#but this was fun painting practice even even i went the easier route doing a grey scale colour scheme

[cockworkangels]

max <3333

[squiddybeifong]

Can I ask for the batsiblings reaction to Damian pacing so much he wore a hole in the floor? Doesn't have to be a fics, maybe headcanons?

Sorry for the rather long wait. Kinda wanted to make this a fic

Here's the floor pacing fic

On Ao3 here

--

Alfred hadn’t outwardly reacted to Damian’s obvious lie as to why he had paced the floorboards uneven, but the butler absolutely took action for amending the tripping hazard in the boy’s room. With the floor repairman on the line and a measuring tape in hand nothing was amiss, of course.

Dick had already kept him up-to-date with the gossip about the two Titan birds, so Alfred hadn’t been surprised whatsoever. His position in the family meant that he’d watched the awkward budding romances of most everyone who’d called the Manor home. Damian being frustrated at his feelings for a teammate was nothing compared to a (very grown) Bruce being moody after Selina rebuffed his kiss while ‘on the clock’ or Dick’s increasingly creative attempts at sneaking around with Kori before the ‘no dating metahumans or aliens’ rule had been lifted. Honestly, watching the pun-laden flirting that Steph ladled out to both Tim and Cass on a near daily basis was more awkward than his youngest ward taking his repressed emotions out on the floors.

Unfortunately for Damian, the butler arranged for the floor repairman to show up during the day. Most notably, the repairman arrived at exactly the specified 1:35 p.m., not wanting to be late when called upon to fix anything belonging to Bruce Wayne.

Why Robin had believed that (like everyone else in Gotham) this worker would be fashionably late, he didn’t know. What Damian did know was that he hadn’t heard Grayson open the door. Nor had he heard his brother head up with Alfred and the repairman into his room. And he especially didn’t hear as Alfred slyly mentioned that he believed Dick’s gossip was coming to a head, if the worn path in the floor meant anything.

No, Damian heard none of it. Not when he was busy brushing BatCow and making sure that every square inch of the barn was properly ventilated so she couldn’t possibly overheat in the approaching summer weather. So when the youngest Bat stalked into the Manor, he’d been all but ambushed.

It didn’t take a detective to realize why he’d been pacing so much. Even without Alfred’s confirmation, it was unlike Damian to avoid going back to the Titans early if he could help it. Batman hadn’t looked up when Robin had elected to stay another week when they were in the BatCave, but his siblings sure had. And while Bruce didn’t outwardly ponder about how intense things had to be for Damian to go out of his way to avoid a certain someone, this new information had Dick positively enchanted at the prospect of his baby brother being in love.

“I’m not in love with Raven,” Damian hissed out.

Jason snickered as he reclined in his seat, his face full of mirth at the flustered crack in Damian’s voice. Cass was sitting upside down with her legs resting on the couch’s back, her smile wide as she took in her youngest brother’s irritated, embarrassed body language (nevermind the barest hint of an actual blush on his face when vehemently denying any feelings he had towards his fellow Titan).

Babs’ smile was wide and cheerful as she pointed out, “Who said anything about Raven?” Duke perked up from his spot next to Cass, immediately adding on, “Yeah, Dami. We thought you were just falling for her?”

Steph snorted, “Falling over those footprints in the floor, more like it.”

Tim laughed behind his gulp of his coffee, sleepily (and loudly) drawling out to the blonde, “A Robin and his Raven. Guess you can say they’re a real pair of lovebirds, huh?”

Damian glared at them all, fighting the urge to pinch between his eyes. Why were all the Bats at the Manor? Shouldn’t they be on patrol instead of bothering him?

Jason clicked his tongue and rested his arms on the table. He met Dick’s gaze, saw the way his older brother’s eyes brightened up with mischief and scratched at the streak of white in his hair. Deciding that messing with Damian was by far the most fun he’d have in the Manor that morning, Jason asked, “So, Lil’ D… What’re you gonna get your girlfriend? Can’t come back empty handed.”

“She’s not my--”

Babs interrupted him, nudging Tim with her elbow, “Do not tell me he wasn’t planning on getting her anything.”

Steph lazily rested on the chair’s edge. The blonde leaned over to rest against Jason’s shoulder, her fist pressed to her face. She gnawed on the inside of her cheek; it wasn’t likely she’d be much use for knowing how Raven would want to be wooed. She had heard of her but she had yet to actually meet Damian’s mystery crush, after all. She let out a hum, “What does Raven like? It’s gotta be something personal!”

Damian clicked his tongue as his siblings were suddenly oh so chatty at Spoiler’s suggestion, their unwanted ideas filling the room.

“What if he paints her something?”

“Doesn’t she like old books? Maybe one of those first editions that Alfred was thinking about donating last year?”

“Wait a sec-- Dick, isn’t she goth? B did get that set of obsidian jewelry at the last gala.”

“Hell, if we’re going that route I’m sure Selina has some nice rings somewhere--”

“Maybe something that isn’t stolen, Tim.”

“Just be honest with her.”

The room went quiet at Cass’ simple instruction. Still in her Orphan suit from her early morning patrols and reclining in her inverted spot on the couch, the brunette somehow kept a serious face as she stared at Damian upside down.

Seeing that no one was going to add-on to her suggestion, Cass blew some of her bangs out of her face and shrugged, “You like her for a reason.”

Brown eyes slyly glanced around the room, gratefully falling on Babs as she piped up, “Cass is right. I really don’t think Damian of all people would fall for someone who’s all about dating mind-games.”

Ignoring Damian’s exasperated lie of “I haven’t fallen for her!” in the background, Steph slumped down on the couch next to Duke. Her face was contemplative, “Then maybe we should invite her here?”

Dick let out an excited laugh the same time Tim clapped his hands and grinned at their resident computer whiz, “Babs could absolutely get her up to speed on patrolling Gotham for a bit, right?”

The redhead looked excited at the idea. Pushing her glasses further up her nose before they fell, Babs teasingly asked, “What is it about Gotham and bird-based superheroes?”

Duke shrugged, a hand cradling his chin in thought. “Not sure, but Dami obviously won’t confess if we’re not around to kick him into doing it.”

Jason clicked his tongue at the possibility of the youngest Bat listening to them and raised a brow Dick’s way, “Any chance at all that she’ll make the first move?”

Irritated at the topic, Damian turned on his heel and retreated to the kitchen. Ignoring the chorus of “C’mon, Dami” behind him (and planning on fighting Todd later for the childish boos that the antihero was aiming at his back), Robin set about grabbing some snacks for his pets when he heard two sets of footsteps approach.

He bit back a groan as Dick practically skipped into the room, Cass on his heels. “What now?”

Nightwing let out a laugh at his brother’s sneer, “You do know that we’re only trying to help, right?” He took a few pears from the fridge and handed them to Damian, knowing that they were BatCow’s favorite. Hearing as Cass opened the cabinet doors to find where the rawhide bones and cat treats were stored, Dick pressed on, “I know she already knows me but it might be easier introducing everyone as a segue into talking to her about other things…”

Cass let out a quiet snort at his suggestion. She shook her head and offered a better idea, “Alfred first.”

Dick tilted his head, nodding in agreement a moment later. He ignored the violent way Damian was cutting up the pears and said, “That’ll probably be for the best. Living with the Titans is one thing; we gotta ease her into our particular brand of madness.”

Tossing aside the stems and peeled off stickers, Damian sulked, “None of this is necessary.”

Cass hid her smile with her hand. Dick hummed out, “You don’t want your girlfriend to meet your family?”

“She won’t be my--” Damian couldn’t say the potential title just yet. He clicked his tongue, “Just because you all think I have feelings for her doesn’t mean she’ll reciprocate.”

The older two visibly paused at his words.

Her head tilting in concern, brown eyes studied Robin for a moment. Damian glared at Cass but she ignored him. Dick leaned against the wall, the worried furrow in his brow betraying his nonchalant stance. He spoke out the obvious, “Do you really think she’s not interested?”

“She thinks I’ve been avoiding her--”

Cass shrugged, “You have.”

Damian continued as if he hadn’t heard her, “--so I doubt any feelings she may have towards me are positive right now.”

Dick let out a hum, “You didn’t answer the question.”

Ophan’s suit somehow didn’t shine in the kitchen’s fluorescent light as she crossed her arms, “Yes or no?”

Damian bit the inside of his cheek. It was quiet in the kitchen for a moment as he thought over all the moments he and Raven had shared, the comfortable quiet pauses between crimefighting, training, and avoiding their teammates’ noise. She never seemed to dislike his company, but she was stoic enough that he could never tell if her heart leaped into her throat whenever she noticed that they were alone.

He suppressed a jump as Cass entered his personal space.

Olive eyes were reluctant as she poked his cheek. “You’re not stupid,” She figured it was progress when he didn’t try to swat her hand away, but she couldn’t keep the beam off her face at the boy’s blush. A hint of smugness crept into her voice, “So she is?”

“I don’t know.”

Cass looked to the Manor’s main entrance, knowing that in half a week’s time the entire structure would be full of lights, flowers and who knew what else B’s planners would bring. A spring gala with flowers and enough hidden corners for a pair to get lost in the crowd.

In other terms: the perfect setting for a first date.

She met Dick’s gaze and grinned at the knowing look on his face. His hair nearly fell out of its bun as he let out a whoop, wrapping an arm around Damian. Thoughts of finding Raven a gala-ready dress (and maybe a matching suit) in mind, Dick couldn’t keep the excitement out of his movements.

Ignoring the aggravated yet cautiously hopeful way Damian shrugged off his brother’s arm, Cass clasped her hands in front of her chest. “Only one way to find out.”

[ladykissingfish]

Halloween with the Akatsuki

Konan

Dress-up isn’t really for her, and neither is going out to join in any festivities. She prefers to go the homemade treats and scary movie route, staying either by herself or with her fellow Akatsuki members who think the same way. She’s the one who will decorate the house (often with Tobi’s help) with orange and purple lights, hanging ghosts and witches, and an entirely too-real-looking scarecrow. Might decide to wear some spooky-printed pajamas and/or a matching robe. Also makes herself of use to anyone who’s dressing up and needs help applying face paint or makeup. She also stays up the latest to ensure that those who do go out make it home safe and sound, although she doesn’t tell anyone that this is why she’s still awake.

Deidara and Hidan:

Normally these two don’t get along (to put it mildly) and avoid each other like the plague. However, on Halloween, it’s a different story. These two are the youngest in the Akatsuki and therefore much more into the “holiday spirit” than the others. They’ll help each other with costumes (Hidan figures that his normal getup/ritual black and white paint is scary enough, and Deidara will dress as a literal “bang”; bright, flashy clothing ((definitely with a cape)) with small handmade explosives set to go off at regular intervals). Deidara will likely be made to take Tobi trick or treating during the early hours of the evening, and Hidan will tag along; not because he likes candy but because he figures the sugar will give him a needed boost of energy for the rest of the evening. Once Deidara finishes with Tobi, he and Hidan will set out for some greater fun. Haunted houses are their favorite; they can separate themselves from the crowd and hide within the exhibits, to scare the bejesus out of everyone else. Deidara can throw as many bombs as he wants ((and at point-blank range)), and Hidan can lure countless unsuspecting sacrifices people into the darkness; and the best part of it? Everyone thinks it’s just part of the show. It’s only when the others realize that the “fake blood” and “fake dead bodies” aren’t so fake that they decide to dip out. Likely to end the night sneaking Kakuzu’s sake from his room, getting completely shit-faced, eating ALL of Tobi’s candy (which he’ll cry about to no end in the morning), then passing out face-down on the floor. Will have to be dragged to their own rooms by Sasori and Kakuzu, and in the morning Kakuzu will be as loud as humanly possible to punish the two hungover idiots for stealing his alcohol.

Tobi

A holiday whose sole purpose is to get as much free candy as possible? Sign. Him. The FUCK. Up. He doesn’t really bother with much of a costume (after all he’s already wearing a mask that greatly resembles a lollipop) but might adorn it with a set of cat ears and tail. He’ll beg his senpai to take him trick or treating (which will be refused at first because “You’re a grown man for fuck’s sake, hm!”, but then Pein and Konan will use some “gentle persuasion” on the blonde until Tobi’s wish is granted). He’s thorough with it; he’s had Zetsu infiltrate houses for weeks beforehand to find out who has what candy, so he knows the best route to take. When he’s done (or rather when Deidara’s patience has run out) he’ll go back to the hideout and start eating his hard-earned treats. But not too much; because Konan is also making pumpkin and ghost shaped cookies and green-dyed hot chocolate. Will end the night watching scary movies (during which he’ll hide behind a pillow) with Konan and Kakuzu (Kakuzu insists the movies are boring but for some reason he has yet to leave the room). Sometimes accidentally slips into Obito voice when talking about how much he “gets” Michael Myers. 9/10 will fall asleep and be covered with a blanket to stay on the couch. Also 9/10 will wake up to find his candy gone because of senpai and the jerk Hidan, and will sob about it until Deidara caves and goes out and buys him several bagfuls of (now conveniently discounted) Halloween candy.

Kakuzu

Likes to answer the door for trick or treaters, but instead of candy he’ll give out what he feels is “more helpful”. Like, pamphlets on how to start a 401k, or advice on what stocks are a good investment, or tips how to save the most when shopping at the grocery store. Most children are unappreciative of the old grouch’s “treats”, however, and the Akatsuki house always ends up heavily egged and TP’d. But hey ... that means free eggs ((the ones that aren’t too damaged, anyway)) and free toilet paper: win-win. When not answering the door, he joins some of the others in their “scary” movie fest. Not because he thinks the flicks are in anyway scary ((to him they seem more like comedies)) but he likes to analyze the actions of the main characters to see how and where they went wrong; good practice for future missions.

Pein

Thinks the “holiday” is utterly pointless, but gives his blessing for the others to indulge in in however they see fit.

Zetsu

This is the night of the year that Zetsu brings in the most revenue to the Akatsuki. He scopes out what places are having costume contests with cash prizes, and he enters, and literally always wins first place. Nobody can figure out how he “made” a costume so wonderfully realistic, with the unique dual skin-tone and the lush foliage. This is also a good time for him to indulge in sweet treats ... and NOT the candy kind. Lots of dumb teenagers like to wander out to the woods and have Halloween parties; their exuberance and intoxication lets them see Zetsu as just another guy with an awesome get-up. Getting one or two or ten of them away from the group is child’s play, and devouring them? Easier than taking candy from a Tobi. Sometimes will take a severed hand or foot and enter ANOTHER contest as a carnivorous Venus fly trap.

Itachi and Kisame

Neither of these two like to go out, so they spend time at the house together. Kisame goes out the day before and raids a pumpkin patch, and the two spend a good part of Halloween evening expressing their “artistic” sides on different jack-o-lanterns ((which will be mercilessly criticized by Deidara)). Kisame’s masterpiece is Samehada at his strongest and Itachi’s is the portrait of who he SAYS is himself as a younger man ((but is clearly that little brother of his)). Kisame is not a fan of candy, but Itachi is, so Tobi will bring him a large handful of his own to share. They will abandon their customary tea and biscuits for warm apple cider and whatever confectionary delight Konan is making. Might also join the others for scary movies at some point. Most Halloween’s end up with Deidara and Hidan coming back to the house very late, drinking too much, and falling asleep. This might be the ONLY time Itachi ever initiates an act of aggression against them, as he takes advantage of their out-of-it states to put each of their hands in a cup of warm water ((a trick he learned from Hidan himself)) and letting nature (and overfilled bladders) take its course. Kisame sees him doing this and laughs himself sick; it always amuses him when he sees his partner drop his ultra-serious nature and let loose like a normal young person.

Sasori

It’s always been said of Halloween for sweet-consumers to be aware of what they’re eating, as many unscrupulous people out there can hide poison in the candy. Sasori is that person who parents warn their kids about. However, Sasori doesn’t direct his malice towards children; rather, adults. He concocts a variety of poisons, sleeping agents and other horrors, laces candy or apples with it, and has his secret subordinates in other villages pass them out to pre-selected individuals ((usually people that the redhead has some sort of grudge against)). Sasori keeps careful track of his lab rats by sending small, drone-like puppets out to observe them, and record their reactions from time of consumption to whatever end comes for them. This research greatly helps him in terms of future poison preparations. If particularly bored, he’ll dress up some of his larger puppets in terrifying attire, and send them out in the darkness to stalk and frighten the life out of young trick-or-treaters. He’s likely to join some of the others who watch movies, or, if he’s in time to catch Deidara after the blonde passes out from his night of fun, he’ll take a marker and write “Art is Eternal” across his face ... in multiple languages.

[tomboyneedshercoffee]

Thin Ice || Peter Parker x reader

Summary: Midtown’s Decathalon team decides to go on a snow trip and Peter does his best to impress Y/N even though Brad Davis has his eyes on her too. 

Word Count: 2.5k

Author’s note: DUDE this is so fun to write. This will be a mini-series so expect more parts and if you wanna request something for this series, just send em cause I’m open to all ideas. I’m a big snowboard fan so hopefully, you guys enjoy! Also, the ski resort Keystone is real and I go snowboarding there so I can definitely include pictures of my trip to paint visuals for yall.  

