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uvobreakmylegs · 3 years

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The Sixth Floor Game

heavy inspiration from the Elevator Game, as well as the Three Kings Game and a little bit of Silent Hill 3

demon!Shalnark

Warnings: blood, death, kidnapping

The Sixth Floor Game is a ritual that will put you into contact with otherworldly forces and, if done correctly, can take you to a world that exists outside of our own. To play this game, you must follow all of the instructions that have been written below. Take care to remember all of them, as one mistake could result in death.

First you must enter a dark and empty building that has an elevator and only five floors in between the times of 3 and 4 AM. The only items you can bring with you are a fully charged cellphone, an item of sentimental value to you and an offering for the demon.

It is not recommended that you give an offering that bares any resemblance to that of a clown or magician.

When you enter the elevator, you need to ride it up to the 5th floor and leave the offering just outside the elevator doors and then head back down to the 3rd floor. When you reach the 3rd floor, you then need to exit the elevator and use your phone to call the last person in your call history. The game begins when you call that number.

When the line is picked up, you must say “I want to visit the 6th floor”.

Be warned that at this point you may hear strange noises on the other end, as calling the number at this time and place has put you in contact with a demon. It is possible to gauge whether the demon is happy with your offering or not based off the things he may say, if anything at all. Do not hang up on the demon; you will go back up the elevator when he hangs up on you.

There are three possibilities awaiting you when you go back to the 5th floor to see what has happened to your offering.

If the demon doesn't care for your offering but hasn't been upset by it, you will find it in the same place as you left it outside the elevator. You must then collect the offering, go back down to the first floor and leave the building.

If the demon has been offended by your offering, you will find the offering destroyed in some way. Leave the building immediately if you find this, as it means that the demon is angry with you and will try to kill you if you stay too long.

But if the demon likes your offering, there will be no trace of it when you get back up to the 5th floor. If this has happened, you must close the elevator doors and then hit the button for the 5th floor again. This time, instead of the doors opening again, the elevator will begin to move up, taking you to a 6th floor that shouldn't exist.

The amount of time it will take to reach the 6th floor varies from person to person, but it should not take longer than two minutes.

When you reach the 6th floor, you will find yourself in another world. Accounts of what this other world looks like also varies from person to person. Some have said that the floor they entered was run down and wrecked to pieces in some parts. Others have said that the floor didn't look any different from the other floors. Regardless of the state of the floor, the one thing that is consistent is a giant glowing red cross that can be seen if you look outside. You will see nothing else outside aside from the cross.

It is not recommended that you to try to open any windows or try to climb down the building.

You are free to explore this other world until you are ready to leave. It does not matter how long you stay in the other world. When you want to leave you must simply walk back to the elevator and hit the button for the first floor. It is possible that you may come across the offering that you left for the demon earlier while you explore.

Do not take the offering back; it now belongs to the demon.

Reality on the 6th floor can be distorted and you may find yourself becoming confused. If you find yourself entering into such a state, take out the sentimental item you brought and focus on it. It will keep you from losing yourself and allow you to continue as you explore the other world.

Above all else, while exploring the other world, you must never look behind you. Even though the demon may have liked your offering, he also likes trickery and will try to make you turn around to look at him by making noise or by speaking to you. If you look at the demon you will be unable to leave the 6th floor and he will keep you there forever as he has claimed you as his.

It is not recommended that you speak to the demon even if you don't look at him.

Regardless of the outcome of your offering, when you have returned to the 1st floor you must exit the building and you cannot enter the building again for any reason until the time is 6 AM.

If you have upset the demon with your offering, it is not recommended that you try the game again.

There is no reward for playing this game. There is only the experience of leaving this world and venturing to one beyond our own.

This game is dangerous and could result in the death of the player, so please consider the possible outcomes of playing before you decide to do so.

You finished reading aloud the instructions displayed on the sketchy-looking site and looked to your friend Farah, who had her hands clasped together as she looked hopefully at you and the rest of your group who had gathered in her apartment.

“Well?” she asked after a moment, “what do you think?”

“.... Why does a demon have a phone?” you asked.

“Yeah and what phone company does he use?” Cliff asked after you, “or do demons have their own phone companies.”

“You're missing the point!” Farah exclaimed.

“And the point is....?”

“We need to try this!”

There was a collective groan throughout the apartment. The other one in the group, Carmen, rubbed their forehead as they told Farah “you're our friend and we love you, but I don't think any of us want to repeat that time we tried summoning ghosts in a public bathroom.”

“This is nothing like that!” Farah insisted, “it said that we need a building with five floors and an elevator! I promise, there won't be anything gross!”

“Where do we get a building like that?” Carmen asked.

Farah pointed to Cliff.

“You work security overnight at that one office building, right?”

“Do you seriously think I'm going to risk my job for this?” he asked.

“We won't do anything bad! We'll just play a game and leave some stuff on the top floor. If the demon doesn't like it we'll take it with us. It's literally in the rules that we need to clean up after ourselves.”

Farah stopped herself, but you could tell she wanted to continue about getting a chance to visit another world. She loved the supernatural and those kinds of urban legends, but she never wanted to try these things on her own.

Carmen sighed.

“Is anyone else even remotely interested in trying this?” they asked.

Neither you or Cliff said anything at first, and Farah's face began to fall as no one volunteered. Then, when it looked like Carmen was about to speak again, you tentatively raised your hand.

“It might be fun,” you said. At least in terms of memories of 'dumb shit you did when you were younger'.

Farah beamed while Carmen gave you a look that screamed 'I hate you'.

With you willing to give the game a chance, the other two ended up conceding to do the same, and Cliff had been convinced by Farah to let you all in a week from that day when he worked at that particular building. With his shift being 11 PM to 7 the next morning, there would be plenty of time for you to play the game and then let him get back to work. As long as nothing was messed up by the end of it, there would be no harm.

At first you were rather stumped on what to give the demon as an offering. Farah was the same, but she ended up deciding on a horror anthology book from the 1920s. Carmen just got a shirt they had been wanting since they were certain that this ritual wasn't going to work and they wanted to spend the money on something that was useful to them. Cliff went out of his way to get a particularly creepy clown doll. He claimed that he wasn't annoyed by all of this, but you found yourself questioning that statement when he sent a picture of it through the group text. You had no clue where the fuck he had found something that unsettling.

The night you all had settled on was approaching and you still didn't have an offering. It shouldn't have been that hard, and yet you felt like if there was the chance that you were going to run into some otherworldly creature, you didn't want to half-ass it and make it upset. If the supernatural was real it seemed better to try and keep it on your side.

You found yourself browsing a few online forums where people were discussing the game. Unsurprisingly, most said that the ritual didn't work, and the few that claimed that it did had written some uninspired stories about how the demon had told them how they were going to die or when the world was going to end, with at least one mentioning the coming of the Antichrist. When you scrolled down to the end of the page you were pretty bored of all of the comments you read and you were about to exit the page when one particular comment caught your eye:

the demon likes bats

It was buried beneath the comments of others, and nobody had interacted with it. Common sense would tell you that this was just more bullshit, but it just seemed like such a random thing to make up. Nowhere in the instructions had it mentioned bats, and no one else on the forums had said anything about it either. The user who had posted it hadn't interacted with anything else and seemingly just came on to put out that little tidbit. For that reason, you found yourself wondering if their ritual had been successful.

You leaned back in your chair while you considered the information.

Bats, huh?

And then by complete chance the next day, when you were in the mall trying to find something because it the date you'd set for the game was only hours away and you still had nothing, you spotted something through the window of a toy store: a pink stuffed bat plush.

It was rather overpriced, but if that comment was correct, then it should be worth it. If not, at least you got something cute out of it.

Surprisingly it was Carmen and Farah that had been less than impressed by what you had brought.

“I didn't realize you wanted to offend the demon too,” Farah commented bitterly.

“Maybe the demon likes pink,” you responded as you shrugged.

Nothing more was said about it as Cliff opened the front door of the building. In exchange for doing this, he made the rest of you go about the building to turn off all any lights that had been left on which you all grumbled about but agreed was fair enough. By the time you were finished scouring the building, it was 3:13 in the morning.

It had been agreed that Farah would go first, and the rest of you waited in a darker spot of the parking lot while she went in, watching the building to see if you could spot her movements through the windows. You had pulled out your phone, as you were the last person she had called. It would probably be proven pretty fast if this was real or not if she called you and it went through to you, though Carmen had said that they felt it was likely that Farah would probably not call and just say that she had.

You checked to make sure the sentimental object you had brought was in your pocket: a small, stuffed bear keychain that you had gotten as a present from a childhood friend. It was special to you, but you didn't feel like you'd be absolutely devastated if anything happened to it.

Farah came out a few minutes later, carrying her book and looking disappointed.

“It didn't work,” she said as she sighed.

“Did you call?” you asked.

“Yes,” she answered, somewhat indignant. To prove that she had, she pulled out her phone and opened up her call history. It listed her last call as being made to you only a few minutes ago. When you opened up your own call history, it showed that she had called you over an hour ago.

….. Okay. That was weird.

Carmen went next, and it was the same story with them, as they came out a little bit later still holding their shirt. Unlike Farah, they didn't seem too upset.

Cliff went after, holding that creepy clown doll and waving it around a bit as he walked to the elevator.

It was quiet again after that. You, Carmen and Farah waited patiently in the parking lot while the electric lampposts around you hummed. Cliff had been talking earlier so you hadn't noticed it, but it seemed eerily quiet outside. Usually there were bugs or other forms of wildlife at night that would keep things from being silent, but right now there was nothing; only the humming electricity of the lot and the occasional comment from Carmen.

Farah seemed anxious as she looked at the building, her hands playing with the charm on her phone while she waited for any sign of Cliff. The thing with the phone history seemed to convince her this was for real and she seemed nervous about Cliff's offering. Carmen didn't appear to be the same way and seemed more impatient, who'd begun to tap their foot as they waited.

“Did you hear anything when you called?” you asked the both of them. They looked at you, and both shook their heads.

“It was quiet when I called,” Farah said.

“Same here,” said Carmen. Farah smiled at that.

“That means that it's real, right?” she asked.

“Sure.”

Carmen wasn't the best person to be around when they were tired and cranky, and you could see that Farah wasn't trying to take it personally. But looking back to Carmen, you noticed a slight furrow to their brow, and the impatient tapping seemed to have increased. At first glance you would have assumed that they were just really done with this whole thing, but as you kept looking, it seemed less like they were annoyed and more more like they were apprehensive.

“Cliff's taking a while,” they commented.

It was taking Cliff longer than the two of them, you realized, and you were about to try and crack a joke about him making it to the sixth floor when you saw the elevator doors in the lobby slide open, followed by Cliff walking out.

More like storming out, actually.

“What the hell?!” he exclaimed as he shoved open the main doors.

“Don't shout!” Carmen responded, “this is your job that we're not supposed to be doing this at, remember? What're you going to do if someone calls the police on us?”

Cliff ignored them, looking to Farah as he continued “are you serious? You want this stupid thing to be real that badly?!”

He was holding something that he then thrust in front of Farah's face. It was the clown doll that he'd brought.

Or at least, what was left of it.

It looked like it had been stepped on repeatedly, the body broken and the head having been caved in. One of the legs were also missing, you noted.

“You.... You think I did that?” Farah asked.

“Who else!” Cliff yelled.

“I've been here the whole time!” she shrieked back.

“She has,” you added as you felt the need to jump in, “none of us have moved from this spot.”

“Oh fuck off,” he answered, “I needed to return this. What the hell am I supposed to do?”

“Maybe you shouldn't have gone out of your way to be an asshole,” Farah spat back.

It quickly devolved into an argument between the two, with Carmen pulling you back when you tried to jump in again. It made sense why Cliff was upset, but Farah hadn't done anything.

“.... Should I not go?” you whispered to Carmen after a bit.

“No!” Cliff exclaimed, this time at you, “you should go! Do this stupid thing, and then let me get back to my work!”

“You're not allowed to go back in for the rest of the night,” Farah pointed out.

By that point Cliff was done, and he stormed off to another area in the lot. Carmen motioned for you to go while Farah quietly steamed. It wasn't the first time those two had fought, but the arguments seemed to be getting nastier every time they happened. Best to get this over with so they could be separated and have the time to cool down.

