#the number of. literally impossible coincidences that have taken place to make my life just so much shittier lately | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jishyucks · 4 years

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Liar, Truther ‣ lmh

‣ genre: sorta f2l, fluff

‣ wc: 7.2k {dialogue heavy}

‣ summary: Your secret admirer’s plans are ruined when someone else claims to be who they’re not… you’re not aware of this

series m.list

The Cute Barista

Somehow, it calms you down watching Minho make coffee. The way his eyes would naturally widen and how he’d bite his bottom lip when he focused on his mini project… it all intrigued you. If he messed up, he would let out a quiet tsk that he thought only he heard, but in reality, that one part of the coffee shop could hear it. You found it cute, how much genuine passion he put into simply making coffee or drinks in general. It was rare to see it in a person.

When he looked up after finishing his task, you turned your head sharply back to your work, secretly hoping that he hadn’t seen you staring at him as he did his job. It’s not like he didn’t know you and you were being a stalker. You both talked to each other all the time, you even knew where each other lived, but still being caught staring at him would probably be the most embarrassing thing in the world.

Minho rounded the counter, your ordered coffee in one hand and a food item in the other. He approached your table and smiled, “For Miss Y/N, your usual with the hearts and a chocolate chip muffin.”

You looked up at his warm eyes with a surprised expression, “Thanks for the coffee Minho… but I didn’t order this.” You pushed the muffin away from you and to Minho.

He shook his head and pushed it back to you, “I know you didn’t, but I take orders from my customers and they specifically told me to give it to you when you come in.” Minho snorted quietly at your defeated look. You groaned and pulled the muffin towards you and stared at it like it was some foreign object.

For the past few weeks, a secret admirer had been leaving you free items for when you came in. It wasn’t that you were ungrateful for free food, because who wouldn’t want that? It was more so because you didn’t know the person and there was no way you were able to repay them or thank them personally without knowing who they were. You felt like you were just taking the food and doing nothing else about it and you hated that.

You remember the first time you received a food item. You thought it was part of some reward thing at the cafe that you knew nothing about. It only occurred to you that someone had been buying you this stuff when Minho straight up explained to you the whole situation when you asked (more like forced) him to tell you.

“Tell them I say thank you,” you mutter with a pout on your lips. Minho gives you a warm smile before turning around to get back to work. He stopped in his tracks when you called him back, “Minho.” A questioning look filled his face. His eyebrow was raised and his hands rested naturally on his hips.

“Can you tell me who it is?”

For a second, Minho was actually at a loss of a perfect reply. Should he tell you who it is or keep it a secret? It wouldn’t be exciting if he told you who it was this way right?

“It’s a secret.” He smirked and winked teasingly before heading back to his spot behind the counter. You were left slightly annoyed, though you did understand why he chose to not tell you. If you had been in the spot of your admirer, you would’ve wanted it to be a complete secret too.

Sneaking another glance at Minho, a small tiny bit of your heart hoped that Minho was your secret admirer.

ii.

It was a funny sight seeing Minho being bombarded by a group of girls who only came to this specific little cafe for him. He was waving off the pieces of paper obviously ripped randomly from a loose leaf, a kind yet awkward smile occupying his face. By the looks of his mouth, it looked like he was repeating words, which was inaudible from the place you sat at.

Once he had finally gently rejected the phone numbers of girls. A satisfied expression took over the distraught look as he jumped over the counter and made his way towards you.

“You look extra dead today,” Minho slipped into the seat in front of you, leaning back to relax. He was on his fifteen, it was obvious by the fact he was still wearing his apron around his waist.

You peaked up at him through the hair sitting over your arm and sighed, “Tell me something I don’t know.” Sitting up you offered him a small smile, “How was your day?”

He shrugged and let his head fall back, almost hitting the chair behind his, “Boring. Today was boring.” He reached for the window next to him, gliding his finger across the unbothered condensation to draw a cat.

“Boring how?” You had abandoned the books in front of you and followed his finger with your eyes, watching as he started drawing a family of cats. That was probably the most adorable thing you’ve seen in ages.

“It just wasn’t the same today, aside from those girls,” he shrugged, “Also my lecture couldn’t have been any more boring. My professor has that monotone voice that can lull someone to sleep.” He sat back up properly, looking back at you instead of the frosty window.

“I’m guessing you fell asleep,” you laughed quietly. You wanted to ask him why he didn’t give at least one of those girls a chance, but he quickly interrupted your thoughts, causing you to easily forget about it.

“You guessed right,” he said proudly, “Not that I wanted to sleep, though. I tried my best to stay awake but my head started doing that thing where it just jerks down and I just let it be. It is what it is.”

You both let out low laughs so that none of you would disturb the rest of the cafe. He glanced down at his watch and sighed, “I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Bye.”

You let out a sigh similar to Minho’s as he walked back behind the counter, helping out Hongjoong who was beginning to juggle a few more drinks than he could handle.

Not even ten minutes later, Minho had returned to your table, a ginger molasses cookie sitting snugly in a cute paper bag in hand. He slid it gently on top of your books, making sure you could see it.

“Again?” Your eyes brightened up at the sight of the cookie. It looked freshly baked, and just by tapping it with your fingertip, it was still soft.

Minho laughed and nodded, “Disappointed?”

“Not at all,” you shook your head and picked up the treat, taking in the scent, “You know my deal.”

Before he returned to the counter, he patted your shoulder, “I know. I make sure he knows you’re grateful.”

iii.

The half eaten cookie was sitting on your bedside table. You wanted to savour it a bit more. Plus, it could help you channel the depths of your brain on who your secret admirer could be.

You remembered Minho stating that your admirer was a he, so that made it easier to pick out who they could be.

You skipped over Minho as one of the possibilities. Part of you just simply didn’t want to get your hopes up. Then the other part of you was thinking that it obviously couldn’t be Minho. He was the deliverer. The messenger, you could say. How stupid could Minho be for him to be both your secret admirer and the deliverer?

Pretty stupid, you think.

Then you thought about his coworkers. The ones you only ever interacted with and saw all the time were Hongjoong and Jungwoo. And as far as you knew, they both were either already taken or way too busy to even keep up with a relationship.

Your mind wandered over to the other people at the cafe. A few of them were familiar to you, seeing them on campus or in a class a couple times. A handful of them, the regulars, you just memorized their faces and their voices due to the amount of times they’ve been at the cafe. At the top of your head you mentally put them down on a list even if some of their names were unknown to you.

You wondered if that person always was in the cafe the same time as you were or if they just paid beforehand and told Minho to give the food item to you when you came in.

Then your mind, as much as you told it not to, shifted towards the idea that maybe it was Minho. You laughed out a bit, covering your mouth with your forearm. Maybe you were pretty stupid for thinking that. Out of all the girls that gawked over him at the cafe, him choosing you would be the funniest joke known to man. It’s impossible.

As if you were physically writing in a notepad, you flipped the page full of the potential admirers and at the top of the page wrote ‘Reasons it could be Minho.’ This was partly just a way to joke about it, easing the tension you created within yourself. But then you also wanted to see the actual possibility of it being Minho. With this, you were literally digging your own grave. It was like you unconsciously wanted to get your hopes up. Even if you knew there was a chance of getting hurt at the end, you continued anyway.

One: He’s the only one I actually have had a conversation with in the cafe. Then your mind contradicted itself and the idea that an admirer didn’t need to be someone you’ve talked to.

Two: Is it a coincidence that the treats were often my favourites? But then again, maybe your admirer just noticed that you always get those specific pastries.

Three: His reactions when he hands me them are suspicious. Then maybe Minho feels nothing for me and loves being the wingman for your admirer. Minho did seem to be the kind to love romantic films… maybe he just loved watching the one he was a part of in real life.

Four: Only Minho gives me them. Never any Hongjoong or Jungwoo… was that also a coincidence? Nothing to defend that one.

Though that last reason was kind of a reach, you pushed your brain to star it. That was the reason that maybe, maybe, Minho was actually your secret admirer.

iv.

You entered the cafe craving your afternoon caffeine. It was quieter than usual and less people occupied the tables. Only two other people sat down and Hongjoong was the only employee who was behind the counter.

“Y/N!” He greeted as he slithered his way towards the cashier, “The usual?”

You nodded and let your head drift towards the back of the store. Hongjoong chuckled quietly, “He’s not here today if you’re looking for Minho.”

Panicking you use your hands to wave off his possible accusations and laugh sheepishly, “No no, it’s not like that. I just had a question for him.” You couldn’t help but feel heat creeping up your cheeks. If only you could reach over and punch the blonde headed boy for that.

“What is it?” Once the satisfying beep sounded from the machine, you followed him to the end of the counter and leaned against the waiting area by the coffee machines.

You hesitated for a bit before making up your mind. If your admirer did ask Minho to send you the gifts then maybe Hongjoong has seen him too, “I wanted to ask him who’s been giving me those freebies.”

A smirk crept up onto Hongjoong’s face, hands busy with making coffee. His smirk transitioned into a small smile, one in which you could basically read that he knew of the person.

“Spill,” you begged. A pout had naturally overtook your face, eyes growing big in hopes it’d fool Hongjoong into revealing who it was.

“You know I can’t tell you, right?” He gave you a brief ‘are you kidding me?’ look before he went back to working.

“What do you mean you can’t tell me?”

“It’s a secret,” he shrugged, pouting his own lips, “Why do you want to know anyways?” His reply reminded you of Minho’s reply when you asked him yourself. Secret.

“I wanna make up for all the stuff they’re giving me,” you watched as Hongjoong effortlessly poured the beverage into a glass mug before he slid it gently over to you, “Can’t you give me a hint?” Your voice slightly echoed in the cafe. Either that or you were just thinking things.

The boy stood back and rested his hands on his hips. Head lifting, he furrowed his eyebrows and hummed, “Hmm, let me think…”

You leaned forward as if he were about to tell you a deep secret, eager to gain knowledge that could possibly help eliminate some of the potentials on your mental list.

“He…” Hongjoong mirrored your figure, bending down against the counter. He glanced around, acting like people were close enough to hear before he spoke quietly, “Goes to this cafe.”

You gasped and flicked his finger lightly, “No shit.”

Bursting out laughing, he pushed himself off of the counter to stand back up, winking, “You should’ve seen your face!... I told you, it’s a secret. I’d tell you if I could but I’m loyal.”

Groaning, you roll your eyes, “Okay Kim Hongjoong, whatever you say… thanks for the drink by the way.” He was still in a fit of laughter when you turned to sit at your usual table.

You laid out the things you needed to finish, making sure you didn’t knock over the beverage at the end of the table. With long hours ahead of you, you needed every drop that was sitting in that cup… and maybe a few refills too.

The world around you was willingly blocked out as you had your earphones plugged in and playing loud. You weren’t aware of the volume, but the people who were sitting in the cafe probably heard the heavy parts of the song. You didn’t care, it put you in the zone. Being fueled with caffeine and being placed in a different atmosphere other than the stuffy air of your apartment, these factors really did help motivate you to work.

If it hadn’t been for the silence in between the songs, you wouldn’t have noticed the stranger sitting in front of you, trying to get your attention. Startled, you tugged roughly at the chord of your earphones and smiled sheepishly, “Oh I’m sorry, how long have you been there for?”

You really had no idea how in the hell this boy placed himself there without your knowledge. It made you wonder how easy it would have been for kidnappers to just take you, or for someone to fish out some money from your bag.

“Not long,” he shyly smiled, “I’m Minjun.” The longer you stared at him, the more you recognized him as someone from one of your classes. You probably took one glance at him and never again. Not on purpose, though.

“Y/N,” you nodded your head, fingers not leaving the surface of your laptop, “Um… may I ask why you came here?”

Minjun’s eyes twinkled, remembering why he hauled himself there in the first place, “I – uh – overheard you talking to him,” He pointed over at Hongjoong who was preoccupied with something entertaining on his phone, “About an admirer.”

He had suddenly stolen all your attention, reeling it in like it was a fish. You nodded. He noticed your eyes light up as well, “Yeah. It’s been frustrating for me, not knowing who it is.”

Was I really speaking that loud? Damn.

“What if I told you it was me?” Minjun had one of those smiles that begged for attention. It was that beautiful and he knew it by the way he smiled at you.

Oh.

It wasn’t a disappointed ‘oh.’ Sure a small part of you had hoped for Minho to be telling you this, but you weren’t disappointed that it’s Minjun. It was better that it was him than a complete stranger.

“Is it really?” You feel the corners of your mouth being pulled up gently. All those little items of food, the way they made your heart flutter, the thought put into it… it was all Minjun?

He nodded bashfully, “I was going to tell you later on but from how frustrated you sounded, I guess it’d be better sooner than later.”

“H-how can I make it up to you?” You blurted, “I’m really thankful for all those gifts.”

“A date? With me?” He suggested. Minjun played his own game of thumb war out of nervousness, waiting for your answer.

A certain boy lingered at the back of your head, reminding you that he existed. But then Minjun still held that sweet smile on his and you were recalled that you wanted to make it up to him. If he wanted a date, then why not?

“That would be nice.”

Minho dropped off your usual and a mini croissant along with it. You couldn’t help but smile at the treat. You thought that upon revealing himself, Minjun would’ve stopped giving you the treats, but you were wrong.

The barista sat across from you, letting out a loud groan to express the feeling of finally getting to sit down after hours of working, “Long time no see.” He was slumped down in the chair, eyes struggling to stay open as he watched you work.

“It’s only been a week or so,” you laughed, shaking your head at his exaggeration. You continued to write whatever nonsense it was on your paper, not bothering to look at the exhausted look on Minho’s face.

He shrugged, “Feels like it. What have you been up to anyway?” Leaning over, he snooped at your work, humming in pretend fascination.

“School,” you reply monotonically. You didn’t feel like telling Minho about Minjun. The presence of the croissant was enough to let you know that Minjun had probably told you himself.

“I see,” he continued to look over your notes, leaning in closer to watch you jot down some definitions. Feeling his breath against your head, you raise your head out of curiosity, bumping your head hard against his forehead. Minho jumped back, holding his hand against his forehead, in turn, you hold the crown of your head.

“Oh shit I’m sorry!” you gasped. You leaned forward to get a proper look of him, alarmed at the sudden incident. If your head hurt as much as it did now, you wondered how his forehead felt.

“It’s okay,” he chuckled lightly, rubbing it in circles, “It was an accident.” His eyes were squeezed tight and lips pressed together into a thin line.

“You sure you're okay? You look like you’re in pain,” You continued to look at him, concerned.

“I swear I–“

“Hey Y/N!”

Looking up at the entrance of the cafe, your attention turns to Minjun who’s waving at you, smile lighting up the room. He was slowly making his way towards your table, eyes drawn to Minho’s hunched figure.

Once he got to your table, Minho finally noticed the presence of someone else, eyes trailing from Minjun’s shoes to his face. He couldn’t hide his confusion, face twisting into an expression neither you or Minjun noticed, “Hey, I missed you after class earlier.”

“Sorry, I was in a hurry. I’ll wait for you next time,” you grinned.

Minho couldn’t help but regret not prolonging his pain. It was like you had suddenly forgotten about the incident not even thirty seconds ago. To him it seemed like all your attention was on this new boy.

“Gotta get back,” he whispered to you.

“I’ll talk to you later?”

He did a tiny salut, standing up and excusing himself from both you and Minjun. Taking this opportunity, Minjun slid into the same seat, fixing his stuff alongside yours.

“Who is that?” Minho hopped smoothly over the counter, taking his place beside Jungwoo who had his mind set on fixing a drink for a customer. Minho was only asking because you’ve never brought a guy in with you. You were always alone.

Jungwoo shrugged, bending down slightly to get to eye level with the cup, “I’ve seen him a few times. Don’t know who he is though.” Scraping some out of place foam off of the top, he placed the drink gently in front of the customer who had been waiting patiently.

Moving his eyes towards the both of you, he kept the direction of his head down at the cashier, pretending to count the non-existent money in his hand.

“Don’t worry about him,” Jungwoo couldn’t help but laugh at how his friend was acting. Like a protective, almost jealous boyfriend, though Minho wasn’t aware of his actions, “What if they’re just partners for a project or something?”

Partners for a project looking like that? Pfft. Minho glared at his co-worker, waving him off, annoyed, “I’m not worrying abo–”

Jungwoo eyed Minho with a soft yet threatening expression. It looked like he was reading any thought that seemed to appear in Minho’s head, “He’s not going to ruin your plan, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just know,” Jungwoo urged, “This is just a sign you should tell Y/N that you’re that admirer she keeps asking about. It won’t hurt, you know. What if she chooses you over him?”

Jungwoo had a point. But for some reason, the presence of this other boy threatened Minho. He was even more afraid to ask you out compared to when he hadn’t crossed paths with you.

vi.

“Hello?” You tapped the back end of your pencil against your notebook, staring out at the street full of busy people.

“Y/N!” Minjun greeted through the phone.

You smiled, “What’s up? Why’d you call?”

“Wanna eat out tonight? It’s a Friday and I know you worked hard this week.”

Preferring some good food instead of the repetitive instant ramen, you accepted Minjun’s invite and quickly ended the call to get home to fix yourself up.

Standing up, you didn’t notice that someone had been standing behind you, causing you to stumble clumsily over their feet.

“Woah there,” Minho laughed. He caught your wrist to steady you, “Where are you going in such a hurry?” You had noticed that his apron wasn’t tied around his waist and he had a jacket sitting over his shoulders, “Home. You scared me!”

“Home? I’ll walk you.” He picked up the remaining books on the table and handed them to you for you to place in your bag, “My shift is done.” He waited for your answer as you zipped your bag up and swung it over your shoulder.

“Sure, I’d appreciate that,” you smiled. He gestured for you to lead the way, trailing behind you not long after. Once out of the cafe, he quickened his pace to walk next to you, stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets and away from the late winter air.

“So why were you actually in a hurry?” He looked down at you, “That excited to sleep or something?”

You chose not to look back at him, afraid to complete the eye contact, but you hummed and smiled, “Nope, I’m going out.”

Minho held himself back from asking any more questions. Instead he settled with a, “Oh that’s cool.” In the back of his mind, he could guess that you were going out with that guy he saw the other day.

“Yeah, I’m happy. Only time I’m out of the house is at school or the cafe,” you skipped a bit in your step and tightened your grip on your bag’s straps out of slight excitement.

Minho didn’t reply. It wasn’t like he wasn’t happy for you if you were dating that guy, he was just drowning at the thoughts drenching his head. Didn’t you like your secret admirer? Even if you didn’t like him, didn’t you at least wanted to have that special spot open for your admirer? It didn’t make sense. It’s like this other boy came out of nowhere and interfered with his play.

A poke at his side interrupted his train of thought, causing him to jump dangerously close to the curb. Laughing, you held him from going any further, “I meant to catch your attention not almost kill you!”

Minho looked down at your hand holding his forearm gently, “You almost did!”

You let out another fit of laughter and let go of him, “You looked deep in thought and I couldn’t help but ask what’s got your face to look like this.” Planting yourself into one spot on the street, you fix your face into one identical to Minho’s.

“I don’t look like that when I’m thinking,” he gasped, slapping his cheeks as if it would keep it from distorting that way.

You raised a brow, “Aha, that’s what you think but in actuality, you do. My eyes are witnesses.” Your apartment building crawled closer and closer and with each step you began to forget about your dinner with Minjun.

“Then this is what you look like when you’re focused,” Minho mocks. He pulls at his cheeks and sticks out his tongue ever-so-slightly out of the corner of his mouth.

“So I look like roadkill when I’m focusing.”

No you look cute when you’re focused. “Yup,” he tapped at your temple, “That studying is helping after all.”

Rolling your eyes, you shake your head as you laugh, mood slowly declining at the arrival at your apartment building, “Bye Minho, thanks for walking me home.” You make your way towards the front door.

“I-I’ll see you later?” he quickly blurted.

You grinned and turned to him at the front steps of your building. Under the setting sun, the light bounced softly off of Minho’s cheekbones, eyes slightly squinted. He waved like a young child, jacket hanging loosely from his shoulder and hair being thrown around by the subtle wind in the air. Something from this simple sight made the butterflies in your stomach go crazy. It was a weird feeling but you liked it.

You really did wish that he was your secret admirer.

You grinned and waved back, “See you later.”

vii.

“So… how did you think of doing that whole secret admirer thing for me?” All secret admirers have their motives. Whether really cheesy or sweet, to something as simple as ‘you just really caught my attention,’ all answers were worth a listen. And you wanted to hear Minjun’s reason.

Taking a bite out of his food, you didn’t notice the look of slight panic from his face as his eyes darted around the restaurant to conjure up a reason.

“I…” he jabbed his fork a few handful of times into his pasta as he used his head to think, “I didn’t realize how much I liked you until I started to see you often between the cafe and school. I guess I was too shy to talk to you so I guess I just used this way to win your attention.”

You couldn’t help but feel your cheeks heat up at his explanation. He did that just for your attention? Judging by the person Minjun was, he didn’t need to spend all that money on you, “I-I don’t know what to say.”

“It’s okay, you don’t need to say anything… it’s just nice to tell you how I felt,” he offers you a genuine smile before taking another bite of his food.