Warning: Foul language and mentions of blood

part one || part two || part three || part four || part five || part six || to be continued 

The Decathalon Team got to choose where they wanted to go for their winter trip and for this year, they got to choose between a ski resort in Colorado or another extremely terrifying Europe trip.  The overwhelming results of the vote was for the ski trip since no one wanted a repeat of last year (especially Mr. Harrington) so the students packed up their snow clothes and headed to Colorado.

Out of everyone going on the trip, you were by far the most excited. You weren’t originally from New York so something about snow always seemed magical in a ‘hypothermia isn’t so bad’ kind of way. While you and others were super psyched to go, there was one person that dreaded the trip and that was Peter.

He didn’t know how to ski or snowboard and most importantly, he hated the cold. The idea of going on vacation meant escaping what you were used to, so what was the point of leaving New York, a placed that snows heavily, for another colder place?

“ Need any help Pete?” You smiled as Peter stopped struggling with his ski boots.

You. You were 100% the only reason why he was going on this trip in the first place. His heart swelled as he took a quick look of you up and down; even though you were wearing a bulky snow jacket, you still took his breath away.

Peter snapped out of his longing gaze and stomped his foot hard into the slot, making you and Ned jump slightly.

“ I think I got it. Thanks though,” Peter smiled as he huffed, a bit out of breath. Peter looked down at your board and he furrowed his eyebrows,” you’re gonna snowboard? I thought Mr. Harrington said we were all taking ski lessons?”

You shook your head and unclipped your board, holding it tall next to you,” Nope. Brad and I asked Mr. Harrington if we could go down the Flying Dutchman before lunch and he said as long as we stay together we should be fine.”

You and Brad were always two peas in a pod since your families were extremely close and that worried Peter. Peter felt that everything Brad was, Peter wasn’t, especially when it came to sports or natural charm. It was something Peter struggled with a lot; being a superhero gave him the gift of dominating the athletic world if he wanted to but if he wasn’t a jock then, why should he be one now?

“ Wait, that slope is a blue. Isn’t that like hard?” Ned asked as you shrugged, motioning to Brad that you were ready to head out.

“ Not when you’re a master snowboarder like me,” You teased as you looked down at Peter, who was struggling to get up from his skis,” here, let me help you. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

Peter didn’t even have time to stop you before you grabbed his hands and helped him stand up straight, adjusting to the balance nicely. You smiled sweetly at him as you brushed off a clump of snow rested near his shoulder, lightly brushing up on his neck with your ungloved hand.

“ Nice Pete, look at you! You’re practically the next Chloe Kim...if you were a girl and a snowboarder!” You exclaimed as you ignored their confused expressions.

“ Hey Y/N, ready to go?” Brad asked as he looked between the three of you,” stay safe out there fellas. I heard the bunny slope is extra icy today. I Don’t want to see any of you get a bloody lip.”

You slapped Brad’s shoulder as you turned your attention back to Peter and Ned,” Don’t listen to him, you guys are going to do great. Save us a seat at the lodge, yeah?”  

You gave a small wave before following Brad through the snow towards the ski lift as Peter glared down Brad.

“ He is always ruining my plans! I thought he was supposed to be gone for basketball training. I was going to be super romantic and teach her how to ski like Dove Cameron in Cloud 9,” Peter sighed as he fumbled with his skis already.

“ First of all, that’s not what Cloud 9 is about at all. Secondly, why would she waste her time at ski lessons if she already knows how to do that and snowboard?” Ned asked, thinking his friend couldn’t get any dumber,” but you have a better shot than Brad, she’s like your twin but cooler.”

“ You sure about that?” MJ asked out of nowhere, startling both Peter and Ned,” Y/N is literally out of your league and Brad’s. Everyone on the science team has had a thing for her so what makes you so special?”

Again, his friend was right. He could think of a handful of his classmates liking Y/N at some point which made his heart sink.

“ You’re right. There is nothing special about me besides you know…,” Peter shook his head and stuffed his hands into his pocket,” I just like her a lot, I don’t know how else to explain it.”

Peter was usually never so down on himself, especially when it came to girls his age. With his past crushes, they were way easier to talk to but when it came to you, he was a blubbering mess. It didn’t make it any easier that you were the full embodiment of the ‘girl next door’ with your heart of gold and witty charm.

“ You just got to impress her at her own game,” Ned said as Peter looked up at him, nodding,” girls love guys who go out of their way to be interested in something they like. Show her how much skiing skills you can get down in a few hours and she’ll be all yours.”

It wasn’t the best idea but Peter had no other option than to learn how to ski in one-afternoon session. While MJ said that Peter was completely hopeless, Peter knew that the first step at winning your heart was to learn how to not embarrass himself.

That whole afternoon, Peter tried, again and again, to get down the bunny slope without falling on his face. Everyone said skiing was way easier than snowboarding but Peter just couldn’t control his speed going down the bunny slope. Time and time again, Peter would make it halfway down the beginner slope with ease but panicked towards the end and fell. At the end of the lesson, his knees and elbows were completely bruised but that didn’t stop him from trying.

While Peter was doing his best to get down the bunny slope, you and Brad had just finished with your three-mile one. You clipped off your board and took off your goggles, looking at yourself through Brad’s reflective ones.

“ I look like I just went through a hurricane,” you laughed as you took out your messy ponytail and tried to pat down your hair,” did you have fun?”

Brad took off his goggles and shook his hair with his hand, letting the freshly fallen snow fall out,” Are you kidding? That was awesome, especially that part where the slope dropped off towards the end. I’m impressed that you could keep up, I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“ Me?  I’m impressed you even made it down the mountain since half the time you were freaking out about ‘Oh what if there’s an avalanche!’” You mimicked as the two of you shared a heartfelt laugh.

Brad pushed your shoulder lightly as the two of you headed towards the lodge where everyone else in your group would be waiting. You checked the nearest clock tower and realized that you still had thirty minutes before lunch.

“ Hey, I think they’re still at the bunny slope, did you wanna go see how they’re doing?” You asked as Brad nodded enthusiastically.

“ I’ll be surprised if they made it in through the afternoon with all of their limbs intact.”

Peter stood at the top of the bunny slope, breathing in and out slowly. He could see you and Brad walking towards the bottom where some of your classmates were already waiting.

“ Maybe I shouldn’t do this. What if I fall and she thinks I’m some clumsy idiot?” Peter asked as MJ rolled her eyes.

“ Look, the worst thing that can happen is that you fall, big whoop. Also, you can’t back out. There is no other way down since the ski lift just closed so…” MJ shrugged simply and patted Peter’s back a bit too hard,” Woman up.”

MJ slid her goggles down over her eyes and gave him a last look before going down with Cindy. Now, Peter was all alone as MJ’s words replayed in his head. The worst thing that can happen is that he fell. He replayed that over and over again before he took a deep breath, secured his helmet, and made his way down the slope.

You watched Peter go down halfway before turning to your friends, who had already put their skis away. You threw your board and your helmet down and placed your hands on your hips, watching everybody’s tired expression.

“ How did you guys do? Wasn’t it exhilarating!” You asked excitedly as everyone at once talked about their day.

“ Considering that there weren’t any serious injuries, I’d say it was the best day ever,” Mr. Harrington said as he smiled with pride,” I’m glad you and Brad are back in one piece. I was worried I wouldn’t see you two at lunch.”

“ Yeah, we’re surprised too! Actually, there was one part of the slope where-”

The whole time you were talking, you didn’t notice how fast Peter was coming down the slope and all of his practice on a smooth landing had completely left his mind. Peter couldn’t control his route and once he knew that he was headed straight towards you, all he could do was brace himself.

Before anyone could react, you felt Peter collided straight into you, his helmet immediately making contact with your face as the force made the two of you crash backwards. Peter’s skiis hit you so hard, you could feel all of the air leave your body and once again after your back hit the snow behind you.

Everyone around you gasped as you and Peter cried out in pain, a whole vocabulary of curse words came out of Peter’s mouth once he realized what he had done.

“ Holy shit Y/N are you okay?” Peter asked as he was the first to get up, but tripped over his skiis, sending him back into the snow.

You felt like you were seeing stars but you tried your best to not cry in front of all your peers. Brad and Cindy rushed towards you as his eyes grew big.

“ Oh my god Y/N, your lips is bleeding,” Cindy shouted which made Peter feel like he had just committed murder.

You touched your lip tenderly and looked down at your hand to see that it was bleeding a lot. You stared at the blood and then looked to Peter who looked like he was about to cry. Even though you were in a lot of pain and you definitely had a concussion, you didn’t want Peter to feel bad. He was always so sweet to you and the last thing he needed was to feel guilty.

You shook your head and tried to stand up but you were too dizzy,” No! I’m fine really I’m okay. Check on Peter if he’s okay, I-I feel great.”

“ Y/N I am so so so sorry-”

“No Pete I’m the one who needs to be sorry,” you said as you let out a soft laugh,” I should’ve been more aware of my surroundings. Don’t even feel bad you weren’t going that fast.”

If Peter didn’t feel guilty enough, your words made him feel even worse especially since he knew you were lying to spare his feelings. Even after getting slammed, you were still apologizing up and down like you were somehow to blame.

Brad kneeled beside you and place a single finger out,” Okay Beautiful, follow my finger, I’m gonna make sure you didn’t hurt that pretty little head of yours.”

Peter’s stomach twisted into knots but you just nodded and followed his finger, doing your best to do as you were told while Mr. Harrington went to get a medical assistant.

“ Y/N I’m gonna ask you some questions,” Brad said as you nodded once again, your eyes drifting towards Peter.

“ What’s your name and where are you?”

“ Y/N L/N. Keystone Colorado.”

“ Where do you go to school?”

“ Midtown School of Science and Technology.”

“ Great, who is the President of the United States?”

“ Ugh Brad. Don’t make me say his name.”

Everyone around you sighed happily as Brad laughed and nodded,” Yep, she’s okay. I’ll be back with something for your lip okay?”

Brad turned to Peter and looked him up and down, almost sizing him up,” Try not to injure her again when I’m gone, Parker.”

Peter nodded and kneeled next to you with a sad expression plastered on his face. He felt like he had ruined everything with you but you were just too nice to tell him off. He was thinking that you were probably so pissed at him when in reality, you felt the complete opposite.

“ Don’t listen to Brad, he’s just protective,” You said as Peter pressed a thick napkin that was in his pocket from this morning and pressed it down on your bleeding lip,” please don’t beat yourself up about this Pete. We both know it was just an accident.”

All Peter could do was blurt out again how sorry he was for hurting you. If this didn’t make you hate him, he wondered what else you could withstand. Hollywood had lied to him; It wasn’t like the movies where the cliche of falling over each other was romantic cause Peter felt absolutely mortified.

“ Stop being so nice to me. I don’t deserve it,” Peter huffed as he examined your face,” I could’ve killed you.”

“ That’s a little dramatic don’t you think?” You asked as you scooted closer towards Peter and placed your hand on his knee to leverage yourself,” if I can survive the blip and Calculus, I think I’ll be more than okay.”

Peter tensed up as you touched his knee lightly and with Brad and Mr. Harrington coming back with a first aid kit, he quickly pulled away from you, leaving you embarrassed.

“ Here, do you need me to carry you over to the lodge so you’re more comfortable?” Brad asked as Peter looked away and turned towards Ned, who was whispering to him.

“ I’m okay to walk now,” You said softly as Brad extended out his hand for you to hold. You looked back at Peter who stared at you before turning away again, shaking his head. You held Brad’s hand as he helped you up and once you were on your feet, he didn’t let go of your hand.

“ Don’t worry, Dr. Davis is going to patch you up,” Brad smiled as the two of you walked hand in hand back to the lodge.

Peter slumped down in the snow next to MJ who was quick to comment.

“ Apparently falling isn’t the worst thing to happen after all.”

[deanlesbian]

here’s a little fic i wrote for @mindblindbard which is the best interactive fiction wip i’ve ever read!! i love the characters so much. this is set when my button (ellery) is 19, so unfortuantely i can’t include any sweet, sweet kenna content, but i had a lot of fun diving into ellery’s trauma lol. (this is like 1500 words oops)

Ellery wakes early on the day of the anniversary. She snaps out of sleep quickly, abruptly, her heart pounding out of her chest, her breath caught fast in her lungs. The dream is gone already, but she can imagine. Her limbs locked, her chest tight, the loud sobs of her mother echoing through the high-ceilinged kitchen.

She pushes herself upright, waiting to see if Nick noticed. If he could feel her spike of emotion from his bedroom.

But there’s no intrusion, no soft whisper in her mind. He’s asleep. Good.

When Nick wakes before her on this day in October, he always makes a big deal out of it. Huge breakfast waiting for her in the kitchen, coffee from her favorite place, telepathic fingers prodding at her psyche. He thinks she doesn’t notice. That worries her. How often is she actually picking up on it? How many times does he sift through her thoughts, self-justified because he’s worried about her, that she doesn’t notice?

Ellery climbs out of bed, her bamboo sheets left in a tangle. Her bare feet protest against the cold hardwood, but she relishes the little pricks of pain. She crosses to the window and pulls back the curtain. There are tiny patches of frost coating the neighbor’s grass.

Fall has been late to Chicago, this year. Nick’s birthday two weeks ago was warm and sunny—they’d actually acquired a boat and puttered around Lake Michigan, the Wiseman siblings and Gray and Sally. Nick had done his best to mask his disappointment at not being able to have his parents join for his birthday. He’d driven up and spent the night in Milwaukee, leaving Sally and Ellery free to get wine drunk and have a dance party in the brownstone’s kitchen.

Ellery is glad that it’s cold this morning. She prefers running in the cold. She pulls on leggings and a sports bra and runs through a quick sun salutation to get her muscles flowing, to practice control, tension and release, shake out all the paralytic fear of nightmare and memory. Three years ago today, Ellery Wiseman lost her parents.

She pulls on her running shoes and a light long-sleeve and ties her recently cut blonde hair back into a tiny ponytail. She chugs half a bottle of water, puts in her earbuds, starts her metal playlist, straps her phone to her arm, and then she’s out the door.

The air is sharp and bites at her exposed skin as she thuds down the front steps and onto the street. Ellery always feels pulled back into herself when she runs. Her muscles moving fast, responsive, following her every command. Her thoughts clean and clear, music channeling her thoughts, endorphins pushing aside everything but a sense of focus. Any Ments she passes quickly falling behind, away.

Ellery heads east, to the lake. She dodges walkers on the sidewalk and Ments who swivel their heads to watch her speed by, crosses streets abruptly. The music screams in her ears and her breath huffs in and out of her and sweat pricks at her collarbones and her feet slam into the pavement and she feels good.

Nick and Sally tease Ellery for her obsession with running. Nick runs reluctantly, to stay in shape, but as a last resort, preferring gym time and basketball with Gray. Sally despises running. The Aeon prep runs they go on together are a litany of complaints.

But running is everything for Ellery. It’s the only time she feels her anger draining out of her, left behind in ribbons along the lakefront path, blown away by the icy winds off Lake Michigan, beaded up and dripping off her forehead.

She pushes herself harder than usual, faster, taking her regular route south along the lake too fast, using up her stamina too quickly. Her breath drives in and out of her too fast, painful.

No, she thinks as her muscles burn and her body begs for relief. I can’t stop yet, I’m not ready—

The memory pushes itself, jagged and unwelcome, into her mind. Hope’s arms on her arm, fingernails digging in, shouting—

Ellery’s ankle turns, and she falls.

It’s a terrific fall. Her palms skid along the pavement, her knee drags with her momentum, tearing a hole in her leggings.

I need to get up, she thinks dazedly, but she can’t. She can’t because her mom is in her head and her thoughts are all swirled together with someone else’s, and her body is no longer her own.

Her breath is going like she’s still running, but there’s no one on this stretch of path right now and she’s out of Nick’s resting brainrange so she lets it happen. She picks herself up off the sidewalk, wincing at the sting in her scraped palms. She crosses the path and treads down to the soft sand of the 31st street beach. The wind slams against her, unceasing and angry. She unstraps her phone from her arm and puts on her favorite The National song on repeat. She wraps her arms around herself and finally, finally lets herself cry.

It’s so much easier to be angry. To decline phone calls and delete voicemails, to skip lunches with her dad and call him “John” to his face, to leave the room when Nick tries to say something like “it’s been three years, do you think….” Easier to beat her knuckles bloody on a punching bag and refuse to talk to Sally about it. Easier to think, if they didn’t want me then, they don’t get me now.

But today, Ellery just kind of wants her mom.

Yesterday at the mall with Sally they were sniffing perfumes and Ellery had burst into tears when Sally spritzed herself with Chanel no. 5. She hadn’t even remembered that Hope had worn Chanel no. 5 until the scent wafted over and she was taken back. Nights when Hope had actually been able to handle being around Ellery, when her mind was clear. The best nights were frequently right after Hope got back from a trip, refreshed after a week or so without Ellery’s thoughts pricking in the back of her subconscious.

