine a wry facial expression or a wry comment, but not a wry eyebrow. Stand in front of a mirror and try to make a wry eyebrow.

I did find one amusing use of the eyebrow: I could almost hear the lifted eyebrow.

Michael Chabon gets positively erudite about moving eyebrows in his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. After 10 raised, four arched, two lifted, two knit, two shot up, and two wiggled eyebrows, he writes of a slow agglomeration of a characters eyebrows. Literature is not always an easy read. First, one has to look up the word in the dictionary, and then one needs to think for several minutes what agglomerated eyebrows might look like. Its probably supposed to mean that two eyebrows ever so slowly form a unibrow, an acrobatic facial movement that strikes me as humanly impossible. Also, dont you need more than two eyebrows for an agglomeration?

To be fair, I should mention that I did find one amusing use of the eyebrow: I could almost hear the lifted eyebrow. Now thats pretty good, and its not from a literary genius. Its from the bestselling author Tad Williams in The Dirty Streets of Heaven.

Empirical evidence was needed to prove that raised eyebrows are not only lazy, clichd writing, but that they almost never occur in real life. I started to study my friends and co-workers eyebrows. The result: In real life, nobody raises an eyebrow, and its not because of Botox. People move their faces in all sorts of ways, which might or might not affect their eyebrows. They might scrunch up their forehead in concentration; they might open their eyes wide in astonishment, thus moving their eyebrows, but only ever so slightly. In several weeks of close scrutiny, I never observed a single raised eyebrow.

The next step in my evidence gathering was to watch peoples faces in movies. Same story: no raised eyebrows, zip and zero. Of course, there is that exception who proves the rule, the infamous eyebrow-raiser Roger Moore. Mercifully, the cartoonish Roger Moore school of acting has survived only where it belongs, in animated movies.

There is also the Colbert emoji with one raised eyebrow, named after the TV comedian Stephen Colbert. Since Colbert got his very own one-raised-eyebrow emoji, one would expect that he raises an eyebrow quite often. He does not. I have watched many Colbert shows while paying special attention to his eyebrows, and while he does have expressive facial movements, he never raised an eyebrow in any show I watched.

The raised eyebrow is nothing more than a metaphor to describe surprise, disapproval, or superiority. For instance, CNN writes, There were some real eyebrow raisers when President Trump talked to the press corps while visiting Vietnam. One could write such a sentence about our president every day, but that doesnt mean that any real-life eyebrows in the press corps actually moved.

Its hard to say precisely when the literary eyebrow movement went pandemic, but it appears to be a recent plague. Henry James used one lifted and two raised eyebrows in his 1881 novel, The Portrait of a Lady. They are rare or completely absent in other classics as well. As far as I know, Shakespeare ignored eyebrows altogether.

Try to imagine a utopia where writers ignore eyebrows altogether and find more original ways to express emotions. The worlds over-supply of crappy books would magically shrink. With luck, Sturgeons Law would have to be revised to proclaim this major change: Today, thanks to the immobilization of the eyebrow, a mere 87 percent of the worlds literature is crap.

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com

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leighasnotebook · 7 years

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Title - Hey Future Leigha ;P

