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coepiteamare · 3 years

Text

you have (1) new voicemail

pairing: jimin x reader (though what their relationship is is unclear) genre: mystery, angst (? as always), fluff (like a wee bit), epistolary fic! warning: mentions of a ballet accident (nothing detailed, just that something happened), jimin is missing, implied!depression beta reader: hana! @cutechim this story would not have happened without you and i absolutely adore you. also thank you to noor @papillonsgf because you were the first person i talked to about this story and uhhhhh well let’s just say this story may be different than what you were expecting word count: 4.9k (this used to be drabble series lmao)

things you said series: things you said through the phone summary: “Hi, Jimin. It’s me.” (alt. you leave voicemails for jimin when taehyung asks you if you’ve heard from him recently.)

A/N: this is all dialogue, which is ironic—to say the least—because i find dialogue painfully difficult to write (it doesn’t come naturally to me, it conflicts with my writing style, and it’s just difficult to write it in a way that feels real.) nonetheless, i hope it comes across the way i wanted it to, and i hope it makes you feel something.

December 5th at 14:30

Hi, Jimin. It’s me.

I know we haven’t talked in a while, but-uhm-I saw Taehyung a couple days ago? I happened to be near where that cafe is—what’s it called—Moodspresso! Do you remember it? We wanted to go when it was new, back when you were taking that coffee-making class with Yoongi. You were such a dork: you wanted to go all around the city to judge cafes by their espressos, even though you weren’t a fan of the bitterness.

We never did get around to trying it together: I think we tried to make plans, but it was out of the way of where we were, and then life happened, and then, well...it happened.

When I saw it, it felt strange, as if a fragment of my past found its way into my present? It was kind of funny how I went in there thinking about you, only to see Taehyung. Weirdly fitting, considering how the two of you were always together, joined at the hip in college.

Anyway, he asked me if I had heard from you recently? Told me you haven’t texted him in a while, that you weren’t answering your phone, so I just wanted to check in! You know, say hi! I—uhm—tried to text you, but it wouldn’t deliver, so I figured I would just leave a voice message. I hope that’s okay. I hope you’re doing okay. If you hear this, you should probably text Taehyung; it seems like he’s worried. Said you usually respond within the day, but you haven’t been lately.

I-uhm-hope you’re doing okay. Text me back and let me know?

Bye, Jimin.

*beep*

December 12th at 15:21

Uh, hey Jimin. I didn’t hear from you, so I thought I would check back in.

I saw on facebook that Jeongguk’s dating. Isn’t that strange? I mean, it’s not strange that he’s dating; it’s just strange that it’s Jeongguk who’s dating. You know, our Jeonggukkie, the one who could barely talk to his crushes without getting tongue tied.

It seems like not too long ago he was the scrawny high schooler stressing about college applications, but he’s dating now. We used to help him with his personal statements and here he is. Dating. That’s just—wow. Time flies, I guess.

I don’t know if you’ve kept in touch with him lately, so i just wanted to let you know. You know, in case you didn’t see it.

I-

This is so stupid; I’m so sorry.

Uhm, let me know if you get this?

Bye, Jimin.

*beep*

December 14th at 19:42

I went to the bookstore today and I saw that your favourite manga released its final volume. That’s so...wild.

I remember you were reading it when I first met you in high school and to think that it’s over? That’s like Supernatural coming to an end, you know? Something that has gone on for so long that it feels weird that it’s ending. That it’s no longer a part of our lives that grows with us. It’s something that has an ending.

Speaking of endings, I don’t know if you’ve seen the ending of Supernatural, but don’t do it. It just-wow.

Anyways, I haven’t kept up with the manga, but when I saw that they released the final volume, I felt the need to buy it? I went in to buy something else and came out with all of the volumes that I hadn’t read.

I could have just read them online, I know, but I figured, if I see you again, I'd give you the final volume? Unless you already have it. Then I’d just keep it, but...you know. I just-

It made me think of you. How you transferred in late in the school year with crutches, and even though you were new, you weren’t paying attention in math class. I remember my first impression of you being “he must not care about school.” I think I later learned you had just started reading the manga a couple days ago and wanted to catch up because you couldn’t think about anything else.

It didn’t even matter that you didn’t pay attention that week or that you came in mid-school semester because you aced every class. I thought it was because you were smart without trying, which irked me because I always felt like I was trying and not accomplishing—though I suppose that still applies now—but I later learned how much effort you put in. You always tried so hard that you made things seem easy. School work. Your happiness. Your feelings to a certain extent.

I just-

I wish-

Nevermind.

I hope you’re doing okay.

*beep*

December 17th at 13:21.

Hey, Jimin.

I tried to make pasta today, and I don’t know how, but I managed to get the sauce everywhere. Everywhere but in the pan. So now, my kitchen looks like a bloody crime scene with red everywhere. I don’t even know how I’m going to clean all of this up, but I should do it before it dries, right?

I should, but I’ve just been sitting on the floor looking at it for the past few minutes.

Do you remember when we made pasta for our fakesgiving potluck at your place, and I got sauce all over your shirt?

I was wearing your white shirt—why I thought wearing a white shirt while making red sauce was a good idea, I don’t know—and I was trying to get the jar to open, but it wouldn’t work. I don’t think i’ve ever told you about this, but I remember that day was particularly awful for me. Just one unlucky event after another—I don’t quite remember what exactly they were, just that they were enough to make me feel like I wasn’t enough—and even though I was so excited for the fakesgiving potluck the night prior, even though I loved our friends, I just wanted to be alone. To not do anything and settle under the covers. Pretend everything could be forgotten if I just went to sleep.

But I saw you, and you were so excited. I didn’t have the heart to tell you I didn't want to go, so I sucked it up and helped you prep. I tried to pretend that everything was okay, but when that stupid jar wouldn’t open, I took my frustration out on it. You tried to take it from me, but I pushed you away, told you I could do it.

And I did, only I also managed to spill the jar on your white shirt as I watched the jar fall to the ground and shatter. That spill was the tipping point, not because I spilled the only jar of tomato sauce in your apartment, but because I spilled it all over your new, brand name, white shirt.

I remember berating you for spending so much money on a shirt when you bought it—for fuck’s sake, it was a plain white shirt—but I know how much you adored it. I didn’t need to look at your face to know that I had fucked up, that I should have just let you open the jar instead of being stubborn. I started to cry, in anticipation of your anger, but you just held me instead, got pasta sauce on your shirt too as you let me cry on your shoulder, whispering “There, there. It’s okay. We can just make something else!”

You never even mentioned the white shirt, told me not to worry about it when I apologised, that it was the least of your concerns. That you could get another shirt.

Looking at my kitchen reminded me of that. So, I figured I’d give you another call, but it went straight to voicemail again.

I hope you’re doing okay.

I don’t know if you want to talk to me, but I’m just worried.

Call me if you get this?

Or just send me a text.

Bye, Jimin.

*beep*

December 19th at 21:45.

Hey. There’s a full moon today. And I thought about you.

I—uhm—think about you from time to time when the moon is bright. I don’t know why—it probably sounds stupid—but I have a lot of memories of you and the moon? Like that time we went to visit Jeongguk by the sea during winter break because all of us didn’t want to go home but didn’t want to be alone. So we made a road trip of it—well, it was kind of a road trip—and drove to San Diego to see him.

When we got to the sea, it was dark and so cold out, and the wind was fucking freezing, but we rolled up our pants and started walking along the shore, dipping our toes in the water and screaming about the temperature. Our teeth were chattering and the water was so so cold, but we did it anyways.

It was a nice beach, from what I remember. One of the nicest I’ve ever seen.

I stuck my hand into your jacket pocket and told you my hand warmer was dying, but to be honest, I just wanted to hold your hand. I think you knew, or maybe we had known each other for so long that you knew what I needed without having to express it in words, so you took my hand and held it tight. And even though the water was freezing and the wind was cold, in that moment, I felt so warm.

I think you and I have always communicated well, like how I saw the way your eyes glinted in the moonlight and, somehow, knew what you wanted to do. Sneaked up behind him and pushed Jeongguk into the ocean together and laughed as he shrieked.

It was fun, that day. I-

I miss those days sometimes. The earlier days. When there was less to worry about.

When you were happier.

Anyway, the moon is really bright today. The radio called it a supermoon, or something like that. I took a picture and tried to send it to you, but your phone still won’t let me send you messages. So if you hear this, just, go outside and take a look at the night sky.

Call me back? Or send me a text.

I just want to know you’re okay.

Bye Jimin.

*beep*

December 21st at 16:28

I went to see The Nutcracker today. It felt like I haven’t seen a ballet in forever. It’s been—what—one year since I saw one? Which, I guess, in the grand scheme of things hasn’t been that long. But you were the one who would take me and I haven’t seen one since...yeah. I know it’s your favourite ballet. Or was. I’m not sure if it’s changed, haha.

The American Ballet Theatre was putting on a performance, and there were still nosebleed seats available, so I bought one. It kind of felt like fate, like it was a sign that I was meant to be there, because I remember we used to get our tickets months in advance.

I remembered some of the terms? I recognised the pa-pas de deux—god, my high school french is so fucking rusty—between the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Prince. I know that part is your favourite, but I still think “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” is mine. All those turns? I don’t remember the technicalities, but I know it requires a lot of skill to pull off while looking graceful. I still find it strange that the Sugar Plum Fairy is the prima ballerina though, considering she barely appears.

I-uhm-kind of was hoping to see you.

I know you don’t dance anymore, but—maybe it was just my stupid desire but—I was hoping that you would be dancing with the company. That perhaps you were dancing again and that was why you weren’t answering any of the calls. I kept looking at everyone, trying to see if it was you. I even paid extra attention to the curtain call and looked at every single person, kept trying to find your physique in the line. But you weren’t there.

You weren’t in the audience either. I stayed in my seat until the very end, until after the end, and scanned the crowd for anyone who was lingering and soaking in the energy, like you would do every time we went to see a ballet together. But there wasn’t. It was just me.

I stayed in my seat anyways, until the ushers told me I had to leave. Because that’s what you would have done.

I guess I was hoping you would show up. That trying to do what you would do would somehow unlock your presence. Or give me some kind of clue.

But it didn’t.

Where are you?

*beep*

December 23rd at 17:19.

I saw Taehyung again today.

He wanted to know if I'd heard from you. I don’t know why he thought you would contact me. I mean, I know I call you and leave you these messages, but you know. I haven’t talked to you since...since, yeah.

He looked awful, like he’s running himself thin. I don’t know if he’s been sleeping well, Jimin. The two of you have been friends forever, and I don't know if you’d recognise him. He seems so tired, and his smile doesn’t reach his eyes.

He thought it was going to be like last time. That you would show up soon. But you haven’t yet, and it’s been so long, Jimin.

He called the hospital and they told him you quit a few weeks back, which I don’t understand. I thought you needed residency to get your physiotherapy license. Tae doesn’t get it either.

He’s been going to your apartment, trying to see if anyone is in there. But there hasn’t been. He’s contacted your apartment manager several times, telling them he’s worried about you, but they won’t let him have the keys. Safety reasons. It’s understandable and frustrating all at once because he—we just want to make sure you’re okay.

He said he used to have a key to your apartment. Said you gave him your spare, but you took it back? Something about you needing your spare because you locked yourself out. He said that was the last time he saw you.

I’m not trying to jump to conclusions, but you’re okay right? I know this time of year is when—uhm, the accident happened and you-uh-left the Royal Ballet School. I know this isn’t your favourite time of year, but if you need to talk, I’m here.

He’s worried, Jimin. We all are.

Call me back? Or call Tae? We’re just worried and Tae wants to file for a missing person’s report. So just, let us know you’re okay.

Call me soon, yeah?

*beep*

December 27th at 22:48.

I saw Yoongi today.

I don’t think he likes me very much, but then again, I wouldn’t like my cousin’s ex either, so I can’t really blame him. He was still as civil as ever. Very polite. He and Seokjin are still dating, but I’m sure you knew that.

Tae had contacted Yoongi a couple days ago? Asking about you. So we all met up in person today.

I forgot how much food Seokjin makes when he’s stressed. Do you remember when he was waiting to hear back from his job, and Yoongi invited us over for dinner? We were excited because we were college students and living off of the shitty cafeteria food and, also, because it was Seokjin’s food. You thought it was because they wanted to feed us—Seokjin always wanted to feed you—but when we went over, it was obvious they just needed help getting rid of the food. There was so much food. To this day, I don’t think I've ever seen so much food in one place, even during our potlucks, and Seokjin always brought a lot of food to our potlucks.

I remember stepping in to their apartment, and the heat radiating from the kitchen was too much to bear. The walls were sweating because he had been cooking for seven hours, trying to displace his anxiety into food. We came back to the dorms with tupperwares full of food. I didn’t have to visit the cafeteria for a week.

God, I’ll never forget the first time we met Seokjin, and he made us fried rice: you couldn’t stuff your face fast enough and choked because it went down the wrong pipe, coughed out fried rice all over their brand new dining table and all over Yoongi. Seokjin and I laughed so hard. I was trying to be polite, kept looking at Yoongi's face and tried to swallow my giggles, but Seokjin's laughter was so boisterous and lively that I couldn't not laugh.

You laughed too, kept choking on your laughter in between your apologies, and Yoongi just kept glowering at you. But it was full of affection. He didn’t say anything. Just looked at you and back at the table and huffed, but it would have been obvious to anyone that he wasn’t really annoyed with you.

He went back to our hometown a couple days ago, tried to see if you were there. But you weren’t.

He went to see your parents, but they still think you’re living here too. Yoongi said he went to all the places you used to go to, like your old ballet school and that comic book store you used to go to after school. I even asked him to visit the arcade. You know, where we first met outside of school? Where we would hang out after school with Jeongguk and spend too much money on House of the Dead. Where we had our first date.

But nothing.

There are traces of you everywhere, but you? You’re not anywhere.

Where’d you go, Jimin?

*beep*

December 28th at 2:19

Fuck you.

You don’t get to do this to me. I spent so long trying to forget and trying to move on and you come back in, except—do you know what the most fucked up part of this is? It’s that you’re not even here. You’re not here, and somehow you’re everywhere. No matter what I do, all I can do is think about you because no one knows where you are. Everyone is worried because you’re missing and I-I don’t know what to do.

I thought this was over a year ago.

So why, why are you back in my life? Why are you reawakening the things I've tried so hard to bury?

Fuck you.

*beep*

December 28th at 2:23

Hey Jimin. Just ignore that previous voicemail. I’m just--I’m just frustrated. Worried. Everyone is.

Just call me back if you get this?

