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kmgkmg · 1 year

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GOOD RIDDANCE, A NEW TIME - JOSHUA HONG

word count: 4.7k... (my longest fic yet!!)

pairing: joshua x gn!reader x jihoon (for the first half)

synopsis: it’s the start of the new year and you’re spending it with a wildly attractive stranger in a leather jacket.

genre/s: angst (for the first half), fluff, non-idol!au

warnings: alcohol mention, cheating mention, angst

rating: pg-13

a/n: my first joshua fic! i hope y’all enjoy reading it as much as i enjoyed writing it :D!! this is another submission for k-vanity’s season’s greetings event! theme: formal, accessories/extras: new years eve, holiday party, resolutions, transition. the title comes from the song good riddance, a new time by laica!

“You have got to be kidding me, Y/N.” Jihoon sighs, his irritation quickly becoming evident.

“Aren’t we supposed to get off two stops from now?” You ask your boyfriend, confusingly looking at your phone and the maps app that was open.

“No! We should’ve gotten off at the stop the driver just drove past.” He slid back into his seat, beginning to tap his foot impatiently.

Who would’ve thought that your navigation app would misguide you, but you could tell that your boyfriend’s anger was growing by the second and nearly going to burst. The other occupants of the bus were looking at both of you, causing you to nervously look down at your phone and the incorrect directions once again. You wished that you could explain that his loud voice towards you wasn’t a regular thing to the people watching, but you knew that would only upset him more. Jihoon was always pretty understanding when it came to you, but lately he became snappy. You figured he had been more susceptible to emotional outbursts since he was rushing to meet the deadline for producing a new singer’s album, so you could only look at him apologetically and press the button to alert the bus driver that you wanted to get off at the next stop.

You had persuaded him with much effort to attend the New Years Eve party your mutual friend, Soonyoung, was throwing, hoping it would be the most opportune time for him to destress. It’s understandable to be upset, you thought to yourself. Especially when you were the cause of the two of you to be running late. You had recently bought a washer and dryer, sick of needing to visit the laundromat when the nearest one was a forty minute bus ride away. The problem with these new appliances is that the outfit you planned to wear for the party was still damp when Jihoon informed you that he was waiting in your apartment complex’s lobby. You still find it comical how you found anything and everything that matched Soonyoung’s party theme of ‘New Beginnings’, before haphazardly selecting articles of clothing.

The bus takes a slight turn to the right and abruptly stops, indicating that it was your stop to get off. You’re torn from your thoughts of earlier and look beside you, only to see Jihoon’s spot was vacant. He was already at the bus’ door and asking the driver to open the exit. You frown, unused to him ignoring you, but regardless get up from your seat and leave the bus. Promptly putting on a smile, you hurriedly try to catch up to Jihoon, who was walking at an overwhelmingly fast pace. He was busy on his phone, probably texting Soonyoung to inform him that you would be late.

“How good do you think the music will be this year? Last year’s music was awful, but I feel like that was because Chan ordered a random local DJ to perform. At least Hansol is going to be in control today.” You try to start conversation, cautiously glancing at his expression and attempting to read the mood between the two of you.

Silence fills the air as he continues to walk at his hasty pace, before he finally looks up from his screen, exciting you for the potential interest you sparked.

“Why would I care about music when I’m not working? God Y/N, you are so dense.” His tired expression and monotonous tone leave you flustered, resulting in another apology, yet this time it was quietly muttered. Silence suddenly fell onto the two of you again and the rest of the walk was finished with the complete absence of words.

The music can be heard nearly a block away, but the familiar tunes of popular songs amongst your friend group causes you to feel a bit more at ease with yourself and the night. The queue to get into the club was snaking around the corner and you felt extremely grateful that your friends had rented out a section of the venue. Jihoon gives the bouncer your names and the worker checks their list before nodding and letting you both enter. Walking in Jihoon makes a beeline for the bar, leaving you alone once again. Sighing, you start to search for Soonyoung’s reserved table by yourself and prepare yourself for a stressful night.

You hear a voice that you’re accustomed to before you feel an arm sling around your shoulders. “Y/N, the one and only! My favorite fellow moodmaker is finally here, and with Producer Woozi!” Seungkwan slurringly shouts to express his joy at your arrival, before grabbing your shoulders with each of his hands to look you straight in the eyes. His face turns serious and you prepare for what he’s going to say before he hiccups, “You know we love you, right?”

You laugh at his drunken antics and hug him, before nearly jumping out of your skin at the sound of another familiar voice behind the two of you.

“Jihoon finally decided to take a break from his work and we have you to thank for that.” Breaking from your hug with the intoxicated Seungkwan, you turn around and see Seungcheol waving at you with a smirk grin. He told the group chat that he wasn’t going to be able to attend since he would be abroad when the party was going to happen, so his appearance was entirely unexpected. But he loved surprising you guys and he had successfully done just that. You enthusiastically wave back at your friend, having your mood drastically improve from earlier when you were alone with Jihoon.

“Where is he by the way?” Seungcheol asks and Seungkwan’s arched eyebrows prove that he was equally as curious to know where their other friend was. You point to the bar, expecting him to be there, and he was sitting near the end, already having three empty glasses in front of him.

His presence was intimidating enough to make you all aware that you should leave him alone for the time being. Sensing your regained sadness, Seungkwan looks to Seungcheol and points with his head to the dancefloor.

Noticing Seungkwan’s hint, Seungcheol begins to ask if you’d wanna dance together but is discouraged to finish his sentence when you sit back on one of the club’s sofas. Wonwoo, who has been keeping you company, gives the guys an urgent look to lift your spirits. The three of them look at each other and shrug, unsure of what to do with the awkward tension between their friend group’s favorite couple, you and Jihoon. As if on cue, Hansol turns on one of your favorite songs and your ears perk up and eyes sparkle as if you were a kid who just got gifted their favorite candy.

“No way, did one of you tell Hansol to play this? I love you guys!” You were easy to satisfy and your three friends thanked Hansol and fate for playing the song at the right time. You run to the dance floor, making sure to motion for your friends to follow you and soon enough the four of you were dancing and enjoying yourselves to the beat of the song.

The party ended up being more fun than you originally thought it would be and although you arrived at 8:30, three hours had passed in the blink of an eye. The clock was ticking, time was dwindling, and in thirty minutes it would officially be a new year. A while ago you stopped dancing and you noticed that Jihoon was still sitting at the bar with one more empty glass. Making your way over to the bar, you gently placed your hand on top of his as he maintained a blank expression on his face.

“Babe, did you say hi to Seungcheol yet? He fooled all of us and actually showed up tonight!” You inform your boyfriend, laughing at how surprised you were.

“Yeah, he came over some time ago.” He replied simply.

“Oh nice!” You smile at him, taking a seat and ordering a mocktail since you didn’t really want to drink when Jihoon had already drank multiple drinks.

“3…2…1… Happy New Year!” The whole club erupted into cheers as people began to kiss whoever was next to them, a tradition that you always found to be one of the cutest.

“Happy New Year!” You exclaim, leaning towards Jihoon to kiss him, only for him to turn away from you. Confused, but blaming it on the alcohol in his system you put a hand on his cheek, you then tried to go in for a more lighthearted kiss on the cheek, but he still dodged your affection.

“Stop, Y/N. Let’s break up.”

His words hit you like arrows piercing through your heart and the music felt deafening now. “You’re drunk, I’ll take you back to your place and we can talk in the morning when you’re sober.” You reason, struggling to conceal the hurt that he had caused you to feel throughout the night.

He turns back towards you, with an alarmingly scary expression. “You know my tolerance is high. I’m serious, Y/N, I don’t want to be with you anymore. I’ve been seeing someone else for about two months, we really aren’t compatible.”

“You’ve been cheating on me?” Tears begin to well up in your eyes and you find yourself standing up from the seat you were positioned in next to him.

“Don’t act like you aren’t all over our friends, instead of being with me this whole time you’ve been hanging out with them.”

His reply leaves you speechless, dumbfounded even. “How is hugging my friends who I’ve known for years, able to be compared to you cheating on me? I wouldn’t have needed to spend time with them if I had an attentive boyfriend. I never expected you to be fully energized going to this event, but I surely didn’t anticipate that you would give me the cold-shoulder for the entirety of the night either. You didn’t even wait for me to get off the bus together, Jihoon.”

“Well, I’ve made this decision a long time ago. We aren’t together anymore.” He shakes his head, irritated at your futile attempts to salvage your relationship.

“You really think relationships can be ended unilaterally?” You whimper, turning into a mess because of his damaging words.

“So you’re going to force me to stay with you? What type of relationship is that, Y/N? Relationships do end unilaterally all the time, it’s called getting dumped.” He runs a hand through his hair, frustrated that you weren’t giving up as easily as he predicted. Almost as if he had timed it, a girl walks to him and interlocks her arm with his and whispers something in his ear, arousing a laugh from him. “Are you starting to comprehend the situation better, Y/N?” He triumphantly asks you, making it the final nail in the coffin. Your sadness is now mixed with anger, and he walks off with the unidentified girl, once again leaving you alone.

You stand by yourself, reflecting on all that had happened and it all transpired when it was still less than fifteen minutes into the new year. “Wow, alright.”

You can sense that your friends were watching the whole scene play out and you couldn’t help but feel uneasy at the thought of being soothed by them. You know that this break up wouldn’t break up your friendship with the other guys, especially since you had introduced some of them to Jihoon, but knowing that didn’t make the fresh heartbreak hurt any less. You needed to get away from this club, away from Jihoon. Granted he wasn’t in your eyes’ sight, but you weren’t about to risk the chance of seeing his tongue down some girl’s throat.

You walk out of the club, having friends call out for you to come back inside. You knew it wasn’t smart to go out by yourself, especially since it was cold and late at night, but being in the club was too painful. How could Jihoon be so cruel? Thoughts racing in your head, you find yourself experiencing intense dizziness. Swiftly, you sit on the outside steps of a nearby building, putting your head in your hands to calm down. Panting can be heard from two people and you know they’re your friends. Sitting on the steps near you, you prepare yourself for whatever pep talk they thought of.

“Y/N, please come back inside.” Seungkwan begs as Wonwoo puts your coat over your shoulders and begins to rub your back.

“I don’t want to go back and see him.” You state, defeated.

Wonwoo and Seungkwan exchange looks, unable to figure out how to make you feel better. “At least let one of us drive you back to your place. Or we can take the bus with you back?” Wonwoo proposes, causing you to feel slightly warmer at the extent to which your friends cared for you.