“Actually I have one request,” you were afraid to ask him. You had no idea if he’d be offended by it or not, but it wasn’t hard to do it. He hummed in response, mouth still full of food, “Would it be okay for you to stop giving me the treats? It’s not that I’m not grateful for them, which I am and I’m sure the baristas at the cafe let you know that, but I feel bad because you keep on spending the money for me when I have no idea how I’m supposed to give back all the time.”

By the end of your request, Minjun finished his bite, “If that’s what you want,” he gulps, “But that won’t stop me from giving you one once in a while.”

You rolled your eyes playfully and took a bite of your own food. Quickly chowing it down, you questioned him again, “How did you know what pastries I liked? There was not one I didn’t like.”

A bystander would have the right to call you oblivious when you didn’t notice the blank look on Minjun’s face. He was unable to think of an answer quick, losing control of his expressions even in front of you.

“Lucky guess,” he shrugged, taking a sip of his water, “Maybe I’m psychic.”

You pinned a loose grin onto your face. Even when you tried to do so, the smile didn’t reach your eyes. The answer wasn’t one you were expecting. You tried to let it fly past your head, not wanting to ruin the moment between you and Minjun. But it didn’t mean you’d forget about his answer forever.

viii.

Even with your specific request to Minjun about the free food items he’d be giving you, every time you chose to hang and study in the cafe, you received a pastry that you hadn’t paid for. Like always, Minho made sure each and every one of the pastries were warm, placing it gently on the last little space left on your table among your things.

You were genuinely thankful for the constant present being gifted to, but you wished that Minjun really did listen to your request. It wasn’t hard to stop sending the message-less ‘pastry grams.’ And it wasn’t like you guys don’t see each other at all. In fact, you were able to see him every other day during class and in the cafe about twice a week.

Minho hissed quietly when he feels hot water come in contact with the skin of his hands. He pulled his arm closer to his body and fanned it as if it would help the pain subside.

“And that’s why you need to pay attention when working,” Hongjoong slid to his side and started cleaning up the mess Minho made on the counter.

Squinting at his hand, he noticed how the scorching water had left a red imprint on his hand, “I was.” He picked up the coffee cup and dropped it into the sink, grabbing another one to start again.

“Having your eyes planted on the couple isn’t being focused,” Hongjoong leaned against the counter and chuckled at the sight of his friend’s distraught face.

Minho glared at him, “Don’t call them a couple. That’s gross.”

“They seem like it though,” Hongjoong pouted in a way that was ‘all knowing.’ This expression was wiped clean off of his face when Minho sent him a glare that could probably kill a person if he tried, “I’m joking! I thought your secret admirer plan was working.”

Minho frowned at the thought of his failing plot, turning away from Hongjoong, “I thought it was too. But apparently Y/N likes face to face interaction more than those stupid ass pastries.”

Hongjoong gasped, “Jungwoo did you hear that?”

Jungwoo crashed through the back door, causing it to swing way off of its route, “Hear what?”

Hongjoong reached for Minho’s elbow, pulling the self-doubting boy towards him, “He called his treats plan stupid!”

This time, Jungwoo gasped, “Don’t say that! You know damn well it was working.”

Minho shrugged, “If you call that working then yeah sure.” He jutted his head towards you and Minjun and smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes.

Hongjoong was about to speak up, only to be interrupted by the sound of an impatient customer clearing his throat at the register.

Minho couldn’t help but blame himself for holding off asking you out and being the coward he was. If he had been brave enough to ask out in the first place, then maybe you wouldn’t have been sitting across from Minjun in the first place.

He let the fake smile fall from his face and turned towards the customer, “What would you like for today?”

ix.

“Bye Jungwoo.” Minho was about to hop over the counter like always, only he was stopped by Jungwoo holding him down by his wrist, “Wait where are you going?”

The cafe was close to empty, the only customers inside were you and Minjun helping each other study for an upcoming exam. The sky outside was nearing pitch black, the beautiful light blue being pushed down by the darker shade.

“Home. Where else?” raising a brow at his friend, he waited for a reply. He had a pack of ramen waiting for him at home and the faster he got home, the sooner he could cook and eat it.

“But you haven’t given Y/N that,” Jungwoo pointed to a slice of banana bread sitting with the other cafe baked goods.

“What’s the use if he’s here,” Minho reasoned, “It’s okay, I’ll just do it–”

“I’ll give it to her when you leave,” Jungwoo offered, “I know what you’re thinking.” Minho grinned, and glanced between you and the banana bread as Jungwoo laid a hand on his shoulder to assure him. He knew Minho was afraid to answer him so he took his silence as a green light.

Minho bid him another goodbye before turning to the door.

While you looked down at your notes, you spotted Minho making his way to the door at the corner of your eye. You had no idea if you should look up or not. He hadn’t come up to you to talk like how he usually would. You couldn’t help but think that he was mad at you for something. Or maybe he just wasn’t having it at all lately.

Nevertheless, you fought the thoughts at the back of your head and still looked up to smile at him, waving at him. You caught Minho’s eye and he turned, allowing a wide smile to show up on his face. His wave was brief, but not long after, he pulled the cafe door open and left without a single word. Your smile faltered into a subtly baffled look, confused at his behaviour. You knew that if Minho had something on his mind, he’d choose to tell you.

“We can finish this one last topic and then we can leave,” Minjun yawned, “I’m getting really tired.”

“That sounds good,” you agreed, flipping your book’s page. Even if your mind should be trained on the bolded words of your textbook, you still couldn’t wave off Minho from lingering at the back of your head.

Halfway down the page, Jungwoo had gone up to your table, a smile stretched upon his face, “Sorry, I’m just here to–” He put down a nicely wrapped slice of banana bread by your hand, patting it gently as he did, “Give this to you. From your admirer.”

“Ah, thanks Jungwoo,” you said. He nodded and walked back to the counter to begin cleaning up. You turned to Minjun who kept his eyes between the lines of the notes, “Minjun, I told you that you don’t need to give me these anymore.” The cafe was so quiet that your voice had accidentally come out louder than you intended, catching the attention of today’s messenger boy easily.

Jungwoo didn’t know how to react at first. He was caught off guard by the miscommunication and the mistake you had made.

“What?” Jungwoo left the dirty rag at the counter, inching closer to you by the second, “Him? Give you these?” At realization, Minjun’s eyes widened, unable to speak up.

“Minjun’s my secret admirer… h-he told me two weeks ago,” you quickly explained to Jungwoo, forcing ourselves a nervous laugh. The look on Jungwoo’s face was one you’ve never seen before and it scared you. You’ve always known him as the angel of the three, Hongjoong being the cheeky boy, and Minho was one you liked to call heartthrob because of how he was with other women. But this Jungwoo, he looked like an angry puppy.

“No… you’ve got it wrong,” he retorted stiffly, “He’s not your admirer.”

When your gaze fell upon Minjun, he avoided eye contact, “Minjun is this true?” Your heart was beating fast. And not in a good way. Mixing up with fatigue, confusion, and the realization of probably being lied to hurt your chest and you didn’t know what to say.

“Y-yes,” Minjun whispered, “But I can explain… I truly do like you and I… found this as my opportunity to get to you. I’m really sorry and–”

“So you ruined someone else’ opportunity, which they worked hard for, just so you can make a move on me?” You were angry, though you chose not to raise your voice. He nodded.

“Selfish. No offense, Minjun, but that’s a dick move. I don’t like liars,” you begin to clean your stuff up, “I can’t believe I’ve been sticking around you for the past few weeks.”

“I-I know I was being stupid, and I’m truly sorry,” he apologized, “Please forgive me.”

“You know what? I should’ve known you were lying when you couldn’t give me a proper reason on how you knew which pastries I liked,” you stood up and looked down at him, “ ‘Lucky guess’? What kind of fucking answer is that? I’m sorry but I don’t want to be around someone like you. Goodbye.”

Pulling Jungwoo out of the cafe, tears brimming your eyes out of frustration, you turned to him and questioned, “Who is it?” There was a hint of desperation in your eyes that you didn’t mean to add. At this point you wanted to meet the person who truly worked hard to win you heart.

“I think you already know it is… you just keep doubting yourself,” Jungwoo replied sneakily. The smirk on his was taunting and it actually somewhat scared you into thinking. It was Minho.

“Minho?”

Jungwoo exaggerated a shrug, pouting, “Oh, I don’t know…” And with that Jungwoo confirmed it was the boy who your heart actually suspected this entire time. Lee Minho.

Thanking Jungwoo, you flew towards the direction of Minho’s house, not even minding the weight of your bag as you sprinted for your life. This whole time it had been Minho. It explained everything. How, aside from today, he had given you them himself. How he’d smiled a certain way when you received the treats. How he knew which ones were your favourite. It’s not because of a lucky guess… it was all because he knew you well like how you knew him well. You were glad it was him.

You caught your breath before you rang the doorbell, trying to find the words to say. Your mind was alphabet soup. Words and letters all jumbled up. It could take you much longer than you wished to think of what to say.

Before you could even think of at least a decent thing to blurt out, Minho opened the door, the smell of freshly cooked ramen drifting out the doorway.

“Y/N?” He blinked a few times to make sure you were real, “What are you doing here? Come in.”

You followed him inside, still not letting a word come out of your mouth. You figured it would be better to be sure of what you were going to say to this oblivious barista. He didn’t know why you were there. But you did.

He gestured for you to sit down as he went straight for the stove, stirring the ramen slowly. “I’m here because,” you start quietly. You searched around the room, still unsure of what to say. When your eyes fell upon the bag at your feet, a lightbulb had lit up in your untidy brain, “I’m here because of… of this!” You slid the slice of banana bread onto his table and nodded, “Yeah, because of this.”

Minho laughed, “Because of banana bread? You know I don’t bake those myself right?” He reached for a bowl in his cupboard and looked back at you, “Do you want some ramen?”

“Just a little bit please,” You started playing with the slice of food, “I’m not here to complain about the bread.” You tried to muster up all the energy in your body to finally get to the point. The past fifteen minutes have been a rollercoaster ride. This was the second drop.

“Then why are you here?” Minho seemed to have lost all of his brain cells, completely forgetting the conversation he had with Jungwoo before he left for home.

“I’m here because I know you’re the one giving me this,” you hold up the bread, “And all the other ones before it.”

Minho choked, dropping the empty glass bowl in his hand. Crashing to the ground, he let out a shit before he went straight for a broom and dustpan. You make your way over to him, helping him out.

“H-how did you find out?” He continued to sweep the floor, making sure no glass shards were left behind. It was also an excuse to not look at you, afraid to make eye contact. What if you didn’t like him back and this was your way to reject him?

“Minjun… he pretended to be you,” you stood over him, silently asking for him to finally look at you, “He said he was the one giving me the pastries, and I believed him even when I had a hint of doubt in my heart.”

Minho didn’t know what to say, so you took this as a chance to continue talking.

“I just found out now that he’s been lying… and Jungwoo, he didn’t tell me it was you but he… hinted it was.”

Finally Minho stood up. This time it was him that was towering over the other. His cheeks a tint of red, unknown to you if it was from bending down or the secrets being revealed.

“Are you disappointed that it’s me?” His voice grew frail and you wanted to just throw your arms around him and tell him you weren’t.

But you stopped yourself, “No. Of course not! I’m… I’m actually relieved that it’s you.” The bashful smile that slowly revealed itself on Minho’s face caused your heart to flutter. He bowed his head as it grew wider by the second. It was like he couldn’t keep his emotions in.

“S-so you like me back?”

You took a step closer, making sure eye contact was complete between the two of you. You grabbed his hands and brought your lips to his firmly before pulling back.

“How’s that for an answer?” He didn’t reply, “Minho?”

Minho stood in shock for a few moments, unable to take his eyes off of you. He held a hand up to his lips, tips of his ears turning beet red. Once reality kicked back in, he leaned forward himself and pressed his lips against yours the same way you did.

After he pulled away he beamed, “So… Ramen?”

a/n: Please leave a like if you enjoyed this!

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lekshk · 4 years

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From CarnivOl to CarnivAl

Usually, when it comes to gatherings, despite being gregarious, I sometimes prefer my own company. These are the times when I choose merging over mingling with the crowd. I get into an observer mode. At other times, I become the life of that gathering. It is only recently I came to terms with these personalities of mine. So, when Volunteer For a Cause (VFC), a not for profit group of volunteers from Bangalore, working on 17 different causes every weekend, was looking for volunteers for a fest exclusively for children with physical and mental impairments, I wasn't sure whether I want to be part of it. The event, known as Carnivol, was to be conducted on a Sunday, 08 Dec 2019. The date was carefully chosen to coincide with the days commemorating internationally, persons with disabilities (PWD) and volunteering spirit on 03 and 05 Dec respectively.The target audience was 400 in number. Whether it was the magnanimity of the event or its ambitious nature, the volunteer in me instinctively said yes, blissfully forgetful of the fact mingling with the crowd could be a potential turn off. Having realized the enormity of the decision taken later, I went back to all those days where I felt it was difficult yet not impossible. And thankfully, in all the experiences, little discomforts had become amusing memories later. All I had to do was have the will to take a chance and give myself enough time for things to take its course. Therefore, I decided to take baby steps. I joined the team handling content and installations. Decorations were happening every weekend and irrespective of whichever team one was in, everyone was part of it. Art and craft has always been an ally to me. So, my participation in decorations was spot on. Whether it was to stick m&m replicas to ice cream cones or cut cup cakes or geometric figures and stick silver paper to it, the inner child in me navigated through seamlessly. As if I knew where to go. After finishing the day's work, we all gathered for a group picture holding the colorful decorations made for the day. Now I understood, as part of mental health, why it is important to spend at least 20 minutes on a creative activity. It is because it helps you go back to your childhood days of being in the present with no care in the world state of mind. Like any human interaction, the volunteer meet up every weekend was no different. There were fights, playful banter, serious conversations, assigning roles and responsibilities and of course, loads of fun. Finally, came the dreaded task of putting the stationaries back to its place. So, at the end of the day, I either volunteered to segregate the stationaries collected or putting them back to their designated place or clean the place. After 2 weekends, my brain became free for thoughts on content for the event. I pursued the task single minded. Wherever I went, my eyes scanned for material that could convey PWD's story, the do's and dont's and how I could realign my behavior that conveyed dignity and respect towards them not only in words but also in actions. The other team members too got into action and started sharing whatever they could. Starting from understanding trend sure projects to the PWD act, so many insights and reflection points came out for me. I remember on the day of the event, when I was sticking the success stories in one of the stalls in the morning and watching the participants perform later in the day, I was lost in deep thoughts. Ironical isn't it, these are kids who either cannot see or hear or speak or have a disorder or struggle to walk without support, yet nothing seems to stop them from leading fulfilling lives while some of us struggle to make a meaningful existence despite having healthy bodies and minds. I was standing at the entrance of the auditorium to ensure no kid goes unattended and also watch the performances simultaneously. After lunch, the kids were taken to the play area where trampolines, toy trains, slack lines, rope ladders awaited them. Whether it was assisting some of the kids to wear the safety gear to climb the rope ladder as part of the adventure sports arranged for them or helping another to use the exercise equipment in the park gym or just holding hands to help walk on the slack line or asking a girl about her fellow classmates using the limited sign language I knew when I found her near the swing away from them or waving at the kids on the toy train, every action of mine was a test in itself of my comfort zones. Towards the end of the event, all volunteers formed a human chain on either side right from the entrance of the auditorium till the exit to clap hands for each kid for trusting us to be part of a day designed exclusively for them. In the process, I also patted my back for trusting my instinct and sailing through the day victoriously! I had no plans to share this story. But the image of a girl with mental impairment excitedly kissing the soft toy she got as a return gift lingered in my mind. It made me ponder about my own reactions to certain situations in my life. Such a simple gesture, isn't it? Pure, unfiltered joy! How does age or an impairment matter? That was the most authentic response even adults don't exhibit! I also recalled another boy who started talking excitedly to me in Marathi when he got to know I could speak the language! That sense of familiarity and belonging excited him further to chatter to a complete stranger - me. No presumptions but sheer innocence to share his happiness. In the process of growing up, where did we loose that unblemished expression of our emotions? It gave me food for thought to be comfortable with who I am and appreciate myself for it so as to become who I want to be in this connectedly disconnected world! The icing on the cake happened shooting a video of one of the installations. That was fun! It wasn't pre planned, hence there wasn't time for retakes or rehearsals. It was impromptu and straight from the heart with the initial awkwardness. I realized, as volunteers, knowingly or unknowingly, we criticize or point fingers at each other when things don't happen a certain way or they aren't where they were supposed to be. I think those are the imperfections we exhibit as humans at such moments. Gandhi's words be the change we wish to see now made true sense to me. So, I stayed back to help remove the installations and putting the materials back to their designated place. Now, the day ended with satisfaction for me. And tomorrow would be a better one! Carnivol 2019 is over. Don't know what's in store next year, where I would be, what I would do. One thing is for sure - like I said earlier, a little discomfort now becomes a potential amusing memory later. This experience has only strengthened my resolve to continue volunteering come what may. I get to interact with people who have accepted their adversities with so much grace and converted it to something positive and meaningful. Thanks to that girl, I am sharing this story now. Because the lesson I learnt or keep learning from each experience and this experience too was - All you need is 20 seconds of insane courage, literally, 20 seconds of embarassing bravery and I promise you something great would happen (~ We bought a zoo) And specially for all the wonderful kids (and adults) out there- Don't let fear stop you from doing the thing you love (~ Sing)

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snarktheater · 7 years

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Series review — Game of Thrones (Season 7)

Yeah, just because I decided not to snark every episode individually this year does not mean I'm happy about where Game of Thrones is headed any more than I was last year. It's actually kind of worse. Season 6 felt somewhat better than 5, but this is a nosedive. And the problem is, it's not exactly a nosedive in quality, which makes it increasingly frustrating to talk to people who still like the show. Not that it hasn't been frustrating for the past few years, but it certainly got worse.

But hey, who am I if not the guy who hates the cool stuff? Well, I'm still a lot of other things, but for the sake of the joke, let's pretend otherwise and talk about this season. This mercifully short season, yet still too long, in that it exists at all.

When I review something, I like to stay as nuanced as possible, which usually means being very…wordy. But when it comes to this show, I can easily summarize what went wrong. Namely: the showrunners ran out of books to adapt, and they did not understand the story they were making in the first place.

I'm not saying that as a book fan butthurt that they changed things (although…I am that too, kind of). This issue should be apparent even if you did not read the books. Because the show has basically become a completely different story. I'm gonna have to go on a tangent to explain this further, so bear with me, please.

A few years ago, South Park made a triple (triple!) episode mocking Game of Thrones (and promoting their then-upcoming video game). The main point of criticism they threw at the show, aside from daring to include male frontal nudity (which…you know what, it's stupid and I won't go there), was "when do the dragons show up?" There was a measure of self-awareness, since it was children asking that question. And yet, to someone like me monitoring people's reactions…it seemed to be a recurring one. When do the dragons show up? When do the White Walkers attack and we fight them?

But the show was adapting the books with relative consistency at the time. I could forgive minor changes, because I try to keep an open mind to adaptations and give them a shot at telling their own story and adapting to the new medium. So I let it slide. And the dragons or White Walkers showed no signs of coming sooner than the books planned, so it was fine.

However, if there's one impression season 7 has left me with, it's that the lovingly-called D&D (the show's creators) were probably those little boys asking "when do the dragons show up?" They had to bide their time, but as soon as they ran out of books, they made their move to get to "the cool stuff". Or what they perceive as such anyway.

Now, Benioff and Weiss are not completely incompetent storytellers (…I don't think. Yet). So this paragraph above is an oversimplification. They merged characters and plot lines in season five, leading to the horrendous Sansa marrying Ramsay moment, and padded others like Jon's to get everyone roughly on par. Then season 6 worked towards one goal: blowing. Shit. Up.

Literally, but also metaphorically. With the Sept of Baelor, all of Cersei's political enemies were wiped out in one fell swoop. Dorne was taken over and made its moves. The Ironborn were brought back to be relevant and immediately split into two neat factions. Arya completed her training but also retained her identity and went back home. Daenerys breezed her way through gathering all Dothraki under her command, and Meereen's pacification was wrapped up by her and her entourage. Jon was brought back to life and unified the North, and even became King!

For a show that had been able to maintain a dozen plot lines, some of them seemingly unrelated safe for taking place in the same world, Game of Thrones sure did a good clean-up job. Season seven barely even has multiple plot lines running in parallel at all.

And the problem is, this creates a binary, dichotomic story. The framing is clear: in Daenerys and Cersei's fight for the crown, we should root for Daenerys because she's "hope for a better future" while Cersei is ambitious and ruthless and doesn't care for the people. Every major player but Jon has chosen a side, and of course, all the sympathetic characters are in favor of Daenerys. And Jon is all about saving the entire world from the White Walkers. And of course, guess who he goes to ally with early on in the season too. But we'll talk about Jon in a moment.