*beep*

December 28th at 2:25

You don’t even need to call. Just give me a sign? Let me know you’re okay. Please.

I just want to know you’re safe.

*beep*

December 30th at 1:13

Jeongguk flew in from New York today. Tae called him yesterday, and he took the first flight here.

I realised I’ve never seen Jeongguk mad.

I guess I’ve kind of seen him grow up, but I’ve never seen Jeongguk angry until today. I mean, I've seen him upset and angry, but I’ve never seen him mad. Like mad mad. I’ve never been on the receiving end of it because he’s always had his emotions in check when it comes to the negative ones. We’ve seen him sad, but you know how he is. He seems like he doesn’t care, but he cares so much when it comes to the people he loves. He’s always trying to only share the good things because he doesn’t want to bring everyone down. And even when he’s upset with us, he tries to communicate. He’s always been emotionally mature in that sense.

A lot like you. I think he gets that from you. You are his brother after all.

But when we told him none of us had heard from you? That you were missing?

I realised we’ve ever really seen Jeongguk angry.

I’ve never seen Tae look so despondent or Yoongi so guilty than when we saw Jeongguk at the airport. They didn’t want to worry him because he had just moved for his new job—I’m sure you know about that—and he’s been so stressed out that they didn’t want to add more on to his plate.

They thought you would show up by now, that you would come back. Because you always do. Or did. You used to.

I remember the first time you disappeared. It was a year after you came back, the anniversary of the...the accident. You were a little distant a couple days prior, but still you. Still vibrant and happy and beau-I mean, bright. And then on the day of, you were just gone. Didn’t show up to school. Weren’t at the arcade. Weren’t at your apartment. Just gone. Vanished into thin air.

I remember asking Jeongguk if you were sick, but he had no idea what I was talking about, and when we couldn’t get a hold of you, he burst into tears. I held him as he told me about your fight last night, how you got your xbox taken away because the two of you didn’t know how to share. He thought you had left because you didn’t love him, because he was your step brother and not your real brother.

And as we were panicking about what to do, if we should tell your parents when they came back from work, you stepped through the front door with sand in your hair and your backpack over your shoulder, smiling as if you hadn’t been missing for half the day. As if your phone wasn’t turned off all day.

I remember feeling relieved and exhausted all at once, as if someone had drained all the worry and energy out of me. I remember Jeongguk crying as he ran to hug you. I remember you crying and promising not to go anywhere without telling him again.

And you didn’t. Sometimes you would disappear when something hit too close or when you felt like everything was too much, but we could always turn to Jeongguk for a breadcrumb, for the small hint that you were okay.

But you didn’t leave him a hint this time. When we called him, let him know you were missing, asked him if he knew anything about your whereabouts, he didn’t say anything. He went so quiet, we thought the line went dead, until he actually did hang up. He sent us a text message a few minutes later, letting us know he’ll be arriving on the next flight there.

Jeongguk-he’s so cold when he’s angry. He’s so quiet. But that quiet is so loud. It speaks volumes.

I’ve seen Jeongguk loud with laughter and quiet in contemplation. But this? This was something different.

I guess the two of you are alike in that sense too. Both of your silences are never just quiet.

*beep*

December 30th at 15:37

So we-uhm-broke into your apartment.

Or well, Jeongguk did. But I guess all of us are accomplices because we kind of-well, we stood there as he did it. I don’t know why Jeongguk even knows how to pick locks, but I didn’t really have the chance to ask.

Your apartment looks normal. Still spotless. It looks like you. Like how it used to. Or how it used to before we lived together, at least.

I’m not going to lie, I-I’m a little surprised you didn’t move out. I couldn’t even go to the places we used to go to after you told me you wanted to break up.

I guess it didn’t bother you as much.

We scoured your apartment for clues as to where you could have gone, which may sound very Paper Towns of us, but—I don’t know—we were just looking for any sign as to where you might be. If you were okay. There weren’t any notes or anything that could give us a hint though, and Tae said it doesn’t look any different than when he last visited.

Jeongguk also called your credit card company to see what your last purchases were. To see if it would give us any clues. But you haven’t used it since you left. Everything is just blank.

Blank. Like you don’t want to be found.

Jeongguk is still upset that none of us told him—I can’t blame him for that—but I think he’s mostly upset at himself that he didn’t know. That you two stopped talking for a bit, and he didn’t notice anything was wrong.

I think he feels like he’s been drifting away from you too, ever since his job got busy and he moved for work. Or maybe it’s before that. I think he’s always felt like you don’t tell him everything, even though he pours everything out to you, looks up to you. I know you’d give him the world, Jimin, but Jeongguk would give up everything for you if you ask.

But you don’t ask. You never do. You don’t let people in when you’re hurting. Maybe it’s the ballet training instilled in you to smile through the pain. Cover up the flaws. Put on a performance all the time. You pretend it doesn’t exist and push people out.

No, you just disappear instead.

*beep*

December 30th at 21:02

Tae and I are staying over at your apartment. I hope you don’t mind. We just decided we would rather not risk having anyone in your apartment see us try and break down your door and call the police on us, haha. It makes it easier if we’re in your apartment so we can open the door in case we need anything. Or find something that we missed.

It’s-uhm. It’s weird being here. Feels like I've been displaced from the present and back into the past, only you’re not here.

I noticed you took down all the photos of London.You used to have that big photograph wall next to your bed, filled with pictures from when you lived there, from when you used to dance. But all your ballet photos are gone too. Tae told me you took them down a while ago, a little after the break up. Said you stopped dancing for fun too, after a while.

I just-

I hope-

Ah, fuck it. Nevermind.

It’s so weird to be back here.

*beep*

December 30th at 22:14

I found my sweater under your pillow. The white one with the moon on it?

I thought I had lost it after we broke up. I wanted to ask you if you had it, if i forgot to take it with me when I moved out, but by then we had already been one month in and-

And it hurt. To think about you. Even though that was all I was doing.

It kind of felt like it does right now. How you permeate my every thought and every moment, even though you weren’t there. The quiet was-is-so loud with your absence.

It smells like you. The sweater.

I just-

I don’t know what that means.

I don’t know what any of this means.

I just don’t understand why my sweater would be under your pillow because it was you. You’re the one who told me you wanted to break up.

You told me you didn’t want to do this anymore, didn’t have the energy to try. You were so sad, and I wanted to argue, wanted to beg you to let me stay until you were better, but you were so sad. So sad and exhausted and defeated and certain in your decision that I knew there was no use fighting it.

How could I hold on to someone who’s not there anymore, right?

I’ve been telling myself that we can’t understand break ups or feelings. There’s no understanding them. We feel what we feel and sometimes there are no explanations for it. So I knew. I got it. I understood there was no point in asking to stay, but I regretted not asking you for a reason.

I still do.

I didn’t have the chance to ask you why because I was too busy staggering from the weight of I don't love you anymore. Too busy struggling to piece together what those words mean.

Love is a two way street; it goes both ways. But you made the decision, and all of a sudden, that two way street morphed into a dead end, and I had no choice but to walk away from it, back out the way I came from.

I wish I could say that I didn’t see it coming. That it came out of left field, out of the blue. But I can’t because I had been bracing myself for the impact for weeks. For months.

Would it have changed things if I hadn’t known? Would it have hurt less?

I don’t know.

I don’t know. But I wish I did.

I wish I knew, Jimin.

*beep*

Message deleted. You have no new voicemails. Main menu.

A/N: come talk to me! let me know your thoughts! once again, thank you to hana and noor. this story wouldn’t exist without the two of you.

#jimin fanfic #jimin x reader #jimin x oc #jimin fic #jimin angst #bts fic #jimin scenario #bts scenario #bts imagine #jimin imagine #bangtanuniversity #thebtswritersclub #btswritingcafe #heartsforbts

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cosmicpines · 3 years

Text

code july day 1 - future

au where jeremie's anti-xana program didn't work, taking place half a year after.

“Do’ya think we should start future-proofing our whole situation?” Odd was the first one to speak out loud in at least a half an hour, his voice echoing around the computer lab.

It was late. Not just “it’s a school night, we should turn off the Playstation” late, but “sunrise is in an hour” late. Ulrich, Jeremie, and Aelita were crowded on the couch – a fairly new addition to the lab that William and Odd had dragged over a mile to the factory after finding it on the street, a several-hour long affair that left them both sore for a week – blearily staring at chunky school-loaned laptop screens with piles of overdue library books on the floor in front of them. Odd and William were across the room, hunched over an oversized posterboard, surrounded by an accoutrement of Odd’s art supplies and printed out sheets of paper. What was keeping them up was potentially world-ending, but not in the usual way; instead of an evil AI, it was a history project due at 10 AM.

It wasn’t entirely their fault they didn’t start earlier – saving the world was a full-time job, afterall – but it’s not like they could give an excuse to Mr. Fumet that he would have believed. As the clock ticked over to 4, the prospect of having to pull the trigger on a return trip to finish loomed over them. They had already done it once, blearily uploading PowerPoint slides to the supercomputer to save them, giving Yumi an apologetic phone call in the morning. She was used to the disorienting resets at this point, having done them for half a year after graduating and moving across the country, but they usually texted ahead of time to warn her. She was sympathetic over the phone – she always was – but she was definitely irritated about having to retake an exam. They didn’t want to put her through that again and, besides, they couldn’t exactly keep the poster board from getting erased to time.

“Future-proofing the fact half of us might fail history?” Ulrich grumbled in response from across the room, leaning against the armrest of the couch. His eyes were glazed over in a stupor as he clicked idly around on the screen.

“Ulrich, are you done with your slides yet?” Aelita spat at him, now that the silent spell was broken, “I want to start stitching them together.”

“Uh… no.” Ulrich glanced at her, subtly turning his screen away from her piercing gaze, “Gimme ten more minutes? I’m almost there.”

Aelita clicked her tongue, probably remembering the last promise of the slides “in ten minutes.” She turned to her left and nudged Jeremie, “How about you – oh my god, Jeremie, can you focus?”

“Huh?” He looked up, and guiltly alt-tabbed back to a blank PowerPoint slide. “Sorry, I was just… I had a breakthrough about the bug in the Skid and I was…” He trailed off under her glare, “Sorry.”

Aelita clutched the side of her head, groaning. “Is it too late to go back to living on Lyoko where I don’t have to care about World War I and don’t need sleep?”

“Me too, thanks.” William muttered at Odd’s side, aggressively erasing a sentence on the poster, “Being XANA’s slave was less painful than this.”

He let out a bitter laugh, then raised his head, half smirk fading at the frozen-in-terror looks on his friend’s faces, “Sorry. Too soon?”

Odd, as he so often did, interrupted the awkward silence before people could make it worse, “Future-proofing us, is what I meant. Thanks for asking!” Nobody humored him as the typing across the room started back up and William started writing again, “Look, I’m just saying; we’re not getting any younger.” He brandished a red marker, filling in bubble letters on the top of the poster, “Yumi graduated. We’ve only got a semester left at Kadic –,”

“Could just all repeat a year like I did.” William grimaced. “And might again.”

Ulrich snorted, “Odd and I are probably on track for that.”

“Cheers,” William said, raising his pencil like a glass, without looking up, “Join the failure club.”

“BUT,” Odd interrupted, “Assuming we don’t! Because this presentation is going to be incredible,” That one earned a snort from everyone in the room (which was fair), “We’ll need someone who can do our jobs if we have to leave the good fight. Lyoko Warriors, the Next Generation! Kadic’s Next Top Lyoko Warriors!” He chuckled at himself, standing up, “We should put an ad in the paper: ‘Want a challenging, world-altering job? Come down to the abandoned factory!’” He hummed to himself, tapping his chin, “Our criteria would have to be strict. Can you imagine getting someone like, I dunno, Johnny? So, Johnny. Please, tell me: what’s your greatest fear? Giant crabs, you say? Why yes, that’s both oddly specific and also a dealbreaker. Next!”

Odd looked up, laughing, waiting for his friends to join in – Ulrich telling him he was being dumb, Aelita offering some other students and joking with him about their interviews, William making a snide remark about how he didn’t get an interview, a silent, but appreciative smirk from Jeremie – but got nothing. Jeremie’s head was buried in his laptop, and Aelita was – Aelita was glaring at him?

“What?” He asked her, but she said nothing, just raised an eyebrow in a you know what’s wrong look. Odd clearly didn’t, and turned to Ulrich for a clue, but Ulrich wasn’t giving him anything; he was just back to sulking, staring at his laptop. Odd ran through what he said again in his head, trying to find the offending phrase, when William punched him in the leg. “Hey –,” Odd started, ready to give a snappy retort, before seeing William was urgently tapping at the poster, where he’d just written something. Odd crouched down to read it.

you’re upsetting jeremie.

Odd glanced back at Einstein across the room, whose face was impassive, just typing away. Looking closer, though, he could see Jeremie had all the appearances of someone trying valiantly to pretend they weren’t upset – hunched shoulders, scrunched up face, not a single glance away from the screen. Aelita had stopped glaring to put a hand on Jeremie’s shoulder, but he shrugged it off.

Ugh. Odd sighed, wondering if he would have to apologize for just trying to lighten the mood. How was anything he said upsetting to Jeremie? He reached over for a pencil to respond to William, scribbling down on the poster.

Can’t he take a joke?

idk. Guess he thinks you’re blaming him.

Blaming him?? For what???? bro when did I even say anything like that??

you didn’t. don’t bro me bro. not my fault

Odd underlined his first bro, giving William a smile. William rolled his eyes before rubbing out their conversation with an eraser. Odd turned back to his coloring job and took a breath, surprised to see it come in shaky. It’s not your fault he’s upset, he thought to himself, pulling the cap off his marker. It’s fine. He leaned over to finish his coloring before noticing his hands were shaking. He clenched them, angrily. It wasn’t his fault Jeremie was upset. He was fine. Not his fault if Jeremie wanted to over-react. He’ll get over it and… where were the scissors?

He dug around their supplies for them, then, picking up a pile of pictures of historic figures, streaked from the bad library printer, took a pair of trembling scissors to extracting them. They were nearly done. One more section and they’d be done. One more and they could go to bed and Jeremie would get over whatever he was upset about and it was fine and it would all go away and it was fine it wasn’t his fault and –

“I’m working as hard as I can,” Odd felt a bit in his stomach open up as Jeremie spoke in a quiet, bitter voice. Odd stared pointedly down at the poster, blinking rapidly to try and assuage the pressure building behind his eyes, “I know we screwed up by not finishing before Yumi graduated, okay? I’m just… It’s a lot to figure out and I’m trying?! Is that not enough for – No. No, I know it’s not enough – I know I’m keeping us from having a normal life and it’s my fault William had to repeat a year and… and I –,” Jeremie’s breath caught, and Odd finally dared to turn his eyes to him, seeing his friend aggressively rubbing his eyes under his glasses, “I – I don’t mean to – look! It’s hard, alright?! It’s hard and I – I’m just so tired all the time and I’m sorry that we’re still awake for this too and that I –,” His voice finally broke as he started crying in earnest, his fist coming down on the side of the couch. Odd wanted to turn back to his work and brush it off, but the guilt clenching his stomach wasn’t letting go.