You walked through the darkened lobby of the empty office building, your path illuminated only by the streetlights outside. There was something about darkness and artificial light that somehow made it feel more foreboding, more dangerous. Even though you were an adult there were still thoughts that ran about in your head of creatures that you couldn't see awaiting you in the dark, and those thoughts made you tense a bit. It was such an irrational fear, but one your brain wouldn't let go of. The argument between your friends had only put you more on edge as well.

The elevator doors slid open, the bright blinding lights hurting your eyes for a second before they adjusted to them, and you stepped in the car, pushing the button for the fifth floor.

Fifth floor, leave the offering, then down to third.

There were some bits of Cliff's creepy clown doll that were in front of the elevator when you reached the top floor. It vaguely occurred to you that the instructions said to leave immediately if the offering had been destroyed, but it seemed like Cliff had tried to clean up some. Though that made sense, since he didn't want to leave a mess behind after his shift.

You pushed away some of the leftover bits with your shoe, and carefully placed the bat plush laying on its back in front of the doors.

Down to the third floor, then.

You checked again to make sure that the bear keychain was still in your pocket during the ride down, stepping out when the doors opened after you confirmed that it was.

Now to make the call....

There hadn't been anything saying you needed to wait until the doors closed to begin, but you waited anyway. When the double doors slid shut behind you, you hit the button on your screen to call Farah, the last person on your call history.

It rang twice before the call was picked up. Just as Farah and Carmen had said, it was silent on the other side. You cleared your throat before saying the words that had been instructed.

“I want to visit the sixth floor. Please.”

There was nothing that said you needed to be polite, but you figured it couldn't hurt.

You still didn't hear anything from the other end, and that silence continued for several more seconds. You held the phone close to your ear, straining to hear anything, any sort of indication that someone was on the other line. The “demon” was supposed to hang up first, you remembered, so you were stuck until something happened.

“.... That's actually cute.”

The male voice you heard on the other end was unexpected, but you didn't get a chance to say anything back before the phone call ended.

You stood very still for a few moments.

That.... That hadn't been any of the others who were still outside. Unless they had gone so far as to hide someone out there and have them answer the phone when you called Farah and all of this was just an elaborate prank. But none of them were really the kind of people to do things like that.

Remembering the instructions from the site, you turned back to the elevator and got on when the doors opened, pushing the button for fifth floor once again.

If the demon likes your offering, there will be no trace of it when you get back up to the 5th floor

The ding of the elevator signaled that you were once again at the top floor of the building, and when the doors slid back open and you looked to the spot where you'd left the bat, you found.... Nothing.

That space you had cleared from the broken bits of that doll was empty, the white tiled floor shining in the light that came from the elevator.

….. If this was all just a prank by your friends, you weren't sure if you'd be able to trust them after this.

The doors closed once again, and you took a deep breath before you pushed the fifth floor button.

The elevator began to move up.

There wasn't a sixth floor; you'd double checked that the building only went as high as five.

You told yourself to wait until the doors opened before you jumped to conclusions. You'd need to see this “other world” before you could say for certain that all of this was real.

The website said that it could take up to two minutes, but mere seconds later did the doors slide back open.

Everything looked normal. Just another floor of an office building.

Or it would have looked normal, had it not been for the fact that everything was bathed in a red glow that came from the outside.

Clutching your phone in one hand and the keychain in the other, you took a small, tentative step out of the car, looking to either side of you.

The hallways were empty. Nothing jumped out at you.

Slowly, you walked over to a window.

In the distance stood a glowing red cross.

…. This was real.

This was actually real.

It was almost too much to process for your shock-addled brain, and you had to wonder if anyone else who had been successful had the same reaction as you, to just stare dumbly at the scene before you.

It then occurred to you to get proof for when you went back.

You pulled up the camera on your phone. Or you tried to at least. Of all the times for your phone to act up, it needed to be when you needed to get a picture so people would believe you. The app kept taking forever to pull up before it would close and you repeatedly tapped on the screen as you tried to make it work. Somehow you managed to snap a few pictures of the cross before the camera closed again and you weren't able to open it back up. The lighting and your uncooperative phone made the pictures appear quite blurry, but one would be able to tell what they were looking at. No doubt some people would claim that it was fake, but it was enough to satisfy you.

You checked the time, finding it to be 3:30, if the phone was to be trusted. You wished you had checked before you came up here, but it was a bit too late for that now.

You stepped away from the window and went down one of the halls, looking all around before you remembered that the site said that you shouldn't look behind you. Or was that only when you heard the demon? Regardless, you kept glances behind yourself to a minimum as you made your way through the floor.

Aside from the red light that covered everything, it looked like a normal office floor, filled with different offices and supply closets and nothing that was particularly interesting to you. The one strange thing was that the red cross outside seemed to move along with you, as when you would move to a different room you would still be able to see it clearly outside. You went back to the windows a few times and tried to see if there was anything else outside, but all you found was an endless darkness with no signs of any kind of life or structure. Unsurprisingly there was also no sign of your friends down below, though it would have been hard to see where they were standing outside anyway given the angle.

The red light made you slightly sick after a while, and you tried opening up the flashlight option on your phone. But it refused to turn on. In fact, nothing on your phone was working now, and when you looked at the clock, the time was still 3:30.

Either time was being distorted or your phone wasn't able to function properly. Given how your phone was acting earlier the latter would seem to be the most likely option, but you also weren't sure what the rules of this place were. There was nothing that said that this world was bound to time in the way yours was.

The website had said that you could stay up here for as long as you wanted, right?

You began to see things out of the corner of your eye, little bits of movement in the darkness that dared you to look at them. You did a few times, mentally slapping yourself as you remembered what the instructions had said as you were now desperately trying to remember everything that had been written so you knew what you could and couldn't do. It was amazing and terrifying at the same time as you recalled what the site had said about possibly dying to this game, and at one point you felt so overwhelmed that you thought you were going to throw up. You managed to keep it down, but after that you decided that it was time to leave.

When you started to head back to the elevator was when you felt a headache coming on. It was mild at first, but when you went further along your route to the exit it started to hurt more, turning into a stabbing pain that jammed into your skull.

Had the website mentioned this? You couldn't be sure. Where were you even going again?

You stopped at an open door, leaning against the open door frame to rest. There was movement from inside the room, and without thinking you looked over to it.

The bat you had left on the fifth floor sat in the room in front of a whiteboard. A whiteboard that had been absolutely covered in drawn on hearts and your name repeated over and over.

…. The website hadn't mentioned that.

“Do you think it's a good place for him?”

The voice you heard came from a few feet behind you. The same voice you had heard over the phone.

You needed to get out. Now.

You brushed your hand against your pocket as you tried to stand up straight again, still fighting the pain of the headache when you remembered the little bear keychain.

It will keep you from losing yourself

With that thought in mind you pulled it out and focused on it, and the pain seemed to lessen by a good amount.

“You've got a thing for cute stuff, don't you?”

The voice came from directly behind you this time, like whoever was speaking was staring down over your shoulder as they were practically on top of you.

Don't look don't look don't look

You pushed off of the door frame, the keychain still in hand as you power-walked back down the hall. The headache was still there a little bit but it was nowhere near as debilitating as it had been before.

The voice whined from behind you.

“You're leaving already? You just got here.”

Don't speak. Don't look.

It was following you. You could hear the footsteps that trailed after yours, keeping up with your pace and almost being purposefully loud. Sudden noises accompanied the footsteps, making you jump and urging you to turn around. It was a natural thing to react to sudden sounds like that and you needed to catch yourself a few times from looking behind.

It was trying to keep you here and you didn't want to stay to find out why that was.

You turned several corners and walked down many halls, and the elevator wasn't anywhere in sight. That wasn't right. You had made a mental note of where the location of the elevator approximately was. As much as the headache was still messing with you, you should still be able to make it back. You knew where it was, goddammit.

…. Was it just you, or were these hallways getting longer?

A chuckle came from behind you.

“You didn't think I'd let you go that easy, did you?”

You started to run.

You weren't sure how long you continued like that – time didn't seem to be a thing up here. Around you the halls extended, stretching out and prolonging your time in this hell as you turned corner after corner and you still couldn't find the fucking elevator. The temptation was there to look behind and see how long the halls had become, but the laughter that followed you kept your eyes straight ahead.

Turning another corner, the doors to the elevator came in sight, and you let out a gasp of relief as you ran faster. Just a little bit more and then you'd be free.

…. The elevator seemed to be was moving away from you, messing with you just as the halls had done before.

You could hear him breathing directly in your ear as you ran. Still trying to freak you out, still trying to make you turn around. He hadn't touched you at all, though, and you wondered if there were rules for him that prevented him from doing so.

The attempts to get you to look back at him seemed to be getting desperate. If this thing was getting to a point where even he was desperate, you didn't want to know what the hell he'd do to you if you made the mistake of turning around.

Despite it all the elevator was getting closer. Escape was literally in your grasp-

And then something in the floor shifted that caused your knee to buckle and you were sent flying face down on the flat white tile.

The phone and keychain went flying out of your hands and there was blood in your mouth as you bit your lip. Your head ached again, though you weren't sure if it was because of him or because you'd just landed on the solid floor.

You lay there for a few moments, catching your breath as you tried to compose yourself.

You then became aware of the presence that was standing over you. He was quiet now, but you could feel his eyes burning holes into your back, as if trying to will you to look at him.

Pushing yourself up on shaky arms, you began to crawl forward, your hands searching for the phone and keychain that had gone flying and had vanished into the darkness, the light from outside now much duller than it had been when you'd first arrived.

Don't look don't look don't look

He can't touch you

He can't force you to look back at him

Just keep facing forward and-

A horrifically loud shrieking noise sounded through the hall. It was the loudest thing you had ever heard in your life, the noise so great that you felt the floor vibrating, and your hands immediately went to cover your ears to protect your hearing as best you could.

Don't you dare fucking look back

With your hands still over your ears, you crawled forward on your knees. It was slow and it had gotten so dark that you couldn't see the elevator anymore, but it was still progress. When your knee brushed against your phone you ignored it. Who gave a fuck about proof anymore? You just wanted to get out.

But you were still trying to keep a lookout for the keychain. It had helped before; if you could find it, it would probably make getting out easier.

You put out one hand on the floor as you blindly searched for your sentimental item, your eyes scrunching up in pain as the horrible sound continued.

For a split second your fingers brushed up against something soft.

You grabbed it.

Immediately after the shrieking noise stopped.

For just a moment, there was relief, even though you still had that noise ringing in your ears. But it took only another moment for you to realize that something was wrong.

You hadn't grabbed that bear keychain. It was larger and heavier.

Opening your eyes, you found that you were holding that fucking bat plush.

“Ah. You messed up.”

A hand reached from behind you and grabbed the plush out of your grip. A different hand was placed on your shoulder and you were spun around on the floor.

A fair-skinned man with what looked to be blonde hair stared down at you, one hand still on your shoulder as he waved the bat in front of you.

“You're not supposed to take this back, remember?” he asked as he smiled at you.

“No.... I didn't...” you trailed off.

“But you did, though! You grabbed and picked it up,” he said.

That wasn't possible. You had left that thing behind in that room that felt so far away now. But as you glanced to the side you saw that, to your horror, you were sitting next to that room again, the hearts still visible on the whiteboard. You were barely able to note that it had gotten brighter and that somehow the red lighting seemed less harsh before he was talking to you again.

“So you lost and now you don't get to go back,” he told you.

“No.... You cheated.”

It felt so juvenile to say that out loud, but it was all that could come out of you in your current state.

Strangely though, he didn't deny it.

“Can you blame me?” he asked, “I've never gotten a visitor as charming as yourself. When I heard you on the phone and saw what you left me, I just needed to keep you.”

He looked at the bat plush again and smiled at it as he sat down in front of you.

“Did you just pick this at random, or was it something else?”

You struggled to comprehend the question, and it took you a bit before you were able to blurt out “someone else said you liked bats.”

“So you mean you went to the trouble of looking up what things I liked? That's adorable. I love it!” he exclaimed.

You tried to subtly scoot away from him as he sat in front of you but you were noticed instantly.

“Where do you think you're going?” he asked. The look he gave you was so innocent.

“I-I need to go home. I want to go home,” you insisted.

“That's not an option, remember?” he asked, waving the bat around again.

You shook your head.

“You cheated. I should be allowed to leave because you did that.”