So.. I'm broke as fuck. I can't even seem to get a job. A job at a place I dont even like but need. I barely even made it home from internship at the humane society in Indy. I am on BELOW empty. I tried to sell a galaxy s4 at disc replay to get me by and they wouldnt even take it because apparently theres something wrong with it. So that was dissappointing as fuck too. I've been forced to borrow money from my mom who I STILL live with. So apparently I dont even have the abilty to be independent right now. Sure Im in school but I cant even afford to put gas in my tank to get there and I still owe 1000 dollars or more to my school. I dont even know where Ill work after I get my certificate. Thats right.. CERTIFICATE.. not a actual degree. Still. I stupidly decided to get a credit card a few years ago and now I'm maxed out and cant afford to pay it off. I at least have gotten on a payment plan that will make the interest 0% and make my monthly payment lower. My phones fucked because I broke the goddamn screen on it. So no one can even call me unless its on the house phone and I'm not home all the time AND its a cordless that apparently has fucked batteries in it because it just shuts off after like 10 - 15 minutes. I shouldve never even gotten a stupid "smart" phone. All its done is make me feel guilty about the extra money my MOM is spending for it on the bill. And it is way more fragile than a flip phone. Sure the extra shit on it was fun but I dont even need it. I dont care if Im "stuck" in the old times. At least it was reliable. I have grown up in my life with a nice place to live and nice things but that just isnt me. I know when I live on my own I wont live in a nice place and I wont have nice things. Its as if Ive been blindfolded to my actual lifestyle to the point where I agreed to getting nice things. Things Id never be able to afford by myself. After my car got totaled I got a 12k settlement which I had my dad take care of because he wanted to take it to use to get me a new car. Well he decided to get me a fucking expensive newer car.. the accident happened oct. 1st 2013.. I ended up driving a rape van (huge burgendy van with bars on the windows) to and from Ivy Tech and work for about half a year or more before my dad decided to take out a loan for a Toyota Camry 2013! Why on earth would you opt to get me a expensive car like that when I cant even afford gas or live on my own!? Now Im fucked because I cant pay the car payment.. my dads paying it which makes him think for some reason that its his vehicle. No on the contrary it was his decision to spring for a newer car of which I am entitled to 12k of. so yeah now I have a investment in something I cant even use because the insurance is insanely high and I cant afford it. Sigh Im just so fed up with all of this bullshit. If I could sell everything I have right now and just start new, that would be ideal. Sell the fucking Toyota, use the money to pay off my credit card bill, pay off school and maybe have enough to secure a place for me and my dog to live. Because I am not a goddamn straight woman who has a boyfriend to pay for half of everything. I feel like alot of girls live with their boyfriends and get off easy. Well thats not an option for me is all Im saying. I can barely even find a lesbian whos responsible and even has enough income to hold up their half of living expenses.. I cant say shit about that right now since Im in the same boat but still. Even when I do (which I usually do) have all my resources I still cant find a responsible GF. Either way Id still be dependant on whoever I was living with to keep my place. Even if they were a roommate. Which I guess would be the same financially if it were a significant other providing half. anyway.. Ive been trying goddamn hard to get a job. I signed up for Rover.com to watch dogs or walk dogs for people but IDK if my background check came back clean. which it should because I spent extra money so that it would be. Beyond all.. I am seriously just fed the fuck up with trying to manage all of the bullshit that I have to. It feels like I need 3 of me to accomplish all the shit in front of me. I am overwhelmed I guess is what that means. I feel so useless in the world. The only thing keeping me from spiraling into a severe depression is the fact that Im going to school for something that I love doing. Knowing that in a month and a half Ill be graduating is whats keeping my head up. Other than that.. its my friends and animals that hold up the rest. Some days I for real just want to get drunk and say.. FUCK IT ALLLLL. which is kind of what im doing right now.. but guess what? my box of cheap ass wine is almost gone so this will be a short lived release until im fucked again.. and cant even go to a party I was invited to go to on sunday. Im writing very unhinged right now. I need a goddamn stupid dumb job. And Ive been trying to get one for months. Now its even harder without a