Hesitantly, Aelita put her hand on his shoulder again, “Jeremie…” but he shook it off again, turning away from her. She persisted. “It’s not your fault. We know you’re working –,”

“And it’s not enough! I’ve been working at this for years and I just I can’t come up with anything to defeat XANA –,”

“You had a lot of other things you needed to do first.”

He didn’t mean to, Odd was sure, but Ulrich’s eyes flickered to William for just a moment, and William’s eyes narrowed.

“Oh, are we doing this now?” William grumbled, dropping his pencil. “Jeremie, you’re fine. Look, I’m sorry. Again. You don’t think I don’t regret every moment that I didn’t listen like a fucking idiot –” Jeremie, despite being wracked with tears, winced at the swear, earning a brief hint of a smile from Odd, “ – and got myself captured? Who then was a thorn in your asses for months? No. I get it. You’d probably be rid of XANA already if it wasn’t for me; you’ve made that crystal clear.”

“That’s not what I –,” Aelita glared at him, “You of all people should understand that I would never blame you for being trapped on Lyoko.”

“It’s not you that is. It’s him.” He jerked his thumb at Ulrich, who glared back at him.

“I’m not,” Ulrich muttered, “Cut it out.”

“Oh yeah? What did that look mean then, huh?”

“I didn’t –,”

“You blame me, and we all know it. You’re just butt-hurt over Yumi still, even though you had plenty of chances –,”

“Okay, that’s it.” Ulrich sat up straighter, “Maybe you’re still using Yumi as a scapegoat in all our arguments, but I’m done with that. Maybe I was an ass to you before because of her, but I don’t blame you for XANA, William. I never have. I was over it before you even joined,” He scowled at the ground, Jeremie’s crying filling the brief silence. “It was probably my fault you got captured in the first place. I wasn’t there because I had to talk to my stupid Dad and it was my job to tell Odd and I didn’t make sure – hell, even before that! Who was it that couldn’t protect Aelita back when XANA escaped from the supercomputer in the first place? If she hadn’t been alone, the Scyphozoa wouldn’t have gotten her, and XANA wouldn’t have escaped, and we would have been done.”

“Come on,” Aelita crossed her arms, turning away from Jeremie to the boy on her other side, “You’re being ridiculous. Half of that isn’t your fault.”

Odd wanted to chime in that it was Sam’s fault she didn’t listen to Ulrich, but his voice was still missing in action, his throat tight and unresponsive.

“I should have been able to protect myself,” Aelita continued, “It wasn’t your responsibility –,”

Jeremie laughed suddenly, hurt and bitter, “Protect yourself how? You couldn’t protect yourself because I was dragging my feet on giving you a proper weapon –,”

“We’ve talked about this!” She said, “We agreed it was more worth your time to work on an antivirus!”

“For a virus that didn’t exist! If I had just double checked –,”

“Double checked what? The faulty data you were being fed? There was nothing you could have done! If you want to blame anyone, blame me. Maybe it – maybe helping me made sense at first, when things were able to be stopped at a moment’s notice. But then even when you got me to Earth it wasn’t over, and things got worse, things got more dangerous – when we realized XANA could escape? That we couldn’t just turn it off with a switch? That – that should have been it.” Her voice dropped as she took a shaky breath, “You should have just let me turn the supercomputer off.”

“You were ALWAYS worth the risk, Aelita!” Odd finally snapped, terror shooting through his heart at the broken look on her face, the implications of her words, “You… you matter to us more than anything! Look, I’m sorry for bringing this all up, alright? I thought we could just joke around about running Lyoko Warrior interviews! I didn’t mean to get everyone upset. And speaking of! Jeez! All of you are such downers on yourselves! There’s like, a billion different things that could have happened!” He held out a hand, ticking them off, “Maybe William might not have gotten captured and instead XANA got Yumi or anyone else! Maybe, I dunno, Ulrich saved Aelita temporarily but then XANA tossed him in the digital sea! Maybe Jeremie could have noticed that Aelita didn’t have a virus sooner, and XANA just made a move sooner! Maybe – maybe – maybe if you had just let Kiwi be virtualized normally and not fuse with me he would have been a great Lyoko Warrior and would have bit the Scyphozoa and killed XANA! We don’t know, alright? I’m just trying to say that – ugh, forget it! Sorry! Jeez!”

Odd rubbed at his eyes, surrendering to the frustrated and exhausted stream of tears that leaked out of them. All of them, all of this – he kept trying to play superhero, to pretend that everything was going to be alright like in the movies, but in his heart he had to admit that this was starting to feel futile. Aelita’s virus, XANA’s escape from the supercomputer, William’s capture, Jeremie’s first botched attempt at his anti-XANA program, Franz Hopper’s sacrifice, Yumi’s graduation, their failure to stop space station from falling, Jeremie’s second anti-XANA program getting stolen by the AI, and now the looming threat of their own graduation… he wanted to be joking about needing to interview new Lyoko Warriors, really, but if graduation took them away from the factory… away from each other…

A hand landed on his shoulder, he realized he didn’t need to know who it was to press his own on top of it, to squeeze it and feel loved, as more hands, more friends, found their way to his other shoulder, to his back.

“I’m sorry, Jeremie,” he said, “And everyone else. I didn’t mean to –,”

“Don’t,” came a muttered reply from Jeremie, “We’re all acting tired and stupid. I shouldn’t have yelled. I knew you didn’t mean it.”

Odd let out an exhausted laugh, rubbing his eyes of the last of the tears, looking up and seeing his friends around him, “How late is it?”

“Too late,” Ulrich replied, pulling his phone out of his pocket, “We’ve got… three hours until classes start.”

A collective groan broke the spell over the room. Odd looked under his feet to the almost-finished-poster. Silently, all of them returned to their working positions. Odd kneeled down to finish gluing down the last of the faces to the poster. As the lull of busy work started taking over his mind, William nudged him.

“Sorry, I, uh…” William looked uncharacteristically bewildered, “This must have happened while I was – did you say Kiwi fused with you?”

#i am well aware that it is long past day one LOL #we'll see what else i get to #my intent going into this was to write exactly what odd wanted to joke about but then i realized that was kinda fucked up #codejuly #codejuly21 #code lyoko #i swear ill write fluff next i promise #mary blabs

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imagines-mha · 3 years

Text

1-A boys and their toxic traits

this is controversial but SOMEONE had to say it

┕━━━━━━━✿━━━━━━━┙

Deku: bro. i’m so sorry first of all i feel like i need to apologise bc his CAREER is his first love forever. and his mom’s his second. You’re actually lucky to score third on the list lmao he just doesn’t have the TIME for anything but working for his corrupt hero system smh 🤦🏼‍♀️

Bakugo: i. noah fence but do i even have to explain xx. He’s the type of mf to be like “hey btw noone can know about us bc im highkey embarrassed to be seen w you so dont tell anyone”. No fucks given about how you take it. Like ok luv chile lemme just real quick hide under ur bed when ur friends r here smh x

Todoroki: ok if he had to have a toxic trait it’d just be that he finds affection SO hard to understand. Like he’ll smother you for 2 weeks and then go MIA for the other 2 it takes a LOT to teach him so u gotta have patience. Also the WORST at texting back and he replies with K. when he’s not even mad smh

Iida: okay. I know us iida stans love his uptightness- its adorable i know. But SO HELP ME GOD IF IT ISNT ANNOYING IN A RELATIONSHIP. You’ll try kiss him in his room and he’s like “y/n NOT IN THE DORMS YOU HEATHEN!!!!!! YOU IMBECILE!!!!!! YOU MOTHERFUCKER!!!!” Will still also shout at you for running in the halls lmao you get no special treatment when it comes to his strictness

Kirishima: Ok controversial controversial. He’s the best boyfriend you’ll ever have...once you actually GET THERE. He doesn’t think he deserves you, like at all- so the entire crushing/mutual pining period he’s giving you the maddest mixed signals. Like one night youre ridin him like a shetland pony and the next day ur like “hey kiri youre cute” and he looks at you like youve just broke into his home and licked his bedsheets like wtf

Kaminari: DID SOMEONE SAY UNINTENTIONAL FLIRT. Me i did x. The poor thing he really doesnt mean it in THAT way when he calls jirou beautiful or says that momo’s outfit’s really hot. He just LIKES BEING NICE. Its not HIS FAULT GIRLS GET THE WRONG IDEA WHEN HE HAS A 60 DAY STREAK WITH THEM ON SNAPCHAT AND TAKES THEM OUT MINI GOLFING. He’s so dumb sometimes smh. He is really apologetic tho BUT HE STILL DOESNT UNDERSTAND

sero: he’s such a free spirit but like, not at the same time? He just wants to straight up vibe and have a good time, and if you’re someone who complains a lot/ argues he’s quick to shut you down, and he goes for blood sometimes when he argues like,,, oof. He very rarely loses his temper but he’ll hit you with those cut-deep personal insults and sigh like you’re the bane of his existence smh

Kouda: the only thing is that he kinda expects you to do all the flirting. Like he’s affectionate but he’s like “i get too flustered calling you beautiful so as a result you’ll live forever wondering if i really love you or not xox” like MANNNN. He loves ur attention too so he kinds just basks in the compliments like a happy puppy but like,,, KODA SMH UR NOT A BABY FOREVER GROW UP

ojiro: if you saw him when you needed defended in a fight no you didn’t ❤️. This mf will go MIA. Off the fuckin GRID. The second you’re in an argument with someone. He’s like “i just like keeping peace y/n i never fight with ANYONE love and peace for life 😎✌🏻✌🏻✌🏻✌🏻” but then the next week you see him arguing with kaminari front and centre in the lounge like a fuckin nativity play? If you need a big strong man to save you from getting beat up, just call kirishima instead save ur time luv

Tokoyami: bro im so sorry sometimes he makes you feel like u have the reading level of a 5 year old he’s like an alt tiktok gatekeeper ekfneidnw. If you don’t own DMs he’s JUDGING YOU. “My darling… i wrote you another poem…” *proceeds to speak with the most COMPLICATED vocabulary he’s like “i will now articulate to you my heart via song” n u just nod and pretend u have a fuckin clue

Sato: lmao what’s a diet??? eat my food or i’ll take it personal. Can’t get it through his head when you tell him youre only not eating every damn cake and muffin he makes because you don’t wanna break out in acne/ get unhealthy. Like this man will give you the most HURT look and be like “b-but y/n...i made them just for you…” he’ll NEVER understand

Aoyama: “look at beautiful specimen in the mirror y/n…” he says, carressing your arms and kissing your temples, “oh- and you’re here too!” smh he has a marvellous time reminding YOU how lucky YOU are to be with him, like you werent the one to save him from his lonely little life and pick all his spirits off the ground,,, he’s so vain ay the worst of times

Shouji: be honest w u he’s not toxic at all the only toxic thing about shouji mezo that’s toxic is the little bitch who cried when they saw his face and made him cover it up forever ugh

#my hero academia #bnha #mha #midoriya izuku #bakugo katsuki #todoroki shouto #kaminari denki #kirishima eijirou #sero hanta #shouji mezo #koda koji #sato rikido #iida tenya #ojiro mashirao #fumikage tokoyami #aoyama yuuga

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transmascjfk · 3 years

Note

i'm,, trans and hc chihiro to be a male..

i'm sorry, but i don't quite understand how that's transphobic. could you please explain how chihiro is transmisogynistic? (sorry if i come off as rude - that's not my intention and i genuinely just don't understand, though i would like to!!)

What is transmisoginy?

"Transmisogyny is a distinct category of transphobia in that transmisogyny mainly focuses on trans women and other transgender individuals who demonstrate femininity, whereas transphobia is a more general term, covering a broader spectrum of prejudice and discrimination towards transsexual and transgender individuals. Julia Serano states in Whipping Girl that "when the majority of jokes made at the expense of trans people center on 'men wearing dresses' or 'men who want their penises cut off' that is not transphobia – it is transmisogyny. When the majority of violence and sexual assaults committed against trans people is directed at trans women, that is not transphobia – it is transmisogyny." "

Chihiro is written to mock trans women, to say that in reality trans women are secretly men, she is a man who is weak and uses being trans as a way to escape her problems, this is a thing that is also said to trans men a lot, that theyre just trying to avoid the hard parts of being a woman by becoming a man. Even if the writters intended it to be like that or not (which they probably did because transphobia is a big thing that happens a lot, obviously) it's still transmisogynistic. Thats that on that

This is a pretty common transphobic trope actually, the "Turns out this one character was actually from the opposite sex??!!", theres more examples of this in other games outside Danganronpa.

But also her experience is pretty different from other examples, her experiences are way too similar with trans womens experiences.

This is mostly for the cis people who call her a crossdresser and refuse to change their mind, on it, sit down.

Written by a trans man.

Don't tell me whats transphobic and what it's not transphobic if you're cis. Just sit down and read.

Tw: transphobia, transmisoginy, death mentions and blood in the pictures.

The game implies a lot of stuff with her dialogue, it doesn't straight up says "I don't want to be a woman anymore, I'm a man" like everyone claims it does.

[ Alt text 1:

Chihiro Fujisaki: I'm going to get stronger...and accept who I am... ]

[ Alt text 2:

Chihiro Fujisaki: Strong enough so that when someone says "even thought you're a boy" I'll be okay. I'll get better! ]

[ Alt text 3:

Chihiro Fujisaki: I wrapped myself in lies. I'm weak. I want to destroy that version of me forever! ]

[ Alt text 4:

Chihiro Fujisaki: ... I want to change. ]

[ Alt text 5:

Chihiro Fujisaki: I have to change. I don't want to be weak anymore ]

She goes to Mondo not because hes masculine, but because she admires him and his strength. She never once says it's because shes a man or because Mondo is a man.

[ Alt text 1:

Chihiro Fujisaki: Maybe talking to Mondo about it will help give me some courage... ]

[ Alt text 2:

Chihiro Fujisaki: I admire... your strength... ]

These dialogues can be read in two ways, the first one being the one the game tries the hardest to put in your head thats shes a man, all of this guessed by other people btw not what she herself says. Which is really transphobic, because she was written as a trans woman and then theyre like "uh no actually hes a man, because he was born as one but hes a coward so he started to dress as a woman to hide from his problems. Because thats what people do right? People who dress as their oppossite gender are so pathetic, specially men amiright? Ahaha"

Reading it in this way really weird, you're doing a lot of mental gymnastics because you would literally call her a trans woman with all of this if the rest of the trial, that consists of cis people assuming shes a man, didn't happen. And sadly you're following transphobic ideas by this. Because the canon is transphobic and transmysoginistic.