“I’ll be better, I just need some time to myself. I have a pretty full battery for my phone and I can keep in contact with y’all throughout the night to ensure I’m safe. I had no drinks tonight, you know I’m responsible. Go, have fun at the party Hansol is DJing at.” You manage to lift your head from your hands and smile softly at the two friends in your view.

They sympathetically looked at you, understanding you wanted to be alone. “Okay, we’ll respect what you want, but if anything happens don’t hesitate to call any of us. We are all on your side, I can’t believe he would do that, and today of all days. The fucking audacity he has.” Seungkwan accepts your plans for the night and huffs in exasperation at Jihoon’s actions.

“Sounds good, thank you guys. Really.” You say before watching as they walked back in the direction of the club’s loud music.

Hearing three guys chat with each other, you continue staring at the pavement of the stairs. “Dude, we know your birthday is always overshadowed by New Years but we should still go have fun! It’s only a little past two, the night is ours.”

You overhear their conversation, not meaning to eavesdrop, but they were right in front of you and definitely weren’t whispering. You stayed quiet, hoping they would eventually walk away until noticing one of them wearing converse with small four leaf clovers painted on the white front part. “Oh, is it my lucky day then?” You chuckle to yourself, fed up with the irony of seeing such a sign, unaware of how loud your rhetorical question came out of your mouth.

Amused at the comment on his shoes, Joshua motions for his friends to stop talking for a minute, taking in the image of you on his apartment’s stairs, looking about as rough of a condition that he felt. He figured asking if you felt alright was a question doomed for failure, anyone could tell how dejected you are. Instead, he decided to be straightforward.

“What happened?”

You’re surprised that four leaf clover shoes is talking to you, and even more surprised when you look up and see three insanely unrealistic attractive men in front of you. The one in the center being four leaf clover shoes, wearing a leather jacket that only added to his hotness factor. But then again, it’s late at night and stranger danger is always a good code to live by.

“Who, who are you?” You countered instead of answering his question. The three guys look at each other before grasping the situation and realizing they must’ve looked intimidating to you.

“Sorry,” the four leaf clover shoes apologizes, “this is Jeonghan,” he introduces the guy on his right, “this is Mingyu,” he introduces the guy on his left, and finishes with himself, “and I’m Joshua. I live in the building that you’re currently sitting on the steps of.” His explanation of why he was on the steps with you instantly makes you jump up onto your feet, before stumbling at the dizziness that hadn’t diminished since you left the club.

Joshua’s amusement quickly becomes worry as he catches you from nearly tripping down the stairs. Tonight was truly not your night, he thinks to himself.

Mingyu tries to stifle his laugh before carelessly commenting, “Woah, someone must’ve had a lot of drinks tonight.” He didn’t mean for his sloppy judgment of you to be said out loud, but he had a few drinks already and was way beyond the tipsy state. Still, he knew well enough to recognize when he messed up and covered his mouth with his hands, clearly remorseful at his inner thoughts coming out. His clumsiness wasn’t anything new, but it still earned him mean looks from Joshua and Jeonghan, never failing to be shocked at their younger friend.

“I actually didn’t have any drinks.” You defend yourself while regaining your composure and leaning on the handrail next to you.

“Well, do you want to be left alone or taken to a nearby hospital to get checked out? Or would you rather go out with us?” Joshua inquires, not realizing that you thought he offered a health checkup and getting drunk in the same breath.

You laugh at the absurdity of the questions being asked, but drinking with them didn’t seem like the worst thing right now. “Sure, I could use a drink.”

Joshua blinks at Jeonghan and Mingyu and they respond with knowing looks, both aware that when Joshua meant go out he meant eat with them at their favorite 24-hour restaurant down the street. Since his birthday was so close to New Years, he never was a huge fan of partying all night. Nevertheless, he didn’t want to casually deny you from drinking, especially when you were feeling the way you were. Their plans were to catch up on the latest season of one of the series on Netflix that everyone had been talking about on social media for the past week, but Netflix can wait. He could sense that you needed companionship right now above everything else.

“Um, what type of drinks are you looking to have?” He starts to ask, before a phone suddenly rings.

Jeonghan pulls his phone out of his jeans pocket and picks up the call, unable to hear his friend past the blaring music of what he assumed to be a club. “Seungcheol? What are you saying, I can’t hear a single word you’re trying to tell me.”

Your eyes darted to the man who stood farther from you to accept his call, not expecting to hear the mention of your friend’s name. “You’re friends with Seungcheol? Choi Seungcheol?”

Now it was Jeonghan’s turn to be surprised as he removed his phone from his ear, “How do you know Seungcheol?”

“He’s my friend! Could you tell him I’m still safe?” You request, happy to know that you had mutual friends with these three strangers.

“Sure,” Jeonghan replies, returning to his phone call with his friend before noticing they never asked what your name was. “What’s your name by the way?”

“Y/N L/N!” You respond, waiting for him to be done with his conversation so you could drink with them.

“Seungcheol, Y/N L/N is with us right now and they’re still safe. They wanted you to know that, I really can’t hear you though. If you need me, or them, just text us.” Jeonghan practically yells into his phone, before ending the call. Exhausted from the unexpected use of his energy, Jeonghan looks at the three of you with a more haggard expression on his face. “I should go pick him up. Whenever he calls me, 99.99% of the time it means that he got hammered and needs me to take care of him.” He groans and the fact that Jeonghan knew Seungcheol’s drunk habits made you feel even more comfortable with the guys in front of you.

“Him and Soonyoung really are the clingiest when they drink, huh?” You agree, nodding to yourself at the thought of your drunk friends.

“How do you know them by the way?” Mingyu asks, confused since he never ran into you at parties or other events.

“I’ve known some of them since high school, others in the friend group I met through Jihoon. It’s easy to get acquainted with your boyfriend’s friends– or should I say ex-boyfriend now, ha.” You explain, turning uncomfortable at the mention of your freshly established ex.

Mingyu makes an ‘O’ shape with his mouth, “You were Jihoon’s partner? They talked about you all the time, when did you change your hair from the ruby color he always talked about?”

Your face twists in confusion, letting the truth of Jihoon cheating on you finally set in. “Oh, that must be the person he was cheating on me with. I’ve had this hair color for the past year.” You grab a strand of your hair while looking at it seemingly unbothered, as the three men in front of you are left flustered by your nonchalant energy.

“Sorry, we should really go pick up Seungcheol, Y/N. Also Jihoon is absolute trash for cheating on you, we’ve only met you tonight but you seem way too good for him.” Jeonghan glares at Mingyu again for speaking before thinking, that was one of his resolutions to fix for the new year. Jeonghan pulled Mingyu down the stairs and waved goodbye to you, leaving the disoriented Joshua alone with you.

A silence fills the air, a limitless amount more comfortable than the silence you experienced with Jihoon earlier in the night. You both begin to speak at the same time, causing an overlap and making both of you laugh at your impeccable timing. “You first.” He offers, but you shake your head and motion for him to speak first.

“Well, where would you wanna go?” He asks.

“Somewhere that you feel at peace.” You stated, hoping your night would get better.

The first place he brought you was a diner about three blocks from the building he lived in. Even though it was New Years Eve weekend and everyone was outside partying, the diner seemed to function in a completely separate dimension. Its interior was a bit barren, making it seem like a prime example of a stock photo when someone would search liminal spaces on the internet. However, being with Joshua the diner still gave off welcoming energy. The heater was also on, warming you up on this cold winter night.

He took the initiative to choose a booth and greeted a waiter that he seemed to know. So he was a regular here, good to know. Giving a menu to you first, he pointed out his favorite items off the menu, asking what your preferences were and altering his recommendations to fit what he thinks you’d like. You wanted to pay attention to what he was saying, but something about him made it impossible for you to look away from his face. Not realizing how long you were staring, Joshua had looked up to see you in what he assumed to be a zoned out state.

“Y/N?” Your name being said makes you stop staring at him and quickly look down at the menu, trying to play it off that you were shamelessly checking him out.

He smirks, trying to lighten the mood. “Do I have something on my face?”

Before you can reply, the waiter comes to your table asking if you were ready to order. You internally sigh to yourself, relieved that you didn’t have to answer him. Joshua looked at you, expecting you to order what you wanted to eat, but you hadn’t paid attention to the menu since you were too focused on his face. “I’ll get the same as whatever you’re getting.” You mumble as your embarrassment only continues to grow by the minute.

He nods, placing the order before handing his friend the menus and leaning back. “Do you want to talk about what happened tonight?” He carefully asks, not sure how serious the events that occurred were.

You normally wouldn’t talk about your feelings, especially to a stranger, but something about him was different. He had the kindest eyes you’ve seen, eyes that look as if they would understand you even if you shared your deepest and darkest secret. “Well, it started with my dryer not working…”

Hours passed and multiple glasses had been emptied between the two of you. Neither of you were drunk, although you had been with him for a long time all of the empty glasses were from smoothies. The diner was also known for its smoothie flavors, a dessert that you loved to consume. Your food had long since been devoured, with the only remains being cold fries. You learned he had grown up in LA and only moved to this city a couple of years ago so he wasn’t as well acquainted with your other friends like Jeonghan and Mingyu were. He continued to go on about his life and the recent happenings, even revealing that his last heartbreak was about four months ago when his ex confessed they cheated on him. His similar experiences only bonded the two of you quicker, and you found yourself sharing even the most cringeworthy stories with him. You liked how free he made you feel, you could say anything and still not have to worry about how he perceived you.

Joshua holds up his final smoothie of the night and begins to toast, "Good riddance to Jihoon, and here's to a new time, a better year!” He smiles at you, downing the remnants of his drink and paying the waiter for your food. You offered to pay half, considering you spent way more than you expected, but he adamantly refused.

“I was the one who invited you out, wasn’t I?” He concludes, holding the door as you both walk out of the diner with the sun starting to rise. The approaching sunrise made the city look anew once again and although you got your heart broken earlier, you felt refreshed. You had been through hell and back for the last day of the past year, but you were grateful that you could begin the new year with your newfound friend. A clean slate, with a sincerely caring person was what you needed and words could not articulate how thankful you were for Joshua’s presence.

“Let me take you home, only if you’re comfortable with me doing so.” As you were about to walk to the nearest bus stop that offered your route, Joshua’s voice interrupted your thoughts.

“You would do that?” Once again, you’re touched by his attentiveness to you. He only nods in response, smiling at you again.