cellphone. "hey yeah just call my house phone and let me know about that job" just doesnt jive well with me because ITS A FUCKING HOUSE PHONE.. better than nothing but its real fucked trying to get a job when you cant answer your phone bc you dont have one of your own. gaaaahahahahaha fuckckkckck Im just so fucking stressed. I feel like I cant accomplish anything with the materials I have right now. Even if I had some money.. Got a full tank of gas and paid off my monthly bills I still wouldnt just magically have a job. Even if I got my phone screen replaced. Goddamn and Ive tried going into places but apparently Im a dumbass and come at the wrong times. Sigh.. just. fucking. schedule. me. for. a. interview. its not that hard. Theyre like "oh yeah were hiring" but other than saying that sentence they are so fucking unhelpful. "oh did you apply online?" uhh duh yeah I did you fuck. Why in the fuck would I not fill out an application and expect an interview. Fuckin assholes.. like I get it.. youre busy. but hey you wanna know what would ease that? If I was working right now and could take some of the work load off. Everytime someone would call about a job I would be so informative and supportive because I know what its like. Plus if I ever feel like Im overworked- which is alot of the time at those quick turnover jobs- I WANT the person inquiring about a job to get the job. Why? because I need them to take some of my workload off. Thats how it happens at pizza hut at least. you start with a bunch of people and then they dwindle down to where everyone is being over worked and more workers are needed as to not kill everyone who still works there. sigh.. I dont even want to work at pizza hut again but at this point I will take any fucking job I can get. I am being nickeled and dimed.. just like that fucking book I had to read in school. Given, all of it was brought upon my by my own past hand. I cant do anything about the past and its legit my past self just going crazy on a credit card that has me so fucked right now. After I get these cards paid off I will NEVER EVER EVER have another credit card again. I cannot be trusted with it. Great that I know that now that Im in debt out my ass. Yeah yeah and I have this theory that I learn things in life by trial error.. and guess what.. IVE FUCKING LEARNED.. and now that I have im still super fucked. Usually my trial error didnt cause me this much detrimental pain and suffering. usually it was like touching a hot stove and it was over with. but no.. this has been a very slow stinging burn that wont let up. I know.. I know that I will have to kill myself working my ass off and not having any shred of a life to get out of this hole. but the thought of it just really really makes me sad. Not saying It makes me not want to get a job. because NO WAY I need a job ASAP like yesterday. like if someone walked up and would pay me 20 dollars to eat a worm I would. Because it would spare me the shame in asking my mom YET AGAIN for gas money. God I am so tired of asking anyone for ANYTHING. Its the last thing I want to do in fact. Theres only so much you can ask of someone before they decide they wanna say nope.. youre on your own. and you know? Im surprised my mom hasnt told me no yet. Shes really really helpful. I think she understands me but also just wants me to get a job already so I wont keep borrowing from her. Which is understandable completely.. and thats exactly what I want too. At least i dont just sit around getting drunk and stoned all day in my pajamas. Im actually trying here. Theres nothing more that I want to just have a steady income. I dont care what kind of shit I have to drudge through to get to that point. I am so able bodied and ready to sweat and work and give myself away to a corporation for money. But guess where Im going to get the gas money to get to that job? FUCK IF I KNOW lol. goddamnit. I have really done it this time. How did I let it get this bad? How did I let myself fall so far? I dont even have anything else to sell to disc replay and the only other things I have to sell are all my paintball equiptment.. and I dont even really know how I would go about doing that. Craigslist? idk. I am flailing..... my wings are clipped and i cant fly. I have maybe a few dollars in change right now. Man how I used to just throw it in a jar willy nilly when I had a job. Not touching it at all for months and months. and now its all I have. FUCK. my rope is covered in kerosine and its been on fire for months. Someone in this world needs to cut me a fucking break and give me a job. Just 1 fucking person to say "you got the job, heres your uniform, come in monday at 8". I have been able to keep my hope through the worst of situations in my life. I feel it wearing reaaally thin right now. I almost had to walk miles just to get home today. you know its bad when you cant even afford to drive home. When youre just waiting for your car to give out and its screaming "i need gas!!!" You actually make it home and you get out of the car and hug it and praise it. Thank you. Thank you so much for holding out on me. I will get you gas as soon as I can I promise. Its like if you were traveling by horse and didnt have any water or grains for it to sustain itself but it powers through for you. I feel like a huge bum slacker bitch. Like I shouldve worked harder. done this done that. And maybe I wouldnt have ended up in this tight situation. The only thing in this world that is mine is my body and my animals and the relationships I have with my friends. I'm going to call Pizza hut right now. Ive been trying to fucking get this interview scheduled and they keep being little bitches over the phone. Not this time. I wont let it happen. "oh were in a lunch rush" dude. no. Fuck off. lol. Not this time. BRB. ya okay same old shit.. OH the hiring manager isnt here. Okay I understand but why dont you ACTUALLY give them my name and number and HAVE them call me. I know I know I will call the HIRING MANAGER on monday. See? its just a let down. I will call monday and demand an interview. I am more than qualified for your dumb job. anyway.. I know my friends and family will always be around to help me out. But I am a very stubborn person and have always wanted to do things my way and on my own. asking for help is something that I hold as a last resort. In the situation im in I am at my last resort time. It takes money to make money. money for the gas- to go to work- to get the money- for the gas- to get to work. Thats a 2 week process in itself. once I get past that threshold Ill be more self-sustaining. GGaaah! Please.. UNIVERSE! Im begging you!! Give me a job! Please please please please please! I need to get back ontop of it all. Hold out hope... hold out hope... crunching gears inside me trying to keep that train moving. GO. keep the rusty gears going. Keep swimming like Dory says. I feel like im trying to keep swimming but im in a puddle barely sustaining life itself. Gasps of water into my drying gills every couple seconds. All the while "hold out hope, just keep swimming" goes through my head like a mantra. I go from being super hopeful and positive to super hopeless and negative. Sometimes I'm just on this mid-line pergatory where I dont know how to feel or how I should feel. I know that a lot of people deal with hardships like me. Usually just pushing all their feelings down day to day thinking.. eh ill figure it out. Somethings got to give in for me. things will be different and get better soon. This isnt the end of the world. Im not dieing.. yet. But there are times where no matter what your troubles.. you cannot just push it down anymore. You have to sit there and stare into the eyes of a skull and think.. things are going bad. This isnt how it should be. I shouldnt feel like this. Something is wrong in this equation because its not equaling out right. So here I sit. In my familiar place where Ive faced a lot of things in life. In the garage. (wow a disc replay commercial just came on the radio.. how ironic... fuck u guyz lol). Ive dealt with sooo much in this garage. Most of my epiphanies have happened in here. Most of my hardships. At least in my adult life. And when I wasnt in Terre Haute. Always staring at stuff in here. Listening to the radio. Smoking cigarettes. Drinking. Thinking. [insert link to In The Garage by Weezer here] I cant even explain the range of feelings Ive felt in this garage. Love, lust, loss, depression, happiness, worry, anxiety, calmness, anger, thoughtfulness, perceptiveness, desire, turmoil, empathy, regret, sickness, healthiness, Ive felt hot and cold, bad and good, and at the end of the day when I sit here. It feels so familiar. It could be anywhere. but in this little box on the planet is where all these things have opened up like a bud. So many conversations with friends, on the phone, in person. Oh so very telling and depending on if there was snow, dead leaves, flowers, or sun outside the dynamic would change ever so slightly. And as friends have come and gone, people have died or were born, this has been a constant place for me for the last eight years. After I caught a big fish, built a snow fort, or made a drunken dancing video to missy elliot this place stayed the same and was always here. I feel like im confessing a love affair between me and my garage right now.. but I wanted to express my gratitude to these four walls which I believe have absorbed a lot of the things I am talking about right now. I remember when I first started to dwell in this garage. I was still drinking and smoking on the down-low. Didnt want my mom to know. I would listen to the radio and write just like Im doing now except it was often in a notebook. Its the only way for me gain solace in my life sometimes. Love often drove me to worry as I listened to deftones, linkin park, or staind or anything that came on x-103. Id just scribble on page after page