And the other way is just read what she says, that she just wants to be stronger and stop lying to everyone, basically about being cis, because shes not, shes amab (assigned male at birth) and thats probably what she said to Mondo, but most people when a trans person who already passes or is in their transition comes out many people tend to think "oh so youre your gender assigned at birth and not the one you claim to be?", because they don't get what being trans is and they think only "biological gender" is a thing. Basically, misgendering and invalidating the trans person.

I can guess all of this just because of how vague they decided to make her dialogue, not even showing how she tells Mondo about being amab.

What did she said to Mondo? "I'm trans"? "I'm a man"? "I was born a man"? We dont know, because they didn't show it and she died right afterwards and then everyone was like "Chihiro was secretly a man" to solve the case and thats it. A lot of people in the discourse get their information from Monokuma who isn't either Chihiro or even Mondo. Monokuma knows many things but he can't read minds to know if she was really trans or not, only she could say it but she died so she couldn't explain if shes trans or not.

[ Alt text:

A youtube comment by Gail Frisbee, posted 4 days ago, this comment was edited by the autor. The comment says:

"It's honestly increible to me when people try to argue that a scene in which a female-presenting character gets their genitals groped and then is posthumously referred to as a male from that point on can't be transphobic just because that character calls themselves a boy in some other side content later. It's on about the same level of intellectual honesty as claiming that Quiet from MGS5 isn't really fanservice because she totally breaths throught her skin you guys.

As it turns out, if you really dig down deep into the lore, Chihiro is a fictional character and the same people who wrote the genital investigation scene also wrote the lines that character says in the game as well. It's a shocking twist, I know." ]

Her fears of being outed and people founding out her secret (being trans) or being transphobic is used as a gross big twist. A trans woman being used as a mockery of trans people? Great totally normal (/sarcasm)

Read this post made by a trans woman. I'll be using this only part but it's still a great read.

[ Alt text:

So. There is a lot to unpack here, but I want to start with something that specifically hurts me as a trans woman, and that's how the game flippantly uses real world horrors trans people face as shocking reveals and twists. You can go down the list for "worst nightmares" of trans people incluiding:

Threatening to be outed against your wishes

Outing yourself to a trusted friend and being met with rejection, or worse, violence

Having your body and privacy examined and invaded

Having your deadname used and being misgendered after death, when you can't correct them ]

Now, let's go to her backstory for a bit. I will be using the wiki for this. (Which sadly uses he/him for her 💔)

" When Chihiro was a child, he became the subject of harassment and bullying. He was always told to "be a man" and that he was "so weak despite being a boy", and because of that, Chihiro slowly but surely began to develop a "weakness complex". In order to escape the bullying, Chihiro began to dress as a girl so that people wouldn't bully him as a weak boy. "

This doesn't sound like a normal crossdresser, this sounds like a trans woman who was bullied for being different when she was younger, like many trans people, and then she decided to transition because she's a woman, she wanted to be more feminine and stop being seen as a person shes not. Specially after so many people tell her to basically man up when she doesn't want that, because shes not a man.

Have you ever heard of the classic stories of "since I was little i knew i was different, i was a boy who liked playing with dolls and was more feminine than the rest" or "i used to be a tomboy when i was little, i had mostly male friends, i liked playing with car toys and was more masculine than other kids" coming from trans people? This just sounds as these types of stories to me.

People also like to say that alter ego uses he/him pronouns and says shes a boy. Many trans people can misgender themselves for personal reasons too guys, she could've been trying to misgender herself because she didn't felt like she wasn't enough to be a real woman, this happens a lot to trans people. If people constantly tell you that you're not actually transgender or you just feel like you're faking it then you might actually believe it, thats were most "detransitioners" come from. And thats basically what they made her, a detransitioner.

Some of you might also don't get how shes trans because you think she doesn't perfect or exact trans stereotypes. Trans experiences can be similar on the feeling of not fitting in, dysphoria, etc. But trans experiences, stories, transitions and complete lifes can be very different, because we all (including cis people) live different lifes, experience, process and cope with things differently. So i can understand why you might not get her being trans coded at first, don't worry. But try instead of just not caring because you don't get it at the first try, to see what trans people say.

This whole discourse its mostly cis people talking over trans people about their own experiences (incluiding the dead trans coded characters experience) saying if theyre valid or not and denying stuff not wanting to learn anything, completely refusing to it because "In canon hes a boy" ok then in canon shes written in a transphobic way too but most of you don't care about that. You would rather call her a crossdresser than try to acknowledge how obviously trans coded she is and how thats used as transphobia.

The way most cis people act in this discourse is very transphobic to me to be honest, if you think you're a good ally but act like this then you should get more educated on the topic as a whole and about trans people too.

-the trans Chihiro flag to finish this up, she has a bit boobie! good for her! good for her.

#chihiro discourse #discourse #transphobia #transphobia cw #transphobia tw #chihiro fujisaki #if i forgot about something please tell me!!#trigger happy havoc

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sushiburritonoms · 3 years

Note

Ooh, #13 for Sacred Texts, because that's one of my favorite questions on these types of lists. And if you'd like (I know they could involve spoilers, etc), 2, 4, and 5, as well. Because I'm absolutely loving that fic and am very curious. :D

Hi Anon!

13: What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

So normally I don't listen to music at all when writing, I'm one of those 'need a quiet space of her own' puritans. I was never able to listen to music while studying either, I think it's some focusing problem but I'm not about to self diagnose.

BUT for Sacred Texts I had a section in Chapter 3 where the teens listen to music in the car and for that I had to listen to top 50 hits in the US for this year to get a sense of what is popular right now. This fic is set in an alt universe 2021. No pandemic and the election in 2020 was Palpatine vs Mon Mothma (don't ask me who Sheev's Vice President is, I just know its not Dooku as I have plans for him later. In this universe nearly all the old Jedi are librarians). So some real life events like the postal service in the US being taken over by right ring sycophants happens in this universe. Some of the music I picked in chapter three was because it was a meme and it was funny (Toxic because of this video of Luke's entrance in the Mandalorian). I wanted to show that Poe was bilingual and to show that Luke's community is diverse so I picked Todo de Ti. I liked it because in English the chorus is "It's because I like everything about you" and I thought that was rather sweet and fitting for a Din/Luke story. But nothing deeper than that, I just liked the beat. I picked Doja Cat Kiss Me on advice from the Boba/Din/Luke server. Again I liked the beat there's nothing deep there except its probably something Luke doesn't like. So I guess if you want to get into the mindset for that chapter, try listening to whatever is on the radio at the moment and that's the world of the teens.

2: What scene did you first put down?

Actually this story is based off a short Tumblr fic I wrote for @darkisrising. Its my most popular post! You can see I took some of the dialogue from that short fic and used it in Sacred Text. At first this was going to be a one shot, I was like 'piffth why would Luke Skywalker, dreamer, ace pilot and the most eager boy in the universe become a librarian of all things.' But then I realized that is kinda what ends up happening in the movies, he goes from this eager hopeful farmer to this wise powerful Jedi. I was kinda interested in what happens in that in-between phase of life when someone is not quite middle aged but is starting to realize that the adult life they are living isn't exactly the life they expected to live when they were a kid. That's why I decided to redo the short story into a longer fic because I wanted to know why a modern AU Luke would want to work with children in a library without it being a crack story of 'we made him a librarian because librarians are hot, teeeheee'.

I also saw a lot of Jedi values reflected in public librarianship. Public librarians are dedicated to serving the intellectual and social needs of a community. It is a very hard service orientated profession because you deal with the public all the time, you deal with censorship, homelessness, poverty and (if you're in the USA) the drug epidemic. I think of public library staff as Jedi honestly, they are my heroes, they are so much more than book shelvers and women with cat eye glasses and cardigans (but seriously cardigans are the best item of clothing ever, I can't dis). I called the story "Scared Texts" in honor of the tiny tree library Luke keeps in The Last Jedi, but also because of the democratic/civic values of the library as an institution of knowledge all around the world.

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

I liked the DILF line in chapter 2 because the thought of Obi-Wan saying that out loud cracks me up. But so far, I really like these two lines from chapter 3:

In Jedha it often felt like he was flying solo; crippled even, in a plane that was broken and past prime, jittering a path forward that had no real destination. The days blurred together and the only way Luke was even able to tell the passage of time was by the inches that Finn and the other kids gained in height.

I like that it fits how Luke sees himself right now but also gives you a clue into his life before librarianship. It tells you how fond he is of the teens and yet how unbearable it is to see them grow up and get ready to leave you. Since I also worked with kids I constantly had these cohorts of children that I would bond with, develop relationships with and then see them off into the real world. Its really quite a complicated emotion and for Luke who wants companionship and a family, but can't get his act together to date, its doubly hard.

5: What part was hardest to write?

Up to this point, Chapter 3 was the hardest. Ask @bronze-lorica or Dark, I deleted whole sections and started again. I rewrote sections of the Luke and Leia phone call because I wasn't getting their relationship right. I always struggle with pacing, either I go too slow or too fast and so of course this story is no exception. I like how chapter 3 came out now, its made chapter 4 much easier (which will be out sometime this week I hope).

I'm sorry this was probably way too long and beyond what you wanted to know. I love to ramble about my thought process. Thank you for asking anon! I really enjoyed answering these.

ALSO Thank you for saying you're loving the fic, that means so much! aksldfjasd sorry I forgot to say that earlier!

#ask game #Sacred Texts #sb rants

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incarnateirony · 4 years

Note

Sorry abt all of the hate you’ve been getting recently. Here’s a (hopefully) interesting opinion to give you a break. I understand you believe DeanCas to be canon based on text. However, in a tv show, the script doesn’t equate to canon. In the end it’s the actors/directors interpretation onscreen. It’s fun to analyze DeanCas textually, but if there’s no onscreen payoff to the decade (?) long buildup. It’s queerbait. And knowing the history of LGBT+ cinema, it would be a very cruel thing.

Okay so this is a really uh, kinda cute attempt, but still about 3 years behind on things I’ve already addressed. In fact, your own take in a lot -- and I mean a lot -- of ways is far more self defeating than you think right here.

First of all, the script is the *base* of canon. I have always said, the script isn’t the complete canon and yes, it’s a collaborative work. This is not the winning argument you think it is. However, it is the base text. The base texts depicts the canon on page before the collaborative part presses it to on screen. (In fact to show how Not New Yet Backwards this take is, I've included a post at the end about social codes where I openly address how hysterical the fandom's limited idea of text is, and that whether inside or outside of Spoken Dialogue Only eg script the argument falls on its face and surrenders itself to reveal internalized queerphobia.)

For the record, I assume you went with the “script is just script” angle because I recently nailed down all the authoritative statements and receipts, but we’ll move on to your other points.

Now while not every-single-director has ever spoken up, some have. In fact, director Phil Sgriccia was one of the first people--in so far as being on the S8 DVD commentary--talking about Dean’s biromantic potential. Dick Speight also has been openly supportive and his framework is consistent. Many others don’t engage, like wright, but wright very obviously consciously framed things as per his previous work with Jensen on Dark Angel. We could go on. We could go on about set design, we could go on about all kinds of things.

We could go on about the way this fandom has a terrible warped way of reviewing AV media, wherein they used to chase curtains or assume certain lighting meant things it didn’t, *against* what crew said in some points, and then yell about interpretation.

In fact your very evocation of the collaborative elements make this even more absurdist even if you really did pose this in innocence: after all, when this year a soap opera reporter who doesn’t even watch the show caught the 15.03 breakup, she gave swift review of the full cinematography being the classic framework of the Dark Points in the Romance. Because you’re right. It’s collaborative text. And especially as of season 15, that collaborative text--and in AV, visuals DO count as text--is painting them in romantic methods, in ways previously not done no matter what someone’s 8 year old meta sheet told them violet light meant. In fact, if you follow the actual crew’s statements of that violet light’s meaning, and look at 15.13, and then read through what I’ve been talking about on endgame speculation and where it fell, it falls into the fated twined paths of Dean and Cas at the end of the road together. No, the violet isn’t inherently romantic. Yes, it’s part of a large story. And yes, that story is leading them down a road together which I’ll bring up at the end of this post. Letting a romance speak for itself in the midst of mytharc is a whole other thing, and actually like, how it’s supposed to go? When it’s... literally an integral part of the structure?

All of this, all of this, is fundamentally true and I have actually made dozens if not hundreds of post to show how fandom has actually been -- in their attempt to be woke, to claim queerbait or not canon, or to whatever else -- persistently deleted creative commentary, turned it into accusations, or just defied basic AV crit standards both for and against itself.

Are we really going to start talking about actor interpretations in the year even Jensen Ackles called it a domestic dispute, and turned a Samstiel question into Dean’s taste in Cas? Or Misha and Jared’s long histories of commentary? Or the other actors on the field over the years, even Emily Swallow or Curtis? Should we go as far back as to go to the showrunner note of when to play it like a jilted lover?

None of this is a new angle that I find interesting, it was interesting a few years ago when I first shared it, but here’s where your line breaks:

Jumping from that, any of that to “if there’s no onscreen payoff” isn’t just a nonsequitor, it buries your intent.

Even I have said, it’s true! The only base definition of queerbait is to create a bunch of queer-leading content without intent to follow through! Good job on that.

But you’re missing a whole bunch here.

I’ve simply said that setting ridiculous goalposts based on personal wants is not what makes canon. I don’t care if you want a kiss or sex on the map table or a rainbow farting unicorn pony for them to ride into the horizon--those are your goalposts, and those are not the only ways, nor the only valid ways much less, to have follow through.

The lack of intent to follow through is a hilarious presupposition. And follow-through does not only transmit one way. Hets get plenty of follow throughs like, I don’t know, at the end them implicitly asking someone to dinner and that’s it, that’s their happy ending. (Detty comes to mind.) Some hets never even kiss. Nobody gets to set that specific *goalpost* and then erase all the other canon and text. That’s queer deletion. That’s regressive. And frankly that shits on the LGBT cinema history you’re trying to reference here vaguely, to which I point you to my entire LGBTQIA+ tag where I discuss a hundred years of queer cinema history and have a nagging feeling your head would actually spin for trying to break that out as an argument. Because you’ve got that backwards.