A Song of Ice and Fire isn't a dichotomic story with clear-cut good and evil. Hell, Game of Thrones wasn't one either. Even the Others/White Walkers aren't evil; they are simply death, which plays into bigger themes about what makes life meaningful. But in this season, we have a clear "Jon and Dany good, Cersei bad, White Walkers worse" thing going on.

This is what I mean when I say it's a different story. Thing is, it's a story I could actually like. For the longest time, my number one favorite books was The Wheel of Time, and in many ways, this season has a similar structure to the later books of that series, with factions being forced to come together and ally against evil. We even have the Cersei-esque antagonistic faction.

Problem is, The Wheel of Time was aiming that way the whole time, and it built up the dynamics so they could end there. While I don't doubt that A Song of Ice and Fire will at some point feature a battle against the Others, I sincerely doubt that the lead-up to it will be as simple as "all the sympathetic characters decide they should fight them together because it's the good thing to do".

Another issue with this polarization of the previously grey morality is that characters drift away from who they were. Daenerys is the most blatant example: the season even has trouble at times reconciling her established character with who they want her to be, so she's torn being hope for the future and being…a woman who wants to conquer a land because she views it as her birthright. The showrunners have apparently forgotten that Daenerys's opposition to slavery was driven from personal experience, not her innate desire for social justice everywhere.

But of course, the worst part of falling into the Good versus Evil cliché fantasy story is that…that story has a very clear protagonist. Which the show didn't have. Or, rather, every time a character looked like the fantasy protagonist, that character died (see Ned and Robb Stark).

So it's baffling, and somewhat infuriating, what is happening with Jon Snow. Not only is he confirmed again (repeatedly) as Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark's son, as per the popular fan theory. Not only is he King in the North. No, now the showrunners have added that Rhaegar and Lyanna were married, y'all. He annulled his previous marriage, and Jon's real name is Aegon Targaryen, and he's the rightful heir to the Iron Throne, even before Daenerys!

Oh, also, because he's now the Bland Male Fantasy Protagonist, he's not just the lost heir to the throne, he also gets a love interest in the form of the prettiest, highest-ranked girl of around the same age available. Also known as Daenerys. Her aunt.

Okay, there's a lot to unpack there, and I won't even touch on the incest as a moral issue because…I don't really care about that? I do care that the showrunners have once more taken Dorne as their victim, though. I mean, that annulled previous marriage is with Elia Martell of Dorne, a woman of color who had two kids with Rhaegar. One of those kids was named Aegon. Their death fueled the Martell hatred towards the Lannisters, but hey! No big deal at all, let's just pretend Rhaegar would just name another son of his the same way.

No, I don't think it's a coincidence that the showrunners are sidelining a woman of color's relationship with a major backstory character in favor of a white woman. I don't think they're actively racist, but I am fairly sure that that decision is motivated by racism. Unless it's motivated by sexism, of course! After all, the other biggest victim in that is Daenerys, since every argument she has for claiming the throne would also give Jon precedence.

There's another problem with Jon, though, regardless of all of that. Specifically, he's…a Mary Sue. Yeah, shocking, I know, the Bland Male Fantasy Protagonist is made into a Mary Sue. Who knew!

So after establishing Daenerys doesn't take well to defiance, Jon shows up, and…defies her, refuses to acknowledge her as his queen, and gets away with it. That last part being the one I take umbrage with, just to be clear. Then he sticks around to try and convince her to help against the White Walkers, and…he does. Even though Daenerys has everything to lose in that process and the show even built a scene in the second-to-last episode of the season where Dany sees the White Walkers and realizes the threat they post?

Oh, but it gets worse. That second-to-last episode is impossible to summarize in how many events should lead to Jon's death, but don't. He makes one mistake after another, survives everything, gets one of Daenerys's dragons killed, and yet not only is she an even stronger ally, but she also falls for him over this.

Just to be clear, the issue here isn't Dany falling in love with Jon. Well, it is, but only in so far as Jon faces no consequences for his errors, and instead, gets his way. Literally: the season ends with Dany renouncing on taking the throne until the White Walkers are dealt with. If there's anything more Mary Sue than doing everything wrong and facing no consequences for it, I…haven't heard of it yet.

It would be bad anywhere, but it's especially bad in a show where a man of honor (Robb Stark) fell in love with a woman and rallied her to his cause once led to him dying. And the thing is, I don't even like that they changed Jeyne Westerling into Talisa, because it completely undermines the tragedy of Robb's character arc (book!Robb dies because honor is his fatal flaw and he had to marry Jeyne for honor; show!Robb dies because he couldn't keep it in his pants). But that change means there's an even starker precedent for why, if this was still the same story, Jon should die.

And yet…this is also exactly what I'm worried won't happen. Because Jon is now our Bland Male Fantasy Protagonist/Mary Sue, the chances of him dying are…fairly low. The issue is: he is now fucking his aunt. While I wouldn't put it past the show to revel in that (they have dabbled in Targaryen exceptionalism…a lot), I think the backlash might force them to kill the ship, even if it hadn't been the plan. So who will die: the Bland Male Fantasy Protagonist, or his love interest who can give him ManPain™ by dying? Yeah, I know where I'm placing my bets. And just for the record I'll be happy if I'm wrong.

Jon is a microcosm of all the things that went wrong. Another example is the Lord of Light, who this season is treated a whole lot like the "one true religion". Characters eventually all start acting like they all serve the Lord, and…do I really need to finish my thoughts or can I just end here and say "Christianity"? Because it sounds like that's what they're going for, and that they're also equating that with being good, and once again erasing all the moral complexities of the various religions in the world of ASOIAF/GOT. Bonus points because Jon was brought back to life by a priestess of the Lord of Light, effectively making him a literal "chosen by god" trope.

This season was…well, unfortunately, it was exactly the sort of hackneyed developments I expected from the show based on the past two seasons. And yet it's also kind of worse? I just really want this to be over. I also really want to come out of this still able to like the books.

It does make me temper my expectations for whenever that Wheel of Time adaptation comes out, though. Is that a good thing, remind me not to overhype myself for other things? I'll take it as a silver lining. Another silver lining being that I can stop thinking about Game of Thrones until…whenever the final season comes out.

#game of thrones #A Song of Ice and Fire #got #asoiaf #david benioff #d.b. weiss #series #TV series #review #reviews #series review #series reviews #st: series reviews

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projectmedusarp · 7 years

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Here is the second of our admin auditions. Jessica will be playing the role of Thalia Winsor, taking the power of Healing Touch.

NAME: Jessica

AGE: 26

TIMEZONE: GMT

PRONOUNS: She / Her

ACTIVITY LEVEL: My activity time will be limited to weekday evenings and weekends. Given that I’ll also be admining that may also mean that my activity isn’t daily for replies. I will always aim to post something of substance, reply to starters etc. whenever I’m online and will frequent the OOC blog too.

PREVIOUS ROLEPLAY EXPERIENCE: I’ve been roleplaying for 13 / 14 years on a number of different platforms. I’ve been roleplaying on Tumblr for about 6 years and hosted a multitude of literate roleplays too. In the last year I’ve also gotten into cos-roleplay alongside literate roleplaying.

PERSONAL TUMBLR CONTACT: Link Removed

TRIGGERS: Rape // Self Harm // Abuse etc.

CHARACTER: Thalia Winsor

PRONOUNS: She / Her

AGE: 28

FACE CLAIM: Sarah Gadon

POWER: Healing Touch

QUOTE: “I’m through with accepting limits ‘cause someone else says they’re so. Somethings I cannot change, but until I try I’ll never know.”

PERSONALITY:

Compassionate: Thalia is a gentle soul and greatly cares for people. She is greatly sympathetic and tries her best to help those who need it most. Whether it’s in her day to day work as a nurse or just trying to assist those she’s encountered since going on the run. She is kind and well meaning in most aspects of her life, the thought of putting herself first when there are those who need it more is one often overlooked.

Sincere: She’s honest, sometimes to a fault. If she gives a compliment or opinion it stems from genuine beliefs she holds, equally if she’s critical her words aren’t often softened by sugar coating it. Thalia is a terrible liar and struggles with deception, both attempting it and when it’s done to her. She greatly dislikes those who lie without a guilty conscious.

Well Mannered: Soft spoken and polite, she uses dulcet tones and polite compliments to diffuse an otherwise awkward situation. She was brought up with a silver spoon in her mouth and as such was forced to adhere to a strict set of rules surrounding etiquette. This was only enhanced during her training as a nurse and now her bedside manner is impeccable. She sometimes when meaning those with lesser manners, not quite knowing how to engage or communicate as effectively as she might like.

Insecure: Psychologists would deem her childhood, riddled with moments where she was told she wasn’t good enough, as the main factor in her insecurities. Though in truth Thalia has never helped herself out of the spiral either. She is very self conscious of both her appearance and achievements in life. The way others perceive her is very important because the way she perceives herself is often very negatively. Whilst her insecurity fuels her worse habits, it is also a one of the main reasons she tries her best to be a good person.

Passive: She is non-confrontational to an extreme fault. When flight or fight kicks in she will almost always run away from a situation. This carries over into less extreme moments of her life too; failing to stick up for herself, people pleasing, resenting those more assertive and bottling up feelings in favour of ensuring others aren’t hurt.

Envious: Thalia is often resentful of those who have what she does not; a happy family unit, the attention of someone she is attracted to, the ability to be assertive or fight when the moment calls for it. Whilst she often admires the good traits in others she also finds herself dwelling on them too, wishing she herself could hold them. Her insecurities are fed by her envious nature and the vicious cycle continues to battle on behind her pretty smile.

BIOGRAPHY: Thalia has only lived alone in New York city for 18 months. Prior to that she was rooming in dorms at New York University and went home during the holidays. Her knowledge of the city is limited at best as her years studying for a nursing degree left her with little free time, and her job left her with even less. Her studio apartment, luxurious by most standards, is a far cry away from the white paneled manor back in Suffolk County that she called home for most of her life. In truth she had never felt more right than the moment she took a job in the inner city and the keys to the tiny apartment, much to her parents disapproval.

Her parents were affluent enough to fund both private school and pay her college tuition, though this is were their generosity stopped. Neither her mother or father were the affectionate type and between her overly critical, cold mother and harsh, short tempered father her relationship with them is strained at best. Her aunt, whom she was closest to above all else, was her only anchor at home but coinciding with Thalia’s permanent move to the Big Apple she left to travel. Severing all ties with Suffolk, her parents and the stuffy country club she spent far too many weekends at.

To say she knows little about New York is an understatement. Her years studying left her with little free time and her now full time position leaves her with even less. Wonky working hours makes for an unactive social life. However she’s managed to find a foothold for her most beloved of passions; dancing, in a quant dancing studio a few blocks away from her apartment. The installation of a new vending machine there is actually what lead Thalia to consume the tonic water, regularly. For the first few weeks she wasn’t seen without a bottle in her bag, she even got into the habit of toting around the bottle at the nursing station.

Then the changes happened, nothing overtly flashy at first - no breaking the bathroom sink with super strength or flying in her sleep. In fact for the first two weeks it was hard for Thalia to notice her powers at all. Whilst the patients she visited and helped tend to were recovering, she had no reason to suspect it was anything other than the medicine the doctors had prescribed. One morning she was carrying out her morning rounds, her first stop of the day was with an elderly gentlemen known well by the nurses and doctors alike in the ward. He was a terminal case, or so they thought. One gentle pat on the shoulder from Thalia as she moved to fluff his pillows and ask about his nights sleep and his eyes lit up. He removed the breathing apparatus, much to her horror, and looked around the room as shocked and bewildered as she did. The tests over the next 3 days confirmed the impossible. He was cured and on the mend.

It was following this incident that Thalia started to piece the clues together and began experimenting. It was also in this time that others took notice, a building full of extremely intelligent people wouldn’t have taken long to string together the fact that all the patients recovering in miraculous ways were all tended to by the same person. Thalia had become careless in her attempts to help and explore her new gifts. The disappearances of people deemed ‘crazy’ by local news, one man believed he could fly whilst the other had declared he could change appearances, caught her attention. If others like her were going missing then surely she would be next.

The letter through her mailbox at the end of the week sparked her need to leave. The board was calling on her attendance to an ‘unofficial meeting of standards and practices’ and the red flags shot up. In her paranoia she packed her valuables, changes of clothes and everything else she could reasonably carry, and fled. Her missing persons report went up along the dozens of others, the trend in missing people has risen and she’s smart enough to know it’s not a coincidence.

Strange men in suits always seem to be just a few days behind her, Thalia never was exactly an expert at going on the run, and her safe houses have been all but burnt out. She is staying on the lookout for others now like her who might need her help in running too and trying to figure out the exact mystery behind the events that have completely changed her life.

HEADCANONS:

Dancing Queen - Thalia has always been an avid fan of dancing, whether it be basic ballroom, jazz or something more contemporary. Since moving to the city she’s had the opportunity to sign up to various classes in her free time to expand her passion. On the rare nights she goes out, it’s usually with the intention to find a fun place to go dancing.

Sleeping Beauty - Working at a hospital often leads to a wonky sleep schedule, but Thalia always had a tendency to sleep until noon on her days off long before her time in scrubs. She’s a heavy sleeper naturally and often unhappy to be woken up for anything short of an emergency.

Alcohol Intolerance - She’s just simply never enjoyed the taste of alcohol. Her aversion to drinking has only been bolstered by the fact she’s often drunk one glass in, and no one enjoys embarrassing themselves at the start of an evening. Perhaps if she drunk more wine and less water she wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: I’ve created a Thalia aesthetic here and her blog has a short ‘about me’ page with a few extra face which is linked here.

#accepted audition #audition #accepted #admin audition #pm:admin

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viollettes · 7 years

Text

“Two Weeks”

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Summary: A narrative that explores how Steve copes after your tragic death.

notes: implied character death (reader), a failed attempt at writing sad things

A/N: thank you to @buckyywiththegoodhair for beta-reading this mess. i adore you, and god rest this old bitch’s soul.

One week has passed since you left New York for a month-long guest curatorship in Germany. Before leaving, you kissed Steve goodbye and promised to return in one piece.

One week has passed since HYDRA agents infiltrated the museum. They put the entire museum on lockdown, claiming it had World War II documents that were essential to the HYDRA agenda. Even the Avengers wouldn't stop their mission to obtain these documents, they declared.

One week has passed since a certain HYDRA agent recognized your face from a tabloid, the headline screaming “Captain America Finally Finds Love!” He also deduced your title as one of the United States' leading experts on Nazi Germany. It was the perfect coincidence.

One week has passed since HYDRA attempted to use you as a bargaining tool. "Give up the documents, and we'll let you go back to your precious boyfriend," they said. Much to their surprise, behind your simple dress and ballet flats was a woman not afraid to kick men in the balls, both figuratively and literally. You proceeded to do the latter.

One week has passed since the Avengers compromised the guards and rescued most of the hostages at the museum. Only one remained, but when it became clear that they're wouldn’t gain access to any of the documents, HYDRA decided to inflict pain in the best way they knew how - by taking away the remaining innocent life.

One week has passed since your tragic death. One week has passed since Steve Rogers buried the love of his life.

Everyone is shocked at how well Steve is dealing with the tragedy. Though he's a bit quieter, he seems to be his usual, collected self. He insists that he's fine and carries on with his daily routine. It's odd, especially because the super soldier is well-known for wearing his heart on his sleeve. Even Bucky is confused by his best friend's calm demeanor.

"Should we force it out of him? Blast some Metallica and have him exert his true feelings onto a punching bag? Tony, you installed the new speakers in the gym, right?"

"I did, but that’s a bad idea. Cap's already ruined about ten punching bags, and I haven't upgraded the punching bag hook yet."

"But what he really is fine? What if he’s really okay?"

"The man just lost his girlfriend, the woman he was and probably still is infatuatedly in love with. There's no way he's fine. He's repressing his emotions," Sam theorizes.

Natasha tilts her wine glass in Sam's direction. "I agree. This whole," she pauses and gestures as she tries to come up with an accurate term, "charade is out of character for him."

Clint clears his throat. "No one really knows what's on Cap's mind so -"

"Actually -"

Firmly shaking her head, Wanda holds up her finger and silences Tony. "No, I said I'm not digging into people's minds unless it's for the greater good," the Sokovian says, a slight ice lacing her gentle tone. She proudly smiles while Tony holds up his hands in both understanding and mock surrender.

"Let's just be there for him. Tony, I know this is an impossible request, but please refrain from being an asshole," Clint warns.

Over the course of the week, the Avengers do exactly that. Even though both of them are clueless about art, Sam and Bucky buy year-long passes and offer to take him to the exhibits. Wanda fills the pantry with the tasteless, healthy snacks that no one but Steve likes while Vision has the blonde's coffee ready every morning. Bruce leaves vitamin supplements specially created for Steve's serum-enhanced body at his door. Nat and Clint offer to accompany Steve on his ridiculously early runs - something the two assassins refused to do in the past. Even Tony is on his best behavior, biting down on the witty remarks that have potential to trigger.

But Steve continues to insist that he's fine. He claps a hand on the respective Avenger's shoulder and gives a gentle squeeze before returning to whatever he was doing.

Friday rolls by. Two weeks have passed since your death.

"Cap, um... I hate to be the bearer of bad news..."

Sam uncomfortably shifts his weight from one foot to the other, bearing the posture of someone who has to deactivate a ticking bomb. Steve looks up from the mission reports. "It's fine, Sam. Just say it," he encourages.

"Erm, (Y/N)'s former landlord called. She needs us to clean and sort out the apartment."

The light in Steve's eyes slightly dims as he takes in this information. This is the first time anyone's said your name out loud since the funeral, and it sounds a little foreign coming from Sam's mouth. But something pangs in Steve's heart, and all of a sudden his chest starts to hurt. He forces himself to smile and says, "I'll head over there later tonight. Thanks, Sam."

"Hey," Sam murmurs, waiting until Steve looks up from the mission report again. "If you want, a few of us could go with you and help."

Hesitation lines the super soldier's eyes, but he slowly nods. "Okay. I'd appreciate that."

The chest pains grow in intensity when Steve steps into the small one-bedroom apartment, and a shiver runs up his spine as he takes in the place you called a second home. Memories float around everywhere, haunting almost every piece furniture or decor.

The kitchen island rings of lazy Sunday mornings. You always hopped into the island while Steve made breakfast. Standing in between your legs, your arms winding around his neck, he could never resist planting sweet kisses all over your face. The pancake batter would be long forgotten as the kisses turned hot and frantic.

The baby succulents lined up on the window frame speaks of trips to the farmer's markets. Knowing you were notorious for being an unintentional plant killer, Steve made a point of gifting you with plants you couldn't kill.

The couch holds memories of embraces. Whether they were sinfully infused with desire or meant to seek comfort, Steve loved to hug you, claiming that your hugs had the power to placate him and bring peace like nothing else could.

Bucky taps Steve's shoulder, bringing the blonde back to reality. For the second time today, Steve forces a smile onto his face. "I'm going to clean her room. Do you guys mind doing the living room and kitchen for now?"

"Go, we got this."

Your room is a treasure cove filled with knick knacks and books, but the first thing that comes into Steve's line of sight is your beloved vintage film camera. You had a knack for film photography, and he was your favorite subject.

Steve walks over to your desk, two photos neatly placed on top of a thick textbook capturing his attention. He carefully holds up the photos by the edges - a habit you've instilled in him.

The first photo was taken the day the city flooded the streets to celebrate the victorious return of the Avengers. Still clad in his stealth suit, Steve is rushing towards the viewfinder, happiness etched on his face. A number of people are reaching out to congratulate him, but Steve only has eyes for the camera. Well, the person behind the camera, that is.

Steve flips the photo over, a soft snort of laughter huffing out of his nose. In addition to the date, you'd written out the second stanza of Walt Whitman's "O Captain! My Captain."

O Captain! My Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up -for you the flag is flung- for you the bugle trills; For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths -for you the shores a-crowding;

The second photo is less hectic. It's a candid of him leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed against his chest. He's looking off into space with remnants of laughter on his lips.

The blonde flips the second photo over to read what you've written as the description. It's one word, but it's powerful enough to make his heart crumble.

Home.

"This wasn't too bad... I guess it helped that she was a neat minimalist."

"True. Natasha, everything good with Stark?"

"Mmhmm. He's arranged for people to pick up the boxes and donate them to schools, women's shelters, the Salvation Army, the museum, library... A lot of people will benefit from her things."

"Classic (Y/N). Always helping others."

Scanning the rest of the now-empty living room and kitchen, Natasha lets out a satisfied nod. "Okay, we should check in on Steve and see how he's doing with the bedroom."

Bucky pushes himself off the ground and tosses Sam the roll of duct tape he was using. "I'll do it. Finish this box up for me?"

The brunette wanders down the short hallway of the apartment and gently knocks on the closed door, but Steve doesn't answer. Bucky pushes open the door and he opens his mouth to speak, but the view in front of him immediately halts his steps and words.

Steve sits on your bed, silently sobbing and clutching your favorite sweater to his chest. His chest heaves up and down, his silent sobs turning from violently loud. Inhuman wails come from deep within his soul. The dam inside him has finally burst open, and every emotion he swiftly blockaded in the back of his heart spills out with fury. Each gasp claws through his throat and sends him deeper into a storm of loss and grief.