I would stop caring if it was legible... That shear fact that id stop caring in general was all I wanted. I wanted to release all my cares into a song or a feeling or a writing. What do I want? who do i need? who AM I ? Sometimes I never know. I dont know things alot. as much as Id like to believe I have every little thing under control.. I never have it all. this isnt to say that its a negative thing. Sometimes you simply cannot wrangle every little thing into a place you think it belongs. often things are flying like kites with brittle strings. they break off and float out of bounds yet still connected just not within reach. Its definitely angering at times. you think.. why cant i keep my shit in check? but if you think about it. maybe it was never "your shit". I really think its better to not stress over things that blow away. Youre in a spot you let shit fly and it ends up gaining its own separate current without you. You cant always be strong enough to keep everything where you want it. It doesnt work that way, you cant control everything. HELL sometimes you cant control anything. and I know how that feels. shit. right now I could still be walking on the side of the road away from my broken down car. holding up my thumb trying to get home. you cant hold everything down with a thumb tac or a bad attitude. things will happen and ya you probably could have avoided some things but I think things happen for a reason. Maybe to teach you that you in fact are not in control. That things are or arent just black and white. Reppercutions.. actions that lead to situations that you have to handle. Its all apart of one thing. you... its you. hah. I mean you make choices.. and theres always a second and third happening. In my case.. it makes me feel like im unintelligent when I make a choice and it causes something bad. Ex. If I were to have to walk home today.. my mind would have been full of .. "well thats because I didnt have enough gas" Well why didnt I? because I didnt have the money. Why didnt I? because I dont have a job. Why dont I have a job? because Im an irresponsible entitled person. I act like the world will bend to my whim when it doesnt work that way. When weve all got the same probability of things going our way. Why should I think I'm any different? why? because of all those times I made it home when my gas tank was below E? what about those times when I didnt get so lucky? that time my car stopped on a highway and I was late to work and I got fired? Its just this numbers game in my head. Will it be okay or not. I never know but my brain urges me to believe yes. youll be okay. and when im not i think well.. It was about a 50/50 that this would happen and I knew that deep down.. so I cant really be too mad right? lets just walk a few miles and get what i deserve. meanwhile I think about everything I could have done that wouldve lead to a different outcome. ya hmm. maybe if i had a job.. id have gas in my tank.. and this wouldnt have happened. maybe..hmm just maybe..? You know when you drive down a highway and you see a person walking it? You can gaurantee that that person is thinking... how could I have avoided this? That person is me that person is you. Walking on the grass on the side of the road.. looking at all the trash people discard from their car windows. Really slows your mind down when youre walking where you normally drive through. You see people zoom by who will get to their destinations on time. Who had the money and intellect to just buy some gas. We all have our days when were in the gutter. When I have mine, it forces me to slow down.. to really look at my life. Why did this happen.... why am I stuck and fucked like this again. Even though I magically made it home today on my below E tank I still see this as a wake-up call. It brings me back to the times when I didnt make it home. I felt like a lost dog. and ya I know.. poor me.. first world problems. Oh man Leigha had to walk 5 miles to get home because she ran out of gas in the automobile that she has available for her to drive 24-7 usually. And dangg. she even had a full meal before this walk.. poor her. I know I know. Its totally crap. Its not like I almost died or was starving and in a desert left to die. In reality, on this planet I am lucky. I am a lucky person. But to say that we still dont have our problems would be to say that anyone with a roof over their head was flawless. It makes me realize that yeah, first world problems are nothing to those in third world countries. But I shouldnt feel invalidated if I have room to improve my life. Everyone in this world has room to improve their lives. I am not solitary in this one bit. in fact I feel like I am unaware of tons and tons of stuff in life. Theres so many times when I just simply dont know something. Makes me feel like I dont know anything about anything sometimes haha. its like "oh you didnt know about this?!?!" uhhh no I didnt. Should I have? Woops? am I