If the authors have intent to follow through on a romantic pairing, but do not give *your specific preferred thing* for *whatever* reason (in this case, from corporate interference snaring them back, for example), that is /not/ queerbait. It’s low visibility text and it’s still canon. There is no form of mental gymnastics this becomes anything else. If they have the intent to follow through and do follow through, it’s not queerbait.

I don’t care how you cartwheel, how you reframe it, and how you try to nurse your mental wounds having to face that, perhaps, the alt right and terfy propaganda that has infested this fandom under the veil of being woke to get kids to repeat it has, also, influenced you. It’s hard to admit mistakes. But your entire statement here doesn’t even add together, it’s random assertions you’ve assumed are new, but actually fall contrary to what you think they add up to.

If, for example as I speculate, they can’t kiss, for example, but squeeze in a love you under limited parameters only to go off as a unit into eternity together on their own path, decided together, and that’s as far as the writers were allowed to go? Sorry, they still had intent to follow through, and followed through to what limit they have. Ergo, by your own definition, not queerbait.

Also, regardless of the ending, that doesn’t remove *text*. I can’t emphasize this enough. You can be dissatisfied with the ending, you can even feel baited if it does or doesn’t go to a specific landmark you set your personal faith on, but that doesn’t make previous text elements suddenly subtext, because that isn’t how it works, and never has been.

Regarding unlevel social codes and how many ways this fandom has shown its own ass unwittingly, confusion over what is text, subtext, and how they all fall into a canon

https://occamshipper.tumblr.com/post/190728796970/were-gonna-try-this-again-canon-is-accepted

Being regressive and deleting your own stuff isn't helpful and often varies based on preferences rather than objective observations.

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jisungs-tummy · 3 years

Text

Happy New Year I guess

Through all the shit I've gone through this year, at least it wasn't as painful as 2018-2019.

What I'm saying is that although the world has gone to shit, this year hasn't been so awful.

I've met some pretty cool people this year. I've only had this blog for a year, too. So that's crazy.

To all my followers, I'm sorry I haven't written in a long time. It's been months, i know. I haven't had any motivation, and when I do get inspiration to write, it's very short-lived. I have tons of WIPs, I just haven't finished anything. I still have a request to write!! I'm so sorry for the delay. :(

I'll tag a few people that I had a nice time meeting. I'm very forgetful and bad with words, so I probably won't say too much unless we've been through a lot together.

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

@kingxrabbit hey, Eli. Even after everything that has happened between us, I'm still really happy I met you. We had a lot of laughs. We had a lot of fun. Thank you for putting up with me for so long. You're a good person, even if other people and your mental illness tells you otherwise. (Note: people are shitty and not always nice, which is why I say this.) I'm so proud of you. I love you.

@alt-yandere-bratzdoll hey Sun.... I'm still iffy about the whole situation that happened, but I don't think about it as deeply as I used to. I've gotten over it. I think I needed the hurt to happen as some kind of... wake up call? Maybe I was a little obsessed. You were like... a hyperfixation? I really loved you. I'm glad I met you, even after everything that happened. I don't hurt over it anymore. I'm proud of you and I encourage you to eat something everyday, even if it's small and you dont feel like it. Please take care of yourself.

@chans-chair hey Rae. We didnt talk much at all except for when you would see me vent posting on main and would try to help me. Thank you for talking to me. You've helped me a lot. I love you.

@sxltyshima hey Josie. Thank you for being there. You've kept me entertained through tough times. I'm sorry for being so dry recently. It's been hard to find motivation to respond or anything. All I do is sleep nowadays. I'm really sorry. I'm happy that we met, though. I'm so happy you trust me and let me help you. You mean a lot to me. I know you're on the other side of the country and I've never met you irl, but sometimes it feels as if I've actually met you, and we're just old friends. Thank you for being here. I love you so much.

@yangomangos hey mangos, I know we never talked a lot, but I enjoyed reading your content and interacting with you. I'm happy we met.

Sammy gets her own through text bc I have her number <3

Kai also gets her own bc I have her on kkt <3

@spearb1108 hey Zehra. You're such a great friend. I know we havent talked much recently, but I'm happy we met.

I'm forgetting so many people, but I'm also half asleep and watching Jacksepticeye play undertale haha <3

#ket.txt

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heyyylittlemo · 4 years

Text

Ask game

1. Where did you hide the body??

Me: *pause* No, where did you hide the body—

*police stare at me with disbelief*

Me: there’s no—there’s not a single body here—well stop looking at me like that, you’re the cop! You should know! Why are you asking me for! Body? Whaaaaaat. Ahaha.

*cops shake head*

*whispers to my friend* Guys I think I pulled that one off

Police: you know we can hear everything you’re saying

me: 👁👄👁

2. Favorite rock? The 1975. Dominic Fike. Arctic Monkeys. Bad Suns. The killers. Pale Waves. Etc. That good good shit 👌

3. Most aesthetic season? Fall. Love them orange colors. The leaves falling. Though spring is also neat if you have a bunch of flowers bloomin in shit and winter is only aesthetic when it’s snowing. Boring ass summer tho just be heating me up.

4. When texting do u shorten words or spell out? I used to write stuff out all the time mostly but now it’s like half and half bcuz its just faster and nobody got time for it 🤣🤣

5. Vintage stuff? Hell yeah, but maybe not anything too expensive since some old stuff IS hyper expensive.

6. Colors that pop or blend? Not sure I understand what u mean abt them blending ahaha u mean like when they’re so similar to another?? Well I think it’s nice but honestly I prefer a pop and a bang, y’Know?

- At this moment I realized I was answering the last few questions from a completely different ask and felt like a dumbass 😂 anyways the actual number we’re on is three so imma just kickback

3. Worst dream u have ever had? I had sleep paralysis but was imbetween that and a lucid dream. At first I was paralyzed and could see my bed but my eyes felt closed and open at the same time?? A giant dark demon looking dog had towered over me and began to tear at my neck. It looked and felt very real I started to try to scream and it felt like a scream was coming out but no sound exited. Then I went into a lucid dream where I was being chased by this dog and running for my life I was running by and nobody could save me nobody in the dream when it caught up to me I was back in my bed and it was trying to eat me again. I was so terrified I couldn’t sleep for a whole week.

4. Lyric that comes to your mind? “And I don’t think I can be there. I’m paralyzed,I’m terrified of being alone. When you said I deserved what had happened.”

5. Blood make u uncomfortable? Yes, I passed out once when getting my finger pricked and a VERY small blood sample and another when dissecting a fish.

6. Even or odd numbers? Well I like the number 5,7,9, 3 so odd. (Like me 🤣🤣)

7. Something I hate that I love? Anything I’ve ever loved becuz love can be frustrating. Bruh.

8. 1st initial of someone I hate? Hmm...do I hate someone tho? Not that I can think of...

9. *Skipping down the lane* NOPE

10. Corn dogs? It’s funny cuz when I think of corn dogs my mind will always go to when we first moved to our current house because at our initial town we never had Sonic and while we were getting the house fixed up and moving stuff we use to always get Sonic since it was the closest to us most times to eat and that was a bunch of corn dogs and hotdog days 🤣 so thnk u corn dogs for ur service

11. I’m not a huge movie person so...I looked up movies from 2005 and movies Inlike from this time are Brokeback mountain bcuz it’s gay af, Shark Boy and Lava Girl damn I rewatched the shot out of it when I was younger, Narnia and the Chocolate Factory(although it low key creeped me out as a kid, and idk why).

12. Least fav music genre? Most country, most EDM, dubstep, screaming/really hard rock, some pop music, mumble raping.

13. As someone who waits on tables, my job is my least favorite restaurant experience 🤣🤣 just dealing with ppl...like ok, I’m half Hispanic right?? But I look white. Well, I work at a Mexican restaurant and so sometimes racist costumers will say shady shit just bcuz I guess they think it’s appropriate to say it to me just bcuz I’m not Hispanic in their eyes?? But it pisses me off and I feel like I can’t say anything without causing a drama which I hate and when the “costumers always right” it can be hard to budge and stand up and say “bitch wtf did u just say??” And there’s just folks who take things the wrong ways or ask too much at once or give u a hard time or just say something that sticks onto you for the whole day. One bad move can turn my whole day upside down.

14. 3 things never come near me? Cockroaches, Needles, and close mind ppl

15. Worst way to die? With regrets. Something really brutual, random, or where something just happened to go wrong (accident). Being killed by someone u love.

16. Unusual habits? Doing a Michael Jackson esque “hee-hee” after every sneeze I make, being extremely clumsy and making every task 100% more difficult, having the ability to talk as if I have an accent that comes from nowhere in particular just stupidity also I can’t speak my own language half the time 🙃getting words confused or misusing them in a sentence so I sound dumb having a very weird imagination and thoughts, I swear it like I never went to school and don’t know how the world works, plus many many more

17. Clothing style u want? I want to dress in a way that screams who I am and is a blend of both femininity and masculinity. A little vintage. Grunge. Urban maybe?? What do I know abt fashion 🤣🤣

18. Song or artist that deserves more? Dijon, hands down. I love his stuff. He’s like Frank Ocean meets light-singing beautiful lyricist with a more rock vibe?? Hidden gem. I also think Durand Jones & the Indications needs more love along with BadBadNotGood they sound like old-times but are new!! Oh, and Pale Waves is like a female The 1975 and kicks it. Bad Suns is a good alt rock band that no one seems to recognize :,D Toro y Moi too! His song with Flume “The difference “ is a banger!! Kid Cudi is my man when I want a blend of rock and rap. Also Dominic Fike,King Krule, and Roy Blair, who are all amazing!! Ok I need to stop 🛑

Duck I answered the past questions from a different post I’m sorry 😐

17. Emoji never used? There’s a bunch since I reuse the same over and over again. Lmao

18. 3 sentence Gatorade horror story? A faint quiver overtook the small freezer the Gatorade lay in; no one had come by in days, hours, weeks; when was the last time he met the lips of a thirsty body? They’d forgotten about him, as his last sips remained glued to his hollowing entrance. ‘Help, ‘it wanted to say, but it’s frozen lips could not be moved; It’d stay here, die here...just like the rest.” What am I doing with my life 🤣🙏

19. Do u know what an old bay is? A bay that is old? And old ocean? Idk!!!

20. Can u dance? Sometimes I dance when I’m alone but nothing spectral lol

21. What first comes to ur mind when u see ropes? 2 extremes. Sex and death. Hm. Ok. Moving on.

22. Make an obscure reference. “Even a bra couldn’t hold these nipples” *Holds a water gun to chest*

23. Fav balloon color? Pink or yellow.

24. If u were in court would u be innocent or guilty? Depends, what am I in court for 🤣 lmao jk honestly idk bcuz I don’t think I’d wind up in there

25. Are u hungry ? Nope

26. Unlucky number? Hm I don’t think so but I have a lucky number “123”

27. What’s “JMD”stand for? I’m guessing...Jamming my d—- 💀lol jk ahaha why am so dirt

28. Random inside joke? *chirpy squeak* I’m making a double batch of cookies

29. What sends chills up ur spine? Seeing disgust food or smell disgust or talking abt disgust things like gore

30. How many questions are in ur inbox? A pathetic zero ahaha no one want to ask me anything 😂

31. Someone real who scares u. 2 of my ex friends. One when I was 10 said disturbing things and I was kinda forced onto the friendship and everything they said make me fear for others lives...and then a different ex friend who seemed normal at 1st but became both low key psychopath cult leader type stuff and I booed out of there—-.

32. Run or hide? Uhh probably hide because I’d say even if ppl say “u can run but u can’t hide” u CAN just hide! that’s the point of hiding they not find u xD also why not combine them? Hide then run somewhere far away once I got them off the trial.

33. Last person who made u angry? A frickin beetle that flew at me and pinched me in the middle of singing in the shed xD also my autocorrect

34. What’s going on in ur head? I should probably pee soon—

35. Little thing that makes u Smile? A lot of little things bruh.

36. Are u a descisive person?

Not sure.

*pAuse *

Ok, I guess I’m not then 🤣

37. Would ppl say I’m paranoid? Hm maybe about certain things social situations, singing in front of others what ppl think abt me etc etc

38. Store least likely in? Any southern clothes shop, Abercrombie & Finch types shit, lol

39. Do I like hats fave type? Hm not wear many hats but I think they’re cool any type is cool for different ppl and their aesthetici just can’t rock a hat.

40. Bow ties or ties? Don’t really care but now want to see more bow ties

41. Who? You.

42. What? Reading this shit

43. Where? In ur ass

44. When? Now.

45. Why? Not even u know why.

46. How? We all want to know

47. Do u collect anything? Vinyl records.

48. What tome is it? Time to get a watch

49. Fav transportation? My car or walk is possible

50. Would u ever kill someone to save someone? Don’t want to think about that

51. Make a joke. Yo, it’s time to make a joke—so the other day I was working. And I was practicing my Spanish, yes? Anyone whose trying to learn anew language k n o w s that sometimes words can be so close to another u just confuse then! So apparently churros in Spanish is a desert but if u say it more harshly (it literally sounds almost the same) it makes a whole different meaning—diharrea, but like I didn’t know that so I legit just walked up to this person and asked if they would like some shit to eat. So yeah, that was great. Let’s not forget that I mixed up blood, watermelon, and sangria which is a wine. I legit once said I had mixed wine in my vines and another time watermelon 🤣

52. I’m really confused so I skip

53. Would ur dash be confiscated SFW? By dash do u mean this account? Um not 😬

54. Do I like to cuddle? Hell yeah and manhandle ppl all the time it’s my affection

55. What makes u angry? Close minded ppl or ppl who jump too fast to conclusions, strict schedules just dumb stuff that people try to force when I just want to be carefree 😭✌️

56. How many voices are in ur head? 😐

57. Do U consider urself mentally stable? 😐

58. Are u easily offended? Well U just called me mentally unstable and asked it there was voices in my head!!

59. What’s wrong with taking the backstreets? Uhm...

60. Any questions u want ppl to ask u? Nothing in particular but it’s be nice if someone care to ask me something abt me from personal question to my opinions on shit to 19 days fandom related junk 😌

Woooo I’ve finished this game! Thanks to @seiji-amasawa for introducing me to this ^^

#tag game #game #ask #19 days #19days

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cardcaptorcoconut · 6 years

Text

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card Arc Chapter 24 Translation

Lots of things happening in this month’s chapter, but “everything will definitely be okay” guys, so just Keep Calm & Clear Card On! :)

Also, I heard that more than a few fans were accidentally spoiled when most of the chapter leaked early this week, so I just wanted to re-link to my previous post about CLAMP’s stance regarding this. Please think twice when posting spoilers, and if you do decide to post or read them, at the very least please tag appropriately.