Two weeks have passed since your death, and Steve Rogers is finally unleashing his pent-up emotions.

His heart and head kaleidoscopes with memories both good and bad. The time he returned his old Cap uniform, only to be stunned into awe while you berated him for stealing from the museum. Your smile that sang of sunshine and spice and easily became his favorite thing about the twenty-first century. How his blood ran cold at the sound of a gunshot, only growing colder when finding your lifeless body a few minutes later. The heavens mourning through rain on the day he put you to rest.

It hits him that you wouldn’t be able to fulfill your promise of returning to him. No more kisses on the kitchen island, no more trips to the farmer's market, no more warm cuddles on the couch. All remnants of you are being packed away in boxes and given to other people. All that will remain of you are intangible memories and the love he had for you in his heart.

Two weeks have passed since your death, and all Steve can do is cry his heart out for the one who was unjustly and tragically whisked away from him.

#steve rogers fanfic #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x you #steve rogers fanfiction #steve x reader #steve x you #steve rogers x oc #steve rogers one shot #steve rogers oneshot #steve rogers imagine #captain america x reader #captain america imagine #captain america x you #captain america fanfic #captain america x oc #ourpeachskies #ourpeachskies writes

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rilenerocks · 4 years

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A stink bug dropped onto my head while I lay in my bed in the dark, reading on my Kindle before sleep. It’s not the first time I’ve had one appear out of nowhere. Discussions with my son-in-law lead me to believe that our neighborhood has had quite the invasion this year, the kind when if you flip a piece of wood that’s been lying outside for awhile, hundreds might emerge from their dark place. In fact, an article appeared last fall, warning that this particular invasive species, mostly a nuisance, also damages crops – one more thing to worry about. A day ago, I read about an insect called the Asian giant hornet which has turned up in the United States, posing a big threat to already endangered honeybees. From what I’ve read, it also packs quite a painful sting when a human gets in its way. East Africa is contending with a second wave of locusts which is being nicknamed “Locust-19,” as this invasion is coinciding with the inexorable advance of Covid19 across the continent. Already threatened, the increased risk of famine will only make life more impossible there than it is already.

Was it only mere months ago that the world’s eyes were focused on the astonishingly devastating wildfires that were racing through Australia, killing millions of animals while destroying homes and poisoning the air? And Indonesia that was struggling its way through massive flooding? California was suffering through a terrible wildfire season while Washington State was being inundated with rain.

These were the headlines we were reading:

Australians flee massive bushfires as new fire threat looms.

The 2020 California wildfire season is a series of wildfires that are burning across the state of California. As of April 30, 2020, a total of 888 fires have burned 1,482 acres (600 ha) according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

After 29 straight days of rain, an intense atmospheric river will drench Seattle through the weekend.

And then there was the sudden tragic death of Kobe Bryant and his daughter, the shock of which reverberated around the world, a painful reminder of how quickly life can change, how fast lives can end, no matter your age, your health or your privilege. Finally came this coronavirus which swiftly forged to the head of the news cycle and has come to dominate the consciousness of the global citizens everywhere.

All these events reminded me of a time back in college, when it seemed that there were daily events that I’d read about, nature-based and otherwise, which compelled me to start what I called “ The Apocalypse Notebook.” For years, I clipped articles from newspapers and magazines, selecting astonishing articles which were interspersed with average daily stories. I remember thinking how easy it was to become inured to the unthinkable, those eye-popping tales tucked in between a story of people who’d just celebrated a 60th wedding anniversary and a description of a new restaurant opening. Stories of brutality, stupidity and for me, incredulity when I pondered how easily they came and went, just part of another news day. Here are a few of the headlines from recent times which would’ve made it into my apocalypse notebook, if I was still keeping it up to date.

Husband and wife poison themselves trying to self-medicate with chloroquine.

President Trump Wondered Out Loud If Injecting Disinfectant Could Cure COVID-19.

Kushner calls administration’s coronavirus response “a great success story”

I’m no Nazi, says mom of 7-year-old with swastika.

It’s no small wonder that people are searching for ways to cope and stay healthy through this truly dystopian time. In my part of the world, it’s become clear that my government is turning its attention to kickstarting the economy, pushing aside public health as a number one priority and looking ahead to the effort to re-elect our impossible president. That being the case, it’s become obvious to me that I’m going to have to make my own decisions about how I choose to live going forward, with no access to testing, no proven treatment for Covid19 and far from what I think will be a legitimate vaccine. I’m pondering what the risk vs. reward paradigm means for me.

You can’t really tell by looking at the photo above, but that is actually a ditch that I had to get hauled out of the other day. One of the ways I’ve used to circumvent social distancing has been to drive to an out of the way place and park my car next to a friend’s so we can roll down our windows and spend a few hours having a foodless meal together. One friend is my breakfast buddy and the other is my weekly lunch date. I’ve actually enjoyed chatting without the usual incumbent meals, as I’m always trying to keep calories at bay. In any case, this nice sunny day meeting took place at a different spot than our normal meeting place. Unbeknownst to us, the ground was saturated by heavy rains from the day before, so my attempt to straighten out my car turned into digging myself into what felt like marshland beneath the wheels. Thankfully, I have an app for that and a nice young man showed up with his tow truck to drag me out of the abyss. My friend and I still had a lovely time. I’m thinking that though I’d like to exchange some hugs other than virtual ones, this mode of interaction is going to suit me for an indefinite time, until I see how this virus situation plays out over the coming months. An odd choice? Maybe. But I feel uncertain right now and I’ve found a way to not feel so isolated. So that’s one thing.

Then there’s the pool question. I am sorely missing swimming and I mean that both literally and figuratively. I’m one of those humans who feels as comfortable in the water as I do on land. After almost two months of being unable to swim, I feel much less fit than I did before this virus changed everything. My body is stiffer and less fluid in its movements. I’m really grateful that my knee replacement surgeries allow me to take walks as an alternative to swimming. But I don’t get any endorphin rush from walking and I need to go for a lot longer than 40 minutes to feel like I’ve gotten a real workout. So what will I do when the pools finally reopen? I’m really on the fence about my favorite recreational activity. I keep envisioning leaping into a petri dish. Crowds of people splashing around. Locker rooms with so much traffic there’d need to be full-time cleaners to keep up with sanitation. Could I really enjoy myself with that anxiety? Adult swim hours would help but right now, I’m not sure that would be enough for me. So as an alternative I just purchased a below the desk elliptical machine. Between walking, using this thing and working in my garden, I’m hoping to keep myself healthy and strong. I’ve always been a person who looks ahead. I want to give myself alternatives now, in an attempt to prepare for whatever is coming down the road. Luckily for me, I hate grocery shopping. I think that after having done it for so many years for my family, I just got to the end. Except for when my son is here, I only have myself to worry about. The online services of ordering food and either having a delivery or doing my own pickup is just fine. I don’t think I’d care if I never saw the inside of a grocery store again. But the movies. I am a movie junkie. I can certainly watch movies at home. The plethora of choices in platforms is amazing and I get that. But ever since I attended my first movie at the Iowa Theater in downtown Sioux City, “The Giant Claw,” I’ve been irresistibly drawn to sharing the darkness and the flickering images reflected on the faces in the audience, the smell of fresh popcorn with Milk Duds tossed into the container as a warm chocolatey surprise. I haven’t seen a theater movie in months. Michael and I shared that love of movies. Before we had kids, we’d go a couple of times a week. When the babies came, I popped them into their Snuggli and kept them quiet by nursing them throughout the films. When will I go back to a theater? I guess that depends on how reopening looks. The same is true for restaurants. I don’t want to be crammed into any crowded waiting spaces. Maybe al fresco is the way to go. Picnics in the park with carry out seems like a good alternative. That is, unless the giant hornets take up residence in this town.

Trump Says Some States Will Be Able To Open ‘Literally Tomorrow’ If They Want To.

Maybe if there was a real national plan, I wouldn’t be busy with trying to figure out who I’m going to be for awhile. But there isn’t a national plan. All the states are on their own. So I’m just thinking about daily life. I’m not contemplating anything really big like whether I have taken my last trip, whether I’ll ever travel again. The biggest thing for now is to try to stay well, for myself and my family, overburdened with the complications of working from home and educating their kids. And there’s my son with his Phd, postdocs and no job market because of the pandemic trashing of higher education, along with everything else. All I can think of regarding him is that health insurance is expensive and what if the government eliminates the Affordable Care Act? The terror of no national health care. So, yeah, I’m going to be careful and slow. No malls for me. I’m going to auto-visit, grow a ponytail and work in my yard for the next few months. What about you?

About That Apocalypse Notebook… A stink bug dropped onto my head while I lay in my bed in the dark, reading on my Kindle before sleep.

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theinfinityofonekamincik · 4 years

Text

Minecraft. Mine-craft. Mi ne craft. Minecra ft? Words are fun. You know what’s funner? Minecraft.

All joking aside, Minecraft! Minecraft sure is a thing. Everyone has heard about it, everyone has had an opinion on it at some point, it’s a straight up cultural fenomenon in so, so many ways. Nothing in Minecraft feels like a coincidence or out of place, it’s a culmination of so many things: sound design, game design, gameplay, lore (or lack of thereof, though I mean, gameplay? In my good Minecraft? It’s literally just a bunch of game mechanics in trenchcoat) graphics, players, ext ext.

Music in Minecraft is... Sure a thing. It has layers, a lot of layers, it’s echoed and it goes in deep. Minecraft music is all chimes and strings overlayed with some sort of tube-shaped instrument, or overlaying some sort of tube shaped instrument, plus some digital sounds, and if a part (one of the instruments) gets taken away it changes meaning. Like a puzzle of sorts. A harmonious, 3D puzzle, where each piece is a simplistic, abstract drawing of its own.

As someone on tumblr put it, Minecraft music is like knowing you can’t go home because it isn’t there anymore. It’s depressing, it weighs down, but it doesn’t lock in place. It grounds. There’s a certain hopeful ring to it, or rather, a predictable ring that has just a bit of fresh sourness to it. Acid.

It can be poison, eat through my gums and hurt my ears, make me wanna cover and cry because it’s bitter, sad, restraining, like heavy chains wrapping all around me and suffocating me with their sheer presence, or... It can be the best. It can remind that I make the rules for myself here, in the empty world of Minecraft, that I can be free, and that to each individual, that reminder is different. It unfreezes by freezing, it rises by falling, it celebrates by crying, it tears and destroys what it can’t let go to be free and makes something new out of the pieces. It’s so, so hopeful, but hope is a restraint in of itself. Hope and expectation go hand in hand. Parallel each other, hope is wanting something to happen and not knowing if it will, while expectation is demanding something to happen and knowing that it must.

Hope leaves me hanging and vulnerable, expectation rivets me in place. Hoping without trust in myself or others is impossible, as I’ll expect a hit all the way. Minecraft, including music, is a place where the only one who could hit me is myself. It helps draw a line between what’s real and what isn’t by being a canvas I can project onto, or rather, one of those paint by numbers things with no numbers. Minecraft is just a bunch of dots, everybody, we cracked the code!

It’s the most fun with other people, so I can paint on somebody else’s connections and they can paint on mine, be it in adding stuff, taking stuff, doing god knows what else with stuff or just... Watching. Watching and thinking. Minecraft is a lot like life in that regard, it’s meant to be shared. It gets boring otherwise. Predictable. It loops. Repeats itself straight into oblivion. When there isn’t enough difference around, that is bound to happen, so freedom is important.

Being able to trust is important. In a way, Minecraft teaches trust. So, it’s important, like a crutch for those of us who can’t trust even ourselves and as a playing field for those of us who can, or are willing to try.

There is also not caring, but not caring is also a form of trust. It’s a sorta trust in self, where I know what will happen, know the consequences or possible consequences or possible lack of consequences, and still do the action. It... May be fatalistic. I don’t really get it.

Anyways! Graphics! Minecraft graphics! They are cool as hell, they are squares! Need I say more. Blurry, misty, sharp and crisp, open for interpretation, cristal clear in their delivery of their purpose, contradictions that coexist in a perfect harmony that can be scaled up and scaled down with the same success. That was me describing Minecraft blocks. Dramatic. I mean, I do use words to get my meaning across, and words have

context

So I guess dramatic words are better for describing something dramatic. There are different kinds of dramatic though, and drama used to mean (still does, in some languages) a theater play, or just something emotional, and blaming anyone for the fact ‘emotional’ has negative connotations is of no use.

Recontextualizing ‘emotional’ is. Which, by the way, Minecraft is a great place to recontextualize stuff because it doesn’t have clear context. We don’t know the history of Minecraft, we know all the consequences of it in its world building (world generation, coding, updates, you name it). Or see. Or learn. Words, man.

Graphics play a role in it cause you can easily recontextualize the appearance of a block, of a skin, of the sky. Shaders are also a thing. They sure are a thing! I hadn’t delved into mods yet, but the amount of freedom with those? The ability to create those? Use them in your gameplay? Holy shit. Cheats, commands, vanilla fixes, oh my! ‘Fixes’ may not be the best name in my opinion, but the fact all of those exist? Are allowed to exist? That they can be disagreed on, but it won’t matter in the grand scheme of things?

There isn’t one way to play Minecraft, and Minecraft makes it clear with every fabric of its being. (every fabric- every cell- every part- very fabric?- the fabric- components- loop-di-loops may or may not be at play. Can circular reasoning be good? Hmmm. Nuance? Is it possible here?)

I don’t have much more to say at the moment, so bah-bye! I’m gonna go to my dads’ Minecraft server and put some jevelery on a bunch of rubber ducks floating in the ocean by a beacon on a quartz pillar now, will come back with whatever that teaches me.

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stone-man-warrior · 5 years

Text

September 8, 2018: 1:43 pm:

September 8, 2018: 12:32 pm:<br><br>Like I was expecting, the assassins are s... StoneMan .Warrior - 2018-09-08 13:43:00-0700 - Updated: 2018-09-08 13:43:00-0700

September 8, 2018: 12:32 pm: Like I was expecting, the assassins are staging and in full swing right now. There are the familiar sounds of construction noises coming from Nathan Phillips Vatican Seventh Day Adventist family cell at 520 "MyStreet". There never is anything being built lately, just the noises of construction. Those noises are there to draw attention to that area and away from other areas. These people have gone as far as to make a fake wall about sixteen feet tall and then take it down after I see it and write about it. In addition to Phillips, Lorena Chapman is at the Monroe Seventh Day Adventist Screen Actor Guild terrorist family cell at 434. Ms. Chapman is in full Hollywood make-up and is disguised as Sandy Monroe. Ms. Chapman and Ms. Monroe look identical to one another in there height and slender body shape. With thick make-up Ms. Chapman easily becomes Ms. Monroe. She is attempting to frame me for a rape today. Also, at 445 Steve Bell Vatican Seventh Day Adventist Screen Actor Guild terrorist family cell, A brand new looking Black Ford pick-up truck with very expensive wheels and rubber-band style "40" series tires just showed up with a small child. I will will wager that the child is a kidnapped replacement for Abu and will be given to Sparacino at some point for terror training. The Black Ford truck at Bell Family cell has a window graphic on the back window that says "Schwarts Tree Service". Coincidence? No, not a coincidence, it is another tree trimmer, and that is designed to be frightening for me, and is part of a real world screen play to terrify me. All last week, I was dealing with assassin tree trimmers, and now, on Saturday, there is yet another tree trimmer. Someone was driving in Francis Taylor's red Chevrolet Impala. I reported here that I was under the impression that Fran might be dead and had launched. Since I really don't know the identity of the person who launched away that day, Fran Taylor may or may not be driving in the Impala. Heavy make-up is used extensively and I am wrong about the identity of the terrorists who I report here as being dead more often than I am correct about the names of the dead terrorists. The important thing is that terrorists die when I defend my self and home. It is less important to know who they are. The fact that I am wrong about the identity of deceased terrorists is an intentionally placed ingredient of the terrorism. These people will go way far out of their way in an effort to cause confusion and be deceptive. So, If you are reading the things I write here and find that when I try to make an identification about a particular person, please be mindful that these are terrorist ACTORS and are trained by the Screen Actors Guild to be deceptive. Actors are people who's pay increases with their skill at deception. The better an actor can play a role, the more money they are paid. Actors who are very good at what they do are able to fool the public even when the public is aware that those actors are playing a role. Think in terms of a notion that is called "Type Casting". In the acting business, once a particular actor has been successful at playing the role of a horrible villain, after that happens that actor is challenged to portray themselves as a hero in their line of work in the future. Once type cast as a villain, the movie directors rarely will cast that actor as a hero simply because the actor was so good at playing a villain role that the movie going public will always perceive that actor as a villainous person. Even when we meet actors in real life, we tend to imagine them as per the way that we have become familiar with them enough that we can recognize who they are. Once a villain, always a villain. There are exceptions to that rule, and that is my point here. Those actors who are able to overcome type casting do so because they are very skilled at the art of deception. So, I am wrong about the identity of the terrorists who die most of the time. However, for those who will doubt that terrorists are using the Nitrous Oxide/Versed airborne gas as an extremely dangerous and powerful weapon simply because I am wrong about the identity of an individual, I say that there has been no one who has ever attempted to identify and stop the terrorists from using the deadly gas weapon on Americans other than me. So if you continue to judge based on absolutely no experience of your own, then that makes you an extension of the terrorism. Don't judge me by small details, judge me by what I report here as a whole. I am not interested in writing any of the things I write about. I would much prefer being free to do some other activities. Also, the subject matter of what I write about is very disturbing, unpleasant and is no fun at all. The things I write about should be worthy of an arrest if those subjects that are written about are not true. Besides that, I have absolutely no fear whatsoever with saying out-loud that Kirstjen Nielsen, the Secretary of Homeland Security in the USA is not only a terrorist herself, but also has a very nasty yeast infection and her vagina is a lethal weapon all on it's own. I would also add that Secretary of State, Mr. Mike Pompeo is also a terrorist bastard and is a coward candy ass pansy. Now, i think my next attempt to get some help to fight terrorism might be an outward display of accusations and insults about the people at the top levels of government who are responsible for keeping Americans safe and secure. That should draw some attention and maybe someone who is in the business of public safety will notice. If that does not work, I might have to openly claim to be a terrorist myself in order to get the attention necessary to point at where the real terrorist bastards are. At this point, and actually for quite some time now, I am literally begging for public safety officials simply to do some public safety work. I am not asking for anyone to do anything that is not part of the job description of those I am requesting to look at the situation here in Oregon regarding the full control of the entire state of Oregon. I am saying and have said that the entire National Guard personnel in the State of Oregon has been killed, or are being held in captivity and they have been replaced with impostors who are not American Citizens and actors who are trained to portray themselves as National Guard soldiers. Why is it so difficult to make an investigation into the people who occupy the positions of national Guard soldiers? The same is true with the Oregon State Police. Is it really that difficult to make absolutely certain that our country is safe? Why not have a real close look at the Oregon State Police from time to time? Why not take a real close look at all of the State Police in all of the USA? Think about this... terrorists need only take over the state police in order to take over the entire state in any given state of the USA. Those who are in the business of public safety should be able to grasp that the State Police is a central and all powerful entity. From the position of the control of state police, everything else within the state is within reach. If one state can be taken this way, than they all can be taken this way. With the use of Nitrous Oxide mixed with Versed airborne poison gas, a trained, large group of terrorists could arrange that events take place that would put the state police in a position, in groups, that make them easy targets to hit with airborne poison gas. Even if the plan to take over the State Police only included that terrorist soldiers arrange that a large number of them are simultaneously pulled over for a traffic violation, then all that is necessary is to have the Nitrous Oxide/Versed mixture of gas ready to deploy within the terrorists vehicles. When the officers come to the window of the car, the gas gets blown in the officers face. The officers could stumble around after that. Some might be hit by terrorist driven vehicles that are poised and ready for such a thing. Even if one particular event like that turned out to be unsuccessful as means of killing an officer and gaining his or her squad car, uniform and badge, even then, any officers exposed to the Versed gas will not remember the details associated with an attempt to kill them. The Versed gas prevents memories from occurring. It prevents the people exposed to it from retaining the details of any event that might take place. I urge the people who are in the business of public safety, to get some Versed and some Nitrous Oxide, Get some and then do some experiments with it so that you can know for yourselves that it is impossible to remember details of an event after and while being exposed to the gas mixture. I urge the United States Armed Forces to conduct experiment wit this mixture in such a way as to reveal the enormously powerful affect it has in social settings, such as small towns, rural areas, big cities, small rooms full of people or big rooms full of people. Do some experiments to reveal what happens when a police officer is exposed to the gas during a routine traffic stop. Please send some help to Josephine County Oregon.Shared with:

PublicStoneMan .Warrior - 2018-09-08 15:38:21-0700

September 8, 2018: 2:58 pm: The neighborhood is alive with terrorist activity. To the untrained eye or to those without experience, the kind of activity that is happening today is not noticeable. In fact, the way these people do terrorism, the neighborhood looks healthy with people doing activities, and driving with a perceived purposeful destination in mind. The Schwartz Tree Service that went over to 445 Bell Seventh Day Adventist Screen Actor Guild terrorist cell has gone and there is very little signs of anyone who actually might live there. The people at teh Bell family have been living there for about five years, and for five years, I would usually see both of the adults that live there twice per day. In the past month I have not seen either if the two adults that live there. Something changed about the Bell family terrorist cell such that they no longer allow me to see them go in or out of their driveway. I don't go out of my way to look at any particular person or group of people. I do go from my front door to the end of my driveway many times per day and that is about a five-hundred foot distance. Lorena Chapman took off her Sandy Monroe make-up and was just driving past my driveway taking pictures of me standing there. Ms. Chapman is far more dangerous than anyone will ever believe. Our nation is doomed to fail simply because of how the television programs that have been made and watched by so many millions of people for so long, that our perceptions of what danger looks like has become biased towards such perception. The notion that some one person is either a good, law abiding, friendly, safe, pleasant person is assumed at the very first glance of someone who is making an assessment of such things. It is very simple to look across an outdoor park, for instance, have a look around and then, based on nothing other than the way the people in the park look, such as their clothing style, or hair length or color, or any other physical attribute of the appearance of any individual in that park, and decide if those people are someone that is safe to talk to. But around here, in Oregon, an individual appears to be just exactly the kind of person that is safe to talk with, and in reality is a murderous terrorist who is working in association with other pleasant looking people in an effort to kill as many American citizens as possible. That reality is brought to us through the perceptions we have learned by watching television and motion pictures for entertainment and as a means through which we gain knowledge of the "news". The televised "News" these days has absolutely nothing to do with anything honest, nor is it put there for public safety. The television has become a device that controls our thoughts in such a way as to make it possible for terrorists to harness those perceptions on a grand scale, take advantage of them, and use them to exterminate the population of the people who rely on the televised news for their daily information. To anyone who reads this page, I have an assignment for you. If you watch television, please ask the question "for what socially redeeming purpose is this particular program or news snippet being shown on the television?" I urge you to ask that question about the programs you watch and the news articles that are part of an evening news broadcast. You will find that most often, the answer will be that the programs and news articles shown on television serve no real educational purpose or have any socially redeeming value. Most of the News, you will find is put there to scare you and your family. For instance, if the news program shows an article about some person who was horribly injured while doing a sporting activity, does showing that person on television help you in any way? Do you think that the injured person wants to have their story told on television? If it was you, would you want the entire world to know that you are injured, and where you are hospitalized? For what socially redeeming purpose is the story of an injured person who was hurt while doing a sporting activity being aired to millions of people? The answer is that they show this kind of thing so that you will always be considering injuries and heartache. Those stories always make us think about our own family members being injured. These are not healthy thoughts to have all of the time every time we view a television news broadcast. There are time to consider if our families are safe, while watching a television news program is not one of those times. Do the assignment for a while when watching television by asking the question of socially redeeming qualities of a particular program and you will quickly be enlightened about the lack of real value that the television news programs offer. The television these days is there to control you.