The bus ride back to your apartment was more relaxing than any other bus ride you’ve had before. Somehow, the fifty minute commute was satisfying to experience today. Knowing that you had today off, seeing the city before everyone was fully awake was a consoling way to start the new year. It was an added bonus that you got to spend more time with Joshua. Soon enough, you were near your apartment complex and you hit the button to get off. Joshua trailed behind you, stopping at the bus stop to wait for the next bus back to his place. Seeing how he didn’t expect anything and genuinely wanted to make sure you were safe made your heart beat faster, and you decided that if it was the new year, you weren’t going to live with regrets. Although you had been walking to your building, you turned on your heels to walk back to him. He was patiently waiting at the stop, clearly tired from the night, but that sight of him only made you more certain that you were interested in him. Tapping his shoulder and making him jump slightly made you giggle, but his face soon softened upon seeing you. Anytime he smiled at you, it made your heart beat even faster.

“Did you forget something?” He innocently wondered, standing up in your presence.

“Yeah…you actually. Do you want to stay over for breakfast?” You boldly suggested, pleased with his reaction when his face lit up and he shook his head in agreement.

Maybe it was your lucky day after all. The new year was going to be memorable, you could tell.

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givehimthemedicine · 1 year

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#rainbowshipgate

late March, 1979.

Someone gets off work at Hawkins Lab and stops off at the store on their way home to buy a pack of cigarettes.

"My son drew that," the cashier volunteers, pointing to a crayon drawing taped up by the register.

They smile politely and barely glance at the drawing, but when they do, they double take.

"Your son?" they hold out their hand for the change without looking. "Quite an imagination."

"He's only eight," she beams proudly.

Lighting up a cigarette, they rush the rest of the way home to make an urgent phonecall.

"Does someone wanna tell me how some elementary school kid from town drew a picture of something Top Fucking Secret?"

By April, HNL is surveilling young William Byers, son of the Melvald's cashier. They wiretap, they film, they learn routines, they pose as school officials to monitor his academic and creative output. He may be exactly the sort of talent they scout for across the world, quite literally in their own backyard.

Acquiring a new subject is always tricky, so they can't be hasty. They need evidence that this wasn't merely a coincidence, a fluke. They watch to see if the boy exhibits any other strange behavior.

They're still waiting in September of that year, when the HNL program... hits a snag. Its focus narrows to its lone survivor and most promising subject. Funding can't be secured for any new subjects at this time, however the Byers boy still poses a potential security risk, and continues to be monitored.

He is last observed the morning of November 6, 1983, travelling on Maple Street by bicycle, on the day when finally he does do something else strange. He vanishes.

A kid going missing isn't the strangest thing that happens on November 6 - curiously, there is another major incident at the Lab the same day.

When it becomes apparent that the two events are in fact connected, damage control is necessary. If local law enforcement is allowed to continue to search for the boy, the investigation could lead back to the Lab, attracting an undesirable level of public attention.

A fake body is created with very convincing attention to detail using surveillance obtained the morning of the boy's disappearance.

With the search over, the Lab should now be at its leisure to investigate Will Byers' whereabouts on its own terms. If the boy merely dies, irretrievable, at least the security threat is neutralized; if he can be privately recovered for study, all the better.

Unfortunately not visible in those surveillance photos of a long-sleeved Will Byers on a November morning: the birthmark on his right arm.

------

ok I'm not entirely seriously proposing that this happened, but hear me out anyway about a few things

That fake body.

to know what Will was wearing on the day he went missing, they had to have seen him wearing it. how then, unless they were already watching him? why would the Lab be watching some random child?

Some lab kids are wild-caught, like Kali.

In order to merit being taken for the program, must they not first do something to attract the Lab's interest - display some curious behavior, some sign of potential psychic ability?

Will loves medieval fantasy.

DnD and Lord of the Rings. he's always drawing things like battles and knights and dragons and wizards. his life, his friends, but through a lens of medieval type fantasy. so when Joyce tells the story of little Will drawing a spaceship, it bothers me. a spaceship, even a whimsical one, is such a conspicuous break from Will's usual genre.

Kids draw from a variety of inspirations.

Sometimes they draw from their imagination or their feelings.

Sometimes they draw exactly what they see in reality.

And sometimes they draw what they see somewhere in between. Without really even knowing what it is they're drawing.

What if little Will saw the rainbow spaceship in his mind, but not in his imagination.

So, what am I saying, Will had a vision of a spaceship? The upside down is another planet and the demogorgon is an alien? No.

(Haha,)

But really, no, Stranger Things isn't that genre.

So whose spaceship is it? Is Hawkins Lab building a spaceship? No. The lab's interest is in the human mind, not the space race.

I don't think there is a spaceship. But there could be something within Hawkins Lab (or somewhere similarly top secret) that a kid with a vague vision and a box of crayons might interpret as looking like a spaceship.

Just, I don't know, some kind of big metal Thing.

I'm not saying it would have been NINA or equivalent, but I'm saying there could be a Thing that could look like a spaceship out of context. In perhaps a vision, an accidental remote-view, a now-memory.

why would a Thing at Hawkins Lab have a rainbow on it? idk, it's not like they have a history of that.

Plot twists require hints.

Big reveals are no fun if there wasn't a clue in plain view the whole time. We have few flashbacks and anecdotes about Will's past, and if we're due some revelation in s5 about him either having powers or having more of a history with HNL or Henry than we thought, that is where a clue would be.

Joyce's rainbow ship story is littered with details that bother me.

Do you know what March 22nd is? It's your birthday. Your birthday. When you turned eight, I gave you that huge box of crayons. Do you remember that? It was 120 colors. And all your friends, they got you Star Wars toys, but all you wanted to do was draw with all your new colors. And you drew this big spaceship, but it wasn't from a movie. It was your spaceship. A rainbow ship is what you called it. And you must have used every color in the box. I took that with me to Melvald's and I put it up and I told everyone who came in, "My son drew this." And you were so embarrassed. But I was so proud. I was so, so proud.

Will being 8 may matter because he turned 8 in 1979. idk, of all ages to attach to this story why the one in the landmark year of 1979? his eighth would be his last birthday before the lab massacre (Sept 8, 1979). this scenario might not work with Will any older - perhaps whatever the "spaceship" was was eliminated post-massacre. or there's something to Will being the same age as El. I'll get back to you on this one

drawing with crayons on ST is so often associated with something not simply seen or imagined, but perceived in some strange way:

Will drawing his vision of the Mind Flayer in black/red crayon

Will scribbling the nowmemory tunnels feverishly with whole crayons

these aren't the only times he uses crayon, but contrast some of his noteworthy "normal imagination" drawings - Will the Wise, Zombie Boy - done in pencil instead, as are a lot of his other misc filler drawings. (when Will's fireball/cabbage drawing where crayons are prominently mentioned turns out to be a vision of season 5 I'll get back to you)

Joyce grabs crayons to trace the Mind Flayer off the TV

Nancy writes the decoded CLOSEGATE in crayon

Ten's lessons at the lab consist of remotely viewing Brenner's bad crayon drawings

Henry's drawing of the spider is in pencil, and the Mind Flayer in charcoal, but when he's drawing with crayons I don't know what he's drawing but the lights flicker

when Max draws her vision of the Creel house, she calls attention in the dialogue to Holly letting her borrow her crayons

Will lacking interest in his new Star Wars toys makes sure we know, in case we don't remember all the Will art we've seen, that he isn't especially interested in space.

Joyce even says it with this little eyeroll like "these punk ass kids think MY son is a space nerd? please. I know the Castle Byers password and it's a LOTR reference"

which is what makes this so conspicuous - why in the same breath as establishing Will isn't very interested in space stuff does she say Will drew a spaceship and emphasize that it isn't something he saw in a movie. that it came from his imagination. like.. yeah, isn't everything he draws? why was a spaceship on Will's mind if he isn't interested in space? am I wrong that we've never seen one single other drawing of space stuff among all his artwork?

finally, Joyce not only put this drawing up in public but told all her customers about it. this is the only anecdote of Will's pre-vanishing history I can think of that could suggest any adult outsiders (so potentially the Lab) taking notice of something he did.

in conclusion I'm kidding, unless it turns out I'm right in which case you heard rainbowshipgate here first

#the vanishing of will byers #will byers #st theory #rainbowshipgate #if will had disappeared in june the lab would've known about the birthmark #assuming they don't hang onto surveillance footage from the times he failed to do anything Strange #shh #mine

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aggravateddurian · 6 months

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You will NEVER see a picture of Avery smiling (at least until 'the event'). She's described in my notes as 'pathologically incapable of looking happy.'

Hey guys, say hello to Avery Greer.

She's not from 2077, she's actually a netrunner NPC I developed for my Cyberpunk RED campaign, How to Save a Life, which takes place in 2051.

Avery Greer (she/her)

Known aliases: Ana

Date of Birth: September 7, 2023

Place of Birth: Charlotte, North Carolina, NUSA

Nationality: NUSA

Occupation: FIA Intelligence Analyst, Netrunner

Affiliations: NUSA, FIA

Sex: F

Gender: Female (cis)

Orientation: Lesbian

Full story below

Avery Greer was born in Charlotte, NC in 2023. Her father, David Greer, was a high school humanities teacher, and her mother, Suzie, was a shopkeeper. Avery grew up being fascinated with drawing. She would draw on the walls of her bedroom and would act out if her parents tried to erase them. She eventually transitioned to drawing in books or on tablets, much to the relief of her family, who felt like fighting with Avery to erase the drawings from her walls was like invading Saburo Arasaka's private residence.

Avery also became very into coding, and from there, it basically guaranteed she would become a netrunner. In high school, she was identified by her teachers as being uniquely talented at organising and assembling code. Her talents also attracted another interest, from the FIA, who needed Intelligence Analysts who were also expert organisers, particularly when it came to data analysis and recommending action against threats to the NUSA.

After graduating from high school, Greer was approached by the FIA. She would now work for the intelligence agency as an analyst and offensive netrunner. She received her commission directly from President Elizabeth Kress, not out of any personal interest on Kress' part, but because Kress had taken to using the FIA as her personal hatchet-men.

Her present assignment is Night City, working with a group of agents led by veteran agent Hunter Wilkes (aka Bishop). Their task is investigating a potential plot to bring Night City under the control of a hostile power, possibly foreign, but also potentially domestic.

During the years, she has done many things on behalf of the NUSA, and she is starting to question her place in the world. As time has gone on, Bishop has noted that Avery has changed. She no longer smiles, and the effort she puts into her work has declined, especially since arriving in Night City. She's started drinking more, and has recently taken up smoking.

Worse, Bishop has started to lose track of Avery for days at a time. She claims that she's going dark because she's anxious of being found by enemy agents, but Bishop is beginning to suspect that Avery is up to something. Bishop is suspicious of netrunners, on a previous gig, he was betrayed by a netrunner, who hacked their AV to crash it in a city, and then handed them over to a local militia in exchange for his freedom. He fears that Avery may be planning to betray the NUSA in exchange for freedom from the FIA...