Thank you to the ever wonderful @meimi-haneoka for being the world’s best proofreader. <3

[EDIT] I added a footnote on pages 3, 12, & 13 about one line and corrected the name of a card I had mistaken on page 18 (Thank you to @aurora010100 for the heads up!! ^^)

☆★Translations Notes Reminder★☆

Disclaimer: These are just fan translations. Please support the official release.

Chapter 24

Cover Page: “The title ‘D’ is proof (that one ranks among) the most powerful of magicians.”

[Alt: “The title ‘D’ is proof of (being) the strongest magician.”]

P1 Kaito: Is everything alright? [Lit: Did something happen?] Akiho: I had… a nightmare. Akiho: Until about halfway through, it was like the world in (my) book and was nice. [Lit: …was enjoyable.] Kaito: Alice’s world?

P2 Akiho: In “Clockland”, Alice met all kinds of strange beings and inhabitants and had curious experiences… Akiho: Yes, and a mirror appeared. A mirror that could copy magic. Akiho: But after that… these clock sounds grew very loud, and (you could hear) the sound of something breaking somewhere…

P3 Akiho: I heard… a voice. Akiho: (It said) “You can’t go back anymore.”

[Alt: Could also be “You can’t turn back anymore.”]

[Note: The original text was 「おまえはもう戻れない」with おまえ (”Omae”) as the subject. The gruff nature indicates it’s unlikely to be Nadeshiko saying this...]

P4 Akiho: And I’d always thought that the Alice in my dream (looked like me), but today… <Akiho recalls that the Alice in her dream looks like Sakura> Kaito: Have you ever heard of dreams that contradict reality? Kaito: It's when the opposite of what you dreamt occurs (in real life).

[Alt: It's the kind of dream where the opposite of what happens in it occurs in real life.]

Akiho: The opposite… Kaito: So if you had a nightmare, what’s the opposite of that?

P5 Akiho: Something fun will happen? <Kaito smiles at her and she smiles back> Kaito: <looks at his pocket watch> It looks like it’s almost dinner time. Akiho: I’ll help out! Ah! I’ll go get my apron, okay?

P6 Momo: …There are also such things as dreams that come true. Kaito: I will never allow that to happen. <Scene changes to Sakura going to school with Kero> Kero: Wouldn’t it have been better to stay home from school today? You had a nightmare right? Sakura: It’s okay. I can’t just tell my teachers I’m staying home because I had a weird dream.

P7 Sakura: Besides, until halfway through, it was like Alice in Wonderland and was fun. Kero: Sakura's situation right now is not one (where you could say) that it’s just a dream. Kero: It’s likely a dream she had because of her magic... <Kero thinks back to his discussion with Yue> Kero: I think it’s better we don’t tell Sakura about this yet… Kero: Eriol has to have a reason for wanting to tell Sakura she’s producing cards of her own. But we can’t confirm why that is right now. Kero: (To help) Sakura, Eriol wouldn’t do something that… Yue: …wasn’t necessary.

[Lit: He wouldn’t do something he shouldn’t do.]

P8 Yue: …What about the magician? Kero: He hasn’t done anything to challenge Sakura directly yet… Kero: Besides, Sakura and Akiho are really close. Would warning her (of that) be a good thing? Yue: You don’t want to cause her any unnecessary worry or sadness if you can help it. Kero: Right. Yue: Let’s keep the (news) about the magician (quiet) for now.

[Lit: Let’s keep the thing about the magician hidden for now.]

P9 Yue: In exchange for that, don’t leave our mistress’ side. Kero: I won’t leave (her side), but… Kero: There’s nothing I can do about (her having a) nightmare… But the likelihood that it’s a premonitory dream for sure too… <Scene changes to Akiho watching the cheerleading practice> Cheerleaders: One, two, three, four!

P10 Tomoyo: The cheerleading club is really hard at work practicing too. Akiho: I think this may be a little impolite for me to say, but Sakura-san and I… Tomoyo: You’re very much alike. Tomoyo: And it’s not impolite at all. Sakura-chan would be so happy. Akiho: Do you really think so? [Lit: Is that really so?]

P11 Tomoyo: How about you, Akiho-chan? <Akiho blushes> Akiho: (It makes me) really, really, really happy! <At the practice below> Coach: Okay, now spin around-- <Sakura spins>

P12 & 13 <Suddenly everything disappears> Sakura: !? Voice: “You can’t go back anymore.”

[Alt: “You can’t turn back anymore.” - Same as above, with “omae” as the subject.]

P14 <Scene changes to later that night at the Kinomoto residence> Sakura: I’m out of the bath! <Fujitaka and Touya are cooking> Sakura: (Are we having) hamburgers tomorrow? Fujitaka: I thought I’d put some in (our) lunches and freeze (the rest). Sakura: I can’t wait! [Lit: I’m looking forward to it!]

P15 <Sakura notices Touya staring at her> Sakura: What is it? <Touya pats her head> Sakura: Waah! Touya: Get to bed quickly tonight. Don’t (get up to anything).

[Lit: Without doing anything.]

Fujitaka: It looks like it’s going to be a little cooler at night, so keep warm, okay? Sakura: …Okay.

P16 <Scene changes to Syaoran’s residence> Syaoran: I can’t get through to Hiiragizawa after all. Syaoran: …(His) magic can go even that far, huh. Syaoran: That shows just how powerful (of a magician he) is. Syaoran: Even if that’s the case… <Syaoran’s bear and rashinban start glowing>

P17 <Syaoran struggles to summon nine of the Sakura Cards>

P18 <Syaoran catches his breath as Windy, Shadow, Watery, Mirror, Fiery, Glow, Fly, Jump, and Flowery gather around him> Syaoran: <to the cards> I’m sorry to make you worry.

P19 Syaoran: The bear I gave to Sakura was imbued with my magic. Through that bear, (I was able to draw) the “magic” of the Sakura Cards to me. Syaoran: And now I can use (that power), but… Syaoran: Not only is it taking more time that I thought, it (completely) drains out my energy. Hiiragizawa was also worried that this is excessive…

[Lit: It’s an extreme drain on my power/energy.]

Syaoran: But even so.

P20 Syaoran: The cards and I will not fail to protect Sakura.

[Lit: I will definitely protect Sakura together with the cards.]

[Note: It’s interesting to note here that Syaoran says 「...絶対にさくらを守る、カード達と」.The と particle is usually used to mean “and” or “together with” as opposed to で which would be more like “by means of”. Since it said カード達と and not カード達で I took this to indicate that Syaoran views the cards as his allies to save Sakura rather than tools to do so.]

<Scene changes to Akiho’s house> Akiho: That robe in the dreams… It’s definitely mine.

P21 <Akiho puts on the robe and she seems to go into a trance of some kind; the scene then changes to Sakura’s room>

P22 <Outside her window, Sakura sees the cloaked figure> Sakura: Ah…!! Sakura: “Flight!” <Sakura flies towards the figure who gestures at her>

P23 <The staff back into a key and the figure pulls it towards them> Sakura: No!! Flight: <begins to shatter> -----!! Sakura: “Flight”…!!

P24 <The figure pulls Sakura in as Flight shatters completely; Sakura grabs for the robe>

P25 <Sakura pulls the hood off the figure> Sakura: !!

P26 & P27 Sakura: …Syaoran… kun?

P28 <Sakura wakes up back in her room> Kero: Are you okay!? Kero(?): Was it another dream? Sakura: A dream… Sakura: It’s a dream, right? Narration: Is the dream Sakura and Akiho saw one that contradicts reality? Or is it…!?

#cardcaptor sakura #card captor sakura #cardcaptor sakura clear card arc #card captor sakura clear card arc #clear card arc #ccs #ccs clear card arc #translations: clear card arc

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thefudge · 6 years

Note

You know what, you should rank TVD ships! It'd be fun to read and I think it's really difficult to decide which ships really are the best (all the non-canon Bonnie ships obvs 😂). But anyway, Idk if you feel like doing it but I wanted to request it because I'm a bit evil and also, I enjoy your rants and long text posts more than pretty much anything else on this hellsite!

bahaha, grl you always get me going

i don’t have time to rant too much but

0. the ship we were robbed of: bonnie/julian IM SORRY NEVER QUITTING CRACK

1. bonkai - he was all about her & he was a compelling antihero, we saw a new facet of her around him. first guy to really push her boundaries and make her rethink her choices. hotass couple, still going strong in the AU where julie plec isnt a racist.

2. bamon - they legit have so much history and development and that great transition from hate to love which isn’t phoned in or rushed. as that wise dude from stranger things poignantly said: “You’ve got chemistry, history, plus the real shit, shared trauma.”

3. klonnie - mainly because the show didn’t get its paws on it so it couldn’t actually ruin it. the potential is amazing tho. it would have made klaus bearable (have u guys seen him on TO??? what a self-important rube NOT SORRY) and it would have given us a conflicted bonnie. also i love it when the couple is equally matched in strength.

4. bonenzo - this ship would be higher on the list if it had started circa season 5. because THAT’s when it should have started. their scenes are great and they do have lots of chemistry, but they also got the least exposure and build-up of any big tvd ships. which sucks ass. i needed more of them and written more consistently. also what’s up with season 8 bonnie? getting ready to sacrifice herself for him left and right? have we learned nothing from b*eremy? jesus. but season 7 bonenzo was lit. i just hate that they ushered in this ship at the last moment instead of giving it proper time to grow. in other news, is julie secretly alt-right? tune in to find out more

5. kennett - oh, how my heart still softly sings for this gone too soon ship. it had a couple of smol moments, it could’ve been great. possibly as great as bonkai, because it would’ve been a sweet combo of bamon and bonkai. alas, julie is definitely flying a confederate flag.

6. bonnie/tyler - yaaas, this would’ve been lit as fuck. because tyler is so good to his girlfriends, he’s attentive and cool and just a great guy. i can imagine them laughing in bed together, solid ship 10/10.

7. bonbekah - i got swerved on this ship by @irresistible-revolution who writes fantastic oneshots about them. and rebekah would love to fuck (with) bonnie. speaking of which…

8. batherine - omg yall. remember those early days in s4 when katherine was teasing bonnie and trying to get under her skin? SIGN ME UP. what a hot crack.

9. stefonnie - love the vibe they have, although i think stefan became caroline’s dude circa season 4 and it’s hard to see him with anyone else. but i do love their early friendship and that intimacy that could’ve developed if julie and her team weren’t protesting outside with tiki torches.

10. bonnie/nora - i put this low on the list because we got fooled with this ship, namely that we’d get more of it. it was queerbait at its finest. i never learn. but the potential is amazing again.

11. bonnie/silas - SIGH, this could’ve been great. imagine silas developing a thing not for elena doppelganger but for the descendant of the wife he scorned. amazing. ofc, he was an ugly beast/jeremy when he interacted and was interested in bonnie. he was only hot evil stefan when he killed her dad. julie is the zodiac killer, pass it on.

12. bonlijah - sadly, elijah is all about katherine/elena/hayley in the TVD/TO universe. but it would have been a smouldering dynamic.

13. monnie - they woulda been cute. slightly dull, but cute.

14. baroline/belena etc. - putting these low on the list because while i do love these dynamics in theory, in practice bonnie got shafted by my girls quite a bit. baroline is definitely the better of the two, seeing as elena tried to kill bonnie once or twice ugh.

15. bonnie/shane - wasted potential. another dude in the long line of guys who *seemed* to be into her, only to trick her and cause her loads of pain. cuz ha, black women don’t deserve feelings, amirite?

16. bonnie/luka - low on the list cuz see above. and okay, luka was decent but had a screwy dad with a weird agenda. still, i think this one hurt more because bonnie was so happy around him.

17. bonnie/ that rando guy in her cheerleading dream whom she stabs repeatedly - umm, hot? that dude gave her really good looks, like he dug getting killed by her. but he also seemed kinda douchey so pass.

18. bonnie/ben - or that waiter guy who tricked and hurt her back in season 1. in other news, julie likes steve bannon.

19. beremy - fuck this ship tbh.

20. bonnie/the gilberts in general - cuz fuck that too.

21. bonnie/alaric - omg yall, remember when we had that stupid scare pre-season 7? because all signs pointed to his sorry ass as her new love interest? canon show! alaric can bite my ass, he is dull and depressing. the only time i can ship this is in AU when @irresistible-revolution writes for them (which she did in a bonkai oneshot, bless her) that’s how specific it’s gotta be.

22. bonnie/mystic falls - one good thing the finale did is send bonnie off somewhere else cuz that town is literally her death sentence.

and that’s it! i think? if there’s anyone else, they’re probably somewhere between beremy and bonnie/the gilberts. hope u enjoyed!