squandering my priveledge to learn about things I should know about? When it comes down to it. I am never done learning. I am never done growing as a person. I am so ignorant to so many things simply because I have never been exposed to them. I cant walk the earth acting like I have a grasp on everything when I dont. I dont know what anyone else goes through day to day around the world.. I cant compare my life to anyone elses if I've only lived my own separate life. I can relate to people of course but I do not think that anyone can fully understand how something feels unless it happens to them. sure ill say "oh yeah Ive felt that before" or "I felt like that when... etc etc" but I dont know how it feels through someone elses eyes, in someone elses shoes. What Im trying to say is that I have had some really really hard times. Personally I feel that they are HARD TIMES. For me and maybe me only. Maybe others would look at these "hard times" and laugh and say "HAHAH you think thats hard?". But that being said this is how I feel and it cannot be undermined by anyone. Beyond all these technicalities that I decided had to be stated, right now I feel as though I have entered the abyss. I feel like Im in a place that is neither here nor there. I am a real nowhere man who has no real nowhere plans. I used to want to get a tattoo that was the symbol for "nobody". It was a onyx or something I dont remember the spelling. For a long time I thought I was nobody. I thought I would just bend to the whim of anything or anyone. And at the time, I thought that was just me. Me was nobody since I felt like everybody but nobody at the same time. Then I thought.. hmm I dont think I should get this tattoo because what if someday I become somebody. And im glad that I didnt get that tattoo because I AM somebody. I guess there are sometimes that my past self is right about how my future self will feel. I feel like everyone is usually thinking about the future. How they will be, where they will live, what they'll be doing and who theyll be doing IT with (bow-chicka). And do you know what I think? I think that everyones present self is the best link to that future self. OBVIOUSLY. but think about it like this. You .. RIGHT NOW.. can have a serious effect on your future self. Not just with succeeding and blah blah blah boring shit like that. Listen. About 6 or 7 years ago I made a video of myself talking to my future self. I completely forgot about that video. I came across that video one day and HEY it was ME! I didnt remember it AT ALL. and as I watched it it really really felt like my past self was talking to me. it was SURREAL AS FUCK. and on point! Ever since that day I have been making videos to my future self. Even stating in the video that I know Im going to just be drunkenly watching this video. Which usually is also on point! hah. But I strongly suggest that more people do the same thing. maybe just check in with your future self every now and then and say hey. what the fuck is up?! I hope you arent broke as shit and running out of gas. haha. its actually pretty comical the stuff youll begin to find your past self saying to you. I think documenting your life is a really good thing. You can learn so much just by sifting through your past experiences that youve written down or video taped. Right now for instance I feel like I need some guidance. So I think I will revisit some of my past selfs videos and make another one. You talk about how youre doing and how youve fucked up and tell your future self about all of it. Then in a year or two guess whos giving you pointers? YOU! haha its really actually hilarious. who'd of thought that it would be what you said to yourself 2 years ago that would set your world straight. I think I should go revisit my videos now. I need some guidance. :D In other news. not doing so well right now. This writing has definitely helped. Leigha Horvath- Signing off. ;*

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writingguide003-blog · 5 years

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The Raised Eyebrow Is the Lazy Writers Favorite Cliche

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The Raised Eyebrow Is the Lazy Writers Favorite Cliche

With an e-reader, one can X-ray a book. I typed in the word eyebrow and counted the use of eyebrows 40 times in that 608-page book, which averages out to one eyebrow movement every 15.2 pages.

David Mitchells The Bone Clocks: zero, not even one moving eyebrow in 641 pages

David Mitchells Cloud Atlas: one raised eyebrow in 530 pages

N.K. Jemisins The Stone Sky (from the Broken Earth Trilogy): one raised eyebrow in 464 pages

Neal Stephensons The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.: three raised eyebrows in 768 pages

I did find one amusing use of the eyebrow: I could almost hear the lifted eyebrow.

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com

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