#cyberpunk #cyberpunk 2077 #virtual photography #my vp #cyberpunk red #cyberpunk red oc #how to save a life #oc: avery greer #netrunner oc #fia agent oc

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v1smokewife · 4 months

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who is this person - chapter nine

On a quest to find love on a dating website, Sanji falls head over heels for a woman with an interest in...alternative relationships that sends him down a rabbit hole of completing tasks for a seemingly sadistic mistress. But what happens when she turns out to be more than what she seems?

Zoro pretends to be a female on the internet to talk to Sanji and bad things happen.

Darkfic with themes of internalised homophobia, bad bdsm practices and lying about your identity to strangers on the internet. Please read with caution. This is NOT how BSDM should be practiced. Always practice Sane, Safe and Consensual practicesboarders on being considered dead dove do not eat material

read on ao3

authors note; I just want to apologise. I don't feel this chapter is my best. There is a reason for this. I've had to put my childhood cat down recently and that has been hard. I also got a new puppy and that's also been hard because obviously that is really hard as well. I really wanted to update this. on top of that,my mental health has detoriated. I had an awful festive period and i just don't feel like exisiting anymore.This chapter is really just a small set up fro the next two chapters anyway so it isn't as exciting. Enjoy regardless <3

S POV

There was a growing sense of unease gnawing at him as he was entered in the fluorescent lit waiting room of the local doctor surgery. Sanji phoned ahead and was told to come in whenever he could. Zeff is waiting for him in the cafe next door. The events of the night before were a massive blur for him. He had no recollection of how he ended up in Zoro's bed. He couldn't shake this feeling that he'd been lied to as well as been taken advantage of.

He approached the desk. The receptionist looked up at him with tired yet friendly looking eyes, "Can I help you?"

"I need to speak to a doctor. I phoned ahead,"

"Then I'll need you to fill out these forms. Once you have, a nurse will call your name when they are ready to see you,"

Sanji took the clipboard and found a seat that was away from the rest of the patients. As he filled out the form, memories of the night before only played in a blur. He still doesn't remember how he left the bar and ended up in Zoro's bed. Who spiked up and what happened? And the revelation from this morning...Zoro being Zoey...it still was an absolute shock to him. He didn't really know what to think of it. As he filled out the forms, the pen trembled in his hand. He couldn't make any sense of any of these questions, not while his life felt as if it was currently shattering right now.

After what felt like a long time, a nurse called out his name from the end of the hallway of rooms.

"Sanji?"

Sanji turned around and noticed the woman. He really knew that he wasn't in the right state of mine. There was a woman, attractive woman calling his name and he wasn't fazed. It didn't calm his nerves as he got up and followed. As they entered the room, she turned to Sanji and gestured for him to sit down. "The doctor will be joining shortly. I'm just going to take some details of why you are with us today,"

Sanji leaned back in his chair. It shouldn't have been so difficult to explain but...he knew this was important.

"I woke up in a bed that wasn't mine...I think I was spiked last night,"

The nurse nodded empathetically as she wrote them down on her computer, "I'm sorry to hear you had a rough night. We're here to help figured out what happened. I understand it make be difficult but any information you remember might be able to help,"

Sanji appreciated her helpfulness. Unease still gnawed at him through the processes, "I... think I was spiked in a bar by a guy I met. I was...I don't remember anything after that. I ended up in another person's bed. I don't know how I got there. I don't know anything,"

The nurse's expression changed into one of concern and worry, "I'm sorry to hear that. We'll try our best to help you piece together what happened last night,"

Sanji wondered if he should mention Zoro. Thoughts about last night were disconnected like puzzle pieces. What happened between leaving the club and this morning that ended in him being in Zoro's bed. He didn't...think anything happened between him and Zoro but how could, he be sure? He didn't trust himself and he didn't trust his own mind when he didn't even remember what happened last night.

The door to the examination room suddenly opened. A doctor stepped in and introduced themselves. It was all standard procedures. They asked him about any symptoms related to what happened last night. He answered truthfully...well, to the best of his ability. His mind was current a tumultuous sea of thoughts and emotions. No matter how much he tried to remember, he just couldn't seem to remember what happened last night.

The tests were merely just to see if there were any substances still in his system. It wasn't a big step, but it was a step, nonetheless.

As the doctor left to prepare the tests, Sanji was left alone. He only had this thoughts of the night before to think about now. He leaned back in his chair as his mind played the same blurry events over and over again. The unease of this morning's revelations seemed to gnaw at him no matter what. They were frustratingly elusive, like a shattered mirror who couldn't put back together. His thoughts always went back to Zoro and of course, the revelation that shattered his word. They had never been close. Their interactions only ever caused conflict and yet...there was a new layer added to their complicated relationship that he was struggling to process.

The waiting room he was once in felt like a million years away and the lights from the celling casted an unforgiving glow on him. There was a sense of isolation. It was as if answers that he wanted to know about where locked behind a door in his mind. Once again, Sanji closed eyes and then tried to think about it. The clinking of glasses, the blurring of faces and the alleyway that was damp with the breath of the city. However, everything just felt like a blur. A huge blur to him. He could remember the bar, the alleyway and the vulnerability that flooded through him at the feeling of powerlessness. It was as if the truth was barely out of reach. As he waited for the doctor to return, Sanji's thoughts were clouded with uncertainty.

At least... he didn't have to do home alone. He had Zeff waiting for him in the cafe next door.

Maybe...Should he talk to Nami?

He didn't know if he could...

Once everything was done and his tests were clearer, Sanji was told to leave with the advice to take it easy and stay hydrated at home. So, Sanji stepped out of Doctor's office. It wasn't far from the cafe but before he could do that... Sanji needed to have a smoke. The crisp air outside of the doctor's office felt good as she lit his cigarette. Each puff calmed his nerves and brought some clarity to his thoughts.

He had to talk to someone. It was becoming abundantly clear that he would not be able to solve this on his own but who could he talk to? Nami wasn't there.... Zoro was the only one there and he would rather die than talk to Zoro again. As helpful as Zeff was being, it wouldn't help him figure things out.

Once he put out his cigarette, he started to make his way to the cafe with each step feeling heavier than the next. The warm glow of the cafe seemed foreign compared to doctors. Zeff was waiting for him there at a booth near the window. A beacon of normality within his current complicated situation. His presence was reassuring. If he's honest with himself, he probably wouldn't have went to the doctors without Zeff pestering him about.

"You look as if you've seen a ghost, kid," Zeff talks to him as he normally would but there was definitely a pair of concern. Sanji sat across from him at the booth. Well, he rarely sat down with Zeff like this. Not since he was younger anyway. The clatter of people getting on with their lives around him as well as the smell of coffee and baked goods felt like another world. He told Zeff all about the doctor's appointment.

"They...took some tests...although I don't know why because it's obvious what happened last night, but I guess it's standard," Sanji still wanted to tell him about what was going on, but he didn't really know how Zeff would take that. Zeff barely knows how to work a computer sometimes. How is he going to be going to be able to understand that he was catfished by someone he hated on a dating website.

"There's....more to this story actually," Sanji began to stir his coffee absentmindedly, "I was...actually stood up for a date last night. By a girl. The girl I told you about actually...do you remember?"

"Yeah. The one you were broken up about over with?" Zeff said. His face seemed confused by where this was going but he was going to listen anyway. His experience with modern dating was non-existent so he would let Sanji explain.

"Except..." Sanji suddenly feels really embarrassed. This is the first person he's spoken to about it after the revelation and it feels embarrassing to confess to this happening, "It's..." How to explain to Zeff... a man who sometimes doesn't know how to change apps on the Smart TV... "So, sometimes people pretend to be other people...it's called catfishing. Zoey...was a catfish,"

Zeff raised his eyebrows as confusion settled over his weathered face, "You were catfished? So, you were tricked,"

"Yeah. Tricked," Sanji sat back. God, he needed a cigarette, "It... well, it turns out that all this time, she was Zoro,"

It took Zeff a moment to process the information, "Zoro? Wait, is that the one you always fight with? I thought he hated you. Why would you pretend to be all lovey with someone who you hate?

Sanji felt a mix of embarrassment and relief, "Yeah. I have no idea. I can't wrap my head around it,"

Zeff leaned back in his chair trying to think about things. Although it was clear that Zeff didn't really understand the technicalities of what is going on, he was trying to at least understand the whole picture, "Hm. People do things that often contradict what we originally thought of them,"

"It's not just about the catfishing...." Sanji mumbled. He didn't want to discuss anymore. He didn't really want to think about it. What he really wanted was to go home and had a nap.

"It sounds like quite the messy situation. Whatever is going on with Zoro isn't your burden to figure him out," Zeff said, "You're only responsibility is to recover so I can start taking some evenings off again from work. I'm giving you the rest of the week off."

Sanji laughed. It was humourless but a laugh, nonetheless. But Zeff had a good point, "You're right. I... need to figure out what happened last night. As for Zoro," Sanji paused looking out the window for a second, "..."I'll deal with it when I'm ready. It's too much right now,"

They continued to talk for a little bit. However, Sanji was exhausted and needed to go home and have a nap. Zeff agreed to take him back home where they parted ways. Sanji went back up to his apartment and got ready for bed. Honestly, he was absolutely exhausted with the whole situation. Too much as happened within the past 24 hours that was too much for Sanji, so he felt like he needed to sleep. Before he went to get into bed, Sanji's phone buzzed on the bedside table.

It was a message from Vivi. He hesitated for a moment before opening the message.

V: Hey Sanji. I don't know the details, but I heard you had a rough night last night. I'm sorry if this is out of place and I appreciate if this isn't welcome, but do you want to meet up this week? I'm here for you :)

At first, Sanji's thoughts immediately went to the idea that Nami possibly explained the details to Vivi. Although Vivi is saying she doesn't know. However, it might be helpful to talk to here. She was always really kind and considerate, even if they only ever spoke through Nami.

He typed his reply at first with hesitation but then gaining conviction. Maybe Vivi, someone close to Nami, could offer a different perspective.

S: Hey Vivi. I could use someone to talk to. Let's meet tomorrow at the usual cafe?

He sent the message as the idea slightly lifted his spirits. Vivi wasn't the type to judge him. She would listen to him as a friend of Namis.

As he prepared himself for his name, his mind played over the events of the day. The visit with the doctor, the conversation with Zeff and now the impending meetup with Vivi. Thoughts drifted back to Zoro. He was still upset but now that hours had passed, he needed to know one question.

Why?

Z'S POV

Zoro did the only thing he could do.

Drink.