*says she doesnt have time to rant, does it anyway*

#bonnie bennett #ships #my two cents #i get bitchy so steer clear #replies

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littlelovelymemes · 7 years

Text

✰ * º ❛ more popular text posts ask meme. ❜

‘ if i’m ever murdered i hope they make the chalk outline of my body hot ’ ‘ i hope you end up ok ’ ‘ i’m crying my best ’ ‘ how fucked up would it be if an astronaut was coming back to earth and everybody hid for a bit ’ ‘ some kid just skateboarded down my street crying ’ ‘ do you ever get in an “i don’t know” phase in your life. where you literally don’t have a solid answer to anything. you. just. don’t. know. ’ ‘ i guess at this point i should just consider dating myself ’ ‘ which of the three pillars of modern music is your favourite: burnin’ up by the jonas brothers, beautiful soul by jesse mccartney, or lucky by britney spears? ’ ‘ you know my name… and also my story cause i overshare 24/7 tbh ’ ‘ @ all of u that hate mint ice cream: what happened ’ ‘ there is no doubt in my mind i’m really that bitch ’ ‘ after you hit 21, you start forgetting your age cause ain’t nothing else to look forward to, besides sweet death ’ ‘ why am i not currently in the italian countryside with a fruit plate wearing a light linen dress? unacceptable ’ ‘ hands are weird because one of them can do absolutely everything without a problem and the other one can’t even hold a spoon ’ ‘ remember to drink a fucking shit ton of water every miserable day of ur life ’ ‘ what the fuck is a good day ’ ‘ sleeping pattern: ??¿?¿??¿¿¿?¿ ’ ‘ is he………you know…….*makes football throwing motion*….straight? ’ ‘ does anyone else have a resting bitch face™, but kinda enjoys looking intimidating ’ ‘ i’m not like most girls [rips off sunglasses]… i like most girls ’ ‘ time flies when u take a 2hr depression nap in the middle of the day ’ ‘ roses are red, i’m going to bed ’ ‘ u know when ur hairs greasy and it makes u feel so so so bad about urself. and ur entire life. everything is awful bc my hair is greasy ’ ‘ i’m just so glad the word “ugh” was invented ’ ‘ just another day of loving with all my heart and believing in the universe ’ ‘ you know when dogs sit outside with their face turned towards the sun and their eyes closed and they look so relaxed and when you pet them they’re warm that’s how I want to feel always ’ ‘ come into bed and listen to the rain with me ’ ‘ i hope all my girls out here r safe n being loved ’ ‘ people are so petty and then here i am, me, an angel, ’ ‘ i want to have angel wings and be kinder, braver and more tender ’ ‘ concept: a really nice italian restaurant but it’s spelled “spagooter” on the menu and the waiters won’t take your order unless you pronounce it like that ’ ‘ i want kids but i’m scared they’ll blame me if they’re ugly ’ ‘ does anyone have any tips for not thinking about it ’ ‘ “what’s a queen without her king?” well, historically, better ’ ‘ i want something that doesn’t taste like alcohol but has a lot of alcohol in it ’ ‘ i’m alive out of spite ’ ‘ the beatles wouldn’t even fucking exist if big time rush hadn’t paved the path for them so shut the fuck up ’ ‘ a bad person? who, me? that would be correct, ’ ‘ you hate me? wow u think ur hot shit and original huh well i hated me first so u can go grab a number and wait ur turn ’ ‘ my heart does a little “!” when I see you ’ ‘ i just want to say from the bottom of my heart i didn’t sign up for this shit ’ ‘ i deadass lost interest in everything. im just cruising on autopilot rn ’ ‘ still got love for some people i know i’ll never talk to again. ’ ‘ my mitochondria clearly aren’t working because this bitch has NO FUCKING ENERGY ’ ‘ y’all i get attached to people so quickly wth ’ ‘ i wonder how many strangers hate me bc of how someone else described me to them ’ ‘ for the 80th year in a row, the song of the summer is Everytime We Touch by Cascada ’ ‘ it’s weird to think that people who are 5 ft are only 5 subways long ’ ‘ in alcohol’s defense i’ve done some pretty dumb shit while completely sober too ’ ‘ man this has been the worst life of my life ’ ‘ having “feelings” is ruining my reputation of being a heartless bitch ’ ‘ I Have To Be Dramatic. I Have To ’ ‘ forgive and forget?? haha no resent and remember ’ ‘ “you’re obsessed with yourself” and you’re not??? sad. tragic ’ ‘ are people becoming more annoying or am i becoming more angry ’ ‘ do my dark under eye circles and unwashed hair turn you on ’ ‘ KIDS REACT TO existentialism and the inevitability of death ’ ‘ remember to do your best to be positive with a clear mind and believe in aliens because those motherfuckers are real ’ ‘ personality: I DON’T GIVE A FUCK ’ ‘ my gender is “pretty boy” ’ ‘ what others call a rebellious phase i call the sudden realization i don’t deserve to be treated like garbage ’ ‘ what is a sex drive? where is the sex going? does it even have a license? ’ ‘ i don’t want to look “pretty” i want to look otherworldly and vaguely threatening ’ ‘ i’m not interested in being polite or heterosexual ’ ‘ do re me fa so done with you ’ ‘ ctrl alt delete feelings cause i can’t do this shit no more ’ ‘ i may seem like an asshole, but deep down i’m a good person and even deeper down i’m a bigger asshole ’ ‘ should i go back to school tomorrow or should i fling myself into the ocean ’ ‘ am i too judgemental or is everyone annoying: an autobiography by me ’ ‘ are we gonna fuckn hold hands tonight or what bitch ’ ‘ i love drunk me but i don’t trust her ’ ‘ has anyones crush ever actually worked out for them or is that a myth? ’ ‘ i say “fight me” a lot for a girl who is 5′3″ and has a hard time opening some doors because they’re too heavy ’ ‘ if i had a dollar for every time someone called me ugly i’d have 0 dollars bitch u thought lmao ’ ‘ my last words will probably be sarcastic ’ ‘ i used to be a straight a student. now i’m not even straight ’ ‘ ever wonder how different your life would be if that one thing never happened ’ ‘ single and ready to find aliens ’ ‘ it’s very important that i am both cute and powerful ’ ‘ i want to make friends but at the same time no ’ ‘ there’s a special place in hell reserved just for me, it’s called the throne ’ ‘ hi i’m here to ruin everything ’ ‘ i’m glad dogs can’t read the ‘no dogs allowed’ signs so they don’t feel sad and feel left out ’ ‘ we’re all better and gayer people than we used to be ’ ‘ every time i speak i am reminded why i should not ’ ‘ every machine is a smoke machine if you operate it wrong enough ’ ‘ i don’t know what i’m feeling but there is a lot of it ’ ‘ the rumors are true: i’m soft and i just want to be loved ’ ‘ i’m like a hexagon: all my hecks r gone ’ ‘ we all know that one person you get sexually frustrated just looking at ’ ‘ i wonder what it feels like to know what the fuck is going on ’ ‘ my kink: not having to set an alarm for the next morning ’ ‘ on the bright side, at least i am not addicted to cocaine ’ ‘ they called me stupid?? well joke’s on them i don’t even know what that means ’ ‘ i might get a lot of shit for saying this but i think it’s fun to enjoy things ’ ‘ i’m the nicest, sweetest, most rage-filled person i know ’ ‘ assert your dominance by calling your friends by their student id number ’ ‘ there she goes again, being over dramatic and by she, i mean me ’ ‘ if u don’t know how to respond to something just say ‘how dare you’ ’ ‘ um that’s u’re* not ur ’ ‘ i wonder what it feels like to know what the fuck is going on ’ ‘ so sick of looking at my purse and not seeing $20,000 ’ ‘ literally want to be rich for the clothes ’ ‘ me??? upset???? yes constantly ’ ‘ a good gender neutral term to use is ‘fool’ ’ ‘ today’s schedule: suffer ’ ‘ my middle name is actually $$ ’ ‘ don’t u hate it when u wake up and ur awake ’ ‘ i want someone who will light a fire in me ’ ‘ i want someone who will light me on fire ’ ‘ i’m too cute for 90% of the shit i go thru ’ ‘ who needs therapy when you can Realize™ things about yourself alone at 1 am ’ ‘ why is there so much blood in my alcohol system ’ ‘ no offense but i am a blessing to this earth ’ ‘ haha oops i care about you ’ ‘ they call me calcium because i give everyone strong bones ’ ‘ do you have that one person that you can’t look at when you’re trying to be mad at them because they’re so cute?? ’ ‘ hi i’m here to ruin everything ’ ‘ one day i’m gonna say ‘fight me!’ and someone’s just gonna fuckin deck me ’ ‘ me? a jealous hoe? absolutely ’ ‘ it’s raining but it’s not men so what’s the point ’ ‘ i think i may be gayer than i originally planned ’ ‘ i can’t hang out tomorrow i’m too busy doing nothing alone sorry ’ ‘ me? overreacting? shit probably ’ ‘ i would like to publicly announce that i have no idea what i’m doing ’ ‘ is there a scholarship for trying ’ ‘ me?? using sarcasm as a defense mechanism??????? what????? ’ ‘ i don’t know what i’m feeling but there is a lot of it ’ ‘ i require a lot of attention or you get a lot of attitude ’ ‘ “what the fuck” is an emotion now and it’s the only one i have ’ ‘ you’re important to me, you piece of shit ’

#rp meme #ask meme #indie rp #sentence starters #rp sentence meme #inbox meme #inbox memes #rp inbox meme #sentence starter meme #rp sentence starters #starters #rp ask meme #rp ask box meme

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paper-blots · 7 years

Text

Hello! I came back from my hiatus this month and then didn’t post at all!

I know, I know, I’m that #PerfectBlogger that you all aspire to be.

But this month I actually read quite quite a lot!

I read 12 books and I’M TOO PROUD OF MYSELF. After months of only reading 4-5 books I FINALLY STARTED READING A LOT.

(Maybe it’s because school started and I got exposure to the library?)

BOOKS I READ

Kat and Meg Conquer the World by Anna Priemaza ★★★★★

The cover slightly makes me cringe, but this book was actually really good! It tackled racial issues and it was so realistic! [review]

Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart ★★★★★

The way this story was told was seriously so unique! I never read thrillers but this was pretty good. [review]

Dear Martin by Nic Stone ★★★★★

HELLO THIS WAS ONE OF MY MOST ANTICIPATED. It’s actually really short (and also I love the cover) and it was mainly about black discrimination (!!!) [review]

Gunslinger Girl by Lyndsay Ely ★★★★★

THE COVER IS SO STUNNING OKAY. It takes place in this crime-ridden city and the main character is really good at shooting! [review]

Kissing Max Holden by Katy Upperman ☆☆☆☆☆

This was a DNF. The main character was so annoying and there was slut-shaming and NO THANK YOU. [review]

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell ★★★★★

This took place in college and Cath had anxiety and she was so smol and sweet and I loved her! [review]

Starfish by Akemi Dawn Bowman ★★★★★

This is one of my favorites! The main character is half-Japanese and I could relate with her SO HARD. [review]

Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust ★★★★★

The characters were so complex and I LOVED THEM ALL. [review]

I Believe in a Thing Called Love by Maurene Goo ★★★★★

MORE ASIAN YA HECK YEAH. The main character is Korean and she watches Korean dramas and I watch Korean dramas?? It’s like we’re the same person??? [review]

Warcross by Marie Lu ★★★★★

EVEN MORE ASIAN YA. This was basically my most anticipated September release because I LOVE MARIE LU. [review]

The Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo ★★★★★

Leigh Bardugo is honestly so fantastic at writing and I loved these small stories! [review]

An Enchantment of Ravens ★★★★☆

This was another of my anticipated and sadly, it didn’t live up to the extensive hype! But I didn’t hate it like May did?? [review]

Guys ALL OF MY READS THIS MONTH WERE FIVE STARS (except for two why do I keep on DNFING books?)

Wow this also happened last month I think I’m getting less picky or maybe I just have really good picks?

ANTICIPATED OCTOBER RELEASES

#gallery-0-5 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-5 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 25%; } #gallery-0-5 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-5 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

(I’ve KIND of figured out how to format a bunch of images in a row? Except there’s no way to link each image to Goodreads or anything, which sucks, but at least it looks fine?)

(Also there are SO MANY October releases I’m hyped for ahhhh.)

BLOGGING HISTORY

Four posts.

(That’s less than last month??!)

Also I posted two reviews in a month SORRY FRIENDS.

I’m going to post more discussions and listicle posts this month!

POSTS TO LOOK FORWARD TO

How Do You Discover Books?

Basically me talking about Goodreads because GOODREADS IS GREAT.

Review: Night of Cake and Puppets

Except I might make this a mini-review because Night of Cake and Puppets is a novella?

Types of Blogging Personalities (+ Shoutouts to my Favorite Blogs!)

To be honest, I started this post two months ago and haven’t had much time to work on it since. I was SO EXCITED for this!

And other stuff…

*spooky music*

THINGS I PARTICIPATED IN

#BooksBindUs on Twitter

I hosted a giveaway, sponsored by the fabulous @SKVetterWrites! It ended yesterday. And the winner was actually Ilsa!

I really can’t think of anything else.

THINGS I CHANGED

BASICALLY NOTHING.

I’ve been trying to post more often?? But also I posted only four times this month so that’s been working out great.

MY POPULAR POSTS

POSTS I LOVED

Ilsa gives us her bookish nightmares and UM RELATABLE?

Aris explains why we should re-read books and I AM CONVINCED NOW.

Marie gives us tips on how to buddy-read (and I SUCK AT IT.)

Dani gives us her TBR of diverse books.

Balie tells us the differences between YA and NA books.

Analee teaches people on how to make book bloggers happy and YES YOU ALL SHOULD DO THIS.

Lia answers questions about aromanticism that you probably wanted to ask but didn’t.

May is back from her hiatus (and all the angels are weeping with joy).

Mikaela wonders if ARCs have a negative influence on bloggers.

MILESTONES

Also I reached over 300 followers this month?? Yay!

First I’d like to thank my family- and also my friends- and um yeah.

SCHOOL

School started this September!

(It started on September 5th and I actually thought it started on September 1st so that was a nice surprise.)

Anyways, funnily enough, I’m pretty sure that I’m going to be posting a lot more during the school year.

B-FEST

There was B-Fest this month! It was my first time going to one, and it was on the same day as the Boston Teen Author festival, so I wasn’t able to go to the Boston Teen Author Festival (but I probably wouldn’t have been able to go anyways).

Anyways, they were giving away Batman: Nightwalker ARCs and I HAD TO GO.

Sadly, I only got there for the second half and I missed getting the Batman ARCs but I still had fun answering questions and playing games. I actually won two ARCs! Zenith and Top Ten, and I am HYPED for Zenith!

Wow extensive YA knowledge actually comes in handy sometimes?

OTHER

One of my status updates on Goodreads got over 200 likes wow I feel so proud.

My little brother and mother went away to China without the rest of us and I WANT TO GO TO CHINA. But also we get to eat pizza and lots of frozen foods.

Wegman’s opened near us! (This isn’t really relevant but I LIKE SUPERMARKETS.)

We also went up to Massachusetts and ate some americanized Chinese food! I LIKE AUTHENTIC MORE. Americanized is so… saucy.

My dad signed me and my younger sister up for a singing group lesson and… we went to the wrong school. And then when we actually went to the right school, it turns out that the main age of the group was around 70. (When I asked my dad, he said the age range was 1-20???)

What happened in YOUR September? What are some of your anticipated reads for October? Did you read a lot of books? Do you like going to supermarkets? Did you go to any bookish festivals?

September 2017 Blotted Recap // I Tried To Post More Regularly + Read A Lot Hello! I came back from my hiatus this month and then didn't post at all! I know, I know, I'm that #PerfectBlogger that you all aspire to be.

#b fest #blogging #blots of ink and words #book blog #books #september wrap up #wrap up

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sempiternalsandpitturtle · 5 years

Text

Website SEO: Why It Needs To Be Perfect

Welcome to the first step on your journey towards SEO perfection. We say “towards” because your website SEO will never be perfect. Sorry if you feel horribly misled. But please bear with us.

What we can do in this blog post is to show you why you should still strive for perfect website SEO. Even if you know you’ll never quite get there.

So, with expectations suitably managed, let’s jump right in. Here’s what you’ll get if you keep reading:

First, we’ve picked our landmark moments in the evolution of Google’s search algorithm. Ranking in Google’s search results is a moving target, which is part of the reason why the quest for SEO perfection never ends. We’ll look at how some of the more significant changes affected SEO.