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elarawritingtrash · 5 years

Text

Fandom: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!

Written in 2018

Summary: A girl from our world is reborn... into Sawada Tsunayoshi. Inexplicably female Sawada Tsunayoshi, even. She deals.

Warnings: Canon-typical violence.

Iemitsu and Nana loved each other. They really did; that was never fake on either of their parts. They had a whirlwind romance; it was only a few short months before he proposed. Only a few more months and they got married. Basking in the thrill of new love, they bought a house together.

Just less than a year after they met, Iemitsu had to leave for work. Nana understood. It was his job and he had to leave, and she wasn't mad about it. Still, understanding didn't stop the ache in her chest where Iemitsu had taken hold of her heart and left with it.

A matter of months after that, Nana realized she was pregnant. After three different types of pregnancy test, the excitement took hold of her and she called Iemitsu in a rush. It wasn't how they usually did things; his schedule was unpredictable and Nana never even knew what time zone he may be in at any given time, and so he was usually the one to call her when he had the time. This, however, Nana felt took precedence.

"What -- Nana? Are you okay? Is something wrong?" Iemitsu said immediately upon answering.

Wherever he was, it was loud; there was a mash of indistinguishable noise audible even over the phone. Nana ignored it.

"I'm fine, dear," she said, and then, before he could interrupt and say he was busy, "I have big news! I couldn't wait to tell you!"

She could practically hear Iemitsu deflate over the phone. The silly man never had been able to deny her. "Is that so? Well, now you've got me all excited!" he said. "Tell me what it is, I'm dying over here, Nana, end my suffering."

There were voices on the other end, too quiet to make out words. Iemitsu ignored them, and so Nana did too.

"Oh, you big goofball," Nana said with a giggle. "Okay, here it is: I'm pregnant!"

Nana waited eagerly for Iemitsu's response. There was silence over the phone, accentuating what sounds like people hammering on wood in the background. Finally, Iemitsu responded, all but babbling in his excitement.

Of course, then there were more voices in the background and Iemitsu excused himself hurriedly, but that was fine. Nana understood that her husband was busy.

Several months later, he was also too busy to be there for the baby's birth. Nana wouldn't lie and say that one was fine, but, well, it's so nice to have any of the time together that they do get, she just wouldn't mention it. It wasn't worth it.

In any case, this one was a little problematic for Nana. She and Iemitsu had, in the intervening months since discovering her pregnancy, discussed names. Iemitsu wanted to follow his family's naming tradition and Nana was fine with that, since it seemed so important to him. However, they'd never actually covered what to do if the baby was a girl. All of the Tokugawa Shoguns were men, for obvious reasons, so how was Nana supposed to name their daughter? At a loss, Nana just went with her preferred choice of Tokugawa names she'd already decided on: Tsunayoshi. It was a boy's name, sure, but it could be cute enough to be a girl's name, too. She could already imagine it. Her daughter, Tsu-chan. That was cute, right?

Sawada Tsunayoshi was just over a year old when she realized that she was doomed. This realization, by sheer coincidence (except not at all) coincided with her first meeting with Sawada Iemitsu.

He was, after all, a little more recognizable than Nana, who for the most part could be a perfectly normal Japanese housewife.

So, yeah. Tsuna, or rather the formerly adult, American woman now inhabiting Tsuna's body, came to a sudden, awful realization and narrowly avoided swearing her head off in English and making everything much worse. Fortunately she did avoid that.

She was Sawada Tsunayoshi and in about twelve years, she was going to be forced into becoming the boss (candidate) of the Vongola Family. Tsuna thought about this. Unlike the canon version of Tsuna, she was not especially adverse to the idea. She was, in fact, rather fond of the idea of doing what Canon!Tsuna had planned to do. The problem, of course, was that she was totally going to die. Canon!Tsuna and co. only survived through sheer dumb luck and the fact that she was here at all likely meant she didn't have any of that.

Tsuna plotted. She had exactly three broad options in life. Number one: somehow manage to save all of Nono's legitimate sons who die before she's fourteen. Number two, flee the country and somehow manage to hide from the Italian Mafia. Three, become so amazingly awesome that she could win at not only life, but Tsuna's life.

Although tempting, number one and number two did seem difficult to achieve. Nigh impossible, really. That left number three.

Tsuna resigned herself to living through the canon storyline. It was pretty much her only real option. It brought up some more questions; how much could she change? How much should she change? The canon storyline actually went really well, all things considered. Except for, like, the emotional suffering of pretty much everybody involved. Still.

From what Tsuna remembered, the Daily Life Arc didn't really have anything important in it. Besides introducing people, anyway, and she probably couldn't change any of that and didn't really care to. She did actually like the characters in Katekyo Hitman Reborn, although it was a little questionable if she'd like them as real people. Well, accepting the weirdos that hung around Canon!Tsuna was part of resigning herself to his life, so whatever. In any case, besides that, she could probably change a lot of the Daily Life arc and not have it matter too much. Which is good, because Tsuna did not remember it well enough to micromanage the entire thing. Whoops.

The first truly important arc was Mukuro's appearance. How could Tsuna even change that if she wanted to? Go after Mukuro earlier than Canon!Tsuna would have? Follow Hibari? Oh, actually, if she changed the Daily Life Arc enough, Hibari wouldn't have Sakura Disease, so that could actually change a lot. Tsuna figured it doesn't matter too much; the Mukuro Arc probably didn't need to go in any specific way. Maybe it wasn't even really important?

If that was the case, then the actual first important arc would be the Varia arc. Which went exactly according to plan down to which Guardians won and lost and in what order. It had always kind of annoyed Tsuna, to be honest. But if it didn't go perfectly, then the Sky Battle probably wouldn't happen? And even if it did, if Tsuna didn't lose the Sky ring to Xanxus, he wouldn't fail the succession test thing and he'd probably never give up on usurping her as Vongola Decimo. But then, he hadn't really in canon anyway, had he? In the Future Arc, the Varia had still been refusing to acknowledge Canon!Tsuna as Decimo.

Oh, and that was the real issue. Arguably the most important and potentially disastrous arc in the series: the Future Arc. If it went wrong, well, there went the entire universe. Literally. Thanks, Byakuran. It would be easy to completely avoid, though. If Tsuna just kept that box of Ten Year Bazooka ammo from falling into Shouichi's hands, the Future Arc probably wouldn't happen at all.

That would be awesome, except. After the Future Arc was the Shimon Arc, and Tsuna and his/her guardians would probably not stand a chance against the Shimon Guardians or Daemon without the whole Vongola Gear thing which was only a thing because of the Future Arc. Plus Byakuran wouldn't have his future memories, so he wouldn't show up to heal Yamamoto. Of course, Tsuna could just keep that from happening, probably, but the point remained that they would most likely get their collective butt kicked in a straight fight if the Future Arc hadn't happened. Even more so than had happened in canon.

Not to mention that after that was the Curse of the Rainbow Arc (Arcobaleno Arc for short). Tsuna was sure the Arcobaleno could find representatives either way, but the end result was trying to beat the Vindice in a direct fight, which. That wasn't going to end well if everybody wasn't as strong as their future selves. The Varia would be weaker, Tsuna and her guardians would be weaker, Byakuran and Yuni might not even be there...? What if it was still Aria as the Sky Arcobaleno with only the Giglio Nero fighting for her? They'd get destroyed. And like, Fran wouldn't be there at all, so the Vindice might actually kill Mukuro or at least destroy his watch...

Thinking about the entire thing gave Tsuna a headache, so she decided to wing it. Or at least figure it out later. Whatever.

It was only potentially the fate of the entire universe on the line, it would probably be fine.

Tsuna's first order of business: keep Iemitsu and Nono from sealing her flames. She wasn't entirely sure why they'd sealed Canon!Tsuna's in the first place, but she figured that the best way was to be completely and utterly unspectacular and also make sure not to use flames around them. Like, obviously.

Her first meeting with Iemitsu was easy enough. She was one years old, he treated her like a newborn baby, and he only hung around for like a week anyway. For most of the week, he and Nana largely ignored Tsuna -- beyond the required caretaking of babies, anyway. Tsuna was already walking and talking, but that week she ardently refused to do either in the hopes of convincing Iemitsu she wasn't an impressive child. Nana did not do anything to hinder this. She didn't even seem to think it was strange.

But then, Nana was a strange woman.

Iemitsu left, and Tsuna started experimenting. The thing was, she really should have known what she was in, because, now that she knew the terminology, it was obvious that she could sense flames. She wasn't sure if that was normally a thing in the Hitman Reborn universe, but she definitely could. Iemitsu just... felt like a Sky. Tsuna couldn't explain it. She wouldn't have recognized it if she didn't know that he was, though, just like she hadn't recognized her own flames for what they were.

Other people felt strange too, gave off an energy of sorts that they never had in her original world. Without a reference point for what each type of flame feels like, though, Tsuna couldn't identify them. Since the only person she'd met that she knew the flame type of was Iemitsu, she could only identify Sky flames. Nana was... not a Sky, and that was as far as Tsuna could tell.

In any case, now that Tsuna knew, she started experimenting with flames. It was a shame that she had Sky flames, since as far as she knew, Mist flame users were the only ones confirmed to be able to use them independently, without a Box Weapon or Dying Will Mode. Still, that wasn't going to stop her from trying. Canon!Tsuna, at least in Hyper Dying Will Mode, was able to light his mitten-gloves on fire. Tsuna wanted to be able to do that too. She wondered if it was possible to will-power one's way to Hyper Dying Will Mode without the bullets or pills? It might be nice to skip the whole almost-naked normal Dying Will Mode phase.

Tsuna went through everything she could remember about using flames from canon (resolve, and whatnot), but saw no results for a long while.

As Tsuna got older, she noticed some odd things. Once, when Tsuna was two, she was coloring in the living room (because coloring can be fun, it's a normal little kid thing to do, and she was using it for the motor control practice it was) while Nana was cooking dinner. Nana wandered out to check on her, leaned over where Tsuna was coloring.

"Wow, Tsu-chan, you're doing so well!" she said.

Tsuna didn't respond, because she knew by now that Nana didn't expect her to, and continued carefully outlining the edge of the cloud in purple. After a moment of watching, Nana settled down on the floor next to Tsuna.

"Doesn't it get kind of boring being so careful?" Nana said.

She didn't question the purple cloud, and though Nana would never be her mother, Tsuna thought she might be able to love her anyway. She shrugged.

"No," she said eventually, because it wasn't. A child might enjoy the chaotic swish of crayon on paper, but she actually liked the precision work better. She'd never been good at drawing.

Nana hummed thoughtfully and stayed there, apparently entranced by the sight of her two year old coloring.

After some time, Tsuna paused in the middle of coloring a field of grass a perfectly normal green, looked up, and thought, the pot is going to boil over. She said as much, and Nana jumped to her feet and rushed into the kitchen. Tsuna blinked, feeling a little off. She listened, and yes, there was the sound of something bubbling from the kitchen, but she hadn't noticed it before, not really. She didn't even know what Nana was making.

That was the first time. Things like that kept happening, but it wasn't until close to a year later, when she warned Nana that somebody was at the door a full two minutes before anybody was actually at the door without any real reason to think so that she realized what it was. Hyper Intuition. Tsuna was a little baffled because she didn't remember Canon!Tsuna having it like this.

She wasn't complaining, though.

The next time, Tsuna told Nana that the mushrooms would go bad if they didn't use them that day (she was really starting to wonder at the Hyper Intuition, what was that), and Nana smiled and nodded like it was perfectly normal for a three year old to say such things.

"You know, Tsu-chan, your eyes turn such a pretty orange sometimes," she said casually, also as though this was perfectly normal.

Tsuna immediately found the nearest reflective surface to check for herself, but her eyes were the same brown as always. Disappointing.

She was still three when she had a breakthrough with flame usage. It was less through careful practice and her own resolve and more through sheer mindless panic. Tsuna woke up in the middle of the night, found a shadow that shouldn't be there next to her bed, and freaked out.

Sucking in a breath ready for screaming, Tsuna bolted upright in bed and, mid flail as her arm gets caught in her blanket, created a line of breathtaking orange fire. The fire lit up the room spectacularly, impacted the fan Nana put in Tsuna's room earlier that day, and fizzled away. Tsuna slowly let out the breath, her heart still trying to beat its way through her ribcage, and felt a little ashamed of overreacting so badly.

But it was definitely soothed by the triumph of making flames. Flames that were definitely Sky flames! And without Dying Will Mode or a Box Weapon or Ring! Tsuna was ecstatic.

She also started practicing harder. Now she had an emotion to focus on. At first, she made the mistake of thinking it was the panic, but it wasn't, not really. It was the knee-jerk refusal to go down without a fight. The instinctive nope to waking up to what she thought was a person at the side of her bed.

Resolve, kind of.

But really it was more like spite.

When Tsuna was four, Iemitsu showed back up for the second time in her life. This time, he came with a jovial old man with a white mustache and brightly colored shirts that he introduced as his boss. Timoteo. Vongola Nono.

Tsuna put the flame practice on hold, played the perfectly normal shy little girl, and spent the majority of her time looking down. She couldn't tell when her eyes turned orange. Though it was usually connected to her Hyper Intuition, she can't always tell when that's going off. This way they hopefully won't notice either.

It fit with her whole shy act, anyway.

Timoteo told Tsuna to call him grandpa, and Tsuna stared at his hands (the Vongola ring), smiled weakly, and obeyed.

Nana got the adults tea on Timoteo's request, set three cups on the coffee table, and sat down on a couch. Tsuna, perched uncomfortably on Iemitsu's lap for a number of reasons, looked at Iemitsu's cup, too-close-to-the-edge-it'll-fall. Iemitsu and Nana didn't seem to have noticed. Just as Tsuna was about to lean forward and push it away from the edge, Timoteo, still evidently engaged in the conversation, nudged it further onto the table without even looking.

Tsuna's heart just about stopped because she forgot Timoteo had the Hyper Intuition as well (it was, after all, Vongola Hyper Intuition). Given that they knew she was part of the line, he almost certainly would have noticed if she'd answered to its call. She didn't give herself away, but she very easily could have. With that, Tsuna resolved to ignore the Hyper Intuition until they leave.

Ten minutes later, Iemitsu got excited about something and leaped up from his seat, picking Tsuna up to avoid sending her flying, and knocked into the table as he did. The cups all rattled around dangerously, but none of them fell off.

Tsuna wondered how Iemitsu apparently managed to not only avoid getting the Vongola Hyper Intuition, but do it so spectacularly.

Despite the fact that both Timoteo and Iemitsu were supposed to be smart people, Tsuna managed to make it the entire two weeks of their stay without giving herself away. Nana, who knew all of Tsuna's secrets and didn't know they were secret, didn't give her away either. Tsuna had noticed something about Nana: she very rarely gave information away. She didn't tend to mention anything unless somebody else mentioned it first.

Tsuna kind of got the feeling that her parents were playing Mafia chicken: who was going to bring up the elephant in the room that was the Mafia first? If that was true, then she was impressed with both of their canon selves for making it until Tsuna was fourteen. And still going, actually.

When Tsuna was five, Nana sent her to kindergarten. This was also the first that she'd really been allowed out of the house save for the backyard and shopping, so she was pretty excited despite the fact that it was, you know, kindergarten. She was sure to be disappointed, but honestly she didn't even care.

Tsuna was not actually disappointed. Not really. Yes, kindergarten was not the greatest time, but neither was being a five year old that wasn't in kindergarten, so things could really only get better.

It was easy to pick out Kyouko and Yamamoto from the horde. Kyouko was an adorably shy five year old, curled in on herself and watching the world with big eyes. Yamamoto, meanwhile, was just as friendly as his future self, but more animated about it.

Hana was there too, and, glaring hatred at the boys in the class, primarily Yamamoto's rowdy group, she attached herself to Kyouko's side apparently without Kyouko's input.

Tsuna had a debate with herself. She didn't actually want to be alone until she was thirteen, but then she also wasn't sure about the ethics of befriending five year olds. Not to mention, Yamamoto seemed more than happy with the friends he effortlessly made and Kyouko and Hana seemed content with just the two of them. And if she waited, they'd probably end up friends anyway by way of the Powers of Canon.

Then again, this was her life now, and she wasn't Canon!Tsuna. Why should she wait until canon when, if they'd get along anyway, they could be friends now? With that decided, Tsuna also decided to try to befriend Kyouko and Hana first. They were... a little less impenetrable than Fort Yamamoto and Friends. It went really well. Being five, Tsuna walked right up to them and asked if she could sit with them.

Kyouko smiled at her and agreed, and Hana didn’t argue. Kyouko did have a nice smile, Tsuna decided, in a totally not-creepy way.

And apparently it was as simple as that. Suddenly they were friends now. Tsuna was allowed to walk over and sit with them without asking and vice-versa. She wasn't sure how to feel about it. Making friends was never this easy in her first life -- although, maybe it was just easier as kids.

Tsuna stuck with Kyouko and Hana for a while, watching Yamamoto for an opening. He had to spend some time not completely surrounded, right? As soon as that happened, she'd pounce. Even if they wouldn't exactly be canon style friends where they seemed to do everything together, she could get started on that friendship a little early. If there was anything she'd like to change about the Daily Life Arc, it was Yamamoto getting to the point of almost committing suicide. Well, there were probably other things, too, but that was the first one to come to mind.

She just couldn't make herself interrupt when he was surrounded by people.

"Um, Hana-chan, Tsuna-chan," Kyouko said, trying to meet their eyes and failing. "Do -- do you want to come over to my house after school tomorrow?"

The next day was Saturday, so they would have a half-day of school.

Hana shrugged. "Yeah, sure," she said. "Not like I want to hang around at home with my brothers. My mom will probably be thrilled, too."

Kyouko's expression brightened into an almost-smile. Her gaze shifted expectantly to Tsuna.

"I'd love to!" Tsuna said. There was really no other possible answer to those hopeful eyes. "I'll ask my mom if I can, but she'll probably say yes."

It wasn't like she had any reason not to, and anyway it was worth it just for Kyouko's sheer happiness.

After school, walking hand-in-hand with Nana to get home, Tsuna asked about it. "Mom, can I go over to Kyouko-chan's house after school tomorrow?"

"Hm? Of course! My little Tsu-chan making friends, Mom is so happy!" Nana said.