As soon as the evening rolled around, he went to the club to drink. It wasn't even to watch the performers or other club goers. He just wanted to drink. Now that the cat was out of the bag and Sanji knew that he was catfishing him as Zoey, Zoro was going to drink. Nami didn't stay for long. She seemed devastated that she got caught in this mess, but she displayed no warmth towards him. She felt sorrier for Sanji than him, which was understandable.

There was nothing else for Zoro to do right now other than drink at the bar.

"Zoro..."

There was that familiar voice. He turned to his side to see Robin. Robin had been in on this. She was one of the one's that helped exposed him.

"What?"

"Do you mind if I sit with you?" she asked as if she hadn't stolen his phone last night.

"Do what you want," And Zoro's voice wasn't as warmth as it was normally. Robin sat next to him at the bar. The silence between them was loud.

"Remember when you first saw me you said it was funny how I wore a mask when I came here..." Robin said, looking towards him, "Isn't it funny that all this time, you were the one wearing the mask"

Zoro let out a bitter laugh. The irony of Robin's words was not lost on him as he took another sip of his beer. He didn't look at Robin and instead was fixated on the bottles behind the bar.

"You're right," His voice, a mixture of resignation and bitterness. "I was wearing a mask. A pretty good one too,"

She watched him for a moment, "It was more than just a disguise. It was a whole different person," Her expression solemn, "I... don't expect you to explain,"

Her presence was a comfort, but it also was disturbing. Her observations were poignant. Her comment about masks hit close to home.

"Appreciate that..." Zoro mumbled. The clinking of glasses formed a backdrop to their conversation, "I didn't mean for it to go that far. It was a joke. Luffy and Usopp made her with the intention of annoying Sanji. They did it on my phone...I should have deleted it,"

He trailed off because it was more than that, wasn't it? But Robin watched him with patient eyes. She wasn't here to judge. She was here to listen to his side of the story.

"I don't even know how to explain it. Things just got out of control. That's all that happened,"

"It wasn't just a mask. You created a world that Sanji believed in. A relationship he found comfort in," She said, her eyes studying his features, "I don't know how much of Zoey was fictional. I read the conversations...unfortunately I seen some of the...not safe for work messages too. But you had a genuine conversations. Some of that must have been real,"

Zoro's grip on his beer tightened as he took a moment to let her words sink in. He had created a persona and Sanji believed in it whole heartedly even when the red flags were obvious. Sanji had believed in Zoey. Maybe Zoro did too.

"Sometimes...it felt real," His eyes were still not daring to look at Robin, "Maybe it was a joke, but I think I fooled myself into believing it too. Sanji may have believed in it, but I think I believed in it too That it was possible to be in a relationship with him...even if it wasn't... conventional,"

And there it was...the penny had dropped for him. Suddenly, he realised what this was. He had developed feelings for Sanji in a fucked up sort of way. He enjoyed his relationship with Sanji as Zoey for that reason and now he was too late.

Robin smiled. She seemed to have come to the same conclusion too.

"Not surprising. You created with a connection. It's not surprising that emotions got involved," Robin said thoughtfully.

"But It wasn't supposed to be like this. With Zoey... Sanji was a different person. Someone who I liked," He exhaled slowly, a mixture of frustration and regret in his posture.

Robin sipped her drink, "Regardless, Sanji will need time to process this. You broke his trust. It's going to be hard for him to trust you again,"

"I'm aware," Zoro said, "I don't plan on bombarding him anytime soon. I'm trying my best to keep away from him,"

"What you did wasn't right but..." Her expression was soft, "I don't think this was a game for you...not at all."

Zoro finally turned to look at her, "I... don't really know how to move on from this,"

"Give Sanji space and time. He's likely confused and hurt,"

Zoro let out a heavy sigh. As awful as this was, it was good to explain it with someone who isn't going to yell at him, "I wish I could explain it, but I don't even understand why myself,"

"That's what you need to figure out on your own and if he's willing, Sanji might listen to you in the future,"

The club's atmosphere buzzed around them. It was a contrast to the conversation that they were having currently. Robin's words gave him that glimmer of hope to finally understand why.

At last, Zoro finished the rest of his drink and then stood up, "Thank you Robin,"

She smiled at him, "Your welcome. Have a nice night,"

Zoro left the club. The cool air hit him. It was a stark contrast to the warmth he had been in while inside. Zoro stood for a moment, trying to clear his mind an reflect on the situation. Robin had given him a lot to think about. It was one thing to think about it on the inside but voicing it out loud to someone else made the situation seem more real.

And complex. It was now very complex.

He walked down the street. The city lights seemed to be a blur when in comparison to the tumultuous thoughts that were in his head. The realisation that something that started as a game began to develop into something more. Feelings got involved. Last night, when Sanji laid his head on his shoulder, he realised it then. Feelings began to get involved.

He thought about his reaction to the revelation and honestly, he couldn't blame Sanji for being mad. If there was one thing that he wasn't and that was that he wasn't stupid. He wasn't going to scream about being found out. He would except that Sanji was mad at him for the right reasons.

He steps slowed as he realised where he was walking past. The lights of the Baratie shined in the darkness. Sanji's apartment was at the top. He knew this because of the video that Sanji had sent where he was at the window. He looked inside the Baratie and noticed how busy it was inside. Sometimes him and Sanji clashed at the door and other times they ignored each other in a silence truce. Those moments seemed like a distant memory. They were tainted by current circumstances.

It was in that moment where Zoro's phone vibrated. He pulled it out to see who the message was from. Luffy's name was on his screen.

L: Hey! We should meet up sometime. Been so bored without you :(

Luffy was always straightforward and oblivious to the things that were going on. Yet, this offer, and anything that Luffy ever did was always really sincere. It's just that Zoro wasn't in the mood to talk right now. Robin had given him something to think about.

Z: Thanks. I'll let you know.

Maybe, it was time to realise that this was something he had to think about. Why had he enjoyed that connection? Why had he let the deception continue?

As the night air grew cold, he made his way back to his apartment to grapple with the uncertainty that lay in his path.

#one piece zosan #vinsmoke sanji #zoro x sanji #zosan #zosan fanfic #opla #one piece #roronoa zoro #op zosan

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mooncurses · 7 months

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Ok I've never read the books so this is movie-related only, but I find it interesting how smeyer was SO CLOSE to creating the best story of vampiric found family galore but she instead went for the most weirdass characterization I've ever seen just to push Bella and Edward's love story.

Like we all see how depressed Bella is after moving to Forks. She feels abandoned by her mother, can't connect with her father and all of her classmates seem to be too carefree for her to relate to them. She looks like she is coming to terms with the idea that her life will be forever miserable in that small town. BUT THEN she finds out about the local incestuous family that looks like it's made up of real size porcelain dolls and she is genuinely interested in something other than books for the first time in weeks.

When she and Edward get paired up in biology class and he acts so weird and rude she is not only offended but curious to find out why, and the fact that she can't confront Edward about it because he suddenly disappears from school only makes him and his family even more suspicious to her. Also the fact that there is a good chance that his strange behavior was directly triggered by her, someone who usually tries to make herself anonymous, bugs her and puzzles her at the same time. The curiosity is so much that she doesn't even consider forgetting about it, planning to actually take an active role in this situation to go and talk to him to find out what his deal is.

HOWEVER when Edward comes back to school he is somehow even more awkward than before as he does a 180 in the way he treats her and for some obscure reason starts trying too much to get to know her. Now, for a teenager to have one of the cool kids take an interest in you is a very validating experience, but in this case it only adds to the weird aura that surrounds the Cullens in the first place, because the whole succession of events makes no sense at all. Sure, Edward looks neurodivergent (I've decided that he is, but that's not important here) and his siblings too only interact between themselves and individually seem to have peculiarities of their own, so it could be nothing important. But at this point Bella is also slowly starting to notice weird things about this family that point at much more disturbing conclusions than simple social awkwardness or eccentric character. She goes full cryptid amateur on Edward and quickly figures out that he is indeed a weird little guy, but that he is also a vampire and so is his family. After she confronts him about it, Edward tells her that he can't stay away anymore because she's just too attractive as a snack and also as a social experiment for him (yk, since she is the only person he is motivated to have an actual conversation with because he can't just read her mind as he does with everyone else). The depressed boy is now officially obsessed with this random cryptid loving girl. I believe that at this point Bella is too, but on a more intellectual level than him: she simply feels like she has found something that will finally give her dull small-town life a kick and she's not giving it up, no matter if she gets eaten in the process.

So now the two depressed kids hang out all the time and cherish their time together by providing each other with mutual entertainment. Edward therefore decides that he wants to introduce her to his family, both because he is putting all of them at risk by getting close to Bella and an explanation is probably due, and also because he wants to make it clear that this is the best time he's had since he was turned so they just better accept the fact or die mad about it.

Now the Cullens just generally let them be because they know that Edward is a sexually repressed and depressed oddball. Also Carlisle and Esme probably insisted for their kids to attend high school while in Forks because their understanding of humanity sucks after all those years of only frequenting each other so they wanted them to relearn how to interact with the human world in a safe and routinized environment. But up until now none of them actually made any fucking effort, so they decide that since Edward is the first to give socializing a shot in this sense he gets to keep his human. Also Bella seems to be ok with them being undead and it's not like anyone in Forks would believe the word of the new girl anyway.

So far so good. Nice basis for an interesting development and cool characters. HOWEVER, this is the point in the movie where things start to get OH so basic and lots of opportunities to explore cool themes just get swiped under the rug of cheap and unnecessary romance.

Like just imagine. We could have gotten something along the lines of Bella slowly getting to know Edward and the whole family better instead of swooning over him for no understandable reason (he looks crusty af I'm sorry, like I love the guy but he is not boyfriend material, his skin literally looks like mozzarella and he is stalkerish of Bella in a way that she could only have accepted out of sheer academic interest for his nature as a vampire, while on the other hand finding him SO intense as a person). Bella could have been free to develop her interest in cryptids while also finally feeling like she is part of something bigger and learning to feel confident. On a practical level she could also have provided for the entire family and Edward in particular the human equivalent of what Alice is for Jasper, a person that provides reassurance for the vampires to feel confident about their capacity to control their urges and loosen up a little. Her humanity could have also played a rehabilitating factor not only for the younger Cullens but for Esme and Carlisle as well, since all of them have lost touch with some parts of their mortality actually, and they confess to struggle to grow as people because of this.