Second, we’ve dug out some examples of what happens when website SEO is not just imperfect, but downright disastrous. Check out some classic SEO fails and what you can learn from them in part two.

Third, we’ve got some SEO hacks to share. There are a million blog posts on SEO hacks, but we’ve selected just a handful of the less obvious tactics you can try on your site right now.

PART ONE: LANDMARK MOMENTS IN SEO HISTORY

As we said in the intro, Google’s search results are a moving target. The tactics you need to succeed at SEO have to constantly evolve. That’s because the algorithm that decides what should rank where is constantly being tweaked and updated.

If you want a comprehensive rundown of the 200 or so algorithm changes dating back to the year 2000, then look no further than Moz’ Google Algorithm Search History. But if you’re interested in what we consider to be the really big moments then keep reading.

#1: PANDA

We know what you’re thinking: Why the fox picture?

Like every big Google algorithm update, Panda has generated millions of pieces of content. All those blog images and memes and not a red panda in sight. Until now.

What was Panda?

That should be: what is Panda? Because Panda is a series of updates rather than a single event. Moz has tracked no fewer than 28 Panda updates since February 2011.

Panda first arrived in year one for us. We had just opened up in Sydney and were in the very early days of building our content marketing agency.

Our USP at the time was our ability to generate fresh, original content at scale. So, Panda, as you can imagine, was pretty helpful. SEOs were falling over themselves to get their duplicate content taken down and their lightweight pages beefed up with relevant, useful content.

That’s because Panda’s primary targets were pages or entire sites that offered little or no unique value to users.

Google said the first Panda update affected up to 12 per cent of English language queries. Some websites lost enough traffic to put their businesses at risk literally overnight.

The impact was significant enough for SEO to make the mainstream news. As The Guardian cleverly put it: Google had “put some websites on the endangered species list”.

Why does it still matter?

Panda was a line in the sand for Google’s quality drive. They knew that if search results were packed with lightweight, unhelpful or completely useless content they would lose their audience.

The Panda updates have been the tip of the spear as Google continues to find and rank pages that users want to see.

#2: PENGUIN

Baby penguins are another under-used stock image resource when covering Google. Righting that one here too.

What was Penguin?

Penguin, like Panda, was a series of Google updates. Where Panda was about weak content, Penguin was about black hat SEO.

Black hat SEO is a broad church. And there’s lots of grey around the edges. But it usually refers to SEO tactics that break Google’s guidelines.

Penguin went after two popular black hat SEO practices: link manipulation and keyword stuffing.

When Google first launched, links were its USP. Rather than relying almost solely on words on the page, Google’s algorithm used inbound links. If another site is linking to this page, it must be a good resource for whatever the anchor text says.

No surprise then that Google has gone to some effort to protect the integrity of inbound links. Penguin pecked away at link farms (sites set up purely to give out links) and suspicious link graph signals (too many links with your favourite keyword as the anchor text).

Penguin also flagged pages with keywords crammed into the bits everyone knew Google paid more attention to (page title, H1 tags, image alt tags etc).

The impact of the first Penguin update wasn’t as widespread as Panda. It affected around three per cent of English language queries.

But for the sites that got hit, it was no less devastating. We helped one particular client with the clean-up from another agency’s paid link scheme. They had dropped from #1 to nowhere for their most important keyword. The impact on their business was almost fatal.

Why does it still matter?

It still matters because it can still get you. Penguin was incorporated into Google’s core search algorithm. So it now runs in realtime.

That means if you get caught out stuffing keywords into your title tags or cruising bad neighbourhood for links it will be thanks to Penguin.

#3: FRESHNESS

We know. It should have been cookies. Sorry.

What was Freshness?

If you asked 100 SEOs to name a Google algorithm update then Panda and Penguin would be your top answers for sure. But while Freshness didn’t anywhere near the same attention and digital column inches, Google said at the time that it affected 6 to 10 per cent of search results.

Freshness, as the name suggests, was about rewarding pages with more recent content. It applied to particular queries where the user was likely to be looking for something new or recently updated.

Why does it still matter?

We included Freshness in our list because it drove two important content strategy trends.

First was to use news stories in our clients’ industries as hooks for search-friendly blog posts. During big events or when a story was trending, Freshness meant that new content could punch well above its weight.

Second was the internal linking strategy HubSpot later dubbed “pillar and cluster”. SEO-savvy news sites would throw up landing pages for trending topics and then link back and forth to all their news stories on that topic. We did the same with clients’ landing pages and blogs. That worked largely because of Freshness.

#4: MOBILEGEDDON

Because all the mobiles would be broken during the “mopocalypse”.

What was Mobilegeddon?

Google’s big mobile update in April 2015 was heavily trailed. Months earlier, the company had said it was planning a major shake-up of its mobile search results.

But what really caught everyone’s attention was a comment from Google analyst Zineb Ait Bahajji who told attendees at an industry event that the impact would be bigger than Panda and Penguin.

As this Moz study 7 days in demonstrated, Mobilegeddon was a slow burn. But it makes our list because it represented Google’s first big move against pages that provided a poor user experience on mobiles.

This came a year after then Google CEO Eric Schmidt made his famous “mobile first” declaration. Mobilegeddon was about making that commitment a reality for sites whose SEO started and stopped on desktops.

Why does it still matter?

We work with a lot of B2B websites and often see a damaging mobile traffic feedback loop.

That’s when website owners misinterpret a low number of sessions on smartphones and tablets for a lack of demand. Often times the site is too hard to use on those devices so its pages just aren’t showing up in mobile search results.

#5: RANKBRAIN

Not an original idea this one. But fancy-looking brain image.

What was Rankbrain?

Rankbrain was and is Google’s flagship machine learning project.

It’s not artificial intelligence exactly (but then hardly anything that calls itself AI is actually AI). But it is Google handing over some level of control from bodies to bots.

Rankbrain can adjust the weighting of the various signals Google uses to organise search results. This juggles the results around with the goal of improving user satisfaction.

When page one results get a high bounce rate, low dwell time or other negative engagement metrics that suggests something is wrong. That link shouldn’t be among the top results. It’s Rankbrain that steps in to fix it.

Why does it still matter?

Back in 2015, when it was first rolled out, Rankbrain was pointed at the 15 per cent of queries Google handles every day that have never been searched before.

Now, Rankbrain is one of Google’s most important tools in its ongoing effort to serve up results users want and expect.

It should mean that if you’re a white hat SEO, creating genuine, valuable content for your audience, your strong engagement metrics should filter through to better rankings. If they do, you have the machines to thank.

PART TWO: WHEN WEBSITE SEO GOES BAD

#1: JC PENNEY GETS DINGED FOR UNNATURAL LINKS

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What happened?

Essentially this boiled down to a Penguin violation before Penguin existed.

This was February 2011. JC Penney had been smashing the competition in the run up to the previous Christmas, ranking on page one for a range of highly competitive product keywords.

They either had the best website SEO game in town or they were breaking the rules to gain an advantage.

There were a number of notable elements to this story. First was that it started with an expose by The New York Times. They enlisted an SEO expert to uncover what reporter David Segal called JC Penney’s “dirty little secret”. The answer was of course link farms.

Second, was that it took The New York Times story for JC Penney to get found. Their black hat tactics had worked. It was only when the story broke that Google imposed a manual penalty (although Google’s head of anti-webspam, Matt Cutts, claimed at the time the algorithms had already started to work it out).

The third noteworthy piece was what happened next. JC Penney’s manual penalty saw them booted off page one. Their rankings and organic traffic tanked as a result. But just 90 days later, as this Search Engine Land follow-up piece confirmed, they were out on parole.

What can we learn from this story?

The first lesson is that in 2011, Google was largely reliant on the myth that it was all-seeing and all-knowing. In reality, black hat link building tactics were very hard for its algorithms to spot and adjust for.

Second, if you engage in black hat SEO, outsource it to an agency so you have someone to fire when you get caught.

And third, don’t assume that JC Penney’s 90 days in the organic search wilderness is indicative. If you’re a small website that gets dinged for a breach of Google’s guidelines on that scale there’s no telling when you’d recover – if at all.

#2: EBAY GETS SWATTED BY RAMPAGING PANDA

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What happened?

In our section on Google’s Panda updates we mentioned that the effect on some websites was pretty devastating. There were lots of stories at the time about small ecommerce sites going out of business because their organic traffic had disappeared overnight.

This was because e-commerce sites would often use duplicate product descriptions. If you were a small business stocking thousands of items it’s understandable that you might just import the descriptions provided by your suppliers.

But post Panda, sites that had invested the time and effort in creating unique, in-depth product descriptions got a big uplift. These sites found themselves outranking much bigger rivals for the first time.

And because Panda is a rolling update this is a story that has repeated itself. Take Panda 4.0, for example, which was rolled out in May 2014. One of the highest profile casualties of that particular iteration was ebay, the online auction site.

Some estimates put ebay’s loss in organic rankings at 80 per cent. The impact was especially damaging because ebay had made a strategic shift away from paid search to focus on SEO. It was therefore much more reliant on traffic from organic search when Panda 4.0 landed.

What can we learn from this story?

There are two useful lessons from ebay’s Panda 4.0 experience. The first is that unique content that offers value to users is always a good investment for SEO.

The second is that it is dangerous to rely too heavily on one single source of website traffic. Even if you are a website SEO master, you remain at the mercy of Google’s algorithm updates.

That makes it important to diversify. You can do that by investing in paid search and social media ads. Building up your referral network. And leveraging marketing automation to run a proper email strategy.

#3: TOYS R US AND THE $5.1 MILLION REDIRECT

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What happened?

It’s fair to say the iconic toy shop chain Toys R Us has had bigger problems than SEO in recent years.

But back in 2009, they had SEO nerds all excited about what happens when you do a 301 redirect of an entire domain.

Toys R Us had just paid USD $5.1 million for the toys.com domain name. According GoDaddy.com, which sells domain names, that was the 25th most expensive domain name deal of all time. Carinsurance.com is the current #1 at just shy of USD 50 million.

Toys.com wasn’t just a parked domain. It was a living, breathing website with strong domain authority and useful organic rankings for some valuable keywords.

At first, Toys R Us ran it as a separate website, but after a few months took the decision to redirect the entire domain to toysrus.com.

What Toys R Us did was to effectively remove toys.com from Google’s index without any obvious benefit – at least from an SEO standpoint – for its main domain. This on the face it looks like a very expensive SEO fail.

What can we learn from this story?

The problem here is that redirects do not necessarily pass on SEO value from old page to new page.

If you have a page about premium widgets and you set up a 301 redirect to your new, improved premium widgets page, chances are the new page will keep the old page’s standing in organic search.

But when there is a significant difference between the content on your new page and the content on your old page, there’s no guarantee that will be the case.

And that’s pretty logical. If you made a really great page about apples, it ranked because it was about apples. If you redirect that page to a new page about oranges then it shouldn’t keep ranking for all those old apple keywords.

This is important to keep in mind if you run more than one website, acquire a new site in a merger or fancy breaking into GoDaddy’s top 25.

#4: GOOGLE CATCHES GOOGLE IN DOORWAY PAGE SCHEME

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What happened?

Doorway pages are a black hat SEO technique that shows one thing to search engines and another to users.

The most famous case of a doorway pages scheme getting detected and punished was BMW. Back in 2006, Google delisted the car giant’s German website from its index. The BBC called it a “death penalty”.

But a much more interesting example of this SEO bait and switch is when Google caught Google doing it.

It was 2010 when bloggers noticed some Google Ads (or AdWords as it was then) help pages showing content to search engine crawlers that differed from what was actually on the page.

Important to note here that it’s unlikely Google was trying to game its own algorithm. And if it was the company was big enough even in 2010 for the AdWords and anti-spam teams to be as separate as two completely different businesses.

More likely this was a mistake. That’s how a Google spokesperson described it to Search Engine Land at the time.

What can we learn from this story?

Website SEO should be about making your pages easier for Google to crawl and index. But any tactics designed to trick Google into ranking your content higher than it deserves will eventually backfire.

What this story shows is that you can go black hat by accident. Breaking Google’s rules not because you have a nefarious plan to get ahead of the competition. But because you made a mistake.

It highlights the importance of employing or outsourcing to genuine website SEO experts. They can ensure your strategy stays white hat at all times.

PART THREE: OUR FAVOURITE WEBSITE SEO HACKS

#1: BACKLINKO: CLICKTHROUGH RATE METHOD

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Brian Dean of Backlinko developed what he called the Clickthrough Rate Method. The idea is to play to the same signals that Rankbrain is thought to be looking at when it stirs the pot to boost user satisfaction.

You’ll remember from part one, Rankbrain is the machine learning algorithm that adjusts the weighting of ranking factors based on engagement metrics. So, if content in position #10 has great engagement, bump it up. Content in position #3 has poor engagement, push it down.

Dean’s idea is to look at the top Google Ads for your target keyword. Then use some of the same language in your headlines and meta descriptions of the pages you want to rank organically.

The assumption is that the copy used in ads will have been tested and refined over time to maximise clickthrough.

If you can transfer some of what makes those ads work into your organic links, you should get more clicks. If the content is good enough, users will engage with it. And Rankbrain should do the rest.

#2: BRAFTON: CONTENT DEPTH

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Jeff Baker, one of our friends at Brafton, has done extensive research on the relationship between content depth and organic rankings.

Content depth is about the number of popular and important topics a particular piece of content features.

So, rather than focusing on word count to improve their content, SEOs should focus on topics.

You start with pages on your site that already rank in search. The idea being that it is usually easier to move up a few spots in Google’s search results than to hit page one from nowhere.

Next step is to find the topics.

You can do that manually by reviewing pages that are currently ranking among the top results for your target keyword.

Or you can use a tool like MarketMuse or SEMrush to do the legwork for you.

Once you have identified the topics most commonly featured by the top-ranked pages, you can adjust your content to make it the most comprehensive resource for your target keyword.

#3: NEIL PATEL: RELATED SEARCHES

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This is apparently Neil Patel’s favourite organic traffic hack.

We like it because it’s similar to Jeff’s work on content depth and it’s about creating richer, more useful content.

The idea here is to use Google’s suggested searches to find new topic ideas.

So, if you’re creating a cornerstone blog post on purple widgets, you would start typing “purple widgets” into Google and make a note of the drop down suggestions.

You can then incorporate content that answers these suggested queries into your cornerstone blog post. Or you can create dedicated posts to target them that link to and from that cornerstone piece.

If you don’t fancy researching suggested searches manually, Patel has a free tool that can do it for you called Ubersuggest.

from http://bit.ly/2WbL3jq

#content marketing

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