He laughed.

“There's no rule against cheating. As long as I didn't touch you it was fine. Don't be a sore loser.”

“Fuck you.”

You spat out those words in a bout of frustration, trying your best to sound strong, but it probably just made you seem more pathetic.

He only hummed at that, just staring at you for a moment.

It had been getting steadily brighter, the red going away with every passing second and you were able to make out different colors. The purple and teal on his clothes, the shade of blonde his hair was and the blue of his eyes were visible to you for a few moments.

He set the bat plush to the side, and the world began to darken again as red and black took over.

“That's okay,” he said, more to himself than to you, “you're scared and that kind of reaction is normal, so I'm not too mad.”

It was getting harder to see him, but you could see movement about him, things about his body changing. Horns that slowly curled out from his forehead. The tips of his fingers that darkened around long claws that took the place of his fingernails. Large, bat-like wings that unfolded from behind him and spread themselves.

You caught a glimpse of his teeth in the low light, and they looked sharper than they had before.

Panic shot through you as you began to scramble away from him, but your escape attempt was short-lived as something wrapped itself around your legs and pulled you back towards him.

A tail? Oh God that was a tail.

He was on top of you, and he caged you in his arms as he leaned down to whisper in your ear “don't worry, I'll go easy on you this time.”

You tried to push him away, but he ignored it.

“Oh! Before I forget, I should introduce myself shouldn't I? I'm Shalnark. Nice to meet you.”

With that, his lips claimed yours in a searing kiss.

Your friends had been waiting a while.

Farah and Carmen stayed where they had been directly next to the building while Cliff hadn't moved from where he had stormed off to. Farah had been getting upset as she had become convinced that you were being an ass to her as well with how long you were taking. It was all Carmen could do to try and keep her calm.

Because of his distance away and how distracted they were, neither of them noticed the state Cliff was in.

They only noticed when he began to violently cough.

With Farah still slightly bitter from their earlier argument, Carmen was the one to check on him, asking if he was alright as they walked up to him.

Cliff gave no answer as he had begun to cough up blood.

Carmen's hands fumbled when they pulled out their phone to call emergency services, and they yelled at Farah to go inside and get you. The sight of the blood Cliff was coughing up had Farah sprinting towards the building, throwing the front doors open as she made a beeline for the elevator.

Carmen didn't notice it at first when Farah fell to the floor. Only when the ambulance had been confirmed and they looked back to the building to see if the two of you were coming out did they see her body lying limply on the floor.

Ambulances and cop cars arrived eventually, and both Cliff and Farah were declared dead at the scene. The autopsy reports later would declare that they had been poisoned. A thorough search of the building would find no source of where the poison had come from.

Nor did they find anything from you.

Carmen had told them that you were in there, but when they searched they found no trace of you. No personal belongings and nothing to even indicate that you had entered the building. When the search for you grew beyond the confines of the office building, there was still no trace of you. You simply vanished into thin air.

The case would puzzle investigators before they would ultimately put it aside for other cases that needed their attention. It would only gain some traction online when the files were released to the public and certain parties saw that you and your friends had been playing the Sixth Floor Game. For some people it added weight to their beliefs that the game was real and needed to be avoided. For others it was just a coincidence.

Regardless of what they thought, you remained a missing person that would never be seen again, forever immortalized by your unexplained disappearance and an urban legend.

#reader insert #Shalnark #shalnark x reader #yandere shalnark #yandere #yandere x reader #yandere hxh #yandere hunter x hunter

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the-musical-cc · 3 years

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What's wrong with the Twilight Princess manga? (Genuinely curious because I often hear it's good)

No, I mean, it's good! What I've read isn't really terrible (And take in account that because they aren't selling it here just yet, I've only read what I've been able to find online.) This is most likely about me putting something in the tags about how most fans ignore it, referring specifically to Link's backstory, but like...Bruh I'm biased, don't pay mind to my rambles XD

...

*rambles anyway.

I mean, it IS good. I like it enough that I want to buy the whole thing once it's completed, available in my country (In english because the spanish names are a fucking joke) and have enough money that I don't regret buying like 12 tomes that are like 120 pesos each. It brought some ideas that are gold, such as Luda and Shad coming with Link in the adventure for a short time, Midna helping Link beat the Gorons in sumo (Though it does sacrifice one of the most hilarious parts of lore of the game.) and the questionability of Hyrule's attitude towards anything that isn't 'Pure' or 'Bright'. I just disagree with a lot of the choices made in it.

Link's backstory. I had thought it to be a matter of personal taste at first, where I saw him as someone who maybe came from outside but grew in Ordon and was just getting stupidly offended over differing opinions, but as it turns out I just didn't remember why I'd had that idea for years now. Ilia mentions having been kids together with Link, and hilarious as the thought that she's referring to one year prior to events in the game is, it most likely means he's been there for years. Honestly? My impression is they wanted Link to not have too deep a tie to Ordon for whatever reason, and I Hate That. I'm certain I'm not the only one to say 'That's bullshit' and just go with something else there, which is why I say most of us ignore it anyway.

They highkey stole an arc from Hyrule Warrior Legends. Though tbf they also put a very blatant 'Empire Strikes back' moment in there and as much as it annoyed me... it was pretty cool. Still, this is the one game where Shadow Link had no business to be and they put it in there for an entire fucking arc.

Twilight Princess' cast is fucking HUGE why on Hylia's green earth are you putting OCs in there??? It's not even like they're filling a role no one else could have had! They've done it before in their previous Zelda works, and other manga adaptations have as well, but I like most of them because they had something to bring to the table (Even if it was romantic drama, in Ganthy's case.) here it's little to nothing they can contribute with that couldn't have been done by putting an already existing character there. It may be my theatre brain speaking but it bothers me when you have a huge cast and do NOTHING with it and instead bring out another character out of NOWHERE to get things done. Just use what's already there, damn you!

Zelda and Midna's backstory. Hear me out... I love it... but it doesn't work. I've spoken before about how much it annoyed me when the narrative had Zelda and Link respectively blame themselves for the invasion (Even though the guy invading is RIGHT THERE???!?!) for having 'Touched' the dark and made it so it could invade their world, and that's part of it. The other is: Having Zelda sacrifice for Midna not because it was the right thing to do, not because it's the one thing she can do for her people, for the Twili, for Link and Midna herself, and instead making it 'You're my childhood inter-dimensional pen pal, I just realized, welp, time to die.' kind of cheapens the impact it had on Midna in the game and what it says about Zelda as a character (We barely get anything on her in the game, but what we do get is powerful.) It's beautiful, but it misses the point completely.

Also Midna just randomly showing up in Link's dreams in her true form is stupid. YEAH, I SAID IT! I get it they're probably thinking 'Well, what's the point in building up anticipation? You know this is what she looks like already.' but one of the reasons the ship is so heart-wrenchingly good is Link knew her inside and out despite her warped shape. In the end, it didn't matter what she looked like so long as it was her. Link fell in love with her gremlin ass transformation AND THAT IS PERFECT OK??? Imagine like if on 'Beauty and the Beast' Belle just randomly kept meeting the prince in dreams, like they're waving a carrot in front of her to get things done with so she can smooch that freaky Habsburg mug. It's fucking awkward! (And it sort of cheapens their actual chemistry, it feels a lot like 'Oh, he has to see she's hot or it wouldn't be believable that he fell in love.' Get outta here with that.)

Shad.

OK, fine, I'll elaborate. Shad has a dialogue in-game about following up on his dad's life work, it is also implied that he's passed away. What does the manga do? Ignore all that and make it so Shad's dad is a 'Serious' investigator who disapproves of his son's interests. 'Shut up dad! It's not a phase dad! You go clean your room, dad!'. Why? No reason. It's not even interesting!

Shad is the friendliest fucking guy ever, rambling to Link about his hyperfixation on first meeting. Calls him 'Old sport' and stuff like that, seemingly befriends him immediately. What'd the manga decide to do with him? They're RIVALSSSS, and snarky to one another because Shad may or may not have a little crush on Ilia. UGH.

Look, you can't be a real Resistance if the members can't even look after themselves, so making Shad kind of a loser (Because he's a nerd. Hahah. Get it? Nerds are losers.) really took the piss out of the Resistance, tbh. Might have been the point, though, seeing how they needed to make space for their OCs in the final battle at Hyrule Castle... and, look, I've said this before but if you need to make a character look horribly bad for no other purpose than making another look more competent, you're not half as good a writer as you think you are. Link didn't need Shad to look pathetic to look more heoric, that's just sad.

Also take one look at that guy and tell me he doesn't drink his respecting women juice every damn morning and sometimes for dinner... well, in the manga, he's apparently kind of a leecher.

Srsly how is he friends with Ashei if he's kind of a leecher, she'd break his fingers.

There's probably more but I really don't want to come off like I'm trying to discourage people from reading it because I'm not! Like I said, it's a good manga! It has some pretty neat battle sequences, it makes Hyrule feel MASSIVE, it has some pretty horrifying moments that make the stakes feel more real, it takes things that are a certain way in the game for the sake of the mechanics and tries to make them more organic (In the specific case of Ilia's memory, it succeeds.) and Akira Himekawa never fails to make Zelda and every female character look gorgeous. It's just not great in terms of being an adaptation, but that's not necessarily a terrible thing, it just depends on taste. Still, specifically where Link's backstory concerns... I think most fans just ignore it because, really, it doesn't make sense.

#twilight princess #cc rant #cc wtf #look I am capable of liking something and yet realizing 'Yeah this doesn't work I'll ignore it'#and Link's manga backstory... is one of those things #also his broody characterization gets on my nerves but that's taste srry srry #you know which manga I DO hate? The Skyward Sword prequel one #nahhh jk jk #I just get annoyed at fans that just blindly accept it and get pissy if someone wants to do their own thing

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actualbird · 2 years

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Honestly I feel a lot of Korean things got popular around 2017 out of seemingly nowhere. I try to pinpoint when and how they became popular and come up empty. It's kind of strange. Definitely not complaining though because a lot of it is very good.

Yeah I imagine soju still tastes strongly of alcohol because I can very much smell it. Even when the other flavours are added and I can smell other stuff it only makes my brain associate it with scented soap which is extremely sad because I do want to at least try it. I might try your suggestion though, it sounds quite interesting.

The sped up timeline kind of hurts. I felt my soul leave my body for RRG part 1 because I had been aiming for Vyn's RRG card and all the anniversary cards but now potentially a lot of time to save s chips just got taken away. I mean it was kind of for nothing when Skadi rolled around because apparently I don't like really romantic lines unless Vyn says them and the twitter preview kind of bit me there, but still. I should be able to get bday 2 though because not many of these year's banners interest me which means I'll absolutely have enough s chips unless one of the cards has a ton of lore.

With gacha games I've kind of developed this strange habit of absorbing spoilers from everywhere else but waiting to see the nuances in the actual story. It's definitely served me well because stuff like Luke's Shape of You ending hit harder when I read it for myself with the context instead of seeing it posted without context but it very much gets in the way when I have bad luck and cards don't come home. I'll probably cave for Vyn's RRG if I don't get it honestly, that card feels too important to skip.

MARIUS ROLLING A D20 DFJXG. Does he just roll it every time he visits Vyn until he gets the nat20. Honestly it might work a nat20 makes you feel invincible sometimes. Whenever you write that dnd au I will very happily read through and scream about it.