Basically what I'm envisioning is a Bella Swan therapy dog human AU, you could say. After some time spent with the Cullens she could have also started to envy their immortality bc to have an ultrastable family dynamic is exactly what Bella thinks she needs to finally be okay. And if she pushed the matter, the Cullens would ofc refuse bc they know how big of a loss it is to no longer be human. However Bella being insecure as she is would probably register their refusal as them being patronizing and lowkey not really valuing her as a person, maybe only wanting her around bc the fact that she is human brings something to the table for them, so her turning into a vampire would mean that they could no longer make use of that. This if better explored could have provided a realistic introduction of the central conflict underlying the whole series in a much better way than just Bella wanting Edward to turn her bc she as a 17 yo was for some reason in such a hurry to become immortal because she didn't want to grow old while he stayed young ???? Like sorry but to have Bella actually age a little like the fine wine she is before even thinking of making her a vampire would have been SOOO much better. Just imagine if Bella got to grow older than all of the Cullens before being transformed and this was the reason why she is so good at controlling her urges.

OH and letting the story take this course could have easily created a better slow burn for Edward and Bella in the first place. Like at first Bella could have felt merely protective of Edward and not returned his feelings, possibly while pursuing a relationship with Jacob instead. But then as he learns to not see her as a captivating anomaly but as a person and starts acting normally around her instead of stalking her, she could have slowly started to allow him to get closer. In this way, Edward could have been the submissive toyboy that he is in peace, but also behave like an equilibrated person by giving Bella space to explore relationships with other people.

TL;DR: The saga could have been a vampiric coming of age drama with the struggle between the volatile but evolving nature of mortality vs. the stable but sterile nature of the undead as a central theme. Of course tho smeyer had to go for the cringest way possible to barely allude at this idea. Smh.

#twilight #bella swan #edward cullen #rosalie hale #carlisle cullen #esme cullen #jasper hale #emmet cullen #alice cullen #twilight saga #smeyer #twilight au

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austinsgirl · 2 years

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Rather Die | Chapter 1

word count: 1829

rating: pg

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"Eliana! We're going to be late!" Victoria called out for her best friend.

"I'm coming!" she responds.

Victoria & Eliana have been best friends since they were kids. They met in Victoria's homeland of New Zealand. Eliana happened to be on vacation, going to Victoria's local beach. They bonded over the fact that they both had the on same Little Mermaid bathing suit on. They've been inseparable ever since, even though up until a couple years ago, they had a long distance friendship, only seeing each other every couple years.

When Victoria was 23, now 25, she decided to move out to Los Angeles to further her acting career. She made quite a name for herself back home, starring in local TV shows & movies. She was ready to really make it big, and the only way to do that was to go to Hollywood.

Eliana was already living in Los Angeles, her home town. Coming from a rich family, her dad was a huge Major League Baseball player back in the 90s & early 2000s. As for her mom, she's been a very successful lawyer.

The girls decided they were going to officially break the distance between them and get their own place together.

With Victoria's success from her gigs at home & small parts she's gotten the past couple years in LA, along with Eliana's heritage money plus whatever she has made being a social star & modeling, they were able to get a really nice penthouse apartment.

Eliana ran down the stairs of said apartment, as they're running late for a red carpet event once again. It's one of the things that has always annoyed Victoria. They're constantly running late because Eliana gets too distracted & takes a million years to get ready.

"How do I look?" Eliana asks.

"Hot as always, now let's go! The car has been waiting like ten minutes already." Victoria says, rushing themselves out the door.

They both made it into their car & headed to The Chinese Theater for the premiere of the new movie 'Elvis'.

Once there, the girls stepped out onto the carpet posing together & separately.

An interviewer had stopped Victoria to ask her some questions.

"So, what are you most excited to see the movie for?" the interviewer asks.

"Well, I listened to Elvis back home growing up. My grandma absolutely adored him, so Im excited to hear all the songs from my childhood & to learn more about the man my grandma loved as a teen. I also am a bit excited to see Austin Butler on the big screen. I remember seeing him on Disney Channel growing up, so that's exciting to see a familiar face play such a big role."

Victoria answered another question.

"Any projects coming up from you?"

"You can catch me as a guest star on the iCarly reboot, which was super fun, getting to work with Miranda, Nathan, and Jerry. I loved the show as a kid, so it was a really cool experience. Other than that, I don't have anything at the moment. Hopefully soon though!"

After stopping at the couple more interviewers, Victoria & Eliana made their way inside the theater. As soon as they sat down the movie started. Just in time.

About 15 minutes into the movie, was the first full performance scene. As soon as Victoria saw Austin's face she was interested. His bright blue eyes, & his dark hair falling into face. She was definitely attracted.

The girls in this scene, screaming over Elvis's moves, getting all hot & bothered. Victoria quickly found herself relating to those girls, minus the screaming. Although if she could, she probably would be.

As the movie kept rolling, the more intrigued Victoria became.

"Damn, he's hot." Eliana leaned over to whisper to Victoria, as the Beale Street scene played, 'Vegas' by Doja Cat blasting through the speakers.

"Mhm." Victoria responded, very distracted by Austin's good looks in this movie.

Just a few minutes later, Victoria felt herself shift in her seat a bit seeing the very mild sex scene.

Thoughts of all sorts kept running through her mind.

During the 'Trouble' performance, she felt like she was grasping for air. Going into this, she knew she was going to find him attractive, but not like this. She's crushing, crushing hard.

Jealousy came over her, seeing Elvis kiss Priscilla for the first time, just wanting to be in that position.

An hour and half goes by & the film has ended. After the credits roll, everyone stands up & applauds.

Victoria sets her sight on Austin in the front, inhaling a sharp breath from seeing him in person. Looking even more attractive as himself.

"Whew, girl. That Austin guy is so fucking hot." Eliana says to her.

"I know. I've always found him attractive, but damn. I wasn't expecting this."

They both made their way out of the theater & back to the apartment.

"Just a heads up, I call dibs on Austin if it ever comes to it." Eliana says as they walk through the door of their apartment.

"Why? You have a boyfriend, remember?" Victoria reminds her.

"Oh, yeah. I guess you can have him then."

"Thanks. I do want him. Like really bad."

"You should go for it."

"Isn't he dating Vanessa Hudgens though?"

"They broke up I think. I wanna say she's with a new guy."

"Hm. I'll have to see if he's with anyone. I won't go for it if he's in a relationship."

"I mean, still go for it if you don't know for sure. The worst he'll do is say no."

"Yeah, I guess. What I need to do is get some auditions."

"I heard talks that Austin's going to be in a new romance movie. Now that, you need to audition for."

"If I can get an audition, I will. He's so fucking fine, like, I could honestly not sit still during those early scenes."

"Oh, I know. I don't blame those girls for like orgasming over him."

"Truly. I felt that".

The next day Victoria set herself up at the kitchen counter with a fresh cup of coffee & her laptop, so she can apply for some auditions.

"Eli, is that movie Austin's going to be in called "The Last Time"?"

"Yeah. I think it's inspired by that Taylor Swift song with the same title." Eliana responds coming downstairs, still getting herself ready for her day.

"Oh, yeah. That song had me crying when Stephen & I were going through our breakup."

"I remember that. Taylor's whole 'Red' album was on repeat."

"You know it."

"So are you applying for it then?"

"Yep. Uploading my resume & headshot right now. I really hope I get this. It's about this couple who keeps finding each other in different places, being on & off, some toxicity. Yeah sounds about right."

"Honestly. But yeah, you better get this. It would be so good for you. Austin's a hot topic right now. You getting casted as his leading lady would really put you out there."

"Exactly. But also, hello, I get to work the hottest guy I have ever seen."

"True. Well, I'm outtie."

"You have your Nike promo shoot today, right?"

"Yes, ma'am. I'll be home later."

"Okay, I'll be here."

"Love you!" Eliana says out the door.

"Love you too!"

A couple hours later Victoria received an email back about her audition.

"Oh god, oh god, oh god." she said to herself as the email loaded up.

"Dear Victoria,

We'd love to have you in for an audition. Please respond to this email as soon as possible with the time slot you would like & for what day. Please have these scenes that are attached to this email prepared.

Hope to hear from you soon."

"Holy shit! Oh my god."

As soon as Victoria was talking to herself out loud, Eliana came home.

"What? Did you get the audition?" Eliana asks.

"Yes!! I'm going in this upcoming Monday at noon."

"Congrats babe! You have all weekend to prep."

"Yeah, you won't be seeing much of me tomorrow & Sunday. I have to nail this audition. I applied just in time too. Didn't know it'd be so soon."

"I know you'll nail this, babe."

Monday comes along, it's the day of the audition. Victoria has never been so nervous in her whole entire life, and has never wanted anything more.

"Victoria Williams?" a producer calls out in the waiting room.

"Hi, yes, that's me." she stands up from her seat.

"Hi, I'm Sarah, one of the producers. Nice to meet you." Sarah holds out her hand to shake.

"Nice to meet you too." Victoria shakes her hand before following Sarah into the audition room.

"This is the director, Anna." Sarah says.

"Hi, nice to meet you. Im Victoria. Victoria Williams." she reaches her hand out to her.

"Yes, I watched a few of your things after I saw your application. Nice to meet you too. Do you have those scenes prepared?"

"Yes, yes I do."

"Alright. Let's go over the one where Jake shows up to Allison's door." Anna says. "I'll read Jake's lines to you, along with the parentheticals, you respond back with Allison's."

"Got it."

Anna starts off the scene, "Allison opens up the door to her townhouse."

"What are you doing here?" Victoria says, delivering her line.

"I don't know, honestly." Anna say's, reading the lines for 'Jake'.

"You don't know? What do you mean you don't know?"

"I don't know. I was just - I was just walking around town and something just lead me here."

"You're always coming back for something. What is it now? The last time, it was to get back together & you know how that played out."

"I know, I know. I just-

"Jake, I think you need to go."

"Can't we just talk?"

"Why? So we can end up falling into our old ways again & just get heartbroken again?"

"No-

"Then what?

Anna reads off the next part of the script, "Jake suddenly kisses Allison, taking her by surprise."

"Jake, if you want this, -

"I know. I need to be better."

"This is the last time, I swear."

"I swear to god. Cross my heart. The two continue to kiss before going to the bedroom. And that would be the end of our reading." Anna says. "That was really good. I think I can say right now that I would love to have you back later on for a chemistry read."

"Really? That would be great." Victoria says with sparkles in her eyes.

"Yes, really. Just stick around the area, we'll give you a call when you can come back."

"Thank you so much! I will definitely be back."

Victoria leaves the audition room & makes her way outside.

She pulls out her phone to text Eliana the good news. As she's texting, she bumps into someone not paying attention.

"Oh, I'm so sorry...."

It wasn't until her eyes met with a pair of ocean blue eyes, when she knew who she had bumped into.

"....Austin."