Hope would shoo the boys out for dinner or a basketball game or something and she and Ellery would cook pasta in the cavernous marble kitchen of Ellery’s childhood home and then they would eat and watch a romantic comedy and Hope would paint Ellery’s nails (doing a much better job than Sally ever could) and they’d talk about everything and it would be good.

And then a few days later Ellery would notice her mom was back to flinching whenever she walked into a room and the distance would expand again.

Ellery cries, loud and gulping, tears streaking down her cheeks. She cries for her broken family, and for Nick who gave up everything for her, and for Sally who she knows misses Hope and John but would never say so, and for her parents who she’s hurting more and more everyday she goes without talking to them, even if they deserve it. Even though they abandoned her when she needed them most.

Most days, this grief lives deep inside her, smothered with righteous anger and cold indifference. So deep that Nick can’t even sense it amongst everything else broadcasting from her head.

Loud, she calls herself, and thank god for that.

After a little while Ellery manages to slow her breathing. The cold air in and out, calm, measured. She feels a little bit cleaner inside. She feels okay enough that when she goes back home Nick will sense a low level of melancholy, but that’s to be expected, on this day, so he won’t feel the need to pry. Now she can think about other things.

Her phone rings. She knows it’s Nick so she doesn’t bother checking her phone before tapping her headphones to accept.

"Hey Button,” he says. “Where are you? I’m making breakfast.”

This is a ridiculous question because a) if Nick tried he could use his telemetry to see her and b) he could check her location on his phone.

“I’m at 31st,” she says. “Went on a run.”

“Well, get your butt back here,” he says. “I’m doing an omelet bar and Gray and Salome are going to be here in fifteen.”

The tension in Ellery’s chest loosens a little more. This is why Nick doesn’t know about the grief that hides so far down. Because most of the time, she’s content with the family she has. Her overbearing, well-intentioned brother. Her best friend who takes her as she is and loves her for it anyway. An obnoxiously nice Brit who is fun to treat with her best annoying little sister routine.

Most days, that’s more than enough.

“I’ll head back right now,” Ellery says.

“Swing by Bluebird on your way and get coffee for everyone,” he says. “I checked, none of the Ments on staff are working today, so you’re good.”

“Sure,” she says. “Love you, Tick.”

“See you soon, Button.”

[scottymcgeesterwrites]

Some Goddamn Curtains

When I was in college, I kept getting the compliment, “Wow, your room is really nice for a guy.”  I never understood what that meant for the longest time.  Then I actually paid attention to how most guys kept their dorm room. I once waited for a guy to get ready to head down to an event. I realized that I had never actually stepped foot in his room, much less even glanced inside of it. So when he stepped out and said he was ready to go, I leaned to the side over his shoulder and oh my god it was like downtown Baghdad during the worst of the Iraq War. Damn bruh, you live like this? I liked all my college roommates but the most untidiest one was in sophomore year. He left his toothbrush lying around in the open in a sock drawer, and it would end up somewhere else each night. Maybe he liked to play scavenger hunts to keep himself on his toes? He never put the DVDs back in their respective cases. I once couldn’t wait to watch Iron Man with a friend at their dorm, only to open the case once I got there and realize that my roommate had replaced it with Season 1 of Martin. He would also do this thing where he would drink a can of Coke (that I bought), not finish it, put it back in the fridge, then later open a new can of Coke that he didn’t feel like finishing, and rinse and repeat. First year roommate wasn’t that bad. Third year roommate was nearly as tidy as I was. Then in my fourth and final year I lived alone,  so my sense of the idea that “guys were messy” didn’t really hit me because I’ve only had one bad experience and chalked it up to “It was just that one guy”. I’m 31, and by now I have noticed people saying things like, “Oh my God I was actually thinking about what curtains I liked and I’m such an adult. This is what adult thinking is like. I’m adulting now.”

I hate hearing shit like that. I grew up blithely admitting liking things that an adult would “normally like”, such as curtains. The curtains thing came up in high school when I hung out at the senior lounge. The senior lounge was this bare room that looked like it was meant for old people to sit and play bingo. It was boring and dull and I hated it. It felt more lke a prison cafeteria really, with some worn out couches. I would bring my video games to that lounge, namely GoldenEye 007, to play with friends during our free period.  The room didn’t have any curtains, so at a certain time in the afternoon, the sun would beat down directly onto the screen, making it difficult to see properly. A lot of us would squint and move closer or lean forward.  I then said, “This room needs some curtains.”

A pause, and then someone replied, “Did you just say this room needs curtains?” And I was like, “Yeah. Maybe something blue. Something dark.”

And he looked at me and scoffed, and all the other guys did the same - they gave me this funny sideways glance and scoffed. I asked what the problem was, but they mostly shook their heads in disbelief. I was frankly annoyed by their response. So I said, louder, “This room needs some goddamn curtains”, because I thought it was perfectly fucking reasonable that a person would logically do something about the fucking glare from the fucking sun. Maybe they liked blinds better. Who knows? But it took me ages to fully realize two things:  1. It’s not socially acceptable for boys to be interested in style - whether it be about living spaces or clothes. I was fiercely made fun of for the clothes I wore as a kid throughout young adult life. I hated all kinds of t-shirts. I think growing up thin and gangly made me too self-aware of my arms. But I never specifically wanted to wear anything that had a band name or a company logo or even my favorite video game or movie. I would feel like a walking advertisement, and that would piss me off. I often liked ties, long-sleeved shirts, and sweaters. I never left the house in sweatpants or pajamas. I always had to comb my hair and put on a good shirt. Sweatpants were when you worked out or worked around the house fixing things.  I grew up in Catholic school, so we had uniforms. On dress down days, my classmates would come up to me and say, “Eddie, you were supposed to dress DOWN, not up” or “I can’t believe you’re wearing that on a dress down day!”.  I didn’t have a problem with people dressing how they dressed. Sure I was never into the goth thing, but I didn’t want to judge. I just wanted to dress how I wanted to dress. And maybe I was influenced in some way by how my parents dressed me up, and maybe other times I did feel embarrassed, but I knew that at the end of the day I would wear what felt most comfortable to me. Sometimes my mom would give me a sweater that was a tad too bland, so I went to the bathroom once I got to school and took it off. I would like the polo but untucked it and unbuttoned the top buttons. Half-and-half. Right idea, but lemme wear it like this instead. College was really when I started to develop my everyday style, my “main outfit”, like a video game character. I always wore some untucked button-down shirt with a tie, jeans, and sneakers. I liked it. It was this weird blend of dressing up and dressing down. People my age thought I was overdressed but my parents and people over 50 complained that I was underdressed. It was great! It feels so special to piss off both sides! My parents still remember the time I got an award at college and I went up the stage wearing that getup. You look at the picture and see the students standing side-by-side in nice dresses and dockers, and then there’s me wearing jeans and sneakers with a shirt and tie.  There always seemed to be this false dichotomy for how men should look and be - either the dapper “metrosexual” man who was slightly effeminate or the rough-and-tumble strong man who didn’t need to use an umbrella when it rained and never cared to fix his hair because that’s some “gay shit” for silly city folk. That false dichotomy is always played out in media. There’s a million buddy cop movies about the book-smart guy who is suave and sophisticated teaming up with the street-smart guy who is all muscle and manly and goes for the more practical route. Yin and Yang. Hot and cold. Good cop and bad cop. Lucky and Wild. Tango and Cash. But growing up I thought, “Why not both?” I loved watching James Bond as much as I loved watching Indiana Jones. Why couldn’t I be both if I really wanted to? It fit me best to play both roles. I AM GOING TO MIX THESE TWO THINGS AND YOU CAN’T FUCKING STOP ME! I WILL BE BOTH BOOK-SMART AND STREET-SMART. I KNOW THE QUADRATIC EQUATION AND HOW TO CON SOMEONE. THE ULTIMATE LIFEFORM.  The fucking worst though is being an adult now and hearing women wish they knew a guy who “dressed properly”, and men complimenting my clothes saying I look sharp.

Fuck all of you, honestly. 2. Young people are afraid to admit they like things that adults like. I grew up with extended family members living in cozy homes. I liked to admire their grandfather clocks, their decanters, their entertainment center, their offices and their chairs. I liked to wander around their houses during the holidays and poke my nose into their closets and admire old things. Maybe it’s something that an only-child might relate to the most. I wasn’t required or asked to be upstairs to attend a younger or older sibling. The adults just did their own thing and so I wandered off. Ikea always tickled my fancy as a kid. I would wander through the model rooms of offices and bedrooms and bathrooms, and I found whatever felt coziest to me and pretended that I was home. Better yet, I sometimes daydreamed that the entire Ikea facility was my home. How about that? Tired of sleeping on the bunk bed? Go to the next room to the big bed. I feel like cooking in that kitchen today, not this one. Some days I’ll feel more serious and work in the wooden office desk and other days I’ll feel silly and be in the kids room. I’ll take the whole building, please. This is where I live now. Swedish meatballs for dinner and creamy European chocolate bars for dessert every day. Young people fear being old and facing responsibilities. That doesn’t mean you liking these things makes you older. Taste and style is part of who you are, and there’s no shame if you have an interest in some bath mats or a nice decanter when you’re 20 or 17.

When I lived in my single dorm back in senior year of college, I realized that I was truly living alone for the first time. It brought some sanity to me that I didn’t know I needed. I was able to organize things how I saw fit, and hosted parties whenever I wanted. If I felt like something needed adjusting, I didn’t need to ask anybody’s permission. I really started exploring my sense of style and taste. As I grew up, I developed really specific tastes about where I would live: 1. Everything has to make sense. The placement of shelves, TVs, desks, dressers, paintings, pictures, all have to feel like they are easily viewed and accessible without needing to awkwardly turn to face them or reach them.  2. Symmetry is not always necessary but still good to fall back on when you don’t know what to do. 3. I never liked to sit with my back to the window(s) or the door. I always needed to see who or what was going to approach me or look at me.  4. TVs should never go on top of fireplaces.  5. Always have some kind of drawing room for guests to wait.  6. Never put your keys or sensitive documents in the foyer, drawing room, or wherever else strangers can easily find them the minute they walk into the house.  7. Open concept is pretentious.  8. It is far easier to cook if you have an island in the kitchen.  9. McMansions are the bane of style. Fake balconies, fake shutters, brick facades - everything about them is evil.  10. Get some goddamn curtains.

[vixthefantheorist]

Is Anti the Shadow of the Egos?

First of all, I know what you’re thinking. What the hell are you talking about, woman? And I mean both senses of the phrase; the ‘what do you mean’ aspect and the ‘what the hell is a shadow’ aspect; as both are valid questions.

Well sit down, fam and lend me your ears for a bit. 

Now the kind of Shadow I’m talking about is the kind that come from  Megami Tensei’s Persona franchise! Specifically Persona 3 FES, Persona 4 and Persona 5, mostly because those are the only ones I’ve played; as I have never gotten my hands on Persona 1 or 2 so I can’t say what information they could have. Now Shadows are the lower parts of the psyche everyone has. I have them, you have them... your dog or cat has them (maybe). Jack and the Egos have them. Those lower parts are suppressed human thoughts given physical form. Suppressed negative thoughts of the heart and mind. Remember this. When people are unable to face their darker selves, they break loose, free from all control. Sounds a lot like a certain someone right?  Anyway, Shadows eat a person’s psyche. Now... this is where things get tricky. Depending on how powerful the Shadow is and its intentions are. As well as which Persona game Seán is going with, seeing as he is a Persona fan. I actually never knew that, and I just discovered that last night on a dev call with a friend of mine. And now that I looked back in some videos Seán did... I was surprised I didn’t notice before. OR I did and completely forgot. 

See that background behind Dr. Jack? Persona 5′s Joker~ Anyway, from that I Can only guess he has only played Persona 5, and from there probably became interested in it further and went into looking it further. Whether or not he has played Persona 3 and 4, I honestly don’t know, the fact he knows of Persona may have led to some ideas for Anti.

Now back to the Shadows, depending on the power and of course the intention of the Shadow when it eats psyches... can lead to two routes. A vegetative state or... Death.

Now, I know based on this leads me to think that Anti is a shadow self of Jack... and possibly the other Egos. Possibly. The reason I say this is because of the clue Seán gave when someone asked him if Anti was a tupla (tulpa? whichever) and he said, “Close but not quite.”

Interesting~

See, tulpa/tuplas are being made of concentrated imagination. It takes an extensive amount of practice to do this... though for some its easier, depending on how complex they are. So basically they’re imaginary friends you had as kids, just with the option to hurt you or not. But there are many other variables to go with them.  Now, Seán said it was close but not quite, so if that’s the case... then if we take into account his interest and love of Persona, then it makes sense. Shadows are concentrations of emotions, ones humans reject and hide within themselves to avoid facing them and revealing them to other people in the world. Because you know that means facing the possibility of friends you have rejecting you for what actually think and feel. All the little ugly thoughts you have... yeah.  As its true, no matter how much know a person, you will never know everything about them. You only learn a percentage of what they want to show. And what has Jack been doing the entire time Anti shows up and what does he do when the community points Anti out to Jack?  He ignores him. Or acts like he doesn’t know what we’re talking about or pretends to not see him. But he knows... He knows damn well Anti is there, can hear him... see him but actively chooses to not give Anti attention. Which infuriates the little bugger. In Persona 4, if one chooses or actively denies their shadow self, the shadow goes completely berserk, laughing at ‘being free’ and attempts to kill them to take their place. ...Anti did that twice. In Say Goodbye, he succeeds in killing Jack and took his place in the channel up until a certain point when Jack was revived and retook control. We do not notice the shifts until the PAX East message where Anti raves about being tossed aside. The second time was in Kill JackSepticEye video. But it seems that Anti realizes that killing Jack isn’t going to do much of anything since the Irishman would eventually come back to life and kick him out. So... what’s the next best option to render him helpless and take his place? But deny him being ‘revived’ again?  A coma.  Or in Persona 3′s case... inflicting Jack with Apathy Syndrome. Apathy Syndrome is an illness that reduces the victim into a vegetative state. Or close to it, its purely in the game. But the illness’s cause is a shadow eating the victim’s psyche and stealing the soul. That’s the general idea of the illness. Now it doesn’t exactly give details on it further but in the game and observing “the Lost” its a term people in the game give to the victims inflicted with Apathy Syndrome, its safe to say that the Lost are aware, but... well ‘lost’. They can’t move, eat or take care of themselves, mumbling or moaning. But they do sometimes speak in return but in barest of words.  So... think of Apathy Syndrome as a type of paralysis, you’re aware but you can’t do anything or barely speak if you’re lucky enough to. And if you can speak, your thoughts are so jumbled that you can’t form a coherent sentence together. You’re literally trapped in your own body. 

Now, knowing Anti wants Jack to suffer, so its likely he stole Jack’s ‘soul’ but only enough to keep Jack helpless but alive and aware. He just can’t move or give a signal to the Egos that he can hear them... can see them.  If Anti IS a shadow form of Jack, his direct dark self that he refuses to face; then it makes sense as to why Anti desires attention. He was suppressed and ignored and wants to be acknowledged. Now... that does paint Anti as a victim more than a villain, which is fine since we honestly don’t know who plays what roles if there even IS a role to play.  As Seán had said, “Protagonists aren’t always heroes,” and he’s very correct on that. Protags are just the main focus of the story, not always a hero, just a main character. The same can be said for Antagonists not always being the villain. Antags are there as hostile oppositions but not villains.  But what does this mean for the other Egos? And why does Anti mess with them given he already ‘won’ against Jack? Well, honestly I don’t know. Anti only knows negativity so he’ll just react and do things negatively and given he’s not as bound to Jack, he can do whatever the fuck he wants because he’s a dick. He knows all of Jack’s fears... maybe he wants to know all of the Egos fears and does know them if they had talked to Jack often about their troubles and such and wants more of that.And wants to mess with them because he can? Maybe force them to accept him as the new Jack, turn them into Shadows like himself?  Hell if I know.  But could explain Dr. Jack’s appearance... Henrik’s fear of being replaced by someone ‘better’. Dr. Jack being Henrik’s shadow. -Shrug- Maybe that’s the whole reason for the time loops and such, the Egos trying to get Jack to stop ignoring Anti before he gets kill or stuck in a paralyzed state. In Persona 5, people that you go... deal with act more closely to how their shadow selves are and don’t care, thus suppressing the positivity. And its your job to get into their hearts and kick their Shadows’ ass and tell them ‘No, that’s a bad thing, realize that. Apologize and admit your crimes and stop being a dick.’ Which in a way Jack is being... excluding Anti completely and being a dick to him. So Anti returns the favor and does a better job at it. Though Anti needs an ass kicking himself to be told to stop being a dick. Maybe. So its likely Jack understands what he needs to do but he can’t do anything to fix it because he can’t move or speak and Anti’s too pissed off at him to listen. That and Anti’s riding high on the attention, fears and reveling in the feel of *freedom* that he’s going to refuse giving it up.  Again its just theory I have. That Anti is/was a Shadow self of Jack but evolved into something more. Hell maybe Anti is the shadow of all the egos, absorbing their fears and darkness that they refuse to face... with the exception of Chase to a degree. Chase is a ball of negativity and acknowledges it, but likely refuses to face the reason of why or do anything about it; and Anti finds it funny or hell thinks of him as a battery to drain energy from. Who knows. But yeah, there it is, my possibility of what Anti could be. Now mind you, its just a theory and a possibility. So highly likely I’m very wrong, but it was a fun trip to think about. As ANY of this can be altered and changed by Seán to fit what he needs for the Lore. If it is indeed that he’s taken some inspiration from Persona as well. So not all the info I did share is what he thinks or uses. AUs people, you can rewrite the rules to how you want it. XD What do you guys think Anti is?