And that was the end of that. Nana didn't ask about transport at all, didn't care to ask about contact information, nothing. It was a good thing Tsuna wasn't really five, she reflected.

"Grandma can't make the walk to come pick us up every day," Kyouko explained the next day. "So Big Brother and I walk home together."

"You have a brother, Kyouko-chan?" Hana said, scrunching up her nose.

Kyouko nodded happily. "Yup! He's a year older than me. He should be getting out of class soon. You have brothers too, right Hana-chan?"

"Ugh." Hana's disgusted expression worsened. "Three older brothers and a younger brother, and they're all awful."

Tsuna was maybe starting to see why Canon!Hana held such dislike for the 'monkey' boys in her class.

"They can't be that bad," Tsuna said with a giggle.

"They are!" Hana said. "They're loud and messy and in-- inco-- rude!"

Kyouko laughed. When Hana gave her a betrayed look, she patted her on the shoulder. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she said.

Hana frowned, almost pouting. "Anyway, have you guys seen the newest episode of Sailor Moon?" she said, obviously changing the subject.

Kyouko and Tsuna went with it. About ten minutes later, there was a shout. "Kyouko!"

A young boy rushed up to the gate where they were waiting, hardly slowing at all before practically tackling Kyouko in a hug. Kyouko seemed to be used to this treatment, and hardly reacted to almost being bowled over.

"I'm EXTREMELY sorry for being late, Kyouko!" the boy bellowed, evidently at top volume.

Kyouko just smiled. "It's okay, Big Brother," she said.

At this point in time, Kyouko was only five years old, but Tsuna could kind of see Canon!Tsuna's appreciation for her smile. It was sweet, but as bright as the Sun flames she shared with Ryohei.

"Big Brother, these are my friends, Kurokawa Hana and Sawada Tsunayoshi," Kyouko said, wiggling carefully out of his hold. She fumbled a little over the names, but not much. "Hana-chan, Tsuna-chan, this is my brother, Sasagawa Ryohei!"

Ryohei turned to them, and Tsuna got a strangely ominous feeling. "Kyouko's friends, huh? Well, any friend of Kyouko is a friend of mine!" he declared at only slightly less than the top volume he'd been speaking in before. "You can call me Ryohei, okay?"

It was phrased as a question, but Tsuna got the feeling it wasn't a question.

"You can call me Tsuna, then," she said. "It's nice to meet you, Ryohei-san!"

Hana turned to look at her aghast. After a glance at Kyouko's beaming smile, however, she swallowed down whatever she'd wanted to say. "It's nice to meet you... Ryohei-san," she said reluctantly.

"ALL RIGHT!" Ryohei said. Several nearby people flinched. "Let's go home, then!"

He pumped his fists, then held one hand out to Kyouko. She put her hand in his automatically. "Everybody hold hands so nobody gets lost," Ryohei said. It sounded like he was reciting somebody else's words.

Smiling, Kyouko held out her hand, and Tsuna obediently grabbed hold, then offered her other hand to Hana, who gave them both a pained look. Still, after a moment of Ryohei staring expectantly while Tsuna faced away from him and tried not to laugh, she grabbed Tsuna's hand.

Finally, they were off. Ryohei led them carefully through Namimori. His forehead was furrowed in concentration, and he watched the three of them as well as strangers carefully. Tsuna wondered if it was normal to have a six year old and three five year olds walk home from school together. It seemed like a lot of responsibility and danger.

But then, given what Kyouko said, they didn't have much choice. Their grandmother couldn't pick them up -- so their parents probably weren't in the picture? It kind of explained why Ryohei ended up so protective of Kyouko, Tsuna supposed.

A couple of weeks later, an Opportunity to befriend Yamamoto appeared. Kind of.

All of the students had been sent outside for recess, and as they usually did, Tsuna, Kyouko, and Hana were sitting at the edge of the asphalt playground area talking. A shadow fell over them, and Tsuna looked up to find Yamamoto standing in front of them. There was a small crowd of boys behind him.

"Hi!" he said once he had their attention. "We're playing a game, but we don't have enough people. Do you want to play?"

One of the other boys stepped closer to Yamamoto. "But they're girls," he hissed in what he probably thought was an undertone.

"So?" Yamamoto said with an uncomprehending look.

Faced with having to explain exactly why them being girls was a problem, the other boy faltered.

Tsuna, Kyouko, and Hana exchanged looks. Tsuna, having been trying to get an in with Yamamoto anyway, was instantly and totally on board regardless of boys being stupid. Kyouko, who was a friendly and generally open-minded person, was curious about it. Hana, who didn't like boys or rowdy people or sports, wasn't particularly interested.

After a moment, Hana visibly relented. Tsuna turned back to Yamamoto, already getting to her feet.

"Sure, I'll play," she said readily.

Kyouko hesitated, looking uncertainly at Hana, who nudged her.

"Ah, me too," Kyouko said eventually.

"I'd rather not," Hana said, then waved Tsuna and Kyouko off. "It's fine, I'll just watch."

Yamamoto flashed a blinding, 100 watt grin. "Okay!" he said.

The game turned out to be some strange kickball thing, where it basically followed the rules of baseball but with a soccer ball and kicking instead of a baseball and bat. Tsuna wasn't sure why she was surprised about that, honestly.

The teams ended up with Yamamoto, Tsuna, and Kyouko on one against the other three boys Yamamoto had been with on the other.

Tsuna had never had much experience with baseball or kickball in either of her lives, and so honestly her grasp of the rules was extremely shaky. Kyouko, probably, was in a similar boat. Yamamoto, of course, was pretty much the king of the game, far outstripping the rest of them. He wasn't very good at explaining the rules to Tsuna and Kyouko, but he was patient about it.

Their team won against the boys, in the end, and Tsuna was vindictively pleased. Even if it was because Yamamoto carried them, they hadn't completely ruined his chances or anything.

Because children were apparently like that, after that Tsuna, along with Kyouko, was kind of friends with Yamamoto. The other boys seemed to disapprove of her or at least dislike her, but Yamamoto himself always seemed perfectly friendly even if she interrupted while he was with several of the other boys.

Still, it wasn't like Tsuna had usurped his other friendships. Yamamoto still spent most of his time with those other boys. It was just that now Tsuna was part of the In-Crowd who was allowed to approach him.

Tsuna still spent most of her time with Kyouko and Hana, anyway, so it was fair.

Regardless of Tsuna's intentions, her being more proactive did not cause canon to start early, so overall, very little happened for a long time. They finished kindergarten, started first grade, and eventually moved into second grade.

Whenever Tsuna wasn't actively spending time with any of her friends, she studied. Not the blade, since that was Yamomoto's thing (or it would be, anyway), but specifically she studied Japanese. Tsuna wanted to have an adult's reading level, but man. Japanese was hard. So she studied a lot.

It was also in second grade, at the age of seven, that Tsuna met Hibari for the first time. Tsuna was alone for lunch, for various reasons, and eating on one of the roofs which people weren't technically supposed to go up to.

Really, it was practically asking to run into Hibari. That definitely wasn't why she did it in the first place.

So, Tsuna was eating her lunch innocently, and suddenly Hibari, at the approximate age of eight, came swanning up out of nowhere and whacked her over the head with a tonfa.

Tsuna flinched away. "Ow! What was that for?" she complained, rolling away to remove herself from tonfa range.

"You are trespassing," Hibari said remorselessly. "Leave, or I will bite you to death."

There were two things about this that Tsuna noted immediately. First, the fact that he actually gave an option for mercy. She was about ninety percent sure that Canon!Hibari went looking for excuses to beat people up, and so would never give up a perfect opportunity. Second, he was already using his strange, strange phrase by eight.

And then she actually thought about the ultimatum he'd just given her. She had achieved what she wanted by hanging out on the roof, which was running into Hibari himself, and there were plenty of other places she could eat lunch. On the other hand, she was there first and Hibari wasn't actually allowed on the roof any more than Tsuna herself was. He was being a hypocrite, likely because he wanted to nap in peace, if Canon!Hibari was any indication.

So, because apparently she was suicidal, Tsuna frowned, got to her feet, and said, "You're not allowed up here either."

Something she knew would absolutely start a fight. With Hibari, there were very few other ways for an encounter to go, anyway.

Hibari's eyes narrowed. That was all the warning Tsuna got before Hibari was suddenly right back in her face, first tonfa already halfway to her head.

The thing was, Tsuna was not experienced at fighting. She had never done any form of martial arts in her first life, not even self-defense, and obviously this time around she was seven. And, apparently, Hibari was monstrously strong at all ages.

However, Tsuna had the Vongola Hyper Intuition and an adult brain capable of reading its urges and reacting to them.

As far as Tsuna would recall later, the fight went something like this: duck the tonfa, wait there's another tonfa, step back to dodge a strange upper-cut-like move, dodge roll to the left, get back to her feet fast, wait no back down to avoid the tonfa again, kick out at Hibari's legs, miss because he dodged backwards, back to her feet again, Hibari was approaching again, step back, WAIT watch out for the rock. Tsuna glanced down to find that yes, there was a rock where she'd been going to step which she would have tripped over. Then, having taken her eyes off Hibari, she was surprised when he got her square in the face.

From there, it was a mess, really. In the end, with a few achy new bruises, Tsuna was forced to flee the roof.

Tsuna wasn't ashamed, exactly. She was pretty sure it was a fact of the universe that Hibari Kyouya would always be able to beat Sawada Tsunayoshi -- although they'd never fought directly in canon after Canon!Tsuna really started getting strong. Still, she didn't think that losing was embarrassing.

It was just annoying.

The petty, contrary part of her was furious that Hibari had successfully chased her away. He was stronger than her, and he'd used that to get what he wanted. That was fair, but it didn't stop Tsuna from being irritated by it.

Thinking wistfully of her abandoned lunch, Tsuna decided then that she wouldn't let it go so easily. Hibari may be stronger than her, but she wasn't going to give up. Most days, she ate lunch with her friends, but after that, she took one day a week to go up to that roof, vindictively, just to annoy him. She would never allow him to nap in peace.

It was odd, though. Tsuna had gone up to the roof before and Hibari hadn't shown those times, which probably meant he didn't always nap up there during lunchtime. After that first encounter, though, he was there on the roof every time Tsuna was.

(Tsuna still got beat up and fled most of the time, and the bruises got hard to explain, but she wouldn't give up.)

The next year, Tsuna decided that her Japanese had gotten good enough to branch out a bit, and started working on Chinese. Going right for Italian seemed too on-the-nose, and she didn't want to be obvious about knowing about Iemitsu's job, and Chinese was cool. Plus, almost all of the Italians in series spoke Japanese, while I-pin, the Chinese speaker, did not speak Japanese very well, so Chinese would, ironically, be more useful.

"Is that a beginner's Chinese book?" Hana said dubiously when she noticed.

"Yup," Tsuna said.

"Ooh, you're so smart, Tsuna-chan!" Kyouko said.

Hana made a face. "But why? Isn't English enough?" she complained.

Both of them knew full well that Tsuna aced all of their English tests. Tsuna was pleased that neither of them bothered to mention it.

"I guess. I just like languages," Tsuna said.

It was actually true. She did like languages; otherwise she probably wouldn't have willingly subjected herself to a third one. Canon!Tsuna hadn't had to learn any extra languages for the storyline, after all. Still, Tsuna was pretty sure that if she was going to take over as the boss of an Italian mafia, she would need to know Italian at least. So really, she was subjecting herself to a fourth language in learning Chinese.

She found she didn't really care.

When Tsuna was eight, and Yamamoto was nine because his birthday was earlier than hers, he disappeared from school for several days. The gossip and rumor mills being what they were, the news of why got to the school before Yamamoto even returned.

His mother had died.

It was a little unclear exactly what had happened, and Tsuna didn't put any extra effort into figuring that out. That was none of her business. Even if she was dying of curiosity.

The point was, Yamamoto's mom died. Tsuna knew, intellectually, that that happened. She'd been dead for canon, after all. It didn't make it less sad, though.

Yamamoto was missing from school for the rest of that week, and reappeared on the next Monday. Given the crowd he'd drawn in the canon storyline when he was threatening to jump off the roof, Tsuna half expected that everybody would crowd around him. Offering condolences, maybe, or asking graceless questions about it.

That didn't happen at all.

Almost ghostly for the lack of color in his cheeks even now, Yamamoto slipped around like a specter. When confronted, he forced a smile onto his face and replied with horribly forced cheer, but he didn't initiate anything or speak without prompting.

As a result, or perhaps entirely unrelated to Yamamoto's behavior and simply because of awkwardness about his mother's death, the class, including Yamamoto's usual friends tip-toed around him, talking in undertones and going quiet if he approached. Overall, it was very much leaving him out, suddenly.

Tsuna wondered if none of them had ever dealt with a person who'd lost someone. She wasn't entirely sure how to go about it either, but this, she felt, was totally wrong. In a way, she thought, she was currently seeing why and when Yamamoto became emotionally distanced from his friends as he was in canon. She could even understand it: if they weren't willing to stick with him when he was grieving, if they didn't want to talk to him if he wasn't carrying the conversation, what was really the value in their 'friendship'?

It wasn't comparable at all, Tsuna knew. Yet she looked at Yamamoto, at the face of a nine year old whose mother had died and who felt like their entire world was falling apart, and she saw herself. Her parents in her first life had died, too, and she still vividly remembered the stabbing pain of the loss, but that wasn't what she thought of. She hadn't been a child when either of her parents died, after all. Rather, she thought of her own death and being thrown, screaming, into an entirely different universe. She wondered if that was what he felt like. Did life look different now? Was everything strange and off and wrong?

From the look on his face, she'd bet that was how he felt.

So Tsuna sucked up the awkwardness and the uncertainty about bothering Yamamoto while he was grieving, gave an apologetic look to Hana and Kyouko, and barged into his bubble of fellow-student-observed privacy.

"Hi, Yamamoto-kun!" she said, trying too hard for a cheerful tone.

Yamamoto looked up, surprise and something almost like dismay on his face for a split second before he gathered himself and started forming that fake, fake smile.

Tsuna just kept going, talking before he could even try. "So I noticed you were out of school for a couple of days and I was thinking I could catch you up on what's happened!" she said. "Not school work, I mean, the teachers probably helped with that, but like, did anyone tell you about the fight between Aosa-kun and Sarue-chan?"

Yamamoto blinked. "No, not yet," he said slowly.

"It was amazing. Or horrible. Depending on how you look at it," Tsuna said, sitting next to him now that he'd encouraged her even the littlest bit.

"Oh yeah? Which side are you on?" Yamamoto said, a hint of a real smile on his face.

Tsuna beamed. "Amazing, of course," she said, and without prompting, continued, "Okay, so, you know how Sarue-chan accused Aosa-kun of cheating, right? We~ll, it turned out that he was. Technically. I mean, he had his older sister helping him, so I think that counts as cheating. Sarue-chan obviously thought so too..."

Tsuna kept talking almost solid throughout the rest of their break, with only minimal input from Yamamoto. She considered it a success when, halfway through, Yamamoto laughed for the first time since he'd returned to school.

The next day, Kyouko and Hana, giving Tsuna extremely similar understanding looks, although tinged with different shades of emotion (approval in Kyouko's case and exasperation in Hana's), joined the two of them. Between the three of them, it was easy to keep a conversation going, though Tsuna was careful to make sure that Yamamoto was included in it. Hana had an impressive dry wit, and offered a different, yet still funny, perspective of things from Tsuna's version, while Kyouko found the both of them hilarious, and her laughter was infectious. To Tsuna's joy, within a couple of weeks, almost all of Yamamoto's smiles were real.

And, although once they considered it 'safe', Yamamoto's usual friends returned and he went back to spending time with them, he still spent a large majority of his time with Tsuna, and Kyouko, and Hana, when any or all of them were around. (After a while of this, Yamamoto slung his arm around Tsuna's shoulders and outright called her 'Tsuna' with no honorific instead of the 'Sawada' it had been before, so Tsuna looked back, raised her eyebrows, and called him 'Takeshi'.)

Even when Tsuna was doing her weekly lunch with Hibari, the three of them often spent it together without her, and Tsuna found that she was actually delighted by this turn of events. It was surprisingly cool that she'd managed to get them to become friends with each other, and not solely when they separately wanted to spend time with her.

So yeah, Tsuna was pretty pleased.

Through her weekly lunches (aka fights) with Hibari, Tsuna was slowly but steadily getting better at fighting. Their fights also steadily got longer and longer before the inevitable conclusion of Tsuna getting tired of getting new bruises and fleeing. Finally, halfway through third grade, the usual format changed.

Tsuna was keeping up surprisingly well, although she had a new bruise on one forearm, the other shoulder, and one of her shins. She was getting tired, though, and the new injuries hurt, making it harder and harder to keep up with him. Since it was practically all she could do to dodge, Hibari only had one Tsuna-inflicted injury, which she doubted was even a proper bruise; she'd just barely gotten him in the stomach with a kick, and he'd been dodging backwards at the time anyway.

So things were not going in her favor at all, and Tsuna was just about ready to call it and make a run for the stairs.

Then Hibari abruptly backed off, a thunderous scowl on his face. A second later, during which Tsuna could do nothing but gape, because Hibari didn't just stop, the warning bell went off. Lunch was almost over.

Hibari glared at Tsuna briefly, though it seemed different from usual, then spun around sharply and stalked over to the far side, where he settled on the floor and appeared to go to sleep. Tsuna stared for a moment. She knew he usually napped up there, or at least she'd assumed so, but didn't he care about class? Eventually, Tsuna just shrugged it off and left to go to her own class. Honestly, it wouldn't even surprise her if Hibari was planning to skip class just to get his nap in.

After that, Tsuna was surprised to discover that she had, evidently, earned Hibari's respect. That was not to say he stopped attacking her, because that was most definitely not the case. He did, however, stop fighting after thirty minutes and allow her to spend the rest of lunch on the roof while he napped (or appear to, anyway). Tsuna figured it was his way of conceding, even if only so that he still got some nap time before classes started again.

And of course she stayed on the roof once he'd given up; it was her hard-earned right to eat lunch on that roof, okay. It had taken her more than a year of getting beaten up by Hibari and then, each day, thirty minutes of narrowly avoiding being subjected to that fate yet again, to secure her right to eat on the roof. Tsuna was absolutely going to take advantage of it.

Several awful, wintery months later, they made it to February (an awful month to be true, yet the end of winter was in sight), and Valentine's Day reared its ugly head.

Tsuna debated with herself for a week and a half before deciding to try to make homemade chocolates for her male friends. All two of them, and that was reaching to count Ryohei. On a whim, Tsuna decided to (try to) make some for Hibari as well. Bribery was absolutely Tsuna's jam and she wanted him to like her even if only for her acceptable chocolates.

Because really, she doubted anyone else had the guts to give him chocolates regardless of his pretty face.

So, about three days before Valentine's Day, Tsuna asked Nana (who is a masterful chef in her own right) to teach her how to make chocolates. If it were what Tsuna still considered 'modern day', meaning the mid-to-late 2010s, she would have googled it. As it was, the year 2000 and without even a computer much less a smart phone, Tsuna could not do that.

Fortunately, Nana both knew how and was absolutely delighted to teach her.

"Aah, my little Tsu-chan, growing up and making chocolate for boys!" she squealed.

Tsuna knew it wouldn't affect anything if she tried to point out that the chocolates weren't romantic, so she didn't bother.

"So, do you want to customize them?" Nana asked. "You know, do something special for each boy!"

Tsuna blinked. Specialized chocolate? "Like how?"

"Well, you know, your dad really loves caramel, so I'd put caramel centers in his!" Nana said. "Do you know anything like that?"

"Uh..." Tsuna thought about it. She knew nothing about Hibari's preferences for obvious reasons. Takeshi, she was pretty sure, liked vanilla because he was that kind of person. Ryohei, in his on-going existence as being as extreme as possible, liked spicy foods.

She told Nana as much, who beamed. It turned out that there was a way to make spicy chocolate, and to put vanilla (but not like, pure vanilla flavoring) inside chocolates. And, because Tsuna didn't have anything to say for Hibari's, Nana decided on her own to give them caramel centers and refused to be dissuaded. Tsuna had obviously inadvertently caused her to feel nostalgic.

The first batch was almost entirely made by Nana, while Tsuna just watched, so naturally they came out perfect. Tsuna wanted to make the chocolates herself, though, or she would have just gotten store-bought ones.

So, she tried on her own, with Nana watching over her shoulder and giving her pointers. Still, even with the help, batch number one came out.... mushy.

Tsuna didn't even know that was possible.

Batch two came out crunchy.

Batch three was too salty, and it was a very good thing that the Sawada family, thanks to Iemitsu's illegal career, was rich, and Nana was a very understanding person.

Batch four didn't have enough salt.

Batch five was edible, but less like proper, balled chocolate and more like chocolate chips.

Batch six, finally, was both edible and even remotely correctly shaped. They weren't pretty, still, but Tsuna decided it was good enough. Her friends would just have to deal.