—————————————————————

Chapter 2

#austin butler #austin butler fanfiction #austin butler imagine #austin butler one shot #austin butler smut #austin imagine

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mahounomanga · 1 year

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Mai (a.k.a. Mai, the Psychic Girl)

I am extremely grateful to live in a time where English translations of manga are as accessible as they are. There are plenty of titles I either plan to cover on this blog, or have covered already, that would not have been accessible to me just fifteen years ago. Even if we're only talking about official releases, we are in an era when I can walk into my local Barnes & Noble and buy volumes of semi-recent magical girl titles like Cosmo Familia, Machimaho, and Nirvana. Today I want to take a look back to the beginning of that legacy, and examine what was probably the first magical girl manga ever to get an official English release.

Mai is a 1985 manga written by Kazuya Kudo and illustrated by Ryoichi Ikegami. The story revolves around Mai Kuju, a 14 year old girl with powerful psychic abilities, especially psychokinesis. At first she mostly uses her powers to amuse herself when bored; however, she catches the attention of the Wisdom Alliance, a shadowy organization tracking young psychics worldwide. Mai is one of five teens the Wisdom Alliance has taken an interest in, and once she realizes she's being followed, she has no choice but to go on the run. Encountering danger at every turn, Mai accepts help from those willing to offer it, but when the going gets tough, the tough get psychic.

The story is highly serialized, gradually building on itself and undergoing major status-quo changes along the way. Usually these changes have to do with who Mai's allies are at any given time. One of the things that stands out to me about this manga is the number of people who come to Mai's aid. Ordinarily this kind of character-trying-to-escape-from-a-myserious-group story carries a message of "trust no one", and I was honestly glad to see that subverted here. These supporting characters (usually) don't detract from Mai's story, but reinforce her as the emotional core of the narrative. Oftentimes, Mai's reaction to the events unfolding around her are given as much focus as the events themselves, especially early on. I found this series more compelling than I expected, and even with a chapter count higher than any other manga I've read for this blog yet, it was decently easy to get through. It helps that the chapters were short and well-paced. Lavishly detailed panel compositions draw out the action in some scenes and sell the more tender moments in others.

Not everything about this manga is great though. A content warning is in order for violent and erotic imagery. The violence is used sparingly, and it often conveys the emotional impact and stakes of the narrative, but still, the headsplosions felt unnecessary and caught me off guard. The horny stuff is generally pretty tame, but it does show up more frequently near the end. There's some occasional nudity and inevitable panty shots during the flying scenes, which, whatever, but Mai sustaining outfit damage during the final battle felt completely uncalled for. The political implications of this story are a bit messy as well. Not just in the sense of dated gender relations and gender stereotyping (though there is plenty of that too). The Wisdom Alliance alludes to real-world political systems and historical events in ways that can be hard to parse what the author was implying. They even go so far as to draw comparisons to the Third Reich in terms of the amount of power the Wisdom Alliance holds, which feels questionable. Not to mention, there's some racial stereotyping going on with the psychic kids from other countries. Japanese and white characters in this manga are almost always drawn attractively and/or with realistic proportions, while the Mongolian and Vietnamese boys are... visually distinct let's say. Almost everything about the way they act and talk feels like it's designed to other them, and it's really uncomfortable to read honestly.

The series was co-created by Kazuya Kudo and Ryoichi Ikegami, with Kudo on writing duty and Ikegami drawing the manga. Both worked with Kazuo Koike early in their careers; Ikegami providing illustrations for Koike's 1973 manga I Ueo Boy, and Kudo being one of the first students of Koike's renowned story writing course, Gekiga Sonjuku, in 1977. Both men also worked predominantly in adult-oriented manga with dark and mature themes. From what I can tell, Kazuya Kudo never illustrated any manga, all his stories I know of were drawn by other artists, but he continued writing manga well into the 2000s. Mai is perhaps his best known work, though he is also remembered for Pineapple Army and Nobunaga, the latter of which was also illustrated by Ikegami. Ryoichi Ikegami has been making manga since age 17, and he is still active in the industry as of this writing. Like Kudo, he usually collaborates with other mangaka, drawing rather than writing. One of his earliest works was the 1970 Spider-Man manga co-written by Kousei Ono and Kazumasa Hirai. Three of the manga he drew for have been adapted into OVAs: Kizuoibito in 1986, Crying Freeman in 1988, and Sanctuary in 1996.

Mai was originally published in Weekly Shounen Sunday, a Shogakukan publication, from March 20, 1985 to April 2, 1986, for a total of 53 chapters. The series was reprinted by Shogakukan in six tankobon volumes between July 1, 1985 and July 18, 1986. Media Factory reprinted the series twice in the 2000s, first as three volumes between 2002 and 2003, then as two volumes in 2006. Most recently, Shogakukan published a digital version of the original 6 volumes on April 28, 2020.

But of course, that's only the manga's Japanese run. This series was also translated into Portuguese, Italian, Chinese, and most famously, Mai was among the first manga to be officially published in English. Viz Media collaborated with Eclipse Comics to release the series as Mai, the Psychic Girl from May 19, 1987 to July 12, 1988. Mai (, the Psychic Girl) would prove popular enough with western audiences to warrant multiple reprints, which Viz continued to handle after Eclipse went defunct in 1994. The chapters were compiled into four volumes in 1989 (this time by Titan Books), and a three volume Perfect Collection was published by Viz from 1995 to 1996. Such a widescale release at the dawn of the North American anime and manga boom means that this series is decently well-remembered, seemingly moreso in America than in Japan. (Though that could also have to do with the Japanese title being so nondescript it's difficult to search.)

In fact, Mai, the Psychic Girl was so beloved that there were talks of adapting the manga into a live-action film. This project languished in development hell for decades and ultimately wouldn't see the light of day, despite a script being written and a soundtrack being completed but never released. Over the course of the film's troubled and inconclusive production, it was worked on at different points by Sony, Columbia Pictures, Tim Burton, and Francis Ford Coppola, with Burton expressing interest in the project as recently as 2010. It's unlikely a Mai, the Psychic Girl film will ever happen now, but still, it's kind of a cool side note.

Anyway, back to the manga's English release. I had my concerns going into this, given some of the xenophobic attitudes of the time, and especially because of the tagline on the cover that reads "She is pretty. She is psychic. She is japanese." (Lowercase j? Really?) Thankfully the translation job doesn't seem to lean too heavily into that kind of orientalism. I don't have a secondary translation to compare it to, or a copy of the raw Japanese text, but at the very least the character names are unchanged and the localization team didn't try to hide that the story is mostly set in Japan, in contrast to later and more infamous localizations. There are some nods to American pop culture, such as Mai singing Walk Like an Egyptian by The Bangles in the first chapter, and cameos from recognizable cartoon characters like Snoopy, Garfield, and Mickey Mouse throughout, but from what I can tell, these were in the original. As far as I'm aware, there were only two visual edits made. One was a nude scene being removed from the initial run, which was restored in later printings. The other, and more substantial edit, is that the whole manga is "flopped", a term that refers to the mirroring of pages and panels. Flopping was a common practice in early manga localization given that Japanese books read right to left whereas English books read left to right. Weirdly enough, the flopping here seems a little inconsistent. There were a couple of times I caught details switching sides from one panel to the next. It's not egregious but it is noticeable.

No magical girl manga was officially localized in English before Mai. But I did specify at the beginning that this is probably the first magical girl manga ever to get an official English release. Which raises the question: is Mai even a magical girl manga in the first place? That's... debatable. I talked a little bit about psychic magical girls before in my post on Sennome-sensei, and I stand by the assessment I made in my initial post defining the boundaries of this project that the magic in a magical girl series doesn't have to be literal. It can instead derive from sci-fi or supernatural elements such as E.S.P., so long as the story otherwise meets the criteria of the genre, namely that the story is female led and driven by her using her powers. Therein lies the disconnect with this series. The number of supporting characters in Mai, the Psychic Girl is staggering. That's not a problem in and of itself, after all, many of these characters are pretty fun. Hands down my favorite is Intetsu, a university student with a big heart who might not be a full-on himbo but is at least himbo adjacent. But the sheer number of other characters means there are some chapters, particularly in the middle section, where Mai doesn't appear much. She's still the main character mind you, (no other character gets more focus, and the story manages to continue being about her even in her absence), but it's still a noticeable difference from other titles we've covered. It doesn't help that even when she does show up, there are a couple of stretches of time during which she refuses to use her psychic power to avoid inadvertently hurting anyone. All of this is without even taking into consideration authorial intent: i.e. I doubt the creators intended to make a magical girl manga. Mai, the Psychic Girl draws influence from a lot of different genres. It's an absolute kitchen sink of tropes ranging from martial arts and sword fights to international espionage and government conspiracies. If Kudo and Ikegami wanted to throw in a power trinket or a transformation, it would not have felt too out of place. And yet, this series does not contain any recognizable magical girl signifiers of the time, nor does it draw any influence I can identify from magical girl works that came before it. That's just not the kind of story they were trying to tell.

But despite everything I just said, there are plenty of moments in this manga that feel magical girl-esque somehow. There are certain narrative and visual cues that are not exclusive to the magical girl genre, but are still very prominent within it, which do show up in Mai in some capacity. For one thing, Mai has a puppy named Ron which spends so much time with her, he ends up developing latent psychic abilities of his own. This manifests as extrasensory perception of danger, which he uses to warn Mai of incoming threats, much like some mascot characters do in certain later magical girl works. Mai also has two best friends (named Yumiko and Rie) who are average schoolgirls from whom she has to keep her double life a secret. I was actually pleasantly surprised by how often they reappear in the story, as they and Mai genuinely care for one another, and their friendship very effectively establishes that despite her abilities and the danger she consistently finds herself in, Mai is an ordinary girl. Speaking of how Mai relates to others, the Wisdom Alliance eventually calls in one of the other teen psychics, a German girl named Turm Garten, to help eliminate Mai. A major story arch revolves around the one-sided rivalry between Turm and Mai, the latter of whom just wants to be friends, and it's very much evocative of the dark magical girl archetype. I also feel the need to point out that the series starts with Mai having a prophetic dream, something that jump starts the plot of a few high profile magical girl works. And lastly, we find out early on that in the Kuju family, psychic powers are passed down matrilineally. Mai comes from a long line of female protectors, and this revelation influences the way she thinks about her destiny.

Mai, the Psychic Girl is a mixed bag in just about every way. Some aspects of it are deeply artful, other aspects are atrociously tacky. There are things about it that have aged like milk, and yet it does boast some historical significance. I like it for what it is, even if it's not my usual cup of tea. It's not what one might expect from a magical girl manga, but if you enjoy magical girl stories, you might enjoy this.