🌌

a lot of it is very good!!!! maybe theres a reason, maybe theres none, but either way, i am thankful for soju entering the global market HAHA. and YEEEAA it's a great drink mix!! theres like, set recipes online for the ratio of sprite + yakult to add to the soju, but i just mix by taste. i personally put a looooot of sprite cuz i like the sweetness haha. if ever u try it out, i hope u enjoy it :DDD

also apparently soju has a shitton of alcohol content in it based on ihavenotfallenyet's reply KJBKJSDK I HONESTLY DID NOT KNOW

my siblings drink soju on its own holy fuck. theyre so strong, stronger than i ever will be

the sped up timeline hurts me too :(((( not so much bc of s-chips tho bc im not too bothered honestly about not getting cards even if i want them since like, all the story will be available on yt after a day (thank u uploaders). im mostly hurt bc the out of order events jarred me irt to story development, MOST ESPECIALLY WITH MARIUS. i swear, when i was playing his route in RRG i was like. what. whats going on. why r u so nice, why is MC SO NICE, i know theyll get to a point i their relationship that is this point, but the necessary build up (which happened originally in xmas partyland and skadi that originally preceded it) hadnt happened yet ksjdbgksjd

ohhhh same-ish feel on wanting to go thru the story urself!!! same same!!! i just have a non-existent impulse control JKBKSJKGS back in like, october, i said to myself "okay im not watching any of the cn server future content" and then i broke after 1 week. not too bothered tho, that was my own doing sjdksdjks

and marius rolls the d20 he keeps in his pocket at all times for like, whatever random reason. he likes rolling high but even when he doesnt, he has confidence in his base charisma score

sucks for him tho cuz that wont always get him out scot free since im preeeeetttyyy sure that

vyn's perception modifier is high as it can possibly get

#i play a character with a +6 modifier to anything that needs cha so even if i roll meh i still get thru KJFJGSD #milkyway!anon #asks #well. most of the time. one time i did suck but i used it to my advantage #me: i wanna serenade everybody!! dm: roll sucks. u sing bad. me: ok then im doing it on purpose i wanna ANNOY EVERYBODY

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loki-hargreeves · 4 years

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Good Omens Imagine - You Summon a Demon

Warnings: demon summoning, this is honestly just a crack fic, vulgar language, a moody demon Word Count: 2K Summary: Out of boredom, you decide to summon a demon, not believing that it would actually work. You end up summoning Crowley in your apartment. A very worried angel comes looking for him as well. That’s how you meet Crowley and Aziraphale. Author’s Note: This has been on my mind for a while now. I don’t actually know how to summon a demon so please excuse how I wrote it. It’s not meant to be taken seriously. Please enjoy <3

THIRD POV

It was a silly idea, truly. Y/N and her friend had been out at the nearest bar and after a few drinks, they ended up discussing paranormal stuff. Somehow the conversation morphed into the two of them planning on playing with the Ouija board Y/N had somewhere in her apartment, possibly hidden in her closet or underneath her bed to gather dust. In their tipsy minds, it sounded like a perfect plan.

As Y/N returned home alone, she remembered that. She decided to find the board and get it ready for tomorrow. But as she found it hiding underneath her bed, she got an idea.

What if she played alone? It’s not like anything would actually happen, but it could be fun nevertheless. Surely, she would laugh at herself about it afterwards. So that’s what she did. Y/N set up the board on the floor, lit up a few candles to set the mood. She turned off all the lights and covered the mirrors in her bedroom. In order to play, she quickly read the instructions. Just like that, she was ready to get started.

As much as she was convinced that it was fake, it still made her nervous. There was always that small chance that it would work, right?

“Okay, I’m calling in good spirits. No negative entities are welcome here,” Y/N started as the online instructions had instructed her. “If anyone’s actually there, I would like to play with you.” Gosh, that sounded so wrong, she thought.

She sat on the floor with her fingers on the pointer. After a few moments of silence later, nothing happened which relieved her. She sank her shoulders and smiled, feeling much more comfortable now that it hadn’t moved. “This is so stupid, it’s not like this board could actually summon a demon,” The woman laughed by herself, giving her words zero thoughts whatsoever.

If only she had known the power of her words.

As if on cue, something happened. The pointer began to shake underneath her fingers which startled her out of her skin. Y/N let out a scream as she got up from the floor, watching in horror as the Ouija board shook wildly. That was not supposed to happen! “Holy fuck, shit…fuck!” Y/N whimpered in horror. Her eyes were glued to the board. Once it began to levitate, she almost passed out.

Was she dreaming?

Or was she drunk? Y/N hadn’t had that much to drink either.

Her heart was pounding so hard from fear that she felt it all the way up in her throat. She wanted to run away, but her entire body was frozen in shock. Her fight or flight response seemed to betray her.

A bright light came seemingly out of nowhere. It was so bright in fact that Y/N had to close her teary eyes. A few moments later, the light seemed to vanish, and she heard that the board dropped back on the floor. Terrorized by what she saw, she still decided to look at the board. What she saw next was definitely not a Ouija board.

There was a man, a tall man in fact, standing right in front of her. He had ginger hair, an all-black outfit and round sunglasses. Although the lenses were dark, she noticed that he had yellow eyes. Yellow! The man, or whatever it was, seemed annoyed. “Aw fuck! Couldn’t this have happened a little later? I was just in the middle of something!” The stranger groaned in a…British accent?

“What the fuck are you?” Y/N cried in fear, wanting to keep a distance between her and the man.

“There’s no need to be so rude, damn,” the ginger man, creature, whatever replied to her. Shivers ran down Y/N’s spine. In her mind, she was convinced that she had just summoned death itself into her own bedroom. She wanted to scream and cry, to run as far away as she could, but she could only stand there as her world began to spin wildly. Her vision began to brighten until she saw white. A split second later, her body failed her as she lost consciousness.

The demon, Crowley, wanted to leave. But he had been summoned and now there was an unconscious woman on the floor inf front of him. As pissed off as he was, he decided to wake her up. Surely, the candles would burn down her house if he just left her like that. “Get up, will you?” Crowley sighed and squat down on the floor right next to her. He poked her body with his long fingers, noticing the details of her appearance. He wondered why on earth she had summoned a demon and why it just had to be him! Crowley had been at Aziraphale’s bookshop as he was summoned. Surely, the angel was worried as hell over his disappearance.

When his poking didn’t bring her back, Crowley cursed under his breath. He wanted to leave, truly, but he couldn’t. He had been summoned. He had to end this ritual she had started, and he couldn’t do that when she was in an entirely different world than him.

Y/N furrowed her eyebrows together as her headache grew worse, so bad in fact that it woke her up. Carefully, she rubbed her temples and moaned in pain. Did she really get such a terrible hangover over a couple drinks? She opened her eyes and noticed she was in bed, although she couldn’t remember ever getting in it. Then she heard two men talking. Quickly, she was fully awake, and she remembered what happened.

The man!

Y/N got out of bed and followed the voices. Although she was terrified, she was curious. She walked out of her bedroom and looked into her living room. There were two men there, talking until they noticed Y/N. One of them was the same man that appeared out of thin air. The other one looked much kinder. He had light locks of hair, big blue eyes and beige clothes. For a moment, it was perfectly quiet in her apartment. Little did Y/N know she had a demon and an angel in her living room. She was convinced at this point that this was a fever dream.

“Someone’s finally awake! Great. Now just end what you started so we can leave,” The ginger one broke the silence. He sounded angry which was indeed horrifying. Y/N didn’t know them or what they were capable of.

It made the other man sigh, “Crowley, can’t you see she’s terrified?”

What kind of a name was Crowley? Why was the other one so considerate? Nothing made sense to Y/N in that moment.

The same man continued, “Hello, I’m Aziraphale and this is my friend Crowley. I know you’re scared, but I promise that you’re just fine,” Aziraphale tried to ease her mind a little bit as Crowley rolled his eyes in the background and crossed his arms like a grumpy child.

“How did you…where did you come from?” Y/N managed to say something despite her worries.

“You summoned me, remember? Aziraphale just followed me,” Crowley snapped.

Aziraphale couldn’t just ignore it when Crowley vanished into thin air right in front of his nose. Of course, he followed the demon! A little curiosity went a long way. “This doesn’t usually happen. You see, in order to actually summon a demon…”

“A demon?!” Y/N breathed out in shock and her eyes widened. It sounded absurd, but it would explain what she saw.

“He’s not a bad demon! You know, he used to be an angel…” Aziraphale tried to speak, but he was cut off again.

“Aziraphale!” Crowley hissed, angry that the angel had to mention it to this stranger woman.

What the hell was going on? Had Y/N lost it? She was beginning to believe that.

“As I was trying to say,” Aziraphale raised his gentle voice ever so slightly, “summoning a demon requires a lot of spiritual power. You didn’t summon him for no reason. Now would you like to introduce yourself, dear?”

Something about Aziraphale was so calming. Yes, the situation was absolutely wild and unbelievable. Y/N was scared because there were two men in her home claiming to be demons. But this man had a presence which helped her relax. It was so overpowering, so magical. “I’m Y/N,” She said surprisingly calmly. The closer Aziraphale was, she more relaxed she became.

“Alright, Y/N. It’s nice to meet you. I’m sure we can get to the bottom of this little mishap and then we can all go on about our days,” Aziraphale smiled so cheerfully, as if this situation wasn’t terrifying at all.

Crowley sat on the arm of Y/N’s couch and he crossed his long legs, “Why did you even summon a demon if you’re so scared?”

Someone wasn’t happy to be summoned. Y/N almost felt sorry for ever touching that Ouija board. “I didn’t mean to! I just…well, I didn’t think it would work, okay?” She defended herself honestly. “Also, how am I supposed to believe you’re a demon...an angel, whatever. This is crazy!”

“Oh, you want proof?” Crowley smirked, as if she dared him to do something. He suddenly stood up straight again, getting ready to give her a little fright.

On second thoughts, she didn’t want proof. She was terrified enough and even the sheer possibility that they were speaking the truth was absurd. It would confirm to her, a human, that demons and angels existed. That kind of information would surely mess with her head. “No!” Y/N took it back.

“Oh, such a bummer!” Crowley muttered. He was already getting excited over the thought of scaring her by showing her his true form. It’s not like it mattered anymore. She had seen him appear out of thin air so what’s another supernatural experience more on top of that?

Aziraphale felt his stress levels rise as he stood between the two of them. He couldn’t believe they ended up in that situation. But somehow, he was convinced they were supposed to find Y/N. There was a very high energy radiating from her which almost told the angel that she could be useful. As risky as it was, he wanted to be friends with the mortal. Perhaps she could have something to do with the doomsday?

“Can you please just end this and then finish whatever you have to with Aziraphale? I’m tired of this,” Crowley began to get impatient.

“How do I ‘end this’?” Y/N wondered. She truly had no idea.

Crowley hung his head low as he tried to stay calm. Was she for real? “Did you read any instructions whatsoever before you decided to ruin my day?”

Aziraphale almost giggled at the situation. Although it was serious, it was a little bit amusing. But he managed to bite his lips together to stay quiet.

“I read something online,” She admitted. Y/N was oddly calm now. So far, they hadn’t made any indications that they would harm her. Besides, when she passed out, one of them had moved her to her bed. If they wanted to hurt her, surely, they would’ve done that already. So, she concluded that she didn’t have to be as terrified as she was.

“Okay then do whatever you read. I hate being trapped in here,” Crowley admitted. Wow. He couldn’t have been any harsher, now could he?

“Okay, I end this session. Whatever. Is that it?” Y/N mumbled a little awkwardly. Both Crowley and Aziraphale looked at her quietly. Nothing seemed to happen, at least nothing visible to her eyes. Did it work? Y/N didn’t even know what was supposed to happen!

That’s when Crowley cracked a smile, “See? That wasn’t so hard!” It was as if some magical bonds had let go of him and made him ten times less moody. Good for him, Y/N thought.

“Now, how about we discuss how you got him here in the first place?” Aziraphale suggested excitedly. He was naturally curious, so this was all fun and games for the angel. As long as he stayed, Aziraphale stayed. They had a conversation to finish and it didn’t matter if they did that at the bookshop or this Y/N’s apartment.

_____________________________________________

Author’s Note: I hope you enjoyed this. Your feedback would be highly appreciated 💚

#Good Omens #Good Omens fanfiction #Crowley #Aziraphale #Crowley x Reader #Aziraphale x Reader #Crowley x reader x Aziraphale #Good omens reader insert #good omens imagine #crack fic #platonic good omens

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petalsbloomed-a · 3 years

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itaru talks about noah - part 1.

1. what’s the strangest/weirdest thing mun has watched on youtube? you know those raunchy parodies of rap songs and the versions where people are quite literally screaming the lyrics of songs? yeah, he watches that stuff a lot.

2. what’s the strangest/weirdest movie the mun has watched? i don’t know if he’s watched any movies that have been known for being strange, but a lot of the horror stuff he finds can get pretty creepy at times.

3. what’s your mun do when they become sad? do they hide it or talk about it? it really depends. most of the time, i think he hides it at first and then opens up when things start to go really wrong. it’s probably because he doesn’t want to feel like a burden.