Honestly, Tsuna wasn't even sure why she bothered when, in the end, they went out to the store to get 'proper' boxes to put the chocolates in anyway. Nana gave her the choice of what colors to get, so, because Tsuna thought she was extremely funny even if nobody else would get the joke, she decided on a blue box with black ribbon for Takeshi, a yellow box with white ribbon for Ryohei, and a purple box with black ribbon for Hibari.

She was hilarious, obviously.

Valentine's Day itself came around. Tsuna gave her chocolates to Takeshi first thing in the morning, before class.

"Appreciation chocolates," she made sure to clarify.

Takeshi laughed. "Hey, thanks, Tsuna! I appreciate you too!" he said cheerfully and tucked the chocolates away carefully.

Tsuna shrugged. "Try the chocolates before you thank me," she said. "I tried to make them myself, but they didn't come out so well."

"Oh, Tsuna-chan, you know how to make chocolates?" Kyouko said. "That's so cool!"

"Well, I asked my mom to teach me, she's like this amazing cook. I swear she knows how to make everything," Tsuna said.

They were interrupted by a small group of girls walking up in a huddle to offer several boxes of chocolate to Takeshi. They weren't quite to the age, yet, where girls went crazy giving chocolates to popular boys, but apparently, they were old enough. Takeshi accepted the chocolates gracefully, and the girls walked away with heavy blushes.

By the time lunch came around, Takeshi had a small pile of boxes of chocolates.

"Somebody's popular," Tsuna said dryly. "Maybe I should take my chocolates back?"

"Aw, no way," Takeshi said with one of his usual grins. "I appreciate your chocolates the most."

Tsuna figured most of the girls who'd given him chocolate would have swooned at that, but. She wasn't really feeling it.

During lunch, Tsuna excused herself from eating with her friends.

"Huh? Why?" Kyouko said.

"There's somebody else I want to give appreciation chocolates to, but he's not in our class, so I don't know when else to find him," Tsuna explained.

"Somebody else?" Hana said with a wrinkle in her nose. "Who? ...Why?"

Tsuna laughed. "I just feel like it," she said.

"Nooo, Tsuna-chan, you can't say something like that and leave!" Kyouko said. "You have to tell us who it is!"

"I don't know if you'd know him," Tsuna said, but shrugged. They'd find out eventually either way. "His name is Hibari Kyouya."

To Tsuna's surprise, all three of them paled a little. All of them started talking at the same time.

"The demon?" Hana said.

Takeshi frowned. "Are you sure that's okay?"

"Huh? Isn't he super scary?" Kyouko said.

"I don't know, we've been hanging out --" technically, "-- at lunch once a week for a while now. I think it's fine."

And then Tsuna fled before they could refuse to let her go. Honestly.

She went up to the roof to wait. She wasn't entirely sure Hibari would show up, actually; it wasn't their usual scheduled fight-day. After a few minutes, though, he stalked through the door onto the roof.

Tsuna was impressed. He either had a sixth-sense for these things, did actually nap on the roof all the time now, or had the roof under surveillance.

"I don't want to fight," she said hurriedly before he could attack her.

Hibari's eyes narrowed. Tsuna dug the box of chocolates out of her bag.

"I just wanted to give you these," she said, offering the box. "Then I'll be leaving."

After a moment of staring at the box with something like suspicion, Hibari snatched it from Tsuna's hand.

"Fine. Leave, herbivore," he said, striding over to his usual spot and laying down.

Tsuna rolled her eyes, supposed she should count herself lucky he'd decided not to 'bite her to death' regardless, and skedaddled.

Later that day, she accosted Ryohei as he was picking Kyouko up so they could walk home together and gave him his box of chocolates. Ryohei accepted it with great enthusiasm and also a rib-cracking hug, so Tsuna figured that made up for Hibari's ungrateful attitude.

(Even later, Ryohei and Takeshi would both say that Tsuna's chocolates had been awesome. On her next fight-day with Hibari, after they'd finished the fight, he looked at her for a bit longer than usual and said that he didn't like the caramel, and then went to lay down. Tsuna was somewhat insulted but mostly just took it as a challenge to find something he did like.)

Truth be told, Tsuna hadn't even considered the existence of White Day when she gave her friends chocolate. She managed to all but completely forget it existed.

So, it came as a surprise, when, March 14th, Takeshi greeted her before class with a store-bought box of white chocolate. Tsuna stared for a long moment.

Takeshi, evidently unbothered, laughed. "I tried to make homemade white chocolate, but it didn't turn out that well, so! Here," he said.

It was then, after approximately thirty seconds, that Tsuna remembered that White Day was a thing. The day boys who had received chocolate on Valentine's Day were supposed to return the gift with white chocolate or jewelry or something.

"Thank you," Tsuna said on instinct as she took the box.

Takeshi laughed at her again.

Later that day, during the two entire seconds Tsuna was alone, Hibari appeared like an apparition.

"Herbivore," he said to get her attention. "It is White Day."

With that, he held out a modest-sized cake covered in white frosting and dropped it without waiting for Tsuna to reach out first, causing her to have to jerk forward to catch it. Tsuna examined the cake suspiciously. It wasn't especially large, definitely a one-person cake, but it was beautifully decorated with white frosting.

It looked really expensive. Much more than three times the worth of the chocolate Tsuna had given him.

But, when Tsuna looked up, Hibari was halfway down the hall, evidently making his escape while she was distracted, so she couldn't say anything about it. Tsuna stared after him for a moment.

Then she decided to redouble her Valentine's Day efforts the next year. Clearly, Hibari was the kind of person who had to win in all things, including giving gifts. Tsuna wasn't sure why she was surprised. But she was also not going to lose.

Later, finishing off the near-perfect mirror of how Tsuna had handed out her chocolates, Ryohei found her just after school to give her yet another return gift. Ryohei's turned out to be what seemed to Tsuna to be a party-sized platter of cookies. However, due to the sheer enthusiasm of his giving them to her, Tsuna did not have an opportunity to refuse them.

Tsuna stared down at the package of probably ninety cookies and found herself making Hansel and Gretel jokes. There was no way she was going to be able to finish off that many cookies before they went stale.

(She ended up sharing them with Kyouko, Hana, and Takeshi.)

Tsuna had managed, so far, to skate by unnoticed by most people; the bullies left her alone, and despite being friends with the Two Most Popular Kids in Class(tm), people didn't really seem to consider her popular.

She liked to consider it a result of a healthy dose of minding her own business. It was, she reflected, almost a miracle considering how pitifully Canon!Tsuna did not manage the same thing. Maybe there was something more to it, but if so, Tsuna wasn't doing it on purpose, so she was at a loss.

Anyway, Tsuna didn't usually bother with the other students of her elementary school except for her usual five. Since she had such a small group of friends, she tended to notice when something was different.

Such as, for example, Kyouko not being there at the gate after class as she usually was, waiting for her brother.

Hana shrugged it off and left, which was fair because her mother generally got mad at her if she didn't report in for babysitting duty without warning. Takeshi was occupied with baseball as per usual.

So, it was just Tsuna.

She had a bad feeling about it. Given that she had little way of telling the difference between a 'my-schedule-has-been-interrupted-and-I'm-upset' bad feeling and a 'my-creepy-Hyper-Intuition-is-going-off' bad feeling, she listened to it and went looking for Kyouko. First she went back to their classroom, which was empty, and then checked the bathroom with the same results.

At a loss, Tsuna checked on Ryohei, who was in the boxing club even at this young age. The club was still going, and so she didn't interrupt, but as far as she could tell, Kyouko wasn't there either.

The bad feeling redoubled. Kyouko never left without her brother.

Tsuna went around checking the school grounds, but found nothing. Finally, she made her way back to find Ryohei, where the boxing club was now just finishing up. Tsuna slipped into the room, hurrying over to him.

“Oh, Tsuna! What's up?" Ryohei said.

"Do you know where Kyouko is?" Tsuna asked. "She wasn't at the gate where she usually waits."

Ryohei blinked. "No, I--" he froze. "NO! THOSE JERKS!"

He rushed off without an explanation. Tsuna sighed, but ran after him anyway. Unfortunately, given that Ryohei was the kind of madman who jogged every morning and Tsuna was not, he outpaced her pretty easily, but fortunately, he was easy to follow.

All she had to do was follow the cries of Kyouko's name.

Eventually, she caught up to him in an alleyway near Namimori High School. Ryohei was already embroiled in a fight with three boys wearing the high school uniform, while a fourth was standing to the side, holding onto Kyouko, who looked terrified but uninjured.

Well. Tsuna figured the proper course of action was obvious.

She flung herself at the boy holding Kyouko. Without jumping, Tsuna managed to reach just high enough to clip him in the jaw with a punch, and he released Kyouko and stumbled away with a surprisingly high-pitched yelp.

"Tsuna-chan!" Kyouko said.

Tsuna kicked one of his legs out from under them and then turned, hearing him fall to the ground behind her. Kyouko, the smart girl, had backed away to the mouth of the alleyway, out of danger. The boy Tsuna had knocked over wouldn't stay out of the fight, she knew, but she took the brief time it would take him to get back up and charged into Ryohei's one vs three battle.

They'd noticed her, unfortunately, and so she couldn't get a sneak attack, but she ducked past one's attempts to grab her and threw her weight into slamming elbow-first into his midsection, and he doubled over with a wheeze. While he was distracted, Tsuna raised her leg and kicked him where the sun don't shine. He whimpered, fell to the ground, curled up in the fetal position, and didn't move again.

The other boys converged on her, but Ryohei punched one in the side from behind, earning a shout, and they turned back. Tsuna turned just in time to dodge away from the fourth (now third) boy before he could grab her by the hair.

"You little brat," he said.

"You big bully," Tsuna said, and launched herself at his face.

The boy threw his arms up to protect the face with a shriek. Tsuna grabbed handfuls of his school vest and leveraged herself to knee him in the stomach, then, as she fell back down, inadvertently pulled him down with her. She landed on her feet, released her holds on his vest, and dodged out of the way as he faceplanted.

After jumping on his back just to hear him yelp again, Tsuna made her way back over to Ryohei, where he'd managed to get one of the boys to stay down. Tsuna flung herself onto the remaining high school student's back, grabbing him around the neck. He yelled and grabbed her arms, trying to pry her off. In doing so, he left himself open and Ryohei nailed him in the kidney.

The high school student crumpled with a whimper suspiciously similar to his friend's.

Breathing hard, Ryohei glanced around at the boys as if daring them to get back up. None of them did. Finally, he turned away and made his way over to Kyouko, who let out a sob and flung herself into his arms.

Tsuna followed out of range of the high school students, then shuffled and looked away awkwardly.

"Big Brother!" Kyouko sobbed out.

"Kyouko! I'm so sorry. Are you okay?" Ryohei said.

She shook her head. "I'm okay, but Big Brother, you're hurt!"

Ryohei had a bit of drying blood coming from his nose and some trailing from his mouth, as well as what was probably going to be a beautiful black eye.

"What, this? This is nothing! I'm fine!" he laughed.

Kyouko looked doubtful, but then she apparently remembered Tsuna's existence and turned to her. "Oh! Tsuna-chan, are you okay? That was so scary when you jumped in!"

"I'm okay. They didn't even hit me," Tsuna said. None of those boys were even close to Hibari's level. "I'm glad both of you are okay."

"That was AWESOME, Tsuna! YOU WERE EXTREMELY COOL!" Ryohei said at top volume. Then, somewhat quieter, "I'm sorry you had to get involved!"

Tsuna shrugged. "Thanks, Ryohei-san. I don't really mind, though," she said.

Ryohei released Kyouko to loom over Tsuna, grabbing her by the shoulders. Tsuna looked at his hands, a little put out that he was getting blood on her.

"Tsuna! I want you to call me 'Big Brother' from now on!" Ryohei declared. "BECAUSE YOU'RE LIKE A SISTER TO ME!"

Tsuna blinked. "Um." She looked to Kyouko for help, who, much calmer now, just giggled. "I don't... think that's appropriate," Tsuna tried.

"CALL ME BIG BROTHER!" Ryohei said again.

Tsuna gave up. "Okay."

She was pretty sure Canon!Ryohei had done almost exactly the same thing to Canon!Tsuna. Maybe that was just one of those things that couldn't be changed? It wasn't like it really mattered, Tsuna supposed.

Tsuna was a pretty light sleeper. She hadn't always been, she knew; in her first life she'd sot of grown into it after being a sleep-like-the-dead sleeper as a child. In her second life, she'd somewhat learned how to sleep through things again as a baby and young child, and, again, grown out of it.

So she woke up when the front door slammed. As Tsuna was lying there wondering why the door would slam at a time like this (1:43 in the morning), she heard The Sound. Laughter. It wasn't such a strange thing, of course, except for the fact that ghostly laughter at 2am was pretty creepy. This wasn't creepy, though; she recognized it as her mother's laugh. Specifically, it was the way Nana laughed when Iemitsu was home.

This thought was worrying enough to have Tsuna slipping out of her room, to the top of the stairs. She stayed just around the corner out of sight of anyone looking up and listened.

Sure enough, there was Nana's voice, speaking in a contained murmur. Then a deeper baritone, recognizable as Iemitsu purely because it could be no one else. She certainly didn't recognize it because she heard it so often.

Tsuna huffed silently and made her way back to her room, flinging herself into bed, and tried not to sulk. It wasn't that she had anything against Iemitsu... Okay, that was a lie. She really didn't like him; she hadn't even liked him much as a character in her first life. Being in a world where he was a real person, and also a real absentee dad? She really didn't like him. And she hadn't even seen canon behavior like being drunk half the time he was home, yet.

Iemitsu just made it so easy.

The next morning, Tsuna dreaded going downstairs, knowing with certainty what she'd find. Nana would be glowing with happiness, dancing around the kitchen making breakfast while Iemitsu either waited patiently or distracted her repeatedly with literal dancing or any other variety of safe-to-have-the-nine-year-old-walk-in-on behavior. They would have a normal Japanese breakfast today for lack of ingredients, but later Nana would go shopping to get more exotic things to make breakfast from whichever country Iemitsu decided to claim he'd been in.

Tsuna was pretty sure that was part of their ongoing game of chicken, honestly, but she was so not going to get involved in it.

Whenever Tsuna relented and went downstairs, Iemitsu would greet her eagerly and expect her to reciprocate. Nana would quietly expect the same; she loved Iemitsu regardless of his absences, and it seemed she genuinely could not understand that Tsuna didn't feel the same way.

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365footballorg-blog · 6 years

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Non-League Day 2018: Driving diversity, tireless managers... and free gingerbread for fans

Two men championing diversity at grassroots, an interim manager’s weekly 900-mile round trip to his club and gingerbread men sweeteners are among the bite-sized tales that make up Non-League Day 2018 on Saturday.

Scheduled to coincide with an international break, Non-League Day has become a firm part of the football schedule over the past eight years, with clubs showcasing the importance of volunteer-led community football while giving fans across the country the chance to show support for their local non-league side.

Kicking It Out… at all levels of football

For Tajean Hutton, Non-League Day marks a bold new beginning for Kick It Out.

Hutton has recently taken on the role of community manager with the organisation which focuses on equality and inclusion in football.

And, 25 years after Kick It Out was founded, it is the first time they have dedicated staff working at non-league level.

“I’m here to provide consistent support so they realise that Kick It Out doesn’t just deal with the professional game, but deals with football at all levels,” said Hutton, who is involved in a number of initiatives at clubs on Saturday.

“At the moment it is about building trust with grassroots facilitators and participants. I know how it feels to be discriminated against for so long that you turn numb to the feeling and you don’t report it or say anything about it.

“The first thing for me is to use Non-League Day as leverage to spread the message.”

And just how important is that message in 2018?

“This job was created in recognition that even though Kick It Out has been operating for 25 years, a majority of the work has influenced change in the pro game,” said Hutton. “At the grassroots level, the state of the game from a discriminatory standpoint, an equality and inclusion standpoint – you are looking at the game like it was in 1993.

“It is starting all that work again. We need to make sure we make a change at all levels.”

Reaching top was hard work ‘for reasons I’m not happy about’

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Anwar Uddin pushed himself as a player to make it in the game and was determined to change how people viewed British Asians as footballers.

He went on to become the first British Asian to captain a side in English football’s top four divisions.

And now, years after hanging up his boots, he is still energetically at it.

He runs the Fans for Diversity campaign – a joint Football Supporters’ Trust and Kick It Out initiative – and manages Glebe in the Southern Counties East Football League.

A typical week for the 36-year-old started with a meeting at Brighton & Hove Albion on Monday, working with Charlton Athletic on Tuesday before seeing his side lose 2-1 at Corinthians, then on Wednesday he was at Bournemouth followed by a meeting on Thursday at Wembley with the Football Association before overseeing training at Glebe.

On Non-League Day he takes his side to Fisher.

“As a player I had to work hard to reach the top. I literally had to for reasons that I’m really not happy about,” Uddin told BBC Sport. “This is all me. People may look at it as a hobby and job, but this is all part of my pro life – all part of me.

“I had a unique experience growing up, some of the things I’ve seen, heard and witnessed is why I’m doing the job I am now.”

Uddin also became, and remains, the only British Asian to hold a coaching position in the English Football League, having previously been assistant manager at Barnet.

He has also worked with West Ham’s academy in the past and talks about a potential full-time career in management – but he has too much unfinished business to attend to.

“Because I’m passionate about equality and inclusion I chose not to go down that route because I saw that I’ve got more to offer the game on the governance side,” he said.

“If you choose to coach and want to do it properly, you have to be invested in the role. If I did that I thought I’d regret not trying to have an impact on the other side of the game.”

‘Working non-stop to turn it around’

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Pointless in the league after nine matches and looking to avoid a third cup exit in three months, Barnstaple Town currently hold the worst record in the top eight steps of English football.

The Evo-Stik Division One South’s rock bottom side has started the season with 11 consecutive defeats and next face Fleet Town, who are one place and one point better off in the league, in the first round of the FA Vase on Saturday.

Dave Griffiths, who is joint-manager alongside Kevin Darch, sums up their horror run as “frustrating”, but says a combination of bad luck, budget cuts and inexperience is complicating matters somewhat.

“Nothing is running for us whatsoever,” said Griffiths. “A majority of the results against us come down to naivety and silly mistakes, which we will cut out as players get more used to the level.

“Last season we probably overachieved by staying up, to be honest. All those lads started out in the same situation and got better and because of budget cuts we lost way over half of them, with many dropping down the levels to play for more money.”

While a lack of investment means Griffiths and Darch have “an impossible job”, the frugal approach by the north Devon club is one they support.

“What the club has done is spot on – it is not going into debt, which is brilliant,” said Griffiths. “At least people on the committee can sleep at night because there would be chairmen across the country that wouldn’t be.

“Kevin and I are working non-stop to turn it around. We know a few fans are on our back because we are not winning, but the players couldn’t be giving any more than what they are and that is what keeps us going.”

‘I’m not in the right country to be manager’

Elsewhere in Devon, via County Cork, Adam Castle is a big believer in going the extra mile for your club.

In the Buckland Athletic director of football’s case, it is more like 900 miles – the distance of the round trip from his home in Ireland to Newton Abbot where the club is based.

What was supposed to be one Ireland-to-south west England trip every six weeks has become a weekly occurrence for Castle.

Last season, “filling in for one weekend” turned into half a season and ended with a League Cup success. And this season he has reverted back to the marathon commitment after taking interim charge following Craig Duff’s departure as manager.

“If you’ve got a club and you would do anything for your club, and you say that you would do anything for your club, then you have to back that up,” said Castle, who is originally from Devon.

“This is one of those times of need and I’m backing it up. I’ll do anything they need me to do in this interim period until a manger is appointed.”

So what does a typical weekend of managing Buckland Athletic in the Western League demand of Castle?

It involves four hours of driving just to get to and from Dublin Airport to catch a flight to Exeter, with his ‘commute’ starting on Friday night and ending on Sunday.

“It’s not the ideal scenario, but it’s what we need to do,” said Castle. “I’ve got a bond with the people at the club – volunteers, the committee, the staff.

“I see myself involved in Buckland Athletic long-term, and with a more established manager my day-to-day involvement should get smaller because I’m not in the right country.”

Non-League Day debuts

Former Premier League footballers plying their trade either as players, managers or coaches in non-league are sprinkled around the game like star dust.

On Non-League Day, eighth-tier side Wingate & Finchley will have a new management team of ex-England international Nicky Shorey and former Reading, Portsmouth and Burnley winger Glen Little.

Their first league match in charge will be against Leatherhead on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Julian Dicks – who was working on the coaching staff under Slaven Bilic at West Ham in the Premier League a year ago – will be at the helm of Heybridge Swifts for his first home game.

The former Hammers defender got off to a winning start last week, overseeing a 4-3 win over Mildenhall Town in front of 170 spectators.

The day everyone catches a gingerbread man

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You get a gingerbread man, you get a gingerbread man and you get a gingerbread man. Everyone gets a gingerbread man!

If Oprah Winfrey did non-league football, she would be the perfect celebrity to get behind the delicious giveaway at Grantham Town on Saturday.

The club, aptly nicknamed the Gingerbreads because the town is where the biscuit is said to have originated, decided to get creative in an effort to attract larger numbers to the South Kesteven Sports Stadium.