[justiceitselfwrites-blog]

The Machine

Author’s note: I wrote this for fun the other day when challenged to come up with a quick sci-fi piece as writing practice. My goal was to paint a picture of a dystopian society in 1,000 words or less, and it ended up right around there. I just left a remarkably terrible call center job, which required every minute of my day to be logged and accounted for. I felt like a cog in a machine, one whose job was not even to help customers solve their problems, but instead to extract payment from customers using whatever means necessary and as efficiently as possible, so I could more quickly move on to the next caller. It was certainly not Justice. With that hurdle to my mental health removed, I’ve been taking some time to work on my own writing projects again. It’s an incredible feeling, to have the freedom to decide what projects I prioritize and to decide for myself what’s important to me and worth pursuing. Of course, with this newfound freedom comes a distinct lack of steady income. So it goes. With all of that in mind, as I was writing this I tried to focus on that interplay, the struggle between the narrator’s desire for the freedom to follow his dreams versus his desire for the safety and security that the Machine provides. I hope you enjoy! There used to be farms. They stretched as far as the eye could see, growing corn, wheat, barley, apples, anything you could imagine. Sometimes the farms had animals, like cows, or chickens, or pigs, and the farmers would kill them to harvest their meat for food. Jalen didn’t like the idea of killing animals, he thought as he ate his breakfast, a warmed nutrient bar, but otherwise he thought being a farmer sounded kind of nice. That was back in the days before the Machine of course. Nowadays the Machine handles growing and harvesting all the food humanity needs to survive, and people don’t need to worry about things like killing animals. The Machine had given humanity much to be thankful for.

As Jalen sat to slide on his work boots, he wondered idly what it was like before the Machine scheduled when folks woke up, when they worked, when they rested, when they recreated. Heck, thought Jalen, farmers could probably decide that they’d worked enough and take the rest of the day off! It’s a wonder they ever got any work done at all without the Machine. Maybe that’s why there are no more farmers, thought Jalen sadly. After all, if he didn’t have the Machine keeping track of when he needed to be working or resting, he would probably spend too much of his time trying to grow plants in the arid soil and watching documentaries about when there used to be vast forests, with all kinds of animals. Jalen liked those.

With his allotted time for idle wondering passed, Jalen opened the door to his apartment module and stepped into the hallway. After passing a seemingly neverending line of identical doors, Jalen, right on time, reached the pod bay and joined the queue for a pod. The Machine kept track of where everyone needed to be and made sure that their pods took them via the most efficient route. During pod rides, the Machine provided entertainment depending on what it determined the passenger needed at the time. For Jalen in the mornings, it was usually a news broadcast. The Machine made sure that everyone was kept up to date on all the latest happenings, like what had happened last night on the game shows or in the blood sports.

Jalen preferred nature documentaries, but the Machine knew he needed to keep up with current events, so it always made sure he watched the news. He would be expected to socialize with his co-workers during rest times using that knowledge, else the Machine would certainly require mandatory remedial entertainment during his evening recreation period, which Jalen very much wanted to avoid. The blood sports were just too violent, he hated watching them live. At least the replays were censored.

Once at work, Jalen sat down at his desk and prepared to start his day. Precisely at 0800 hours, Jalen began filing request forms. People could make requests of the Machine, but the Machine decreed that all such requests must be submitted through a process the Machine designed. Jalen knew that there were more efficient ways of collecting these requests, but this convoluted process caused a lot of people to give up and decide not to bother submitting their requests after all, which was good. The Machine had enough to deal with, what with running everything and all. Jalen sympathized with the Machine. Plus, it meant Jalen had a job to do and wouldn’t need to compete in the game shows or the blood sports.

Jalen often wondered at some of the requests that came across his desk. Like when people would ask for a temporary reprieve from work after the death of a parent or spouse. The rules set forth by the Machine were incredibly clear. Once dead, a person can no longer provide value to humanity, and thus no longer has value. Why compound the loss of labor with more loss of labor? Jalen couldn’t understand what these people were thinking. Those requests went straight to the incinerator.

Some of the requests were reasonable though. Jalen felt especially good when he approved those, because he was doing his part to advance humanity. Take just yesterday, when he approved and forwarded on a transfer request from a woman in his very own department. She had spent the last three years improving her scores so that she could move to one of the science labs. Jalen wasn’t sure what was wrong with filing papers, but since the scores showed she was now better suited for science than administration, it made him happy that she was finding a better way to serve the Machine.

At 2000 hours, Jalen was permitted to leave. Since his mind had been wandering during the morning news, he hadn’t been able to participate much during his lunchtime discussion, and sure enough, the Machine had assigned him remedial entertainment. He would have to spend two of his three hours of recreation time watching last night’s episode of “Sole Survivor.” That was his least favorite by far, mostly because so many of the contestants died. He knew that people who didn’t serve a purpose to the Machine had no reason to live, but for some reason, it still made him sad to watch them die. But the Machine knew Jalen needed to watch it, so he didn’t have a choice.

For the last hour of his waking day, the Machine had scheduled for him to continue the documentary on farming he’d started the night before though, so that was nice. He knew he’d be able to get to sleep much easier after watching that. The Machine was very conscientious, it understood that in order to be a good worker Jalen needed six full hours of sleep. Plus, he hated it when he couldn’t fall asleep and the Machine needed to inject him. His arm was always sore the next day, although that didn’t affect his filing times.

That night as he drifted off to sleep, Jalen imagined himself working on a farm.

[egoiistas]

may i feel, said he (14)

first | tag | ao3 | ffn

[co-written with @tsaritsa]

a/n 10k views on ao3 and nearing 20k on FFN. we're absolutely gobsmacked.as always, ty for all ur comments!!! we hope this update will satify u - ana has been waiting a very long time to write one particular scene and we've had to push it back so many times...I finally let her have it.

Warnings: Sexual Content ™, cursing Words: ~7.5k || Rated: M - Royai 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

salt-laced and arched / dorianne laux, this close

The days, then weeks go on without Olivier.

Easier than it should be, Riza adjusts to another walking out the door. Every once in a while, a sad wave of nostalgia washes over her when she sees the significantly vacant living room or looking at the bare wall that once held frames and chic paintings. Even if some called her icy and dull, she had impeccable taste and Riza misses the colors on the wall. These small moments creep up on Riza when she least expects them, during the most inane moments of the day, and it's hard not to feel the loss and how it still stings like an accidental pinch to sensitive skin.

Perhaps she judged Olivier incorrectly, a voice in her head tells her snidely. Perhaps you chose wrongly, a darker, but smaller voice said. Riza can’t fault her former flatmate’s inability to understand her affair, no matter how much or how little it stings. It burns in the hollow parts where their friendship used to be, knowing that this man has a better and more intimate understanding of her as a person than Olivier would ever be capable of or want to be capable of. The sentiment is selfish and she knows this. In other situations, she respected Olivier’s ability to remain steadfast in her convictions.

All this comes to mind on a Friday evening, a quiet one when they are rarely so for Riza. Earlier she relished at the fact that she could take advantage of the quietude to get lost in her annotated-to-death anthology of Pablo Neruda’s works; to be comfortably situated in her own bed and just take in the evoking prose, and catch up on her laundry she was woefully behind on. The space would do her some good, she reasoned. A lot had happened in the last few weeks and a bit of alone time with her favourite poets and a Greed pizza from Hell’s would do her some good. It’s been a while since she’s had a moment with just her and a book and four walls.

Riza looks at the time, the walls, the fading pages, and realizes … why did she ever come to miss this. When did she grow to enjoy company?

Rebecca had come and gone after her classes, commenting on how rare it was to see her there on a Friday. Riza tried to explain but her friend looked like she was short for time, making a racket with her closet and in the bathroom. Riza could hardly catch where she was going, she’d hardly made mention of it as she was hurrying out of the apartment and then those words were cut off by the slamming on the door. Not that she expected it, but the lack of invitation probably meant that it was a date or something of the sort. That was hours ago and Riza finds herself a little disappointed, but mostly strange, that her phone isn’t blowing up with a play-by-play of the date’s shortcomings or successes. The commentary is a specialty of Rebecca’s humor.

Her friend was right: ordinarily, she wouldn’t be here. Over the course of a few months, Riza has slipped into a routine that she is loathe to have issue with. A bus would take her on a route that went past his neighbourhood, following her afternoon biochem class. Sometimes, she’d make a detour to the supermarket nearby to pick up a few things if a mood struck for something in particular, but more often than not she was content with takeout. It was a nicer environment than the library - she could spread out all the work she needed to do on the coffee table in his lounge and sprawl herself along his couch. The hot chocolate powder that had mysteriously arrived in the pantry one day wasn’t amiss either.

This time, however, her excuse was moot and she couldn’t expect a phone call or exchange of texts to change that either, because tonight he was travelling to Central for a conference where chemistry nerds were converging to relay to each other the latest findings. Roy was not as excited as she expected. In fact, he looked particularly disgruntled by the way he told her about it two weeks ago. He whined how not even professors were spared from homework, or ‘paperwork’ as he referred to it.

Eventually, she pushes away the distractions and enthralled for the millionth by The Heights of Macchu Picchu when her phone lights up and pings on her desk. Mindful of the book in her hands that is practically falling apart, she sets it down carefully, before stretching out to pull on the charging cable. The phone falls into her hand with practiced ease, and Riza can’t help the smile that grows on her face as she sees the name - nickname - emblazoned on her lockscreen.

Spanish Inquisition, 7:02pm I had a very interesting visitor today Spanish Inquisition, 7:02pm  You didn’t think to warn me?

A chill runs down her spine. She’s trying her best not to jump to conclusions but a familiar sanctimonious smirk appears in her mind’s eye. She wouldn’t...would she? Calmly, she responds:

Avecilla, 7:02pm I would if I knew who to warn you about.

Spanish Inquisition, 7:03pm So you didn’t know. Hmm. Spanish Inquisition, 7:03pm Your other flatmate. Not blonde. Bushy black hair. Very opinionated. Spanish Inquisition, 7:03pm And loud

Spanish Inquisition, 7:04pm Came into my office hours in middle of a meeting with another student.

Her relief is short-lived as the reality settles in. Palm meets skin and she smacks her forehead. She loves Rebecca - honestly, truly - but the girl lived in the moment and rarely considered the consequences of her actions in the aftermath. She can’t discern his reaction though, not through text alone. Her thumb hovers over the icon at the top of the app. Surely he would’ve called her if he felt the conversation warranted it.

Avecilla, 7:04pm becca? Avecilla, 7:04pm oh fuck

Spanish Inquisition, 7:07pm ah so, becca’s her name! I wish she would have told me that

Spanish Inquisition, 7:07pm She said a lot about a lot of things, but not her name Spanish Inquisition, 7:08pm tbh I wasn’t really given a chance to say anything Spanish Inquisition, 7:08pm Do you know how weird it is to be lectured in my own office

Riza mutters a string of curses under her breath.

She switches messaging windows to Rebecca’s and stares at the blank chat box wondering which side to approach this from. Her fingers rest on the bridge of her nose imagining the scene of a riled up Rebecca busting in through that office door, telling the unsuspecting student to scram and then potentially ripping Roy a new one about who-knows-what with the signature hands-on-hips stance. It’s frustrating, it should be incredibly frustrating. What she had said, the manner in which she barged in, how it’s interpreted - all of it could be her demise but a chuckle bubbles up because... Classic Rebecca.

Unaware that the screen had dimmed, she sees it light up again with a call this time. “Hello?”

“You left me on read?” The other voice on the line greets her with hints of playful tones under that indignant choice of words. He continues smoothly, “Are you starting to think you’re the exception in all of this, avecilla?”

She snorts, smiling as she sat up. As far as she can tell he’s not irritated. “No exception to the embarrassment knowing Rebecca did that. If I had known that was even remotely crossing her mind - well, I would have stopped her.”

“Something tells me even if you did know, there’s no much that you could have done from stopping a force of nature like that.” Despite the noise of what she assumes is Central all around him, she can hear the tired smile on him.  “I think you’re very lucky to have such a loyal friend who has terrifyingly specific medical knowledge on how to best remove a penis.”

“She didn’t...” Riza groans and leans back against her pillows, sliding the dog-eared anthology back from the edge of the bed before she covers her face.

“She did. I was perplexed for most of it, blinking at her as she paced in front of my desk.” Riza let the words sink down with her mortification and then she’s frozen when he says, “Does she do this with all your boyfriends?”

She isn’t sure why it tenses her; maybe its because it's finally given a name, even if it’s only a label, and an unsure, timid smile crosses her face. “Consider yourself special for getting the Rebecca treatment.”

“I consider myself lucky for other reasons, Riza.”

Her demeanor changes with the teasing lilt in his words. A half-smile begins to spring up over her lips, thankful he’s understanding - in whatever capacity - of this. “Care to share with the class?” She says coyly.

“Yes, that no one else heard. Or made any comment about it.” He says sternly and she sinks back into her pillows.

“I don’t know why she thought storming into your office would be a good idea.”

“Well it certainly worked out well enough for you, didn’t it?” Even though he’s making fun of her, she bites her lip at the memory, and the way his voice has dipped now, sultry and inflected with the accent that he was well aware that made her weak in the knees. He’s blatantly flirting with her.

Riza scoffs. “I believe our aims were a little different if we are going to be making comparisons.”

“Ah, so you did come with a goal in mind then.”

“Yes, sir. I-”

There are stifled chuckles on the other end. He is one of the few people clever enough to really get under her skin, get her riled up.

“If I recall correct, you admitted that I was baited into your office because of your stunt.”

“Mmm, did I now?” he asks, low and throaty.

At least the whiplash from the back and forth keeps her on her toes; she looks at them wiggling even now as she talks to him. “Mhm, I was there.”

He chuckles lightly and she hears someone greet him faintly in the background. “Let me call you back so I can get into this hotel room.”

“Oh, of course.”

They don’t share many phone calls but even from the first day, she’s known his voice was pleasant. Especially when he wants it to be.  His laugh was warm down the line, and inexplicably she finds herself missing him, despite talking to him this morning however briefly.

The phone rings and she greets him with a standard “hello.” When no sound comes from the other end, she checks the screen to make sure the line is connected.

“So…” he starts and it sounds like he plops on a bed. “What are you wearing?”

She blinks. “What?”

He enunciates each word. “What - are - you - wearing?”

She sinks down the length of her headboard. “You’re not serious.”

He tuts. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Clothing.”

“You’re no fun, Miss Hawkeye.”

“Maybe it’s because I’d rather have you here to show me what you want.”

“So would I.” There’s a wistful edge to his voice. “Do you have other plans? I was under the impression that you had a date with some laundry and pizza.”

“I had a date,” she emphasises. “Besides... I don’t think I’d be too good at it.”

“Trial and error, right? There’s no pressure to do anything you’re not comfortable with and we can always stop whenever you’d like.”

Likewise, she gets up and locks the door to her bedroom even though she knows Rebecca won’t be home for a while yet - certainly not after that stunt. “What a gentleman.”

“I like to think so.” She can hear his smile. “So...what are you wearing?”

Riza smiles in turn, feeling foolish. It’s such a ridiculous question on top of a ridiculous act. Tightening her grip on her phone, she figures telling him the truth of her rather vanilla pyjamas would probably detract from the mood of… whatever this was. She knows enough about “phone sex” - even in her mind it leaves a weird, tingly feeling - to at least humor him. She sighs into the phone, “It’s warm tonight, so I decided to wear something comfy to bed. Something so I can wiggle under the covers without feeling ...constricted.”

“Shorts?” The voice at the other end sounds surprised and she clearly sees him, in her mind’s eye, leaning in closer with interest and probably a smirk.

Riza bites her lower lip. “Less.”

“Oh.” He sounds delighted. “Well, if you’re going to have me guess what Riza Hawkeye wears on her days off… the top to her pajamas and her small clothes.” 

He knows her too well. With little movement, she slides her underwear down her legs, letting them fall to the floor. She laughs, a little nervously. “Less.”

“Aren’t you naughty tonight?”

“I’ve been asked to,” Riza teases and shifts against her pillows. “Now, tell me something.”

“Yes?”

She’s unfamiliar with this certain kind of ...adventure. Nonetheless, she’s still willing to try. “How... excited are you?”

“Mhm. Let’s see.” She faintly hears fabric shifting, zippers unzipping, and if she wasn’t listening so intently, she would have missed the light groan. “Very.”