4. how long does the mun stay upset for? again, it really depends on the issue. he does struggle with really bad mental health, so it’s possible for something to weigh him down for quite a while. i think a lot of it has to do with his willingness to communicate with others.

5. what’s your opinion of the mun’s fashion sense? basic bitch. well, more basic than me, but at times he does like to mix it up a lot and put jewelry together with a top that just...don’t naturally fit. i mean, have you seen the earrings he wears to class?

6. is the mun prone to mood swings? oh, very much so. one moment he’ll be so down to write, being all bubbly and completely running his mouth about the things he likes, the next he’ll get frustrated and upset and go to watch some funny shit on youtube or listen to music to hopefully help to stabilize his mood.

7. what was the strangest thing the mun has done that made the muse confused? doing kpop dances in the middle of his school’s hallway. that’s all i’m going to say.

8. does the mun like to shitpost/make funny posts a lot? he doesn’t shitpost a ton over here, but on his anime blog, i swear, sometimes the shit that he thinks of and comes out of his mouth is so strange that it’s just funny.

9. has the mun ever scared the muse? not in any particular way that comes to my mind immediately.

10. what about the mun does the muse find annoying or bothersome? sometimes he just can’t stop talking. i can never tell if it’s because of his ADHD or if he’s just excited about something, but sometimes he just completely interrupts my peace and quiet seemingly out of nowhere.

11. do you like the backstory your mun gave you? he didn’t really give me a backstory; he adheres to what my creators did for me. but he did give my sister a pretty nice name.

12. is mun a social butterfly or a loner? he’s a pretty social person, but he does have his moments. he likes to keep his distance, even though sometimes it’s hard for him to tell when he should be less energetic or give someone their space.

13. did you once not like your mun? if so, why? i don’t think i’ve ever actively disliked noah. he can be a bit obnoxious at times, but he’s a pretty cool dude.

14. do you wish your mun was more open to those around them? in real life and on tumblr? he’s pretty open with people in real life, but who am i to criticize him or even give him advice on the matter? i struggle with being open about who i am myself, so i don’t think it’s appropriate for me to judge him.

15. does your mun draw or write? if so, what work are they most proud of? he writes a lot and he does have some experience with art, but most of his focus goes into the things he writes. it’s hard to say what he’s most proud of, because he always describes his works as ‘short, sweet, and mindless,’ but i do enjoy whatever angsty stuff he writes. he says he’s not good with angst, but sometimes when i read his angst fics i can really get the sense of some things he may be struggling with in his unconscious. some of the things he writes just roll off the tongue, and in such a beautiful manner.

16. how long does it take your mun to draw/write a piece of work? it really depends on what he’s doing. an art piece, even a small sketch, can take him up to an hour, but his fics can usually take him between thirty minutes to two hours. his short and soft fics he usually spends about half an hour on, but his longer ones, like his angst and relationship fics, he can spend up to two hours on.

17. what other social websites does your mun use? other than tumblr, he’s probably most active on his anime twitter account as well as some discord servers he’s on, but he also has a facebook, instagram, ao3, and sparingly uses deviantart, reddit, pinterest, soundcloud, twitch, quotev, and wattpad.

18. who are the first 3 people the mun thinks about when asked for blog recommendations? obviously, the mun is a bit biased, so he’s gonna first off recommend his best friend’s blog orang3lover. they post a lot of cute memes and social stuff, and they follow each other on their main blogs. here in the tumblr rpc, he’s really been enjoying writing and interacting with demontragedy’s chikage, aka my lovely boyfriend, and gloomyheart10′s banri, who is the bane of my existence but miraculously still considered to be my best friend.

19. how many people are in your mun’s close-knit circle? he has a few friend circles actually. the one he interacts with the most would probably be his friend group from high school, but he also has a lot of friends, less of a circle, that he talks with a lot and hangs out with in college. this college friend group all consists of music majors, so he feels really at home with them. he does also have a few small friend groups online, but they’re pretty sparse and don’t have as many people as his irl friend groups.

20. how does the mun feel about their blog/blogs? i get the sense that he’s really happy with the blog he’s set up here in the tumblr rpc, but he has mentioned that with his personal blogs he wants to be a bit more creative about the content that he releases. his main blog is like 99% reblogs, so he wants to think about how he can release more original content that will attract more people to his corner of the internet.

21. what ask meme does your muse like the most? i don’t think he has a specific one, but he does like to reblog a lot of fluff-based sentence starters.

#itaru: ic #munday

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perksofbeingamaineiac · 3 years

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February 24, 2020

Good Morning.

I have been good. I talked to Slavik this weekend and he was saying I am the happiest I have ever been and this has probably been my best year in a while. Despite covid and everything, hes probably right. Were there some set backs with people and what not, of course, but I am better and my relationships are better. I don’t hate my job, I have met a ton of people through my hobby. I have been turning my hobby into a business. I found spirituality. I have been feeling a little overworked this week, but I know I will feel better once I get these images uploaded and this week is over.

I pulled some cards the other night asking about love, the card that came out made a lot of sense in terms of the process. Im not quite sure if I am there yet, but I have been feeling okay with physical touch, like I have been craving a hug, or as weird as it sounds, just resting my head on someones shoulder. I downloaded hinge, been talking to one guy I get along with well, so I added him on Instagram and we have been talking there, so I deleted hinge. Last night I finally admitted to the girls that I found this one guy attractive that our mutual friend is friends with. Turns out he already tried hooking one of them up with him, but hes not looking for anything serious, plus if I were to get at that, I would need her to say shes not interested and to go for it. He has a lot of videos online, as he has a podcast, so I have been watching those and learning about him, there has to be more than just a physical attraction. I am obsessed. I spend all night manifesting this dude into my life. Even continued into my dreams which was wild. I have put it into the universe. Spoke it into existence and now we see. I really want to do a follow up reading from last year, with the same lady, Need to see if she will do a package deal for the three of us. She said I wouldn’t get into a relationship for another year minimum and when i did I was going to have two options, so I want to see how my path has changed and where its now headed.

I am happy with where I am right now. What would make me happier? Having someone to share time with, seeing my friends and family, and finding my true career path. There are all things that will come in time. I guess wish I could also expand my snake stuff. Again though, time.

I have a shoot today, so I am going to go get ready for that. I will do a breakdown of my cards that I pulled later hopefully. I really want to dissect it. Okay so the cards I got were:

Cat Spirit: Claim independence and leave space between you and others in your life. The way to grow in relationships is to have a healthy sense self-respect and self worth. When you walk with dignity, knowing who you are, self aware and willing to grow, trysting the value you bring, the world will mirror all this back to you in kind. Whether you say no to co-dependancy and enmeshment, live and let live, and practice taking risks as you wonder into new territory. Cat Spirit urges you to let your independent spirit roam free. Get ready to jump into something new, don’t worry because you will land on your two feet. Trust yourself. 1

Scarab Beetle Spirit: We can bring forward something extraordinary, seemingly out of thin air. Whenever you let your creativity flow through you, spirit reminds you that you have infinite potential. Spirit works with you so that you can feel replenished and vitalized as you make magic with what is at hand. Now is time for great optimism, for you can accomplish anything you desire nad your creative endeavours will come to fruition, miracles, opportunities, abundance and love will appear seemingly out of nowhere as you allow spirit to work through you and magically manifest what you need.

Koala Spirit: Reminds us that life is not a race or competition. Chasing around every distraction can keep us from recognizing that we have all we need and that spirit will always be there with gifts to sustain us. Trust that by moving slowly, with faith in the abundance that is everywhere, surrendering to a power greater than yourself, you will be able to experience the manifestation you desire. as you take your time enjoying the riches available to you right now, sitting peacefully you begin to radiate the joy and abundance you seek. Spirit is here to help you discover happiness, pleasure and contentment - all gifts that are your now and in the future. Have faith in Spirits plan for you, know that you are loved and cherished. The things you are afraid of are no more, everything is temporary.

Armadillo Spirit: Learning to set healthy boundaries.You may need to start saying no for to be in alignment with your intentions, even if they have been okay for you in the past. You need to learn where you end and other begin, what is your own, and what is not. Know your limits and understand that it is an empowering choice to say no to what doesn’t feel right. Be honest with yourself and what you really want. Be clear on what you are agreeing to, declare what your needs are, and say no as a full sentence. These are acts of respect and kindness to others, as well as yourself. Trust your body’s signals and you will know what to do. Spirit guides you in making good decisions that are grounded in a strong sense of what belongs to you and what does not.

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mirceakitsune · 3 years

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Aryion (Eka's Portal) is now purging users over COVID discussion

Some important clarification before we begin: I wanted this journal to be less of a mad rant and more of a much needed discussion, thus I'll be more calm and rational unlike my previous rants. I wasn't sure if I was going to talk about this but I felt I needed to, both to get it off my chest and to try sparking some debate over what the hell is going on on this planet. Please read and share this one especially if you care for freedom to speak. My goal isn't to point fingers at the website over how I was treated, but to raise awareness and address what's happening online and offline alike. I'll try to be balanced and describe what happened accurately, though of course this represents my own perspective.

Two days ago I was shocked by a completely unexpected decision by the admin of Eka's Portal to permanently ban me from the platform, after over 10 years of being an active user who never even dreamed of starting trouble there. It followed a blog I posted in the night of Joe Biden's inauguration. The reason for my ban wasn't any of the harsh things I said about that, despite my journal being a rather heated rant on society and politics: It came from one obscure sentence in the middle of the post, in which my only crime was to use the term "imaginary deadly pandemic". If anyone finds this surprising you read correctly: It was confirmed to be the cause, I was not informed of any other reason except for that particular sentence. To the satisfaction of those who see me as a heretic, I've been depressed baffled and even more deep in thought after this happened out of nowhere: It's a community I cared a lot about, followed art and spoke with friends on, and there are both artists I watched there and friends I spoke to who I may not be able to find elsewhere. Despite explaining this as well as what I'll say below to the admin, I'm still seen as someone who committed a capital crime by using those words; I won't reveal exact details from a private discussion without permission, but will say I felt addressed as someone who just committed a murder for which I'm irredeemable and deserve to be hung at the gallows.

Before I proceed let's clarify some things. First of all I don't deny that COVID exists in some form and there is some kind of pandemic going on; I didn't use the term "imaginary pandemic" but rather "imaginary DEADLY pandemic" as my intent was to address the apocalyptic hysteria surrounding this flu. I think anyone, especially among those who have doubts about what's happening, could easily find themselves using such a choice of words... I understand they weren't accurate and ideal, but they were no obscene crime that should terrify anyone in such a way nor warrant such an extreme reaction. I also shouldn't need to explain that a vent journal is something you write in a moment of distress to calm down: It's not a moment when people use the best choice of words and will carefully read everything they say before they say it, which to my knowledge isn't considered a crime and is something people generally do. Needless to say that sentence was in no way intended to tell people to do anything: In no form did I suggest anyone to not wear a mask, even to not get that vaccine despite having huge concerns about it and expressing them indirectly. The actual discussion was about the way COVID was added on top of racial justice as a means of dividing people between good and bad while controlling them through fear. Despite this I was accused of "spreading misinformation", a term that's recently become popular and is used to shut down people who have different opinions from the mainstream. I pledged that if I were unbanned, I would cease all social and political discussion on the site, to prevent any risk of such a thing happening again... despite even this I'm still considered someone who's sole purpose was to spread disinformation, despite such discussion taking place in secondary journals while my main reason for being there was community related stuff.

This event was a self fulfilling prophecy, which exemplified exactly the things I've been ranting about like a madman for the past months, which many surely thought I was exaggerating with: The rise of radicalism fueled by fear... which first started with things like racial justice or child safety, and is now doubled down by this pandemic story. Whether or not COVID-19 really is a public health crisis in secondary plane, what it is first and foremost is a social and political crisis! A rift is growing even faster dividing people between two categories: The chad mainstreamist who follows the science and is politically correct and a responsible citizen, versus the virgin conspiracist who thinks people in powerful positions aren't always right and is a fascist for disagreeing with what the mainstream declared is truth or justice. The first category has every social right that's still available to the general population, while the second needs to be "socially exterminated" because their beliefs make them a danger to others; You no longer matter as a person, the only thing that matters is if you're on our side or not! This is what's now being implemented by those who not long ago preached tolerance and being decent toward others no matter their beliefs.