And so the local The Gingerbread Bakery (who else?) have been tasked with dishing up the local treat, which will be given away free to all those who attend their Evo-Stik League match against Lancaster City.

BBC Sport – Football

Non-League Day 2018: Driving diversity, tireless managers… and free gingerbread for fans was originally published on 365 Football

#2018 #diversity #driving #fans #free #gingerbread #Managers #nonleague #tireless

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les-bi-katamari · 6 years

Text

SESSION 12

We pick up right there in the middle of the road. The carriage-driver has taken off - Brianne tells Ghorza her demon book was in it.

Ghorza turns to the soldiers, unarmed, and says, “I hope you can believe that we are not your enemies.” We start talking about the undead in the forest - the soldiers were entirely unaware of them, saying it sounded impossible since ranger captains regularly patrol the forest. We started asking them more about Theris, and tell them the real story, and ask if any of the rangers have gone missing. They suddenly start to remember many, many, many people who have vanished, that they hadn’t been thinking of, how could they not have realized -

Ghorza suddenly remembers the thing Megs had saw, that had stolen their memories of it. When she brings it up, Megs doesn’t really know much, but says that it’s very “out of sight, out of mind.”

While Ghorza tries to comfort them, Apphia and Brianne go to investigate the Purifier’s sword. Apphia managed to pick it up, with no adverse affects aside from getting a faint sense of the violence inherent in it.

Brianne examines the sword more. The Abyssal text is similar to what we’ve seen before; only the gold in the runes is different. Gold is, of course, a metal associated with purity - and Lyrae’s scales and leaves were also gold. It seems to be significantly associated with more powerful monsters. This transformation was also instantaneous, with no prolonged ritual necessary, and produced a much stronger creature. The ritual may have been prepared ahead of time?

Reminder note: one of Galaias’s epithets is ‘the golden-scaled’

Most of the people the soldiers have been talking about are outriders, rangers. Apphia recognizes a couple from her friendship with one of her dad’s guards? Brianne retrieves the fake warrant from the ground; Ghorza talks soldier talk with the remaining elves and invites them back to Vassarein, where their patron might help protect them.

Apphia asks Ghorza to carry the body of the fallen soldier over to her. Since the fire, everything smells like blood and fire and Ghorza… likes it. When she approaches the corpse, broken and bloody, torn by the Knight’s jaws… GOD it smells good. She’s hungry again. She carefully avoids drooling, sets the body down, and backs the hell off. Apphia lets the soldiers say their goodbyes and give last rites before the pyre.

We start discussing plans for getting to Vassarein. The soldiers have two horses; Cadence is a third. That accounts for six riders: we have the three elves, Ghorza, Apphia, Brianne, Megs, and Nemeth. Nemeth (and then Megs) offer to stay and wait for the next carriage.

“Megs says, ‘We’re basically best friends now!’ Nemeth stares at you like she’s on the Office.”

We also decide to leave the sword with Nemeth, since it doesn’t seem magicky any more. She’ll bring it and we’ll have it melted down.

[I, OOC, insist that Ghorza should ride with one of the elves, since that will leave Apphia and Brianne together on Cadence. Plus she’s like bonded with the soldiers and stuff.]

There’s a LONG discussion between Gwen and Megan about which of Brianne and Apphia should be in front, whether animal handling proficiency would be necessary to ‘steer’ Cadence (Lin: “CADENCE IS NOT ACTUALLY A HORSE!”), and land vehicle proficiency (Lin: “yes, she would count as a land vehicle”) before we finally set out.

We get back to Vassarein and track down the carriage pretty easily - it’s more Fantasy Amtrak, it’s a public service, core infrastructure of the Marches thing - and tip him very heavily as we retrieve our stuff. I give the elves some money for a meal, send ‘em to the Orcish Forge and tell them to tell her moms that Ghorza sent them. It’ll be an hour until the next carriage arrives.

While waiting for the tieflings, we read up on demons:

“Bloody-Handed Galaias was once summoned at the behest of a sadistic elven warlord who desired the subjugation of another elven city that had resisted his assaults up until then. Having long nursed his hatred and arcane power from the depths of the Abyss, she answered his call and led an army of elves and demons to reduce his enemies to ruin. Then the Purifying Light tortured the elf to death, trapped his soul, and forced him to watch her devour his family before devouring him as well. Drunk on the blood and terror of her summoner’s former subjects, she was later banished by an alliance of powerful heroes, and the tyrant’s nascent empire collapsed in her wake.”

…Ghorza’s resolve to not give in to Galaias is strengthened because WHAT THE FUCK.

We wonder if this might be the history of Isvanir and Tarjanir, the ruined elven city where the Oneiric Lens was found? It is NOT, according to Apphia; this is something else. That said, it IS kinda similar. “Two is a coincidence, more is a pattern.” Galaias ‘the Feybane’ seems to be targeting elves again, and places linked to the Fey like Azure Glade.

The fall of Tarjanir: it was besieged by the dwarves, and the desperate elves did… something. The dwarves vanished from their mountain halls shortly after - at least, they haven’t been heard from since, and they are presumed dead. The site of Tarjanir is abandoned now, said to be haunted by the ghosts of elves and dwarves, and people Do Not Go There. Tons of refugees from Tarjanir settled in Vassarein, living mostly in slums.

[Various ooc quotes: “Yeah, I’ve plotted Apphia’s family all the way back to the dragon and the dragon-fucker.” “Dragons are too powerful for gender” “True vers / Neutral bangin” “With Ceremony, I could only marry humanoids within 10 feet of me, so we’d be limited to a 25-person marriage.” “Unless… we create new geometries in defiance of the DnD rules…” “Okay so how many wives could we stack into a 10-foot cube?” “Well, a dome is a more stable structure.” “Okay, so for the stability of the WifeDome…” “You know, in the Astral Plane there’s no gravity, so we could make it a complete sphere, maximize the number of wives in the spell’s volume.”]

OKAY BACK TO THE BOOK “Galaias was a giant in life - a Fomorian. She is a patron to them, but is a minor power, despite her immense strength, because the Fomorians were cursed by the Archfey to lose their beauty, their magic, and their minds. There are few Fomorians remaining who have the mental capacity remaining to understand Galaias, let alone worship her. Thus she reaches out to the lesser races.”

The next carriage arrives after an hour with the Tieflings - Megs is riding on top, sprawled and clinging to a luggage rack. We hear laughter from inside - a older gentlewoman in fine clothes, middle merchant class, is blushing and saying “Oh, you’re TERRIBLE!” Nemeth says, “Oh, you have no idea yet how terrible I can be. I’ll see you again.” She flirts a lot more as the woman leaves. Ghorza gives Nemeth a high-five.

It becomes apparent that no one else remembered that The Orcish Forge is a bakery, so we just stash the sword there for now, and do not melt it down in the bread ovens.

Megs suggests that she could probably sneak in, like, you know, she could. Apphia says her plan is to Alter Self into a specific maid, get to Ivandra, and get her to bring Silenne with her. Megs says “okay, well, I was just saying I could. I don’t have to or anything. I’ll just go try to swipe some food-” “Did you literally just tell me you’re planning to go steal from my parents.” “NO, I’m not going to steal from them! Just like see if they would give-” “You said swipe!” “I just meant, like, they might give me some, cause we’re friends now!” It was beautiful. Lin plays Megs REALLY well.

We head off - the rest of us are going to go into the castle too, but try to hide in the conservatory to ambush not-Silenne. Apphia will get a head start.

[She heads up first - the servants’ entrance is unlocked. She enters, holding a cloth bundle that is actually her cloak. She heads up to Ivandra’s room - it appears to be just the two of them. Ivandra looks exhausted, her chambers disorganized. Apphia’s plan goes off without a hitch and she heads on down to meet us.]

The rest of us just kinda headed on up to the servant’s entrance and didn’t know what to do. We don’t know the way to the conservatory. We decide to just walk in and act like we’re supposed to be there. Ghorza absolutely talks chummily to the chefs and offers to help them out, and there’s no problem. I chat with them a bit. Apphia comes to fetch us and we go to hide in the Solarium, waiting for Ivandra to bring not-Silenne. It’s empty and beautiful. We all take up positions.

Megs tries to hide behind a flower arrangement and Ghorza herds her back to the wall. M: “I totally had it under control, and it was fine, and you just had to cramp my style-” G:“Yeah, I hate fun.” M: “You kinda do?” G: “Sorry. I’ll make it up to you, okay?” A: “Please keep quiet!”

As not-Silenne walks in and the doors shut, Apphia immediately charms her. We start investigating and discover Silenne is alive, locked in a cupboard in her room. We convince her Ivandra is on the cult’s side now to keep her talking, making allusions to killing off Aren.

Spy: “Well, he is busy - facing the Hordes of Ardazhan alone - if I was facing them down alone I’d be worried”

Uhhhh. We press for more, what the fuck?

Spy: “Whole lot of nasty characters went dormant after a failed conquest of this region. And now… they’re waking up. Dwarves, from the north. They’ve fallen to demons. You know. Aron’s gone up with soldiers to try and stem the tide. He’s hoping Isvanir will send help, but I think we both know it won’t be coming! Soon Cyric will have what he wants.”

G: “…and what does our God want, again?”

Spy: “Heh, you should ask this one [Ivandra]. It wasn’t too long ago you were playing for the other team.”

I: “No more! No more talk! We need to stop her, now!”

And it’s a fight, as a teal-green light builds up in Ivandra’s hands and she hurls a spell at the spy. “Silenne” flickers, and the illusion drops, revealing a gaunt woman with messy brown hair and a twisted scar across her cheek and jaw, dressed in studded leather armor. We drop her EXTREMELY fast, nonlethally. Ivandra says, “What are you doing?! Finish her!” but we talk her down. Ivandra rushes off to find the real Silenne, and we loot and tie up the spy.

She had some standard armor and shortsword, as well as thieves’ tools and a poisoner’s kit. We decide to keep the tools as a spare (Ghorza will carry them). Then there’s this exchange.

Ghorza: “Is Megs gonna take the poisoner’s kit?” Megs: “Uh, NO? Why would you think I would want that?” G: “Um, sorry, I just - you pick locks and stuff-” M: “That doesn’t mean I KILL PEOPLE! … I mean, I do, but like, it’s not one of my favorite pastimes or anything! I don’t go looking for new fancy ways of killing people! Arrow does just fine.” G: “Yeah. Sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed.” M: “Tell you what. Bake me something good, and we’ll call it even.” G: “Deal”. Megs raises her hand. Imp: “Ok, Ghorza goes in for a- wait was Megs going for a fist bump or a handshake? (Handshake.) Okay, Ghorza goes in for a fist bump, but then switches to-” “Megs also switches.” They sorta give up. (beat) Brianne: “So if noone else wants it, I’ll take the poisoner’s kit!”

We tie up the unconscious spy and mull over the new revelations.

End session.

#recap #day 5

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metawitches · 7 years

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The opening scene of this episode might be one of the best scenes of the entire series. Secretary Hayes and his wife are jogging through the woods when he gets a phone call. As he takes the call, he stops to sit on a wall overlooking a steep drop down to a bay. He’s boasting about pushing a pipeline through despite ethical and environmental objections. When Hayes hangs up the phone, he complains that he’s sweating, and that the exercise is going to kill him. Mrs. Hayes pulls a towel out of her waist pack that’s way too big for the size of the pack (traveler magic? 😉 probably an extremely tight fold) and replies, “Oh, honey, don’t be silly. That isn’t going to be what kills you.” Hayes looks confused as she shoves him off the wall, down the steep drop, to his death. She looks around to double-check that she wasn’t observed, then starts crying and calling for help. Well-played, Mrs. Hayes, well-played. Who of us hasn’t had that fanyasy about someone?

Cut to Marcy and David enjoying a cup of relaxing, snobby, organic morning coffee. They are in Seattle, after all. The sexual tension has finally gotten to David, so he asks Marcy to find her own place. But he feels really, really terrible about it. Marcy must have lost her subsidized apartment when Ken found out the truth about her, because she had her own place when we met her.

Baby daddy Jeff is continuing his hobby of harassing travelers. This morning it’s McLaren’s turn. Jeff shows up at the FBI office to warn McLaren off his woman. The guy’s got some balls for a beat cop. Aren’t law enforcement agencies a bit territorial, and prone to pulling rank on each other? Showing up on McLaren’s home turf is nervy, either way. Next he’ll go straight to peeing on Carly to mark his territory. Great guy.

Carly is at a landscaping center for a job interview. She gets the job and is told to report for work the next morning. The CPS case worker must have come through for her. It’s good that Carly has someone in her corner besides the team, who aren’t allowed to do much for her. When Carly arrives at work the next day, her job offer is rescinded. The boss did a background check and discovered that Jeff filed charges against her for assaulting a police officer. He has a strange way of showing affection. That’s not the way you win a woman back where I come from, but, of course, he wants power and control, not a true relationship. What’s really sick is how often this story plays out in real life, and how difficult it is for the women to find people who believe them. Women are considered less trustworthy than men, from Adam and Eve to Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton.

Trevor’s dad sits him down for a serious talk. Trevor’s school issues have worsened, so his parents have decided to send Trevor to a military boarding school in Idaho. Maybe they should try talking to him like a human being occasionally, that always worked with my kids. Or maybe it’s time for Trevor to look into becoming an emancipated minor, since military boarding school would significantly affect his ability to participate in missions. Shouldn’t the director help him out with this situation?

The director’s busy micromanaging McLaren this episode, instead. He finds a mysterious package in his car, which I was sure was a bomb or something from Jeff (my paranoia keeps me alive, okay?), but I was wrong. It’s a black case the size of a paperback book that’s sealed up so tight that none of Philip’s high tech attempts to figure out what’s inside are successful. No intel for you, McLaren, you’re being punished for all of that improvisation. The package comes with a note to keep the case with him at all times. Later, as McLaren is driving through the city, Mrs Hayes, who turns out to be traveler 3112, remotely unlocks his car doors and gets in. She’s there to brief him on his mission. He has a flight to catch that afternoon, where he’ll be seated next to his target, Congressman Bishop. The case will open mid-flight, at which point McLaren will be made aware of its purpose. McLaren drops her off at Secretary Hayes’ funeral. The director is playing with US politics.

Jeff continues his life-ruining spree by going to McLaren’s HOUSE, and telling Kathryn about Carly and McLaren’s affair. He embellishes the facts to make it look worse than it is (in this time period). He’s all charm and sincerity, so of course she believes him when he confirms her suspicions. When Kathryn calls her husband and discovers he’s taking a last minute flight, she assumes it’s because of his affair. She hops on the flight herself, because she’s forgotten he’s an FBI agent, lost all self-respect, and given over her life to stalking her cheating husband. As one does when one is a mature professional woman with a life of one’s own. Be that as it may, she’s on the plane to give McLaren a good reason to screw up the director’s plan when the plane gets into trouble.

McLaren is nervous about flying, but gets on the flight anyway. Bishop sits next to him, having come straight from Hayes’ funeral. Bishop is talking on the phone about the pipeline bill, and says that Hayes’ death shouldn’t affect it.

Moment of respect for everything flight attendants have to put up with.

Marcy slept at headquarters after David asked her to find somewhere else to stay. Philip has taken over doing her spinal taps, but his hands are shaky since he’s trying to stay off the heroin again. He’s continued going to support groups with Ray. Philip apologizes to her for not helping her with her medical condition more. She says that David’s been helping her draw the Cerebral Spinal Fluid she needs to make the serum she’s using to buy herself some time. She goes back to David’s later to pick up her things, and he feels so bad about making her leave that he starts trying to give her his stuff, too. He says he feels like he’s dying inside, he misses her so much already. She responds by telling him she’s literally dying. The seizures are a symptom of a larger illness, which the show still won’t identify. Whatever it is, Marcy has a relatively short, but unspecified, amount of time. David gets upset that she was going to leave without telling him. They finally kiss for real. Marcy gets the message that McLaren is in trouble mid-kiss. Nice timing, Philip and director.

Trevor and his father finally have a talk where they connect as people. Gary has noticed that Trevor doesn’t look up to him the same way since he stopped playing football. Trevor points out that Gary has treated him pretty badly as well. They come to some kind of understanding and agree to watch golf together later that day. Trevor is about to sit down to watch when he gets the message to come to headquarters. That’s not going to go over well.

Carly confronts Jeff outside of the police station. He keeps his cool and reminds her of all of the times she’s supposedly assaulted him, while everyone knows he’s a good family man. She tells him how original Carly was meant to die the night traveler Carly took over. He tells her she’s crazy and needs help. She replies that what she needs is a job, but he’s made it impossible for her to get one. She comes back with Jeff Jr a while later and hands the baby to baby daddy Jeff. She tells him that if he wants to make things right, he can start by spending time with his son while she goes on job interviews. She’ll just have to tell the truth about the assault allegations up front. She talks as if Jeff never spends time with his son, but we were told multiple times, early in the season, that the baby was with his father for the day or overnight. Are they retconning this? Or did the writers make a mistake?

Carly goes to headquarters instead to get help, since she hasn’t been able to raise McLaren on the phone. When she looks up his flight number to see what time it will land, Philip realizes that the flight will crash and everyone on board is meant to die. He calls the team in and they chase the flight in the van so that they will be there to offer whatever assistance they can after the crash. McLaren is out of com range for the moment.

The plane runs into trouble, as expected. There’s heavy turbulence and lithium batteries catch fire in the cargo hold. The black case opens at nearly the last moment. Philip explains that it’s a two person stasis field designed to protect McLaren and Bishop from the crash, then throw them clear on the ground. McLaren asks the team to come up with a way to save Kathryn too, since she wasn’t supposed to be on the plane. The stasis field can’t be modified, but the tail section survived the crash, so McLaren puts Kathryn in stasis and climbs into the tail section. The flight attendant relays a message from the director, who tells him to stay on mission. The director wants McLaren to survive, and doesn’t care about Kathryn. Or maybe they want to get rid of Kathryn, since she’s a distraction.

The plane crashes in a spectacular show of special effects. Bishop and Kathryn survive, but Bishop is immediately taken over by a traveler, who says he expected to be met by EMTs. Kathryn looks on as the travelers introduce themselves. McLaren is rescued by the team of EMTs as the episode ends.

Observations:

-Goading Kathryn into taking the flight would have been a good way to distract McLaren from completing his mission, if that was Jeff’s mission. So would continuously harassing Carly, so that McLaren missed his flight while he was trying to help her. I realize I’m probably wrong about Jeff, but, what the heck, doesn’t hurt to notice these coincidences. Jeff is overly committed to harassing not just Carly, but also Marly, David, and McLaren. Even Philip got a parking ticket, which could be enough to get a heroin addict who has an arrest record, but no license, and who’s been flagged by the FBI, in trouble.

-The only one Jeff’s left alone is Trevor, the potential inside man for the opposition, and potentially the most valuable member of the team. Is that really a coincidence? Trevor seems so good, almost pure and innocent, but he’s also very old and has strong values. We know very little about him or his history. I desperately want some back story episodes where we learn more about the team’s past in the future, and the history and culture of the future in general. At least give us more insight into the director and the traveler program.

-Both Bishop and Hayes were working on pushing through this pipeline before they were killed. In the original timeline, Secretary Hayes lived and Bishop died. Now, Hayes is dead, meaning a new secretary will be appointed (we aren’t told what he was secretary of, likely the interior or the department of energy). Bishop is alive, but controlled by a traveler. Presumably that pipeline led to an environmental disaster in the future, and encouraged the continued use of fossil fuels long after cleaner fuel sources were available. So, the director is taking steps to make sure it’s never built this time around, avoiding the environmental degradation that goes along with fracking, oil spills, fossil fuel emissions, drilling for oil and running pipelines through unspoiled habitats and on native lands.

-The EMTS got to McLaren very quickly, as quickly as the team got to Bishop and Kathryn, which means the director knew where he was and wanted him saved. The EMTs didn’t go to Bishop, the director trusted the team with him, even though the team hadn’t been told to join the mission. The director must have known that once McLaren made the decision to help Kathryn, two emergency teams would be needed, and trusted Marcy to handle Bishop’s more minor needs. Despite all of the admonitions they get against improvising, the director is actually okay with it in the end. There weren’t bodies throwing themselves in front of McLaren to stop him from saving Kathryn, or even multiple messages from dying passengers. Just one message for form’s sake, and otherwise the team was allowed to do as they pleased.

Travelers Protocols:

Protocol 1: The mission comes first.

Protocol 2: Leave the future in the past. Don’t jeopardize your cover.

Protocol 3: Don’t take a life. Don’t save a life. Unless otherwise directed.

Protocol 4: Do not reproduce.

Protocol 5: In the absence of direction, resume your host’s life.

Protocol 6: Traveler teams should stay apart unless instructed otherwise.

Traveler numbers:

McLaren-3468 Marcy-3569 Trevor-o115 Phillip-3326 Carly-3465

Travelers Season 1 Episode 9: Bishop Recap The opening scene of this episode might be one of the best scenes of the entire series.

#brad wright #eric mccormack #metacrone #netflix #recap #science fiction #travelers

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