She licks her lips, imagining him sitting on the edge of her bed. Her legs cross; as a pleasant surprise, her arousal settles hotly in between them. “Tell me why.”

“You. Your legs. Spread and losing myself between them. Your body on mine.”

“You’re worse than me, sir.” There is a throbbing pulse right at her core in rhythm with the hard thrumming in her chest. It feels warm and slick without having to touch herself, though the temptation to is becoming harder to ignore. “What would you do?” she asks, cradling the phone between her shoulder and her ear. “If you had me there.”

His laugh is delicious - she closes her eyes as a shiver runs over her bare skin. “Enough about me, avecilla. How eager would you be if you were here?”

“I’m hardly-”

“Try.”

Leaning back, Riza tries to imagine her own fantasies. “If I was there-” she hears a throaty chuckle, “- I’d get on my knees, relieve you of those pesky trousers...” A daring hand slips in between her legs and her fingers are glistening when she lifts them back up to the light.

“And?” His voice has become husky, rumbling through his throat.

“I’d take you into my mouth.” She answers automatically, distracted from her slow stroke, playing with herself. It’s true - previously, with other fumblings, she had done her part to make her partner feel good - but with him she is surprised to find herself enjoying the act so thoroughly. Maybe it’s a power thing. The image of him watching her take him into her mouth with hooded eyes and a slack jaw is something she holds close to her heart. She does that to him.

Nobody else.

It takes him a moment to respond and when he does, his words are marked with a smidgen of strain. “Fast or slow?”

She doesn’t realize until this moment that her eyes have fallen shut, her head thrown back. “Slow at first, tasting you, feeling how hard you are in my mouth and growing harder with my tongue.”

“At first?” Roy asks curiously. “You’d want me to make you go faster, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, I do-” she admits, gasping with the building pleasure of using two fingers to stimulate her clit.

“Grabbing you by your hair to so you can feel me go deeper.”

“Yes…” His fingers coiled in her hair, his cock around her lips getting wetter each time she retook him in her mouth, the aching between her thighs increasing with every second -

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, sir.” Riza thought a laugh would leave her, instead she moans into the phone, feeling a warmth flush her skin pink. She’s wet enough to hear it, rubbing herself. She settles on the bed properly now, lying flat with the phone tucked between her shoulder and her ear. Gasping lightly, Riza slides a finger, then two inside herself as her other hand grabs her own breast, ghosting over the tip of her sensitive nipple.

“And where would you like me to fuck you?”

“Take me however you’d like me.” The truth is she can’t really think. She’s lost in her own fantasies. Against the wall with her legs over his hip; from behind where he could dig his nails into her as they picked up the pace; on top of him where she could feel him reaching depths that had her voice filling the room - it didn’t matter. There is an aching in her that her fingers cannot fulfill. He was too far away. She wants him here, with her and her shitty second-hand bed and the evidence is soaking her digits to her knuckles.

His groan reverberates through the phone lines and into her ear and she can almost feel the hot breath in her ear and his familiar scent.

She breathes in as hoping his phantom scent would materialize just for her.  She begins, “I’m y-”

Her bedroom door opens.

“Rebecca!” she screeches. Mortified, she drops her phone, urging her roommate to get out. She can only imagine his confused expression as she swears black and blue and Rebecca is cackling madly in the background. She covers herself with her blanket, chasing her out and slams the door behind her. There’s a chuckle wedged in between the “I’m sorry!” Rebecca shouts from the other side of the door.

Her phone is still lit up, the call remaining in progress as she approaches her bed. “Roy..?” she breathes after the entire debacle. Paper crinkles beneath her feet. She quickly pulls them back and hisses under her breath.

“I’m here,” he responds after a moment and he sounds a little spent. “Did we have unfortunate timing again?”

She sighs as she kneels down, her blanket pooling around her feet. “What’s the matter?” he presses.

Riza groans as she sees the scattered pages across her room. The hardcover of her anthology lies face down, open. The spine of it must’ve hit the floor first. She crouches though her legs shake and picks up the annotated papers. “It’s nothing.”

Other than the shifting of someone on a bed, there’s silence on the other end until he speaks again. “It doesn’t sound like nothing, avecilla.”

She nestles the phone in between her ear and shoulder as she collects the remnants of the book in earnest. “A book I was reading before you called fell off the bed and the pages came apart.”

“You certainly haven’t shown me that kind of vigor to make a book fall apart.”

She huffs into the phone, hoping her flattened brow expression would be received telepathically. “It was old.”

“I’m not that old.”

“The book.”

She can hear him stifle a chuckle, but he fails by snickering anyway. It makes her smile too. “Now I see. In any case, I’m sorry to hear that. Which book was it?”

Riza flips the cover as if she didn’t already know. “An old poetry book I bought when I was younger. Neruda.”

“Ah, that’s unfortunate.”

“What’s unfortunate is that I was… almost getting into it,” she admits, slipping on a different pair of underwear.

She can just imagine the disappointed expression on his face. “That’s even more unfortunate. But there’ll be other times if the moment is ruined.”

Again, she smiles because of his understanding, despite her embarrassment and she’ll admit to herself that she’s little forlorn over missing the opportunity to hear him reach an orgasm right in her ear. “I think for right now it is. I need to clean up this mess and then there’s my other date that needs tending to.”  

“Laundry isn’t that necessary, is it? By all means, walk around naked if you’d like. I certainly won’t protest.”

Riza grins, holding back the laughter. She manages to sternly volley back, “One of us has to remain civilized.”

He scoffs. “I’m hurt.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

“Call me back once you’re done?”

Genuinely and warmly this time, she smiles. “If you behave.”

“So no dick pics?”

It takes a lot of willpower not to snort audibly. “Surprise me, sir.”

With his return, she realizes only a few weeks remain before classes end officially. Riza’s always taken initiative for her assignments with diligence, but there’s always the influx of assignments at the end of the term, projects to wrap up, or reports to finalize. Still aiding him when she can in the evenings, her free time becomes increasingly limited.

There’s a new, long list of journals and books that Roy requires for his research that they read and eventually determine the value of this information. On top of this already tedious work, she offers to help grade the essays from the two 100-level courses he teaches in addition to her Chemical Literature class.

It’s boring, menial and uninspiring work: the amount of grammatical, spelling and formatting errors has Riza throwing her pencil away from her in frustration on more than one occasion. The content of said work is of an even lesser quality. It aggravates Riza when it’s obvious to her that some these students don’t give a flying fuck about their education. Or they do, but they have a shit way of showing it.

Some dark part of her forms from this trial and she takes joy tearing into the worst of the essays via text messages to him. In turn, he responds with the excuses and the pleas for extensions or redacted frantic emails that come in once students factor in the weight of the participation grade.

Spanish Inquisition, 11:53 pm 3 years Spanish Inquisition, 11:53 pm 3 years and they still ignore the bolded text Spanish Inquisition, 11:53 pm It’s in caps you know. Spanish Inquisition, 11:53 pm PARTICIPATION GRADE: 35% Spanish Inquisition, 11:54 pm It’s almost like they forget that in order to participate they have to attend class.

Avecilla, 11:57 pm Strike them down Spanish Inquisition, 11:58 pm HA Avecilla, 11:58 pm I mean Avecilla, 11:58 pm How cruel are you going to be?

Spanish Inquisition, 11:59 pm Most will get a B or similar Spanish Inquisition, 11:59 pm Not enough for them to storm to the dean and complain i’m unfair, but maybe enough to encourage them to maybe try next time

 The weeks fly by because of this and she can only think of one time in the last few weeks where they’ve actually managed to do more than just kiss. Riza isn’t one to keep tallies, but it was after a late night of simultaneously grading, reading and working on her final assignments. She was tired. She knew he was too, and while she could only blame herself for suggesting it, it didn’t make her any less frustrated when he drifts to sleep with his dick in her mouth. Rebecca harbored no sympathy for her either. She merely texts ‘HAHAHAHAHAHAHHA’ and then sends far too many tongue-in-cheek gifs implying Riza was “thirsty.”

 Even if she was, Riza muted her best friend and finished herself off, but not before almost succumbing to sleep once or twice.

 Every time after that, when they managed to have more coffee or sleep in, they were rudely interrupted in some other way. As if it were sacrilege he had taken that one time for granted, he jested once, and it soon became laughable what the universe kept throwing at them.

 The workload was understandable, forgivable, and inevitably out of their control. Then, it was constant miscalculations of how little time they had: either she had a class or he had one to teach or office hours, or I’m about to crash and we both know how the last time worked out. It was driving her up the walls - and not in the ways she’d preferred.

 They reach a point of recklessness. They take advantage of his empty office with a locked door on the final days after class. He cancels his office hours that morning after her assurances that her assignments were up to par and she could afford the distraction. Riza finds herself pleasantly nestled between euphoria and giddiness from the frantic way they paw at each other’s clothes. Or it’s the way she sat on the edge of his desk and the cool air tickled in the moist heat in between her legs. Or the little tinge of pride from cancelling his office hours just for her. Or perhaps a combination of it all. Irresponsible, to be sure, but she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t flattered how much he desired her, as if it were anything to question. She thinks, in foolish desperation, that the odds are in their favour this time.

 She’s wet and ready from his fingers playing with her as they kiss, bringing him closer with her legs as her soft moans are muffled by his lips. Her hands reach for the buckle of his belt and she chuckles lightly when she detours further south to palm the erection under the cloth of his pants. Let’s free it, she thought then and refocused on the buckle, because she is fed up with all this teasing and none of the fingering. He’s given her a light orgasm already - the kind that leaves her wanting, that she only needed to bite down on her lip for - but it’s made her insatiable now. There’s just something so good about having him in her, and as much as she loves his fingers and dexterity, they cannot mimic the stretch and feeling of fullness he alone provides.  “I want you,” she murmurs under his lips, drunk from her lust, as she unbuckled the belt with practiced fingers.

 Loud and obnoxious, an alarm suddenly blares. Sound fills the room and it’s like a bucket of cold water over her; it takes them both a moment to recenter themselves back to earth. Her fingers uncurl from his pants and inwardly she mourns the loss of contact. The urge to keep going is strong; after all, when are fire alarms set off for a legitimate reasons anyway? It’s an irrational thought and Riza can hardly hear anything else. They fix themselves up hastily and exit the building; everybody they pass seemingly none the wiser. She lets herself drift away from him - a few metres and several people between them when they reach the evacuation point, reminding herself that there are other people here and this close to the end of classes is no excuse to relax her standards. She’s just...frustrated. A voice that sounds a lot like Rebecca’s teases that she’s actually just horny.

 If she’s honest, she hates the shame that trickles down her spine at this unadulterated want. In a different time, with a less conservative upbringing to influence her choices, she wouldn’t find this shame and guilt currently she’s currently wrestling with. She would be more like Rebecca or even Olivier where it’s not on her radar, coming and going as she pleases. But if her circumstances were different, she probably wouldn’t even be here, studying for a Bachelor of Science as a means to connect with her absentee father.

 Riza miraculously catches his eyes as the crowd slowly shuffles further back on the field as more people spill out of the Joseph Hunter Science Building. He mouths something to her, but her lipreading is terrible and she shrugs her shoulders, lifting up her phone to their field of vision.

 Spanish Inquisition, 10:23am 10 minutes leaves enough time to return the favor of the other night.

 The fire alarm had killed most of their time before her next class, but she forgoes punctuality in favor of four minutes of feeling his hair in between her fingers while his lips kiss in between her legs. In the end, her tardiness was excused.

 Finally - finally, she thinks they’ve managed a miracle. Her final assignments are as ready as they’ll ever be, waiting for one final read-over before submission, and his last block of essays have been graded and handed back to their respective classes. Draped over him in the same chair in his apartment study where they first fucked, she’s allowing herself to celebrate as she cups his jaw with her hands, her tongue sliding against his pleasantly.

He hardens underneath her and she’s none too shy about unbuttoning his shirt as he has done for her. Pushed down to her elbows, the shirt is rid of her and it’s a painful few seconds when she pulls away to be free of it properly. He looks sinfully decadent beneath her, a lazy smirk growing on his face as one hand deliberately hooks a finger under her bra strap, tugging it down. Her lingerie choices have been adventurous in recent weeks - the pastel blue lacy number she’s currently wearing is definitely not designed for any exercise more taxing than walking, and judging by the way his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat, Riza knows with certainty that she’s found a keeper.

His fingers brush over her nipples, and she briefly shuts her eyes as he pinches before pulling the fabric down and draws her close, tongue soothing the puckered skin. Her hands curl into his hair, scratching at his scalp and Riza’s uncaring of the breathy moans leaving her - this is divine, and the wait has certainly been worth it.

Roy’s hands drift down and slide under her skirt, fingers gliding over the sensitive skin on the inside of her thighs, leaving tingling sensations in its wake. He is only mere inches from her arousal and a great deal of willpower goes into preventing herself from pushing his hand forward.

He takes off his glasses and she sets them behind her on the large desk. Her hands go through his hair as he cups her breast and brings her other nipple into his mouth, using his tongue to tease the tip and even nip at it gently with his teeth. His other hand clutches at her ass to bring her closer as if the distance they have was remotely unbearable. Riza gasps into his hair, grinding her hips over his lap, and his scent is mixed with sweat. It’s a dangerous, addicting blend, and she shudders in his lap as his fingers stroke across her bare skin. He releases her nipple slowly from between his teeth before shifting back to her other one and she remembers a joke he said about her breasts deserving equal treatment.

And then, in the middle of this achingly wonderful treatment - his ringtone goes off.

Roy groans for all the wrong reasons, throwing his head back. He keeps them steady as he awkwardly reaches his back pocket for his phone. “Pfft, it’s just Hughes,” he mutters after a concerted effort and sets the cell down on the chair of the arm. Softer and locked on her other unattended breast, he mumbles with a mouth full of her, “He can leave a message.”

Riza doesn’t remember which one is Hughes and she’s not given much time to think about it when his mouth returns to her breast and his hand squeezes, massages, tweaks at the other. She’s at the point of moaning out if you say so when the vibrations and standard tune rings out again.

He stops altogether and after a few seconds, it dies to a stop only to start up again. His attention is needed again, and she’s never felt quite as pissed off at an inanimate object as she does right now. Roy growls and sits back, picking up the phone. “Let me just see what he wants.”

She nods wordlessly and he starts the conversation, going beyond standard small talk after a few moments. She can hear the other man talking; an excitable person who gets even more excited when he talks about certain topics. She can’t discern what they’re talking about exactly, but Roy gives the occasional mhm and yeah when it’s warranted.  

Riza figures she can go wait for him in the bedroom. Perhaps sprawled out with a bright, blinking sign that says ‘insert here’ in between her legs should he fail to see how much she wanted him that afternoon; she blames Rebecca’s influence for that kind of ridiculous humor. Riza starts to climb off him and stops when she’s kept in place from his hand gripping the fabric of her skirt. He wants her to stay there? She frowns and points at the phone. His brows furrow and he shakes his head, putting a finger over his mouth, telling her to be quiet.

Well, she can go be quiet in the other room. She can respect his privacy. It’s not a big deal; they had the entire evening to themselves. Well, nearly - but she’d be damned if she’d let any other distractions interrupt them after this call. She deserves to be fucked thoroughly.

Roy is apparently impatient, however. The hand holding the finger over his mouth flattens over her thigh and coasts up to the edge of her skirt. He thumbs the skin there, teasing the idea that he could touch her in the middle of this conversation. She looks at him knowingly when he crosses underneath the folds of her skirt, yet he continues on talking as though nothing has happened. He caresses the skin inside her thighs as he talks about something or the other: Riza isn’t concentrating on that, instead absorbed with the sensation of his fingers drifting higher and higher. She waits patiently, but his touch somehow makes her hotter, wetter. A devious finger lightly ghosts over the linen of her damp underwear and he says a perfectly timed “Oh?” towards the caller and to her. Riza blushes and grabs at his wrist.

She can sit up, she can leave the room, she knows that he’d respect that, but she doesn’t want to. She realizes there’s a morbid curiosity as to how and why he does things and she always wants to know. This is moment is one of them. It’s why she doesn’t stop him when he tugs aside the cloth of her underwear and wets his fingers with what’s in between her lips. Her frown dissipates and she gasps as if she’s been starved from his touch, like it’s an electrifying drug she’s been having withdrawals from. The sensations of his fingers rubbing against her clit is familiar and unknown, and she lets her head fall back, relishing in the feeling and clawing lightly at the armchair.

His fingers leave her and he cleans them off with his mouth before gesturing her to be quiet with a finger over his mouth again. She thinks she can hear his friend say “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he responds, looking directly at her with a devious glint in his eyes. “Just eating. Go on.”