COVID brought an existing freedom of speech crisis to a new level: We're at the stage where addressing a flu by the wrong pronouns can get you removed from a community you've been with for a third of your life. And I know what many will say: A private entity censoring you isn't the same thing as the government doing it. Which I fully agree with, government regulation is by far the scariest beast here! However this doesn't mean it's not a problem at all... it's a very big problem as many of us are recently learning: Literally anything you say, no matter how random or seemingly insignificant, puts you at great risk... to the point where it's practically unsafe to have any social conversation in any community you care about unless you're carefully going to say what everyone likes to hear. This is absolutely unhealthy, we live in a sick world and barely anyone even notices it... one that has NOTHING to do with the way I imagined modern society even 5 years ago let alone as I grew up. It's an unimaginable regression back into 1930's - 1960's era strictness: This is no free world, it's an "everyone in line" type of strict that mirrors Chinese if not North Korean mentality and social design, this abomination is a parody of hell itself.

I predict no one will escape being affected unless something is done to change course immediately. Certain people seem to think that because they're on the "good side" it's someone else's problem, only those who disagree with them have to suffer which is great from their perspective. Remember that the world is changing: Today the planet freaks out over COVID or racism... eventually those things will go away, and in their place new ones will be added by those who enjoy or need division: Racism will be replaced with some other ism... once people get bored of fearing COVID or everyone becomes immune to it, the medical industry will likely identify the new most aggressive virus in circulation and continue the trend with that... it's possible that entirely new controversies we can't even imagine now will be put in circulation. At some point it's going to be something you too no longer agree with: Once you dare to speak incorrectly of what the world decided, you'll be the next to see what it's like to be this lesser person who everyone treats like a leper that's plaguing others. Will you shut up and pretend to agree with everyone even if you don't, fearing that if you're outed as a "disagreer" you'll be the next to go?

Back to the issue at hand, from a perspective on how the internet works: Many people, including the creator of the practical internet Tim Berners Lee, agree that entities have too much power over individuals. If Google or Facebook or Twitter don't like you, you will be shut down and told to find another platform to migrate to, ignoring the fact that they're in limited supply and all suffer from the same issues often using the same criteria. Fandoms such as furries or vore fans suffer from this too at a smaller scale: If Dragoneer or someone he appointed moderator are having a bad day, good luck finding each of your favorite artists there on another art site... a problem that may be worse on Eka's Portal as it's also a big community but ran more directly by one admin, who in the past I praised but can now see their judgment is unbalanced and bound to harm some users. To me this indicates the internet was poorly designed... which makes some sense since until 5 years ago no one thought the web would need to resist an ideological onslaught that will infiltrate every community and make one half of the world turn against the other. For a long time I've dreamed of building a fully decentralized platform, which could act as both an art gallery and an alternative to Youtube and forums. Unfortunately I don't have the knowledge nor energy to make such a thing, though this experience has me thinking back to that plan... I should leave this one up to a future journal.

I feel like saying more but am unsure what I could possibly say any more. At this point part of me wants to go in full isolation: I expect this sort of thing to keep happening, and until it starts affecting even more people the majority won't realize how bad it's getting. I don't know to what extent I even want to create content any more... for who am I creating it, how worth it is the effort spend on every project, where can I even safely post it any more? I need to keep my Patreon going, but even there I barely make any income, and as of this month I can no longer use the money anyway since Payoneer is being a pest about agreeing to send a new card. I'll be honest: Part of me wants to try and end it again, you can't understand how much... I won't because I know it's wrong, plus I live with my mother who I don't want to put through more hardships. Some of us weren't meant to live on this world, I can tell you all this for a fact. If I had any idea it would be like this I'd have refused to be born on this Earth and experience this life even if it meant fighting the gods themselves! This world is irredeemable, I don't see it ever coming back from the low it's fallen to... if another giant meteor hit it would truly be an act of mercy to all.

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such-a-common-girl · 7 years

Text

“Family” Part Two

Words: 1,581

Norman Reedus x Daughter Reader

Warnings: Swearing

Link to part one

“You have got to be kidding me.” Anna showed up at my doorstep. It had been a few days since my encounter with my dad. I haven’t seen him since, he had to fly to San Diego for Comic Con, but he’d be back next week.

“Anna? What are you doing here? We don’t usually meet until seven.” I say, looking at the clock. It was barely six in the morning- the sun wasn’t even up yet.

“I told you to watch The Walking Dead, not have coffee with Norman fucking Reedus!” Her eyes are wide.

“How do you know about that?” I questioned her, letting her come inside. She obviously wasn’t leaving.

“Have you been online lately?”

“No, I’ve been busy trying to finish my homework. AP Calculus is kicking my ass. But that doesn’t answer my question.”

“Search up Norman on Google. Look at the recent media posts about him.” She looks at me weirdly. I pull out my phone, typing in his name. I gasp at the results- there were pictures of the two of us drinking coffee together, being swamped by fans, and getting into the taxi together. The headlines were worse. ‘Norman’s new woman?’ ‘Hot young girl getting coffee with Norman Reedus- See the pics!’ ‘Norman is dating a mystery girl!’

“Oh my god.” I want to scream.

“I just want to know how the fuck you managed to score him! I’ve been trying to get his attention through Twitter forever.” She seemed frustrated.

“Ew, listen, I did not ‘score him.’ We’re not, like, together.” I try to say calmly.

“I don’t understand.”

“Look, if I tell you something, you can’t tell a soul.” I tell her.

“Swear.”

“He’s my dad.”

“No way.” She shakes her head. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not. I just found out.”

“Wow.” She seems like she can’t figure out what to say. “Okay.”

“It’s a lot to process, I know. Trust me.” I grab some water from the kitchen.

“I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to tell people.”

“People are going to treat me differently. I don’t want people to want to be my friend just because I have a famous dad.” I admit.

“Oh, hun.” Anna laughs. “People are going to treat you differently regardless. They think you two are, like, dating.”

I underestimated his fame.

People stopped me on the streets while I walked to school, asking me questions about my “relationship” with my father. I ignored them and just kept walking, but people still looked at me funny. The whole day throughout school, everyone looked at me weird. Some girls looked jealous, other disgusted. Most of the guys just smiled at me.

“So, dating a big shot, huh?” One of my soccer teammates came up to me in the locker room after practice. “I’m jealous. He’s like a sex god.”

I looked at her in disgust before slamming my locker door, walking away.

“Hey, Y/N, I’m sorry, that wasn’t supposed to make you mad.” She followed me.

“We’re not dating. Not even close. So please leave me alone.” I say with attitude, opening the door and walking outside. “And feel free to tell everyone else that. I’m tired of being stared at.”

I get in bed as soon as I get home, exhausted. All I want to do is talk to my mom, but she’s nowhere to be seen. I grab my phone, going through my twitter feed. It’s filled with people talking about me. Shocker. I don’t even read them. They’re probably just more bullshit rumors.

I was about to shut it off when a new post pops up- a video from the San Diego Comic Con. I click on it, seeing that it was the Walking Dead’s con. It starts off with the announcer talking to my dad, who is not paying attention to him at all. My dad was too busy messing around with the guy who’s name tag says “Andrew Lincoln.” I frown, realizing that this was the guy who I’ve been telling Anna is hot for ages, and he’s seemingly my dad’s friend. Crush gone.

“Norman, we’ve got a question from a fan.” The announcer says, and my dad starts paying attention.

“Hi, Norman! We’ve been all wondering- who was that girl you were with a few days ago?” This blonde lately asks.

“She’s my daughter.”

The crowd goes crazy. I guess they didn’t know I existed.

“You have another kid besides Mingus? What’s her name?” A fan yells from the crowd.

“I don’t know if she’s comfortable with me telling the world that.”

Then the screen cuts black, and the video is over. Half of me is glad he told everyone, so people will stop looking at me like I’m some huge seventeen year old slut dating an older guy. But another half of me is upset. My life is about to change dramatically. Suddenly, I’m not just Y/N anymore. People are going to look at me and just see Norman’s daughter.

I pull out my phone and call my dad.

“What’s going on?” He answered. There was talking in the background, like he was out with friends or something.

“I can call you later if you’re busy.”

“Give me a minute.” He says to someone in the background, and then the noise stops. “Sorry, all the cast members and I are together in the hotel room. Celebrating for the last night of being here.”

“Don’t apologize. I just needed to talk to someone. My mom’s not here, and I’m just super stressed out. People are stopping me on the streets and taking pictures of me. Everyone at my school are treating me weird. I don’t know what to do.” I sigh.

“Hey, look, I go through this all the time. So did Mingus. It’ll die down eventually.”

“Mingus?” I question.

“Yeah, I uh, I have another kid.”

“You’re a busy man.” I joke.

“Shut up.” He laughs. “You know, I fly back into New York tomorrow morning. Why don’t you come stay with me for a few days? I don’t have much to do, but I got a cat and a bunch of South Park recorded on TV if you’re into that thing.”

“I have school.”

“I live in a different borough, not a different state. You can still get to school. Hell, it’s only for a few days, you could skip school if you wanted and we could actually hang out. I don’t have long until I have to fly back to Atlanta to film.” He drove a hard bargain.

“Fine.” I finally say. “Can you just pick me up after school tomorrow? I don’t want to have to walk all the way home just to have to leave again.”

“I’ll be there. See you tomorrow, Y/N.”

“See ya.”

The next day was worse. People literally stopped me on the streets to take a picture with me, which was the weirdest thing. They all knew my name, so I guess someone spilled information to the tabloids.

School was about the same. People stared at me all day, but at least not in disgust this time. A few people tried asking me if they could meet my dad but I just ignored them. Finally the bell rang, indicating that school was over. Thank god.

“You coming to practice?” Anna asked me as we took our stuff out of the lockers.

“Nah.” I shut my locker door. “Got shit to do.”

“Coach is going to be mad.”

“No offense, but I don’t really give a flying fuck what coach thinks. I go to every single practice. I have never missed one, and I participate in every single game. Now, if you’d excuse me, I still have shit to do.”

Yeah, she is a little annoying sometimes, but I didn’t mean to be that rude to her. “I’m sorry. I just have a lot going on.”

“It’s fine. Go. I’ll tell her you got sick.” She smiles weakly at me.

I hug her before I go outside. I see a car sitting in front of the school with dark tinted windows. The window to the backseat rolls down, and my dad smiles at me.

“You ready?” He asks. The people outside gasp, but thankfully don’t freak out. I nod and get inside the car.

“Upper East Side, please.” He tells the driver.

“A driver, huh?” I raise my eyebrows at him once I get settled in the car.

“I’m not a pretentious douchebag, if that’s what you’re hinting at.” He laughs.

“Jesus, I feel like I’m in Gossip Girl. Serena, where at you?” I joke.

“What?” He asks.

“Nevermind.”

We get to his apartment building a while later. It’s nice-definitely the Upper East Side. The driver let both of us out, and we walked up to his apartment.

“This is where you live?” I gaped. It was huge, at least for New York standards. It was also really messy, but the nice furniture and the cute cat meeting us at the door made up for it.

“Yeah, sorry it looks like a tornado blew through here. I’ve been sleeping all day and didn’t clean.” He admits.

“I don’t mind. You saw where I lived.”

“Want some food? There’s leftover Chinese in the fridge from lunch.”

“Starving.”

I reheat the food, and then take a seat on his couch while I turn on the TV.

Maybe being his daughter isn’t so bad after all.

#norman reedus #norman reedus x reader #daryl dixon #daryl dixon imagine #daryl x reader #twd #twdfamily #imagine #the walking dead #the walking dead imagine #andrew lincoln

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bluesyemre · 4 years

Text

The €101m Forum building is part library, part meeting space, part science museum and part recreational hangout. Photograph: Oliver Balch

The Forum complex in the Dutch city Groningen is trying to show that town centres don’t need to sell to survive…

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Four-year-old Joris Niekus hops excitedly in front of a wall-sized flatscreen as his dad loads up an interactive version of Roald Dahl’s BFG (known as GVR in Dutch).

Seconds later, face beaming, his digitised silhouette is bopping across the screen together with Dahl’s gangly giant.

It’s just one of many experiences on offer at a new downtown development in the Dutch city of Groningen that is seeking to reinvent urban hubs for the post-consumer age.

The €101m, trapezoid Forum building is part library, part meeting space, part science museum and part recreational hangout – a 10-storey “multi-space” designed to resonate with citizens who know that shopping is not necessarily the answer. It’s a new-look department store that doesn’t actually sell very much.