#my posts #long post #Mai #Mai the Psychic Girl #舞 #Kazuya Kudo #Ryoichi Ikegami #工藤かずや #池上遼一 #Weekly Shounen Sunday #80s #shounen #official English translation #dubiously magical girl #Extremely thankful I was able to get this out before the end of the month.#Sorry the wait was longer than expected.

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sherifftillman · 1 year

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i’m dumb and did this wrong the first time 😭 but hall of mirrors? i’m 21, love reading and writing and listening to 80s music lol, i also like experimenting with my hair and makeup hehe. i’m studying anthropology at university, and i love hanging out with my friends and grabbing coffee! and if it’s not too much trouble, could i have a cheeky little 💕💕 too? thanks rj, and congrats!!!

hiiiii bex i lub you <3

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ 2k follower celebration event ongoing! ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

ooooh okay so i like see you as like. not a hawkins native, maybe not even from indiana, but you go to college in indianapolis and one/some of the friends you've made at uni are from hawkins, so whenever they go home for the holidays, or even just for a few days, you tag along, just for a little break from the big city life.

your favourite place to hang out is a little coffee shop that's just opposite the local video rental store. no matter what time of year you're in hawkins, no matter what time of day you're in the coffee shop, you can guarantee that at some point the two attractive people who wear family video uniforms will come in, too.

through hearing them collecting their orders each time, you eventually learn that their names are steve and robin. you find it especially charming that you and robin have the same coffee order. what's not so charming, though, is that steve seems to mistake your interest as being into him, with his very obviously loud laughter and even more obvious looks.

at one point while you're waiting for your drink, robin ends up waiting next to you. curiosity finally getting the better of you, you ask her how she can put up with someone like steve to hang out with him outside of work, too. she laughs and tells you he's not all bad. she asks you what you're doing in hawkins, since she doesn't think she's seen you at school. you tell her where you're from, small talk gets bigger and bigger. you actually really enjoy talking to her, and just as she's about to leave you blurt something out about grabbing her number.

she's looking around for something to write on when steve appears with a napkin, a pen and a massive grin on his face, leaning in front of her so she can use his back as a surface. while he's standing there, he apologises for his behaviour, "but also not really," because it drove you into robin's arms which was his intention all along.

#*2kcelebration #fic: robin b

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thenativetank · 2 years

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VA Native Fish Hunts - 17

What a beautiful day to go out and fish! Dad purchased a small boat a while back that was a little beat up and finally got it in working shape. I figured - why not celebrate the occasion with a little fishing session. Want to see what we caught? Check out the below.

We stayed out for a few hours in this moderate/strongly brackish area (about 1.008) with some rods and reels. With a warm sunny climate, a pleasant breeze, and not a care in the world, you know what we were able to catch?

Not a darn thing.

At least by rod and reel. I brought some of my minnow traps along and placed them next to some reedy areas like these to see what I could catch. I didn’t see any mosquitofish here (super weird for the area!) so I was interested in what actually might live around here.

Turns out the answer was: Mummichogs. Across my multiple traps, I captured 4 ‘chogs, the biggest two of which were about 3.5-4 inches long - behemoths! But it was a lucky find for me as I’ve been thinking about beefing up my Mummichog school in my saltwater tank. I love their activity level and peacefulness.

These were the two largest ones. I’m not really sure of much sexual dimorphism in the species, but the righthand guy was much more colorful than the one on the left. The only real reason I can think that the two specimens, of the same species, same size, and same location, might vary so much in coloration is that one is a male. Normally I use “chunkiness” to identify the female ‘chogs but both were pretty slim here.

So I took them home, acclimated them to full strength seawater over about half a day, then looked them over for parasites. With the whole leech debacle last time, I wanted to avoid going through all that again. Luckily I didn’t see any leeches at all (phew!) but I did see this little scale-looking thing on the side of the fish. I did eventually notice it was moving, so I took steps to remove it. Not a fun time for myself or the fish, but eventually got it off.

Here’s the little guy before I disposed of him. Definitely a crustacean of some sort, and I’m reasonably certain it is a species of Lice (some kind of Argulus spp?) but there’s always the chance it’s an isopod that I’m unfamiliar with. I’m not going to say I’m an expert on parasitic crustacea anyways. Cute little guy in its own way, but reallyyyy don’t need parasites in my tank.

A little ragged from the day’s events, the big Mummichog eventually settled in. Beautiful coloration for sure! I think Fundulus gets overlooked when it comes to the genera of native fish we think of as attractive. Certainly Lepomis sunfish, Poecilia livebearers, and Etheostoma darters are well-loved (and they should be) but don’t overlook your local killifish!

#fishblr #fishcommunity #nanf #native fish #fish hunts

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5000-miles-away · 1 year

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JUICY PART 1

There I was at 5am on the highway with an American man sitting next to me and my screaming cat shaking on his lap. I didn't sleep at all and had way to much to drink and was still high off adrenaline from the amazing experience that night. On one hand am still living in bliss and on the other hand I was dealing with what just happened to my cat, Betty. We arrived at the animal hospital about 20 miles away from my place and the cat was taken right away. I was feeling a bit bad that I had to ask him to come with me on his first night in Europe, when he started to make a video. He said, “what a crazy story to tell people back in the US. No one will believe your cat almost drowned in the Canal!” Betty my 5 year old feline had to stay in the animal hospital for a 24 hour observation, so I signed the necessary paperwork and we got back into my car and started driving to my place. At this point we both were starting to sober up and talk about my life in the Netherlands and his life in LA. I was kinda impressed by the man sitting next to me. Besides the crazy sexual attraction, he was also an interesting, charismatic and a positive thinking real man. When we arrived to my place, I really hoped he would stay a while longer, but he insisted on headed back. I felt like our story wasn't finished and I really enjoyed his company, but he had tourist activities planned for the day, so he set up an Uber to pick him up. He asked for my Instagram, and told me he had a great night and wanted me to let him know about the cats condition. He gave me a hug and turned and walked out the door. I watched him as he got in the Uber and I went to my bed where I could still smell his scent in my sheets. I felt bad knowing I would never see this man again. The man that gave me a mind blowing sexual experience and shared chemistry would now be a memory. I wonder if he was thinking of me?

Sitting in the backseat of the Uber headed back to Amsterdam I couldn’t help but think about what a great story to tell my friends. The party was absolutely a great time, music and vibe was lit. I meet an amazing women and had a great night full of dancing, drinking and too top it off I had a great night of passionate sex. And to think, this was just day one on my European tour.

First stop on our tour was Amsterdam and once in Holland we planned to attend an event called Juicy somewhere in Amsterdam. I was so ready to experience everything this city had to offer. It was an outdoor event with different vibes for the indoor area and a different DJ on the outside. There was a blowup swimming pool with several bars for libations as well as local food vendor. They even had a karaoke area for those who felt like being a star for the evening. Once we arrived around 4 PM the party was just starting to get packed, and I could tell that I was in for one hell of a evening. There were a mix of people from all over just wanting to have a good time. Everyone dancing enjoying themselves and taking in the last few days of sun shine before the fall of 2022 hit Europe. I danced and partied with my crew from LA and few friends we knew from Holland for about 2 hrs when I noticed a group of ladies looking my way. These ladies finally walked past me and I noticed the alpha female leading the pack. I stopped her and commented to her. “I noticed you looking at me.” I think the comment took her off guard and she mentioned, she was trying to point me out to her sister because she thought I was way too young for her. I said how old do you think I am. And she responded by saying probably 29 or 30! I laughed to myself and said no am actually in my 44. She looked surprised and said I will be right back. She was blond with green eyes, tall and seemed interesting enough to see where things could go, so I waited.

I was kinda surprised he was around my age, I thought he was one of those kids try to hit on me again, like that Romanian guy who was flirting with me most of the party. The Romanian guy confronted me with something that got me thinking. He asked me why was I only busy trying to hook up my girls and didn't take care of myself. I had been going on Tinder dates for a while, but after another disappointing date I deleted the app and decided to take a break. So when the American asked me if I wanted a drink I decided to open up and just enjoy. I liked his energetic, happy vibe and I was interested in his story. How did an American guy end up here at Juicy in the industrial suburb of Amsterdam? We danced, drank, sang and had a lot of fun. When I told him I was going to the toilet he said, “okay I'll join you.” He took my hand and lead me to the porta potty(outside portable restroom). To our surprise there was no toilet paper, so we went to the toilets inside to get some. We walked through the large crowd of party goers, with a roll of toilet paper under my arm and when we arrived back to the porta potty, he asked to come in with me. I said “I'm gonna do what people do on a toilet” And he said, 'I know, I'll join you'. I liked his spontaneity and different way of being so I said ok and we both entered together. He stood there as I bent over the toilet to pee, because I didn't wanna sit down on that dirty seat. He stood there chatting with me like nothing was wrong and this was a normal thing to do, and I loved it. When I got up he kissed me, right then I was sold. That kiss was the best I had in a very long time. His lips were so soft and there was a spark. He said wait let’s go outside and try this again. So we did. It wasn’t the crazy environment that made it special after all, it was the way we kissed that made it so magical. He confirmed what I was feeling and he said “wow, you're an amazing kisser”. We both stood there next to the porta potty area looking at each other and everything felt right. Hand in hand we went back to my girls and we danced and flirted even more and after a while we all decided to take a seat at a big table and talk and drink some more. The young Romanian guy was still there hanging out with us when he asked me “Who’s this American guy?” I told him he was a great man I just kissed. He said, “I thought you weren’t looking for a man” I replied “I wasn't, but he found me.” He invited me to go with him to get more drinks so we got up and went to the bar. The young guy said he knew a trick to get the drinks for free. I said ok let’s do it! While waiting for drinks, he told me he was kinda disappointed I didn't fall for him, but he was proud of me opening up to another man. I respected that coming from him and said “yea sorry, but you will find someone am sure” When we got back to the table with free drinks for everyone, I sat down next to my new sexy American man and kissed him right in front of everyone. Around this time he told me he had to go to the toilet, I had to keep up our tradition so I joined him. He pulled his pants down and stood right in front of me. I must admit I really enjoyed the way he was standing there confident holding his Johnson with his pants dropped to his knees. Confidence Is a major turn-on and seeing him standing like that made my panties a little wet. When we returned to the crowd my friends were dancing and one of his friend came by to talk to him. He introduced himself and asked to speak with him. They walked away and I continued dancing.

When he returned he said “I have a dilemma!”

I said ,what’s your dilemma?

Part 2 next wednesday

I hope you enjoyed reading our very first story. More to come from our wild adventures..

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