A warm tingle shoots down her spine and spreads across her abdomen down to her groin. She’s been enraptured by a lunatic and she’s allowed it to happen, even now when he aims to touch her again.  With a bite to her knuckle, she grasps at his loosened shirt when his fingers return to remind her how obnoxiously needy she has become. Giving into this notion, she moves to hover over his lap for shameless access. He bites a bottom lip at this, staring her from the wrinkled mess of her skirt to her flushed, knuckle-biting face. She’s wet enough that an easy orgasm is on the horizon from the slow, rubbing stimulation on her clit. Riza makes the mistake of thinking he’ll stop there, because then one finger enters her and then another. Her reaction is unexpected, even to her. She falls back to his lap and bites the fleshy side of her palm to quell the noises. Her spread legs allow him to finger her, so he does. Slowly. In and out, and the noises would make her die of mortification if she weren’t enjoying every satisfyingly building moment of this pleasure. His palm is hitting her stimulated clit with each stroke and she’s grasping at his shirt once more, trying to salvage what solid ground she can keep as the pleasure rises within her..

He slows down when she’s at the precipice of a delicious orgasm that she even licks her lips, and decides to become an active participant in his phone call. But it’s not in English. He shifts to Spanish while his hand moves against her more patiently. She tries to catch her breath from holding it but it’s impossible not to listen to the way he’s talking. It’s fascinating how melodic a different language sounds and how much of a turn on it is for her. He speaks this language faster. His R’s roll off his tongue and somehow there’s more sensuality in his voice. It’s mesmerizing.

His attention turns back to her when moments ago he was staring at some place off to the side. He looks to her hips and she doesn’t even realize - until he does - how subtly she was moving them. Roy pauses, eyebrows furrowed before a downright hungry grin forms on his face, and his fingers begin to move once more.

“Estoy eschuchando,” he answers the person on the other line, his diction shifting into a huskier tone, each syllable pronounced lower and slower. She thought it was bad enough when he spoke it casually, but when he did it deliberately? She can only handle so much stimuli, and by this point she’s uncaring of how shameless she’s acting, how she’s become putty in his hands. She’s drunk on this orgasm she can feel barrelling towards her, on the lust and desire she feels for him. She’s never felt it quite like this before - this want that feels more like a need with every passing second. She wants to take the phone and hang it up for him, but she opts for pulling at the collar of his partially unbuttoned shirt and biting the taut muscle at the meeting of his neck and shoulder. He maintains that paced fingering in and out of her. She knows she’s tightening around his fingers because of the paced movement.

With his deliberate words at her ear, his fingers inside her, and the smell of his bare skin, she climaxes against him, taking deep breaths and every measure to stifle the moans and groans. Her head rests over his shoulder, hot breath hitting his neck. She can see him swallowing and doesn’t know why she didn’t think to give him the same torturing she just endured.

He’s hard. She can feel it and see it in this light. She palms it, clutches it, strokes it, and he swallows thickly again. He sounds strained when he cuts off the caller and abruptly says, “I’ll have to call you back.” Roy ends the call and the phone is tossed to the wayside as his fingers slide out of her.

She grabs his cock harder and he surprises her by standing up, supporting her by her underside until she’s laid on his desk directly behind her, over the papers she had spent last week meticulously highlighting. She lifts her hips to help with the removal of her own underwear. As he works with his own pants she tries to salvage what’s underneath her to little success. Distracted by her menial task, she gasps, surprised, when her wrists are manacled and set at either side of her head. Her breathing is heavy, his too. The tip of him nudges at her entrance and she moves against it, towards it just for the stretch a little bit more of him inside her.

“A little bird tells me you have a secret.”

Riza smiles coyly after a futile attempt to use her legs to bring him forward. “Hardly a secret if you know about it,” she manages, half-heartedly trying to move her arms. He doesn’t budge an inch, his smile dark and promising. She supposes at this point nothing should really surprise her when it comes to her newfound appreciation for less-than-vanilla sex, but there’s just something so inherently sexy about being pinned down by him, even as simply as she is right now. The temporary loss of control is so easy to lose herself in.

Roy observes her hungrily. “A kink then.”

The initial thrust makes her gasp sharply and he groans pleasantly. Her limbs dangle off the side as he fucks her over his desk. Where he was well-paced before, he is erratic now, but he won’t find complaint from her in that regard. She has no means of quieting herself with her hands where they are, and biting down at her teeth proves inefficient when each of his thrusts touch places she’s been yearning for weeks, when the stretch she’s been hungry for is finally given to her. Her eyes are shut, mouth open, body subject to this carnal movement. She doesn’t think to see beyond her eyes for the time being, what expressions his face is making or anything that will  take her away from the here and now of the feelings of the sex. She feels selfish for relishing in this, but fuck, it’s been a long time coming and this sex proves it.

He lets go of her wrists and brings her toward him to hang just a little more over the desk by way of her legs.  She reaches over her head at the other end of the desk, moaning into the inside of her arm, clutching the edge as if it were her salvation from plunging into the deep.

Her eyes open suddenly when he thumbs her clit. She looks at him and there’s a wolfish grin on his face, enjoying her reactions in the ways she squirms, moans, mewls, and tightens. Her fingernails scratch at the desk for purchase, for breath, but he continues with sweat beading his brow until he grunts a little louder and his final thrusts hit deeper as he cums inside her.

Her own orgasm follows shortly after, and she’s left quivering on the desk, well aware of the sight she is before him. She can feel his seed leaking out of her as her pulls out, and automatically her fingers move to catch it - like hell was she going to completely debase the paperwork that was crumpled underneath her. He utters a strange, strained grunt, running a hand through his hair roughly.

“I’ve told you, you can’t just do that with no warning.”

“Oh?” Her hand rises back up to her mouth and she wets her lower lip in anticipation. “Do this?” Her tongue darts out to lap at the milky, viscous fluid and while the taste is not delightful, the reaction that he has most certainly is. She barely has time to repeat her actions before his hand closes firmly over her own, and pulling her up to a sitting position at the edge of his desk.

“No,” he tells her firmly, though the matching smile on his lips belies any real annoyance. “If you’re going to be the death of me I’d at least like to get my money’s worth.” The kiss he drops on her forehead is soft. “I’ll get you a washcloth,” he says, fixing up his trousers loosely. The faint trail of hair sticks out against his lower abdomen like a beacon and Riza swallows the urge to coax him back for another round.

She adjusts the straps of her bra back up on her shoulders and nicks his discarded shirt from the ground. Her skirt is a crumpled, lost cause, and Riza makes a mental note to pick up an iron at some point this weekend - she hadn’t noticed it immediately, but of the many appliances Olivier had taken with her, the iron was the one she had relied on the most. Rebecca had bitched endlessly about the mini espresso machine that had also disappeared, though it had quickly been replaced.

She rolls up the sleeves of his shirt as she walks down the hallway towards the kitchen, humming under her breath. Roy would probably appreciate a cup of coffee, she thinks, focusing on doing the buttons up correctly as she passes by the island countertop and the man sitting there.

She stills, before turning to make sure she’s seeing right. The man looks up from the plate in front of him and raises his mug in greeting, the lowlights from the kitchen reflecting strangely on his glasses.

“You kids had fun?” he asks, before taking a sip. His tone is light, breezy, and he gestures to the plate in front of him when she doesn’t respond. “You’re probably hungry after that, uh-” he breaks off laughing, ducking his head “-after that workout. My wife made a quiche - you should have some, it is the best in the world, and I’m not biased.”

next

[the-firebird69]

Well we might propose Mac it's for us to have added stuff outside of Disney but still within the grounds and to leave Disney the way it is but to have you still run it we're going to beef up security and renovate the place in order to be attached entertainment facility and he agrees and we're going to do the maintenance and upkeep but you can do the janitorial and he agrees it says it's a great idea and what they do is they change out all the stuff air conditioning anything that's unhealthy is gone and all of it is replaced exactly the way it was and they paint and they repaint and a spruce everything up and remove all the dangers and hazards and broken things and you put it all new in and they paint everything that needs to be painted and they cleaned it all and they'll decon it and then check for all that too check for decon stuff they go through all the pipes and cracks and all sorts of stuff and then go through the whole place one thing wands back but what are we going to do. So is he and it's a professional renovation they do and it's very fast and it's very clean everything is done but I almost clean room protocol or asbestos removal and check for all that stuff too and they say we're sending the proposal and if it's good and we'd like to get in there tonight and start working and they'd like to hire the people who are working there but doesn't seem that they're really doing a great job they do a good job so you might have them assemble some houses renovate some houses so they said this we have a renovation team houses though and he says they probably don't want to move in houses we'll have them renovate some other stuff it's around town it's a good idea because it's simpler faster it's easier and we can produce the hotels and motels and it's easier to do a good job because of the corners of square and everything is uniform and modular practically so I agree with you and we have a stick with a speck because the pain they ask me to change things out and we have plumbing supplies and things so I'm going to do that because the whole town needs to be upgraded practically and rejuvenated so it's kind of a relief for them because they're having a tough time with all that stuff the light thing and everything is pain in the ass what they're saying is not good but so went over it and I examined it said most of the ride is okay but we have to check each and every joint and each and every connection which is not that hard to do put a big huge team on it they probably do that cuz that way it won't be a pain and it'll just move the team to another ride that's open so we're going to go ahead and do that and if there's a joint that's out we spray paint it and we know it And even mark it like you said but a spray painting cuz he just go around looking for the spray paint enjoy the central database and it gets loaded up in the materials get ordered. Thor Freya add. So we're sitting the package store for the design and we're sending what rides and they're sending how it shuttle up there and elevated rail we can make it look like the one at Disney he likes that idea and Dave was doing similar stuff so you put the elevated rail in and only be like 20 miles going to go pretty fast if we get the high-tech one and they make them all over we can make them a little better so it feels like a hundred miles an hour so it takes like 15 minutes or 10 minutes so they both agree and we're going to go ahead and do it and you run them in a route in a circle and you never run against each other and it's going to be the fastest thing you've ever seen and you might even put a road that goes up there so it's going to be fun probably get it approved and it's sent over to him now and he's going to look at now and not wait for the restaurant for him to go in having fun so I'm saying we can bring fast food so all of a sudden it's kind of like well tough life here getting mad I was doing tons of stuff I just had to be nice you'll still be mine

Never plan to do the middle it just gets permitted and DJ will get out of the way cuz he will I don't fix it up it's going to be Adventureland again cuz it was one of his favorite places and it's a pirate thing

Hera Zues

[asterinjapan]

A walk through history and the rain

Hi everyone, and late greetings from a once again rainy Tokyo! You know, I’d swear the rainy season should be over by now…

Today, I was meeting up with my Japanese friend again, this time at 10 AM. And oh boy, my Japanese has detoriated, it’s really embarrassing. I hope it’s because of the residual jetlag and general tiredness, but man, I had to think about every other word and felt like my vocabulary was on the same level as a one year old, gosh. Oh well, shikata ga nai, it can’t be helped; my brain just wasn’t cooperating for today. Luckily my friend talks to me in English, so it all sort of worked out.

Anyway, we were heading to Ueno today, one of the big and famous stations of Tokyo. It has a park nearby, fittingly called Ueno Park, which is home to several musea and a zoo. The zoo has a pair of pandas, and actually, a little baby panda was born a while ago. So no matter where you look in Ueno, you’re bound to find panda imagery there, haha. Barely any need to visit the actual zoo! That wasn’t the plan for today anyway. No, we went to the National Museum of Tokyo.

This was actually very interesting, the museum consisting of several buildings in total with different themes. We only had time for one, so we went into the main building, which has two pretty big floors. There were exhibitions on lacquer, samurai swords, masks, books from around the world about Japan in past centuries (including some Dutch ones!), screen paintings, the introduction of Buddhism in Japan, and even the earliest history starting around 20,000 BC, which has always really fascinated me. It wasn’t much, but there were a couple of figurines from that area and later. Oh, and a room on Ainu and the Ryukyu islands, in the north and south of Japan respectively, people and places with their very own culture separate from mainland Japan. Although it was mostly Ryukyu; information about the Ainu was suspiciously absent, considering the room was called after them (that part of Japanese history isn’t pretty, so that might be why).

After the museum, we made our way to Asakusa, part of Tokyo which is home to the temple Sensoji. I went there already last year, but today, the summer fireworks festival was held in the area, so I figured I’d combine them. You can just take the subway to Asakusa, but my friend suggested we’d walk there – it’s only 1.5 km, which is fine, but not if it’s 2:30 PM and you haven’t had lunch yet, haha. So we hopped into a convenience store for a bite and started walking.

Sadly, it started raining when we made the turn towards the temple, so we fled to a tree and waited it out. My friend treated me on shaved ice, which you can pour the flavors of your choice on, so I went with a rainbow of lemon, melon and strawberry. I don’t want to know just how much sugar I ingested that way, haha, but it was very nice.

For a little while, the skies cleared up, so I took the chance to take some pictures. We also went to the nearby Asakusa shrine. You see, the Sensoji is a buddhist temple; Senso-ji, temple of Senso (Senso is the same characters as Asakusa, but pronounced differently). A shrine is related to shintoism and is usually the place where you find those red gates, but it’s only been since the Meiji period (1868) that temples and shrines were forced to become separate entities. It’s not super rare for that reason to see a shrine on a temple complex, just like here. It’s just a small shrine, but it offers some interesting omamori, protective charms (usually small bags with characters on it indicating what it’s protecting you for or against. They get pretty specific, such as luck in school or easy childbirth or even safe driving). The one I wanted was here: the one that just says daijoubu, ‘it’ll be fine’, haha. I‘m definitely someone who needs to hear that, so I bought that charm in particular.

Since the rain had started again, we fled into the Sensoji, but alas, it was 5 PM. The temple closes at that time, which in practice means they ring the bells repeatedly and then start yelling REALLY LOUDLY that everyone should get out. I’d never been in a temple until closing time, I was super startled! Anyway, we waited outside under the temple roof, but the rain didn’t seem to stop and we started wondering if the fireworks festival would even be held at this point.

Eventually, we decided that waiting in the rain and maybe or maybe not watching fireworks while drenched wasn’t what we had in mind for the evening, so we went back to Ikebukuro. That sounds easier than it was, because we were not the only ones with the plan to leave early. The subway station Asakusa was super close, but thousands of others thought so too, so I got the lovely experience we all associate with Tokyo – being pushed into the subway! Fun! I ended up squished together so much that I could only stand on my tiptoes. Just a little more and my feet wouldn’t have even touched the ground, pff.

Luckily Ueno station was only a couple of stops ahead, and half the people inside needed to get off here too. From Ueno, we took the Yamanote-line to Ikebukuro, which was blissfully quiet. I mean, we still had to stand, but we could actually breathe and we’d fall over if the train suddenly moved, rather than being plastered against someone else’s back, so. (I’m not actually complaining, I mean, I knew what to expect when I went to Tokyo and I’ve experienced it before. I’ve had nicer train rides is all, haha.)

After dinner inside Ikebukuro station, we went to a karaoke building, but not to actually sing. No, here in Japan you can rent a room for as many people as you want, whether that’s one or twenty, and apparently you can even rent rooms with DVD players. My friend ordered one of those rooms for the two of us, so we could watch the concert DVD he’d brought from KOKIA’s concert in November last year. You know, the one I missed by a week… And now I’m even sadder I missed that concert, because it was amazing! I really hope to get my hands on the DVD myself, because wow. I could write an entire report on how much I loved a concert I didn’t even attend myself, haha.

Anyway, it was already 10:30 PM by then, so we walked back to the station so that my friend could take his train and I could reorient myself towards my hotel. I’m notoriously good at getting lost; even if I know my way somewhere, I usually stick to specific routes or I just get lost again, haha. Luckily, I know my way just fine inside Ikebukuro station, so that all worked out. We said goodbyes and see you next weeks, as on August 7, we’ll be meeting up in Sendai for the Tanabata festival.

And now I’m in bed, definitely ready to get some sleep. My legs don’t like me, but they definitely don’t like bugs either. Geesh, I have about a dozen bites on each leg, and my Dutch spray doesn’t work against them, pfff. I’ll get something Japanese tomorrow and take it easy. I was going to visit the Imperial East Gardens again, but guess what, they’re predicting rain, so eh, we’ll see. Otherwise, maybe a karaoke room to actually do karaoke this time? Haha, I’m keeping it calm walking wise, because Monday is Disneyland!

That’s it for now, good night!

[nish-e-r-r-o-r-neesh]

Fanfic updaate! Yay, chapter two! Hope you guys enjoy! Chapter 3 is on its way~

Tangled...In Pasta...? 

GerIta Tangled!AU, wherein Italy is Rapunzel and Germany is Flynn Rider! 

Chapter 2...!

________________________

There it was—the open window. So close. But he could not make any mistakes this time. No, not at such a crucial state.

The summer breeze felt oh so refreshing, blowing all over the young man. The drawn back curtains swayed back and forth in the wind, and the sunlight filtering through cast such a peaceful atmosphere around him—but oh, he knew that the situation was anything but peaceful.

As Feliciano approached, his hands reached for the bush of yellow dandelions set on the windowsill. They looked so innocent, so pretty—little ruffles of gold tucked into a bushel of green… but ah! One was out of place.

“AHA!” The young man cried out, his hand shooting for the furry, misplaced, yellow ball. An expected incessant chirping followed suit as Feliciano laughed, letting go of his companion who settled quickly on the window sill.