But with high streets feeling the pinch across the developed world, with shops shuttered and town centres wondering what they are for any more, the Groningen experiment is being closely watched.

Nowhere is that truer than in the UK, where more than 16,000 retail stores closed last year at the cost of more than 143,000 jobs. The picture in the US is similar, with more than 9,300 shops going to the wall in 2019 as shoppers increasingly move online.

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In Europe, city centres are being emptied of life as skyrocketing rental costs push low-income residents out to the peripheries. In cities such as Paris, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Luxembourg, for instance, 80% of citizens say affordable housing is hard to find.

It’s early days, but the Forum certainly feels like it is working. More than 700,000 people – three times the city’s total population – have visited the library since it opened late last year. So, what’s the big draw?

There are books galore (92,000 in total), but they are for rent, not sale, distributed liberally across multiple mezzanine floors with a joyous disregard for Dewey decimal discipline. Geography on one floor, history on another, mathematics … somewhere, presumably.

For the non-bookish, there’s plenty besides: a six-screen cinema, two exhibition halls, a couple of cafes, a museum (about comics, no less), a 250-seater auditorium, and a hip (but not overly hip) top-floor restaurant and bar. Oh, plus a rooftop “market square” with panoramic views over the whole of Groningen.

“Every day when I pick him up from school, he asks to come to the Forum. He just finds it so much fun,” says Joris’s dad, Marcel, an archaeologist, who cuts his working day short every Tuesday to accommodate his son’s request.

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Right to roam

The comment is music to the ears of Dirk Nijdam, the Forum’s director, who readily admits that lending out books has never been his priority. Instead, what’s driven his thinking since he took on the project six years ago is the idea of creating a space where anyone and everyone can wander in, kick back and collectively feel at home.

“If people walk in and say, ‘Wow, Groningen has got a new library’, then we’ll have failed,” he says. “If you want to come in and just hang out, you should feel just as welcome as if you’re going to an exhibition or taking out a book.”

This notion of “hanging out” gets to the real function of Groningen’s artful new creation: namely, helping fellow citizens mix and mingle and – who knows? – perhaps even taste that nebulous yet ever-necessary thing called “community”.

It’s a mission born, in part, out of Groningen’s struggling city centre. The hope is that the Forum will revitalise the main market square, which, after the German occupation during the second world war was home to a dingy car park for decades.

At the same time, the project marks a bold riposte to the effects of modern-day capitalist society: first, in its promotion of an individualistic society; and second, in its commercialisation of public space (ie with malls and coffee bars gradually replacing libraries and community centres).

Four-year-old Joris Niekus and his father, Marcel, use an iPad in the Forum in Groningen. Photograph: Oliver Balch

The Forum is a splendid example of form following function. Clean and contemporary, the final design shouts anything but library. Hotel lobby, perhaps? Department store, even? From the luminous circular information desk, to the free-floating elevators, to the immense, cathedral-esque atrium. It’s all quite discombobulating and really rather marvellous.

Once through the door, the challenge is to make people stay. It’s all about “the experience”, says Nijdam, borrowing from big retail’s mantra de jour. So no security beefs on the door, no blaring Tannoy announcements, no endless queuing. Instead, it’s all soft furnishings, mood lighting and make-yourself-at-home courtesy.

Signposts are also kept to a minimum. Exploration, not explanation, is the building’s guiding motif, says Kamiel Klaasse co-founder of NL Architects, an upstart Amsterdam-based firm that beat off an all-star list (including the late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid) to win the design contract way back in 2006.

“The brief talked as much about searching as about finding and we interpreted that as an incentive to let people roam,” Klaasse says.

Community connector

The Groningen resident and social activist Ritzo ten Cate is an early cheerleader for the project. Describing the Forum as “one big welcome gesture to us as citizens”, he points to the diversity of the building’s users as proof of its communitarian qualities.

The evidence seems solid. On any given day, you’ll find students working at their laptops, mums with their toddlers, school kids on assignment and grannies reading newspapers. All of them together, under one roof, seemingly as one.

Nor is it just Groningen’s well-heeled citizens who make use of the space. On his many visits, Ten Cate regularly spots friends from the city’s homeless community. Some come to read or use the free internet, while others are after a warm corner to kill time or take a nap.

“The Forum only opened a few months ago, but it’s already doing its job as a connector,” says Ten Cate, who has plans to run a large-scale hackathon there in June.

Two men playing chess in the Forum in Groningen city centre. Photograph: Oliver Balch

But as much as the Forum brings people together, is it serving to create community.

For Paul de Rook, an alderman on Groningen city council, it’s a crucial question. More than just shared physical space, genuine community is about a shared understanding of one another, he argues. “That’s why it’s really valuable to create spaces where people … can see what is going on in other people’s lives.”

In a nod to this reality, the Forum seeks to orient all its cultural activities around a common thread. Whether it’s the current exhibition on artificial intelligence (recently on show at the Barbican in London) or Spike Jonze’s futuristic film Her at the cinema, everyone is collectively inching towards the same page (“optimism about the future”, in the Forum’s case).

Dr Ward Rauws admires the sentiment but harbours doubts. An assistant professor of spatial planning at the University of Groningen, he notes that the core building blocks of community – social capital, civic culture, place identity and so forth – start first at a street-by-street level and expand out from there.

Even so, he remains a big fan of Groningen’s Forum because of its role in helping foster “familiarity”. Echoing De Rook, he defines the term as a state of awareness that “other kinds of citizens exist who might think differently or look different, but who are part of the same community”. It’s a salient point for a university town such as Groningen, where town-gown tensions are a feature of daily life.

Groningen’s audacious experiment in urban planning isn’t without its detractors, most of whom gripe about the final price-tag. Joris’s mum is in that camp. Her son begs to differ. Done with the BFG, he’s now playing a spelling game on one of the library’s iPads. His dad watches on patiently, albeit with half an eye on the upstairs cafe. “Afterwards,” he whispers, “we go for cake.”

https://forum.nl/en

https://www.dezeen.com/2020/01/19/forum-groningen-nl-architects-cultural-centre/

https://www.archdaily.com/930102/forum-groningen-multifunctional-building-nl-architects

https://www.rug.nl/education/student-blog/a-students-review-of-the-groninger-forum-17-01-2020

https://www.stylepark.com/en/news/nl-architects-forum-groningen

https://www.visitgroningen.nl/en/location/482052751/groninger-forum-library-art-house-movie-theatre-events

https://www10.aeccafe.com/blogs/arch-showcase/2020/01/15/forum-groningen-in-the-netherlands-by-nl-architects/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/dutch-mall-groningen-netherlands-forum-urban-hub

#ForumGroningen (The new-look shopping mall that doesn’t sell stuff) The €101m Forum building is part library, part meeting space, part science museum and part recreational hangout.

#forum groningen #holland #library architecture #library buildings #library design #shopping malls #The Netherlands

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typologycentral · 6 years

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[ISTJ] Does This ISTJ Like Me or Not?

So I'm a bisexual INFJ and have been decent friends with this straight-esque ISTJ for about two years now. Thing is, he's so charismatic on the surface to the point where you wouldn't even begin to think he was an ISTJ at heart. He was eccentric, witty, smart, stable and even soft-hearted at some points. Everybody in our class loved him as the class clown; like as if he was some entertaining gadget to fiddle with. :wubbie::wubbie: Our friendship sparked out of his attraction for my articulation in English and our shared interest in music. Apparently I came across off as different from most high-schoolers at time, so he was stimulated whenever I was in his presence. At first, it was all a gimmick for the both of us; poking fun at how we were obsessed with each other like some bro-magnet of sort. Before I knew it, it started to gradually get more serious. Our online convos would take place during the latest/dead hours at night about the most confidential and intimate topics; things such our dreams, fears, passion, family and even who we liked. One time he asked me to analyze his favorite song, in regards to how it resonated with his feelings. The lyrics suggested that he was heartstruck with someone and it felt so bittersweet knowing that he was probably directing it towards a girl but confided in me to share the sensitive side of himself. Whenever our intimate moments took place he'd always go along the lines of, "Btw this chat is only between us" or "This will always be a safe place for the both of us". Wasn't until then that my heart was stimulated at the fact that I had a guy friend that I could be personal with, which was genuinely new to me at the time. I felt so secure and safe with him. For each time that I was facing an adversity, he'd be there to message and comfort me through virtual hugs and reminding me why I was amazing to him. I had officially become a puppy attached to my new owner. :hug::heart: Suddenly there had been a downward shift in our bond. He'd leave my messages on read and barely acknowledge my presence in person. Our convos began to feel ingenuine and rushed. Classwork was all that we were limited to talking about. I got the vibe that I was irking him with every text that I spammed, hoping to get a mere response out of him. I'd be so downbeat at the sight of watching him interacting with everybody and winning their heart while his indifference broke mine. Perhaps he lost the spark with me and wanted to seek seemingly more interesting friendships. I was so confused, for it felt like I had lost a special companionship within the blink of an eye. I became a ghost to him. A sad, yet non-existent ghost. :(:( However that wasn't the end of my magical friendship gone incomplete. My ISTJ would occasionally still message and talk to me, but supposedly only on his terms. Whenever I laid in bed with my lifeless heart thinking about him, he'd send an article or video of his favorite movie/song for us to have a short-lived discussion about it, only for him to leave me on read and return back to the abyss. At this point, I felt like I was gasping for air. As if I was receiving CPR after drowning in water, just for me to be thrown back in again. Rinse. Repeat. :shrug::unsure: As much as there was strangeness in the new way he communicated with me, he showcased it in his actions as well. I'd passed by him and he'd walk in the opposite direction or seem overly busy or preoccupied when I tried to talking to him. Then he'd corner me for what felt like slightly scripted conversation whenever it was just the two of us alone. There'd be times during class where he'd make a goofball out of himself and I'd be only person he'd look at for a reaction, as he'd gaze into my eyes with his mischievous, seductive smile. He would also make light jokes at my expense, which would soon be followed by him apologizing to me in private. If he caught someone giving me a hard time or opposing my ideas, he'd show up out of nowhere to my rescue like a knight in shining armor. Overall, it was like as if he was making up for the times he wasn't there for me, yet he'd go back to simultaneously ignoring me when there were groups of people around us. My mind began to dismiss it as him just looking out for me like a little brother but my heart truly wanted him to desire more than a friendship. I had officially become a hopeless romantic; waiting for my prince charming to show some limerence. :wubbie::doh: Wasn't until after our school musical (that I acted in and he played guitar in the pit orchestra for), he casually asked me, "who did you like this whole school year?". It around the time I had given out a few hints to my friends on whom I liked so I played it off by saying I knew the person for a few years and really wanted to confess to them. He wanted to know for the sake of 'hearing entertainment to use up his energy' and that 'his heart was aching for me' out of sympathy. Part of me still despises myself to this day for not telling him the truth. Even if it meant scaring him off. :doh::boohoo: So I wonder...could he like me back? Or is he still wanting to stay intimate friends with me? Also could there be a chance that he's a closeted bisexual? He has seemed so unsure of himself for the past few months. Like as if his future comprises of a blank canvas. I know that ISTJ's are usually susceptible to staying on the down low about these kinds of stuff. I've seen him act flamboyant and sarcastically flirt with other guys, but it's typical for a straight male to do that kind of stuff in high school. However he's been really ambivalent and gentle with me lately. Should I confess to him? And how so? I wanna know if there could be a chance for me. For 'us'. :wubbie::smile: https://www.typologycentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=96883&goto=newpost&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

#The SJ Guardhouse (ESFJ #ISFJ #ESTJ #ISTJ)

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aboardmelody · 7 years

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Letting go and making space

We've been researching what life will be like living aboard a narrowboat by asking friends and other people who are already ‘living the dream’, as well as researching online. One of the re-occurring answers we hear in response to the question, 'what's the biggest downside to living on a narrowboat?' is, without question, 'lack of space'.

Currently, we live in a three bedroomed semi detached house, and it's fair to say that we've never felt deprived of the room in which to put ‘stuff’. Except when we bought our piano: we had to juggle a few things round to get that in. Nevertheless, our long galley kitchen provides us with more drawers than we can fill, our under-the-stairs cupboard houses all of the items we'd prefer not to be on show, and our loft conversion serves nicely as a luxury retreat for our cat Dinah.