“Those are 23 wins for me, Gilbird!” He laughed. The feisty yellow bird he liked to call his companion- and closest friend- looked a little less than happy at the declaration. He let out another small chirp, flapping his wings in frustration.

The amber-eyed boy only chuckled. “Alright, I think that’s enough hide-and-seek for today,” he said, lifting up the bird onto his shoulder, then pulled his flowing amber locks to the side to allow Gilbird more space.

Feliciano knew he wasn’t normal; he wasn’t the same as other people. Granted, he’d never recalled so much as being in the presence of other people, but that was because he was special. He was special, yes, his Papa Flavio had told him so on many occasions, yet he knew his specialness came at a deadly price.

His amber hair, a near cross between chocolate brown and gold, constantly trailed behind him wherever he went. It was extraordinarily long—enough to reach the very base of his tower when thrown out the window. Each and every strand remained surprisingly tame and generally unruly, save for maybe the little curl sticking out the side of his head. His Papa Flavio had one too... the thought made him smile.

Now, it was a little past seven in the morning; time to start his daily routine!

Throwing ingredients into the large ceramic bowl, along with a little help from Gilbird, Feli had started his favorite task of baking their daily loaf of bread. About half an hour later, into the oven went the dough.  

Next, he swept every inch of his home. The tower was everything he’d known, and he loved the place! With Gilbird manning the dustpan, he swept their living quarters first. He swept the ashes back into the fireplace, he swept out the dust from his woodcarving station; he swept the kitchen, his bedroom and his papa’s bedroom. He knew every inch of this tower’s living space, every nook and cranny. He knew all the best places to hide—himself and little treasures alike. He knew every inch of the above rafters.

Sometimes, with the help of his impossibly long hair, he’d swing from the rafters, climb them, make swing sets on them and practice makeshift acrobatic moves. He was rather skilled, if he did say so himself.

After the bread was done baking he’d set it aside, and began to read through each book on the shelf, their spines were worn and cracked from being read over and over for days on end. Sometimes he’d wish Papa Flavio would bring back a new book, but then he’d have to sacrifice time to buy his painting materials in exchange.

No, he loved painting more. Way more. A new book could wait.

After reading, he set on what he loved to do best. His paints were out and ready, several worn paintbrushes already in hand, and he looked up to his canvas, the wall, to find… not an inch more of space to paint on.

Maybe the ceiling? No, covered in his own array of paintings as well. His bedroom was in the same situation. His Papa Flavio had even allowed him to paint in his room only a year ago and now it was as filled to the brim as the rest of the house with his paintings.

Maybe… there. What was behind that curtain in the back, on top of the mantle? He shifted over the heavy drapes to find an old cardboard stand, and was delighted to find a space of blank, cream-colored wall behind it.

Perfect. And he knew just what to fill it up with.

_________________________________________________

Sliding down tiled roofs and jumping from one to another became an easy feat with Flynn Rider’s line of work.

Maybe a year or so of practice had him in top-notch shape, excellence in sword fighting and sneaky tactics, as well as his face on several wanted posters—or so he heard. He’d never quite seen any yet.

So, when he decided to go after what he knew to be an impossibly huge score, it made sense he’d collaborate with two other fellow thieves, right?

Well, to be fair, the operation wasn’t quick and easy. It took them a week of stalking the palace surroundings, memorizing guarding rounds, learning the quickest escape routes and most concealed areas before they began. It took another week of locating the throne room and prying open a self-made hatch on the roof without making a sound, which took a lot of stealth and strength.

The two others accompanying the infamous Flynn Rider were dubbed the Stabbington Brothers by the royal guard—a name they weren’t particularly fond of. They worked well together and had been in the industry far longer than Rider had. Another thing was it was near impossible to tell them apart, save for a few key features. The older brother, Alfred, had choppy blond hair, a cowlick, and ocean blue eyes. The younger’s hair, Matthew, seemed to be lighter in color, a tad more wavy, had a not-so-prominent curl in place of the cowlick, and his eyes seemed to be purplish in color.

They were also the ones he thought were easier to trust. Now, no one could completely trust a thug, especially if you were a thug yourself, but for a job this big, risks had to be taken.

In no time, the three had made their way onto the rooftops on the palace. The view from there was simply… exhilarating. All the little buildings and landmasses stretching out below you, as though the entire kingdom were yours…

“Wow… I could get used to a view like this…”

“So could I.”

“Shut up, Alfred. Rider, come on!” Matthew hissed, crouched above their now opened hatch.

His brother in turn, ignored him, and continued to gaze out towards the horizon. “Check this out, Rider. A magnificent kingdom!” He declared.

Rider couldn’t help but nod along. “Hmm… I want a castle.”

“We do this job, you can buy your own castle,” Matthew growled and chucked his brother the rope.

Alfred laughed and turned to the other thief. “You get that crown, Rider,” he handed him the rope, eyes flashing briefly. “Or all of this would’ve been for nothing.”

Ah, there it was—the criminal undertone. Of course.

Rider flashed a knowing smile, sky blue eyes gleaming in the sunlight. He then quickly, expertly knotted the rope around his waist and handed the brothers the other end.

 The descent was easy enough. He stopped, just above the precious, jewel-studded crown sitting on its plush cushion in the center of the room. Nine guards encircled the kingdom’s precious treasure, all luckily facing away.

This was a stupid tactic, Rider knew. He decided to have a little fun.

“Hey,”

“Hey.”

“Achoo!”

“Hay Fever?”

“Yeah.”

Just another day for a royal guard at the palace.

Wait.

“Hey! Stop! Thief! He’s stealing the crown!”

Ah yes, mass panic. The king and queen really should get better security.

“You got the crown?” Alfred grunted, hoisting him up the hatch and cutting off the rope.  

“Of course I did.” In one swift motion the gleaming crown was stuffed into an old, leathery satchel. Now concealed, the three made their way down the rooftops, through the empty alleyways and out the kingdom’s borders with their piece of treasure.

Another success for Flynn Rider. Oh, he was definitely going to get that castle now. “Gentlemen, this is a very big day.”

_____________________________

Hoped you liked it! Tell me what you thought. :D 

First Chapter

Next chapter

FanFiction.net

( @maryranstadler1 thought I’d tag you in too XD )

[charllieeldridge]

12 Best Things To Do in Aomori – A Travel Guide

Beaming with natural beauty, tasty food, welcoming locals and historical sites, Aomori has a little something for everyone — there are numerous things to do in Aomori to keep you busy!

Located at the northern tip of the main Honshu Island in Japan, the Aomori prefecture surprised and delighted us at every turn, and left us wanting more. 

With easy transport options from the capital city of Tokyo, and relatively untouched nature, it’s easy to see why the Lonely Planet listed the Tohoku region as one of their “Best In Travel” destinations for 2020! 

In this post, I’ll list the top 12 things to do in Aomori, plus details on getting around the prefecture, what to expect, where to stay and more. 

An Introduction to Aomori

The Tohoku region is comprised of Aomori and 5 other prefectures (which are similar to states/provinces) — Akita, Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, and Yamagata. But, the capital city of the Aomori prefecture is also called Aomori.

It’s a little bit confusing!

The pretty nature surrounding the Oirase Stream

During our recent trip to Japan, we visited the Tohoku region but only the prefectures of Aomori and Akita. It was just a teaser of what this beautiful part of the country has to offer.

Tohoku is known for its incredible natural beauty and welcoming locals, but on top of those things, Aomori, in particular, is also famous for its tasty food.

It’s the largest producer of apples (you’ve probably heard of Fuji apples?), has an abundance of seafood on offer (scallops and affordable sushi), and due to the chilly winters, some hearty, comfort foods are served here as well (try the beef bara-yaki, and the vegetable soup kenoshiru).

With volcanoes, mountains, lakes, hot springs, historical sites, parks, and food…Aomori really is a hidden gem in Japan. 

From Tokyo Station, we hopped on the Shinkansen bullet train bound for Shin-Aomori station. The trains in Japan are reliable, efficient, clean…and silent!

Talking loudly on a train is a big no-no in Japan, so we sat quietly shifting our gaze between our laptops and the stunning views outside.

With a 3 hour and 10-minute journey ahead of us, we knew we could get a little work done, but it was hard with the stunning Japanese countryside zipping past our peripheral outside.

Not only are the trains comfortable, but they have plug-ins, free wifi, bathrooms and an attendant that comes around offering drinks and snacks. 

We arrived at our hotel around 4:00 pm, and between that time and when we went to bed, we had so many wonderful encounters with the people of Aomori City.

One man invited us to watch a rugby match on TV with him and his friends, another stopped us in the street to chat about what we were doing in Aomori (and to practice his English), and another just wished us a nice trip.

Our first meal in Aomori was sushi – affordable and delicious!

After meeting some kind people, and devouring some of the freshest, most delicious and most affordable sushi we’ve had in Japan (at Asuka Sushi Bar), it was time to call it a night. 

Our first impressions of this region of Japan were very positive and we couldn’t wait to explore more. 

12 Best Things To Do in Aomori Prefecture

During our previous visits, we spent time in Kyoto, Tokyo and Takayama. But, there are so many more things to see and do in Japan and this time around, we were looking forward to exploring the natural beauty of the country — which Tohoku has in spades. 

There are a few main areas that are of interest to tourists in this prefecture — Hirosaki, Aomori City, Towada Hachimantai National Park, and Fukaura.

Many of the things to do in Aomori are focused around the stunning Towada Hachimantai National Park, which spans 862 sq. km (333 sq. miles). Here’s a list of some of the top things to do in the Aomori prefecture, based on our firsthand experience.

1. Canoeing on Lake Towada

A highlight of our entire trip to the region was the hours spent canoeing on the crystal-clear Towada Lake. 

This crater lake spans between the prefectures of Akita and Aomori, and has a surprisingly undeveloped coastline.

After a quick safety briefing and demonstration from the canoe guide (Ota-san) at Towadako Guidehouse, we were ready to hit the lake. We’ve done lots of kayaking in the past, but surprisingly, neither of us had properly canoed before!

Canoeing on Lake Towada was so much fun!

Finding our balance on the boat was easy and before we knew it we were gliding across the calm, crystal-clear water. This was such a peaceful experience and we enjoyed paddling alongside the colourful autumn leaves and rocky shoreline. 

Lake Towada can be enjoyed year-round, but public transport only operates from April – November. To get here from Aomori City, take a bus to Yasumiya, which is the main transport hub of Lake Towada.

If you have a JR Rail Pass, the bus is included with that pass. To learn more about canoeing on the lake with the company we paddled with, click here, and for more information on how to get from Aomori to Lake Towada, click here.

2. Wander Along the Oirase Gorge in Towada Hachimantai National Park

Flowing from Lake Towada is the Oirase Stream. Running alongside this stream is a 14-kilometer nature trail. This has been listed on many articles as one of the best things to do in Aomori, but for us, even though it was pretty, it wasn’t a major highlight. 

Here’s the reason: it runs along a road.

On one side, you have a beautiful stream, some small waterfalls, and lush forest. But, on the other side of the trail, just steps away, is the road.

I’m sure that it’s not always this busy, but when we visited, it was a long weekend and many locals were here enjoying their day off — which meant lots of foot traffic, and vehicles passing by. 

There’s just something about waterfalls

Regardless of how busy it was, we seemed to be the only ones who minded! And, we still enjoyed the fresh, humid air, the Kumoinotaki waterfall, and watching the local artists painting and photographing their beautiful backyard. 

To get here, take the same bus that you would take for Lake Towada. Starting in Aomori, it passes through the Oirase Stream before terminating at the lake. Click here for details on the bus route — again, it’s included with your JR Rail Pass.

3. Visit the Jogakura Bridge in Towada Hachimantai National Park

This might not be an ancient site, but this 122m high bridge is a beautiful viewpoint! This bridge connects two areas of the Aomori prefecture (Tsugaru and Nambu) and was built in 1995 to make crossing the Jogakura river easier.

When we visited, people were parking at either end of the bridge and walking the length to take photos from different angles. While it’s not somewhere you’d likely go and see just for photos, it’s a great stop in between destinations.

The Jogakura Bridge offers an amazing view of the autumn colours in the fall, and snowy trees in winter.

View from the Jogakura Bridge, gorgeous during the autumn months

4. Eat All The Apples (Everywhere)

Since Aomori is known for its apple production, it’s no surprise that eating anything and everything to do with apples is a must. At pretty much every restaurant, you’ll find some sort of apple-inspired dish.

We stayed at the aptly named Apple Land Hotel, which had a beautiful ryokan style room and apples floating in the onsite onsen. There was an apple orchard in the backyard and a massive restaurant with fantastic food featuring (you guessed it) apples!

Apple desserts, apple curry, apple sauces, apple sake and apple beer were just some of the items on offer and it was all very tasty. 

Another great place to sample some apple delights is at the French restaurant in Hirosaki, Chez Moi. Here, we dined on a 5-course lunch of cod, beef cheek, soup, and dessert — with apples infused into every dish. If you’re a foodie, you won’t want to miss this spot. 

Want more apple action? You can actually pick apples at one of the many orchards in Aomori. Click here to learn more about that. 

Aomori is known for its apples

5. Explore Shirakami-Sanchi Forest (Fukaura) 

The pristine Shirakami-Sanchi forest area is actually a World Heritage Site.

Spanning 130,000 hectares (321,000 acres) across the southwestern part of the Aomori prefecture and the northwestern part of the Akita prefecture, this beautiful place is a great spot to do some hiking around lakes while enjoying the east Asia’s largest virgin beech forest. 

There are numerous trails to explore here, plus 33 lakes. “Juniko” translates to “twelve”, so it’s strange that an area with 33 lakes and ponds is actually called Juniko, but who’s counting?

We spent a couple of hours hiking around there and enjoying the red, orange and yellow leaves reflecting off of the many lakes. This is somewhere you could spend a whole day soaking up the natural beauty. Click here for a great (English) map of the area. 

From Fukaura, it’s a 35-minute direct train ride to the Juniko Station. 

One of the many amazing lakes at Juniko

6. Hirosaki Park (Hirosaki City)

Located in the city with the same name, this large park is a nice spot to wander around.

This is considered one of the top spots to view the cherry blossoms in the springtime (there are 2,600 trees planted here), and in the fall, you can enjoy the autumn leaves.

Not only are the trees a highlight here, but the entire park is surrounded by a moat with small red bridges crossing the water, and historical gates.

The real highlight of Hirosaki Park is the 400-year-old castle — which is the last remaining one from the Edo Period in the Tohoku region.

The Hirosaki Castle’s temporary spot

When we visited, the castle had moved.

That’s right, the entire castle itself was picked up in one piece, and moved 70m!

Apparently, the base was becoming weak, and in order to preserve it, the castle was slowly moved to the side for the structure to be repaired. It’ll take around 10 years to completely restore the base and it’s expected to be moved back to its original place in 2026.

Also, don’t miss the view of the Iwake Volcano from the park! 

Hirosaki Park is open from 9:00am to 5:00pm, and while it doesn’t cost anything to enter the main area of the park, if you want to see the castle, you’ll need to pay 320 yen ($2.95).

You can also purchase a ticket which grants you entrance to the castle, botanical garden and memorial garden for 520 yen ($4.75). From Aomori City station, it’s around a 1-hour train ride to Hirosaki Station. From there, it’s a 25-minute walk to the park, or you can take a taxi.

7. Visit a Shinto Shrine

We’ve seen a few Shinto shrines around Japan, and here in Aomori prefecture, we visited the 1,200-year-old Iwakiyama Shrine and enjoyed the view of Mount Iwaki volcano in the background.

You’ll know you’re at a Shinto shrine based on the Torii Gates at the entrance.

As with any religious building (church, mosque, temple, etc.) there are do’s and don’ts when it comes to visiting and praying at one, but there’s no need to stress and you should definitely visit one during your trip. 

Keep in mind that as a tourist/guest, you won’t be expected to know all of these rules.

Entrance to the Iwakiyama Shinto Shrine

The main thing to keep in mind when entering a Shinto shrine is to bow before entering the torii gates and walk on either the left or right-hand side of the gates, as the center is reserved for the gods.

Before going into the main shrine, make sure to purify yourself with the water out front.

Using the ladle, pour water over your left hand, followed by your right hand, and put some water into your hand to rinse out your mouth (but, don’t swallow the water).

Remove your shoes where signs instruct. Once you’re at the shrine, put a coin into the donation box for the deity. Following that, clap your hands two times, say your prayer, clap two more times and bow.

That’s it. 

Shintoism is a belief in the ancestors, nature and sacred powers.

This faith originated in Japan in the 8th century and is as old as the culture itself. Shintoism has no scripture, books or propaganda and alongside Buddhism, it’s one of the top two beliefs in Japan.

Iwakiyama is one of the most important spiritual sites in Aomori, so it’s a great place to experience this culture first hand.

To visit the Iwakiyama Shrine from Hirosaki, take the Konan bus bound for Karekitai from the Konan bus station, which is in front of the Hirosaki Train Station. It’s about a 40-minute bus ride. Alternatively, you can go on a tour, hire a driver, or rent your own vehicle.