Reflecting on this, it strikes me as grotesque at just how much excess space we take up on this planet with our little family. Our cupboards and drawers are brimming with our accumulated belongings, and the majority of our rooms sit empty and unoccupied while we work the required hours to pay for it all.

It’s worth noting that ours is a relatively modest sized house! I'm not describing a mansion here, not by any stretch. No wonder there's a housing crisis in this country and beyond!

Us humans appear to excel at wanting and having far more than we need. Be that food, houses, technology, clothing or money. Our thirst for 'more' is seemingly never quenched.

So as Lyn and I look to transition to a new way of life, we've been asking ourselves, what is it that we actually 'need' to live a comfortable and happy existence? And can that be achieved in a narrowboat? There are of course plenty of people already living the life, and therefore the answer has to be a resounding 'yes'. So let’s get really clear: can we do it?

From birth we're encouraged to partake in this 'get and gain' culture... work all week and spend the weekend, well, spending! It's staggeringly apparent that buying and accumulating 'stuff' does little or nothing for our levels of contentment and well-being. Just look around at how miserable everyone is. I bet you can recall, with relative ease, the last time someone looked angry, frustrated or impatient in a supermarket queue because the person in front of them wasn't packing their bag or getting their wallet out at breakneck speed.

We're all stressed to fuck.

And what's more, we're never happy or satisfied, regardless of how much we consume. No sooner have we bought something we thought we wanted, we move onto wanting the next thing.

We're encouraged to be busy and strive for success at all costs. Most of us don't even know what we're aiming for; we just do it because that's what everyone else is doing.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling particularly energetic, I get up and dance and for no other reason than because it looks fun, my dogs Jackson and Marla will join in. They get excited and do what I do. Human’s are being led a similar dance, but ours usually involves credit cards and untold damage to our natural environment through, excessive spending, waste and pollution.

I digress. Sort of...

It’s probably why success always seems just out of reach: we’re dancing to someone else’s tune all of the time.

Moreover, being busy is has become a signifier of success: to say that we haven't got a lot to do appears to be one of the only taboos left in mainstream society. Historically in Britain, when someone asked, 'how are you?' the way to answer this question was 'fine', even if you weren't. Now, the correct and polite answer is, 'busy', even if you're not.

For those seasoned in the narrowboat life, maybe I'm describing the world that you left long ago. Maybe you're currently rolling your eyes at my wistful naivety, secure in the knowledge that I'll soon learn that life aboard isn't going to be quite the walk (or sail) in the park I'm imagining.

It's not that I wish for a life without stress (does such a thing even exist?) It's more that, to an outsider, it appears to encourage a way of being that flies in the face of the prevailing consumer culture. Why spend time accumulating stuff when there's going to be nowhere to put it?

And let's face it, one way or another, whether it's global warming, mass food shortages as a result of Brexit, or Donald Trump hitting 'the button', us humans are going to need to learn to adapt to new living conditions in the not too distant future. Apologies to any Trump fans out there, but I'm listening to the scientists on this one.

Finding ways to do more with less – for us at least – feels like a good place to start preparing for whatever changes are afoot. And if Trump’s right (ironically on this one thing I hope he is), then we get to enjoy a new way of life for even longer.

By the way, is it just me or is it a sad day when you hope that Donald Trump is right?

Getting to the point, as we look forward to life aboard, we've been sifting through our things and giving away what we don't need and selling the things that we feel have enough value to help us raise a few extra pennies for the journey ahead. It's surprisingly easy and pretty rewarding too. My clothes now fit into two crates. I genuinely don't need five handbags. The books I've held on to and that I've slavishly lugged from every house I've lived in for the last 15 years now present themselves as the fallacy they are: my attempt to show the outside world that I'm 'clever'. Yep, that's right, I've lined up my 1000+ books on numerous bookcases since the age of 22 to attempt to convince my visitors (and myself for that matter) that I'm a bit of alright in the brains department.

*Cringe*.

So it's time for the books to go too. I've read and collected them like an athlete would their trophies, and I wonder who or what will become of me without them? Will I immediately be transmuted into some sort of imbecile? Will people think I'm stupid or unworthy of their friendship? Of course not. They won't care.

They never did.

Then there are the less egotistical possessions that get held onto and stored. I bought a painting that reminded me of my late, beloved granddad Jack. It's hung in the living room for the last seven years. It simply won't fit in a narrowboat. I feel sad at letting it go, as though I'm letting him down. Lyn had a similar experience. Framed photographs of her family have been upstairs, in Dinah's bedroom since we moved in. She hasn't looked at them in all that time and for the most part, may have forgotten that they are there. But when the time came to let them go, she felt guilty and as though she should keep them because otherwise, she would seem like she didn't care her parents who have passed away.

How did we manage to get so entangled with our possessions that they own and control us in this way? I resent the idea that Lyn has to feel like a bad person for letting go of some framed photographs.

As we let go of these things, we also let go of the cultural ideology and the hold they have over us. It's a process, and the process starts with being brave enough to face up to the emotions that arise as we challenge ourselves to do something new.

Who knew that preparing for life on a narrowboat would be, in the first instance at least, a trawl of the soul?

I'm looking forward to what's next, that's for sure. Because when you free up space, you leave room for something new to come in and fill it.

And in the next blog, I’ll be sharing what that is!

Happy Bank Holiday weekend to one and all.

Ann and Lyn x

#narrowboat #thenarrowboatbroads

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rebeccahpedersen · 7 years

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The Worst Advice Available For Today’s Millennials…

TorontoRealtyBlog

…is this “opinion” video released on Monday via the Globe & Mail.

Honestly folks, this is one of the most unbelievable things I’ve seen in a long time.

Millennials, apparently, should rent forever, and that’s based on math, that makes positively, no sense.

Ugh. My words can’t do this justice. Just watch the video…

The “Information Age” has given us many things, both good and bad.

Never before has there been so much information, knowledge, opinion, and commentary, available immediately, at your fingertips, and on virtually every conceivable subject.

When it comes to the bigger subjects – life, health, dating, money, politics, religion, etc., the amount of information is seemingly infinite, and continues to grow every day.

Much of the information out there happens to be of the insight/opinion variety, and that’s where things get dodgy.

I suppose you could argue that there is no true “unbiased news,” but I think it’s safe to say that most people can differentiate between a CBC News report, and a teenager Instagramming.

So take this entire blog post with a grain of salt, since I’m a “blogger,” chalk full of opinion on a daily basis, who is about to critique somebody else, who put his opinion on the Internet.

The problem with this opinion, is that it was published by the Globe & Mail, which is has national reach in both print and online.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the Globe & Mail. It’s my favourite of the major newspapers.

The Star is too left, The Sun is too right, and in the spirit of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, I find the Globe & Mail to be “just right.”

But if the Globe, and other newspapers or media outlets, are trying to appeal to millennials and others who don’t want to READ a newspaper column by Christie Blatchford, Margaret Wente, Rosie DiManno, or any of the other talented, long-time, award-winning columnists, and instead want to feature video-opinions of the proverbial “man on the street,” then today’s media is simply succumbing to the lowest common denominator.

The piece I have issue with is in their new video section, in an “Opinion” feature that they’ve rolled out.

The videos are well-produced, and look authentic.

But when you boil it right down, this is a random person, opining on a very complicated subject, with virtually no knowledge.

Globe & Mail won’t allow embedding of their videos, so click on the image here and it will redirect you:

Wow. There’s a lot going on here!

I have a lot of problems with this video.

Let’s start from the beginning.

A random guy comes on screen and says, “Hey millennial! You want to buy a house? I don’t think you should, not now, or maybe ever.”

Well the most important word in that sequence is “I.”

Who are you?

I don’t want to attack this guy personally, because unlike 99% of internet commenters in 2017, and I respect that he put his name on this.

So I’ll leave it up to you guys to decide whether he is in any way qualified to be giving real estate advice. But maybe you’ll then ask, “Who is?”

So then comes this:

81% of millennials plan on selling their home.

Well no kidding?

As opposed to, what? Dying in their house in 60 years?

Everybody, at some point, is going to sell. So I don’t quite understand the point, and this is where things turn into a grade eight book report.

63% feel cash poor 57% fear rising interest rates

Source? No?

Then this:

“Polls show that millennials want to buy, and want to do it within the next five years.”

Wow. If the argument is that millennials “shouldn’t buy in five years,” then I don’t know what to say to that.

And here comes the point of this thesis.

Are you ready for this?

This guy thinks that millennials should consider renting FOREVER!

That’s some serious contrarian thinking.

But the absolute BEST part of his fatally flawed argument comes when he gives us this graphic:

I don’t understand this at all.

The author’s idea seems to be that the $216,000 in rent, which is a sunk cost, is HALF of the $500,000 that it cost to buy the same condo!

But the $500,000 is not a sunk cost.

Am I missing something? Because I don’t think I am.

His exact quote: “If you do the math, even after ten years of renting, you’re paying nowhere near what it would cost to buy.”

So what?

My socks cost a fraction of what my shoes cost, but they’re totally different.

The author here is essentially arguing that the $216,000 in rent is comparable to the $500,000 it costs to buy the condo – as though the $500,000 is a sunk cost!

“You’re paying nowhere near what it would cost to buy.”

This makes absolutely, positively, no sense.

This isn’t comparing two apples – one that costs $1, and one that costs $2.

This is comparing an apple that costs $2, and an apple tree, that bears fruit, over time, and remains in place, unlike the apple core (or rent…) that you discard.

The author may be unaware that………wait for it………..in ten years, you can sell the $500,000 condo, and get that $500,000 back!

He says, “And I haven’t even mentioned property taxes.”

No. But you also didn’t mention that in ten years, that property could double in value.

But even if it didn’t, let’s look at these numbers.

His idea that “stable rents” exist is silly. Rent will not stay the same for ten years. So by compounding an extremely modest 2.5% interest over ten years, that $216,000 is actually $241,993.

Buying that $500,000 condo, forget about with 20% down – let’s say a modest 10%, will cost you $953/month in interest, at current rates (and yes rates can go up). The maintenance fees would be $400/month, taxes $250/month, hydro $50/month. That’s $1,653/month.

I didn’t just make those numbers up to come out to an amount less than what the $1,800/month he quoted was. Those are real numbers, folks.

But forget about these numbers, for a moment.

What really bothers me here is that he’s essentially suggesting that the sunk cost of renting is equal to the sunk cost of buying, which is insane.

I just don’t understand this piece.

And I’m afraid that somewhere out there, a millennial is watching this video, thinking that “renting costs half as much as buying,” because that’s what this piece says.

Forget about the fact that, in my opinion, that $500,000 purchase in 2017 could be worth $900,000 in 2027. Or $700,000. Or $600,000. But bottom line, and I think 90% of you would agree, that no matter what happens today, tomorrow, in 6 months, 18 months, 36 months – in ten years, the price of a home will be higher.

“Millennials should never buy housing.”

Good Lord. I mean, just think about that advice. It’s scary that this stuff is out there.

Then again, I remember back in 2008, with Garth Turner wrote the best-selling book, “The Greater Fool,” in which he predicted the market crash!

The average home price is up 143% since then.

He cost his followers a lifetime of tax-free capital gains that they will never be able to recoup.

I, writing this now, have the benefit of hindsight, so my argument isn’t totally fair. But I wasn’t the one writing books about the market crash in 2008, before starting an investment fund to attract people who were taught not to invest in real estate.

And for somebody who is not in any way affiliated with real estate or personal finance to put together a video with deeply flawed math, and have a platform like the Globe & Mail promote it, is just so dangerous.

I’m not hammering on this opinion piece because it’s bearish in nature. You have to know me better than that.

I read every single article by Rob Carrick, who I think is an extremely talented writer and gives very level-headed advice on personal finance that I wish every single millennial out there would take to heart. And Rob, of course, is a real estate bear – a noted one, in fact. But I’ve done videos and columns with Rob in the past, and I think his articles and videos have a place at the forefront of the Globe & Mail.

But this “Opinion” video, by a random guy, with non-sensical numbers?

I can’t believe the Globe has trotted this out. I’m just shocked.

The post The Worst Advice Available For Today’s Millennials… appeared first on Toronto Real Estate Property Sales & Investments | Toronto Realty Blog by David Fleming.

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