There is a hike you can do from the Iwakiyama shrine to the summit of Mt. Iwaki. This hike takes around 4 hours and if we had more time, we would’ve loved to trek that route. Learn more here. 

More Things To Do in Aomori

During our visit, the Hakkoda Ropeway (gondola) was under repair and sadly we weren’t able to ride it. But, this is one of the most popular things to do in the area, especially in the fall when you can enjoy an amazing vantage point of the mountains covered in fall colours.

Man painting a scene in Oirase

In the Aomori prefecture alone, there are 15 ski resorts. Needless to say, skiing is a popular winter activity here. To learn more about the numerous ski resorts in the area, click here. 

The road between the Hakkoda Hotel and Sukayu Onsen is closed during the winter but reopens on April 1st each year. With high snowbanks on either side, walking and driving through this 10-meter high snowy corridor would be a pretty amazing sight — check out the cherry blossoms one day, and the snow wall the next!

For seafood lovers, don’t miss the Furukawa fish market (Aomori Gyosai Center) in Aomori City. Here you can create your own seafood rice bowl, called nokkedon. Fill your bowl with rice and top it with your choice of seafood — crab, squid, fish, scallops and more. 

Getting To and From Aomori Prefecture

To get to Aomori from Tokyo, you can either fly with JAL Airlines or take the Shinkansen bullet train (which is what I recommend).

We travelled from Tokyo Station to Shin Aomori on the Shinkansen Hayabusa train (using our JR Rail Pass). This journey was around 3 hours and 20 minutes long.

Once we arrived at Shin Aomori, we simply disembarked, walked down some stairs and found the local train line. It was about a 5-minute train ride on the JR Express Tsugaru from Shin Aomori station to Aomori.

Amazing view of the volcano and autumn colours in Hirosaki Park

Train stations in Japan can be a bit overwhelming. My biggest suggestion is to give yourself a lot of time on travel days. Arrive at the larger stations with plenty of time so you’re not feeling rushed or stressed out.

Never be afraid to ask the attendants which gate you should be at, and how to get there. There are plenty of them at all of the larger stations, they speak enough English and are more than willing to help you out.

During our trip in Tohoku, we kept saying that having our own rental car would’ve been the best way to see all of the natural sites of Aomori.

You can do it by public transport, but having your own wheels will allow you to stop at all the amazing viewpoints, and find your own quiet place for a picnic or a hike.

I don’t recommend hiring a car for the entire duration of your trip to Japan (as it can be pricey and public transport is so efficient), but maybe just for a day trip to the lakes or mountains in the area. 

When to Visit Aomori

One of the great things about travelling to Japan, is that it’s a destination that can be enjoyed year-round. Aomori is no exception.

Each season in the prefecture offers something different, so plan your trip around the activities you want to do and the type of weather you want.

To witness the stunning cherry blossoms, you’ll want to visit at the end of April. Hirosaki Park is one of the top spots in all of the country to see the blossoms, so expect crowds, but some incredible photo opportunities as well.  

For those who want to hit the slopes, December – March is when you’ll want to visit. Keep in mind that Aomori is one of the snowiest cities in the entire world — receiving around 20 feet of snow!

The prefecture transforms into a winter wonderland with people soaking extra long in the steamy onsens and partaking in festivals (time your trip for the Lake Towada Winter Story and the Hachinohe Emburi, both of which are held in February). 

For both the cherry blossom season and the ski season, make sure to reserve your accommodation in advance because these are peak months. 

Hirosaki Park with cherry blossoms – what an amazing sight! (Photo Credit: Shutterstock)

If you want to swim in the Towada Lake, do some walking along the Tanasashi coast, experience the famous Nebuta Matsuri lantern festival, and enjoy a hot temperature, visit Aomori in the summer months (August for the festival).

For a cooler, comfortable temperature and to witness the fall leaves changing colour, visit Aomori in October/November. The leaves can be viewed from many parts of the prefecture, but the Towada-Hachimantai National Park and the Hakkoda Ropeway are great places to enjoy the view.

Final Thoughts On Visiting Aomori

Prior to planning our trip to Aomori, we hadn’t even heard of the region of Tohoku, let alone the Aomori prefecture.

Most people have heard of the popular spots in Japan (Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, etc.), but if you want to escape the crowds and enjoy a more offtrack part of Japan, don’t miss this Northeast region of the country.

We were here on a quick visit to just get a feel for the prefecture — and even though it was a fast trip, we had a great experience! Due to all the amazing hiking and nature opportunities, we could’ve spent about 10 days – 2 weeks here and enjoyed a more relaxed travel pace. 

When you’re planning your next trip to Japan, consider Tohoku. With easy access from the capital, tasty foods and fewer tourists, it’s an area of the country you won’t want to miss. 

We were invited by the Tohoku Tourism Board to explore the region and share our findings with you, our readers. This is an area of Japan we would happily return to and would love to spend more time here. As with all promotional campaigns on Goats On The Road, all thoughts, reviews and opinions remain our own — despite any complimentary services received. 

Like This Article? Pin it!

  The post 12 Best Things To Do in Aomori – A Travel Guide appeared first on Goats On The Road.

12 Best Things To Do in Aomori – A Travel Guide published first on https://travelaspire.weebly.com/

[trendtshirtnewposts]

I think quarantine is spelled camping shirt

I think quarantine is spelled camping shirt T shirts Store Online

I think quarantine is spelled camping shirt

Do you wish to add more fun and exhilaration in your lifestyle? If you, then the interest could be simply the solution you are searching for. If you are interested in a whole new pastime to take pleasure from, keep reading and learn more about various ways to spend time and savor daily life more.

Don t restrict your pastimes from what you ve explored before. Sometimes you should press oneself in new instructions, and pastimes are ideal for carrying out exactly that. The truth is, try one thing out that you would have never ever deemed well before. You could be amazed at how enjoyable a brand new hobby may be.

When you are comparatively good with indoor plants and flowers, you should think of exterior growing plants like a activity. The skill sets are really comparable, but you ve obtained the additional struggle of having to take into account conditions, quantities of sunshine, and in many cases the kind of dirt you have around the house. It s these additional layers that provide this pastime a lot of level.

Focus on your thrilling new hobby to assist reduce stress. When you are able to give your full focus to something you undoubtedly appreciate, it will be easier that you should forget about those things in your own life which are leading to you stress. Pick a interest that exploits your talents and abilities although nonetheless presenting challenging.

Consider starting a blog about whichever your own personal enthusiasm is. Talking about something which takes in your interest in your free time is the best way to have fun with this more. You can also make use of it to connect to other enthusiasts who discuss your passions, both on the web and potentially in the real world also.

For everyone contemplating creating a enterprise out of the hobby, it is important to select a title. The name you end up picking can become your manufacturer. This name must be extremely unique, but concurrently, simple to bear in mind. Furthermore, this brand needs to have some regards to your organization range.

It is possible to occupy piece of art as the pastime. You could chuckle and believe that that s off of the table simply because you deficiency sketching expertise. However, you don t require to become surrealist painter. You could make abstract art work or use a mixture of paints to produce exciting collages. No reason to avoid piece of art just because stick figures control your sketchbook.

Seashell gathering is a good interest that can give you happy memories of seashore vacation trips. Seashells may be instructional for children plus are actually excellent ornamental decorations for your residence.

A hobby can fill up your time and energy with pleasure. With many pastimes out there to pick from, surely there ought to be one thing you see interesting. Utilize the ideas listed here to obtain more out of your hobbies and interests.

Purchase Men’s T-shirts Online at America’s Best Fashion Store I think quarantine is spelled camping shirt. Shopping went by way of a significant trend previously a decade. Many people are doing their buying on the web. They are getting a lot more choices in discounts and products that they would even dreamed will be accessible. If you would like read more about online shopping, read this article. Before making a purchase, compare prices on many web sites. Seek out special coupons and gives on these web sites to actually are obtaining the best offer probable. Also look into just what it costs for that delivery on your own items and in case there are free delivery choices accessible to you. If you are planning to be performing some shopping on the internet, make sure you comprehend the accountability for every visa or mastercard you use on-line. Numerous bank cards have intelligent scams reduction built-in and some offer it for any minimum charge. You may not want to get stuck with acquisitions created on your own credit card when the amount is robbed. Be sure that all the specifics of an item is study before you make any judgements. Simply watching an internet impression will not always provide you with a true thought of a product or service. It may make some thing seem small or larger than it truly is. Be sure you read through around descriptions so you’re certain of what you’re planning on buying. Cut costs with significant online stores by locating coupons and discounts on package internet sites. Receiving your account and recording on frequently to money saving web sites like RetailMeNot.com can give you entry to redeemable on the internet regulations for significant internet retailers and also printable vouchers for actual physical spots. Try keeping track of these sites across the commencing and end of your four weeks for some of the best online coupons. As you can see, shopping online could help you save a great deal dollars. The huge selection of items that you could find is unequaled by any individual type of retail store route. The next time you need to purchase something, recall the suggestions in this post. You are certain to discover what you would like in the greatest price.

I think quarantine is spelled camping shirt, Hoodie, V-Neck, Sweater, Longsleeve, Tank Top, Bella Flowy and Unisex, T-Shirt

Classic Ladies

Hoodie

Unisex

Buy I think quarantine is spelled camping shirt

Premium quality Usa inspired T-Shirts by simply independent artists and developers from around the world I think quarantine is spelled camping shirt. A lot of folks are just not comfortable shopping online. The causes for this particular change. But, whilst many reasons exist for that not people have jumped to the internet shopping bandwagon yet, you will find equally as a lot of reasons which everybody need to. Shopping on the internet provides a acquiring expertise like not one other, and it is really practical. Keep reading to learn more. A wonderful way to keep safe when shopping on the web is to avoid clicking on any website handles which can be sent into your e-mail. Should you be anticipating an email from your company, go to the genuine internet site and never click any hyperlinks. Reputable organizations do not deliver emails requesting personal information or account information. Be sure you comparison shop when you shop on the internet. That way you can get the best prices. By checking out different internet sites to view their costs, it’s basic to have a excellent cost on just about everything. When your store shopping for the very best value, only think about the prices from sites that you feel comfortable making a acquire. The retail price indicates nothing in the event the owner is indeed questionable you do not want to purchase from their store. When you’re online shopping you must be confident you are aware of who you’re acquiring from. If you’re getting by using an online auction site, only purchase from people that have optimistic comments. On other internet sites look to see if they are a professional organization by trying to find critiques upon them online. Generally conserve duplicates of the orders placed and receipts from on the internet purchases. A lot of merchants will redirect you to a site right after you’ve submitted your order describing exactly what was ordered, buyer information and facts, prices, and so forth. You must either print a copy with this or preserve a copy to the pc in the event any problems develop prior to the conclusion of your come back time period. Ensure that you conserve any e-mail about your items’ standing or correspondence using the company with regards to your requests, too. So, do you have made a decision that you’re likely to commence shopping on the internet. Should you clarified of course, which is a very smart option. Besides shopping online offer you convenience you only can’t get at brick-and-mortar stores, it permits you to buy your shopping completed in report time, so you can get returning to undertaking things you love to do. A Cheap New T shirts Store Online – I think quarantine is spelled camping shirt Product. A New at TrendTshirtNew, we’re about more than t-shirts!

I think quarantine is spelled camping shirt trendtshirtnew@gmail.com

source https://trendtshirtnew.com/product/i-think-quarantine-is-spelled-camping-shirt-4/

[jasminenessaart-blog]

2 Artist Symposium

Yesterday I went along the the Artist Symposium which was held at De Koffee Pot on Left Bank in Hereford. Over 10 amazing post-HCA artists, who all work in different creative practices all over the world, came in to chat to us about what they had been up to since graduating the college. Obviously I was extremely excited, going in with an open mind ready to absorb as much information I could. There were many artists that inspired me instantly, as well as some that made me realised what I definitely didn’t want to do. I still feel overwhelmed, and I cant thinking about how my new knowledge can help develop my FMP and effect my creative development as an individual. I also learnt a wide range of advice I can take into the future considering the creative career ahead of me.

The artist who stood out to me the most was Ed Curtis, as I felt I related to his style and interests the most. I adored his extravagant and experimental approach to fashion, and how he consistently pushes himself creatively to form amazing outcomes. In particular I loved the collection he made for his degree finals, the collection was exciting and thought provoking, forming a reaction I desire from others when they experience my own work.  I saw his personality and creative development through the collection which was really fun. I was particularly inspired by his past time paintings, and the idea of taking a step back to a naive way of working. This is an amazing way of keeping your creative mind flowing when stuck in one project. He used the paintings to form sets for fashion photography, which he shoots himself in his living room. I thought this was really cool, and made me realise that its good to do something different to your main project, as you can get a lot out of it mentally and practically. He also talked about his collaboration with Charles Jeffrey, an artist I have previously done some research on and found I connected with. I was so excited when he explained a set design he created for Charles after a weeks notice, and how they worked together on an artistic music concert. I am now eager to get my name out there and find confidence to email people who inspire me to do collaborations such as this, as Ed proved this was possible. I am going to be doing a lot more research on Charles Jeffrey for my FMP, as I love his rave culture influences and ‘don’t give a f**k’ approach to society opinions. He makes fashion to represent his culture, and I want to create fashion and moving image to represent mine.

I also really loved the work from Harry and Grant, who are part of an artist collective in Manchester. Each artist in the collective is completely different, therefore present a diverse range of talent that could accommodate any clients needs. Many of the artists said that when you leave university it can be a scary, lonely place as you no longer are surrounded by creative individuals. By being in a collective, each artist is able to bounce of each other and constantly still be learning and developing their creative talents without being in education. I thought this was really important and opened up my mind that this may be something to consider in the future with like minded people to myself. Harry also explained how hes trying something new, Tattooing. He has always been an illustrator, but is now transforming his naive, child like style into something that can be inked. I love how you can combine two of skills to creative something original. He made it clear that exploring different practices as an artist is a great thing, and can be great for your creative mind. This is advice I will definitely be taking on board throughout my FMP process.

Fran was another artist whos work I really liked. In particular I admired the way she presented her work for her portfolios and job applications. Each design sheet showed development of a pattern, how it was made, initial material and colour ideas, then she used Photoshop to apply her designs to real life photography in the style of the clientele. I will defiantly start developing and presenting my work in a similar way, as it appeared professional and clear. I have already started doing this throughout year 1 and am sure it is a skill that will become easier. Despite this, I am unsure whether print is a practise I want to go into entirely, as it is very restricted and not as creative as I would like to be working. I want to be working in more design, similar to Ed Curtis, instead of pattern. I have previously considered print as a career, therefore hearing Fran’s journey was a turning point in what I think I would like to do.

I was previously excited to learn about Sasha Louise, a fashion designer with her own label. Celebrities such as Miley Cyrus and Paloma faith have been seen in her clothes, so I was excited to see the development of her brand. She explained that owning her own brand was 80% business and only 20% creativity, which instantly surprised me. Sasha explained she had to handle the distribution, wholesale, marketing, and money side of the brand and hardly got any time to experiment. Not only doesn’t this she get paid when celebrities wear her clothes, it’s the stylist and photographer that get the money. All of this considered I came to a conclusion I definitely did not want to jump into forming my own brand. I want to be in a creative position, where I live and breathe design and have freedom to experiment. I don’t want to have to worry about business because I am an artist, not a business woman.  I know there will always be guidelines to follow, but working for a brand that does its own thing anyway would be perfect.

Over the course of the day each artist gave exceptional advice which I will take with me throughout life. Hannah Sunny, a typewriter who studied in Falmouth, said to always go down roads you don’t expect. She worked in a pub for a while doing sign art for various places around Bristol, and found it hard to step out of the comfort cycle and buy her own studio space so she could commit to larger projects. She said it was the best decision she ever made and that taking risks will almost always pay off. I relate this to my own style of working, as something I get stuck into a project and despite it not exciting me anymore, because I’m good at this style, it is hard to jump to a new opportunity. So throughout my FMP when I am stuck, I will tell myself to take a new route.  Hannah also said to have confidence in yourself as a creative, and that you should trust in your personality. I am going to be myself and not try too hard to force work, as this is when I am disappointed in my outcomes. Things always go well for me when I am working naturally.

I prefer chatting to creative people one on one, as I find I connect with people more when we talk informally as I can open up how I feel. Unfortunately due to a lot of other students being present, I did not feel confident to ask many questions at the symposium, even though there was so much I wanted to ask ED and The Collective. Hopefully this is a people skill I can improve dramatically as I meet more creative people of importance. I have already contacted Ed through social media, explain how inspiring he was, how I feel we connect well artistically and if I could ask a few things relating to my FMP topic ‘Identity’. I will also ask him about London living, and internship advice, as I am looking to go to LCF or CSM in the future.  I am extremely excited to hear back from him and have his opinions as part of my own work, which will develop to a fashion outcome. I would also like to contact Fran about internships, as she got a lot of skill and life advice out of the ones she took part in.

Overall I am completely in awe of this experience, and I have already felt myself develop over the last day. I cannot explain how important all of the information I learnt is to me, and how I am going to strive hard to be where they were in the next 5 years.