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lazyrants · 1 year ago

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Remote Control (prod 121)

Original airdate: August 2, 2005

Story by Magnus Scheving

Written by Noah Zachary, Cole Louie, Magnus Scheving

Directed by Magnus Scheving, Raymond P. Le Gue

Executive producers - Magnus Scheving, Ragnheidur Melsted, Raymond P. Le Gue, Mark Read, Brown Johnson, Kay Wilson Stallings

Starring Magnus Scheving, Stefan Karl Steffanson, Julianna Rose Mauriello

Puppeteers - Ronald Binion, Gudmondor Thor Karason, Jodi Eichelberger, David Matthew Feldman, Julie Westwood, Sarah Burgess

There was a time in history where this was my favourite episode of the show. It was also my mother's. No, I totally wasn't agreeing with her just because she is my mom, hehehe!!!! There was ALSO a time where I made a crappy YTP of this episode, but we will get into that latur (or never!!).

So, anyways, the episode begins with, whaddya know, a recycled cold open. This is the fourth time in Season 1 I've seen this cold open. Frankly it's just getting annoying. It's not even worth noting.

Stephanie runs into Milford's house telling him that she is gonna play football with her friends, and she is eating breakfast while Milford is talking about how he was so good at football, they called him Maddog Meanswell. Classic 'cooler-when-younger' trope in almost every show I've watched. Stephanie is drinking some orange juice (the new Badland Chugs??!!).

Then she exits so fast we barely see her. To practice, she throws a ball around and is running, and Robbie is watching her in disgust. Sportacus is of course, cartwheeling around town and sees her, to his excitement.

Just look at this dude. How can't you like him? So, Sportacus flippity flops over to her, and she asks if he can teach him to play football. And Robbie gasps and gags.. in a reused shot.. from the first ever episode they filmed of the show "Sports Day".. what is going on?

This. Is. Not. What. They. Meant. By. Recycling. Reusing. Or. Reducing. So, Stephanie goes to get Ziggy and Pixel. They run over to him, and Pixel trips over his shoelaces. And Stephanie.. is annoyed. "Oh, you just fell flat on your face? Don't care, blue kangaroo wants to play sports with us." What a kind soul!

Sportacus explains how to play and Pixel has to run for the touchdown. When they start the game, it's going well until Pixel trips AGAIN. So the ball flies and hits Robbie's spying thing and he falls over the railing. XD LOL ROFL!!!!

So, it seems that in the span of .. however long that was, Pixel totally disappeared and went home.. and he suddenly has a shoe-tying gadget. The guy has a HOARD of electronic devices. He could've just searched up a video on how to tie them with your hands. This is 2004. (And YouTube was made in 2005, but you get my point..)

Then he returns, telling them he had to go tie his shoes. They say he could have done that on the field, but he says he'd have to bring his Shoe Tier 6000. Dude, I don't think this is the 6000th shoe tier you've made.. So they all leave Sportacus (the jerks!) without telling him (the even bigger jerks) all alone. But I don't think he really cared.

Meanwhile, Robbie is in his lair, demonstrating how much useless sports there are, basketball, baseball, football, and he cracks his posterior and arm bones in the process. Robbie wishes there was a way to control Sportacus. 4SHADOEEENGGUHHH!!

Everyone is impressed by his gagdet until Stephanie speaks up and says that it'd be easier to just learn how to tie them. But it wouldn't. But, then again, you'd have to bring it everywhere if your shoes untied. So she has a point. Pixel says that he doesn't have to memorize it this way because he already has a machine that does it for him, then he brings up the RIDICULOUS, STUPID idea to make a machine that does everything for him.

Stephanie doesn't like the idea, but the one time Lover Boy doesn't listen to Stephanie JUST has to be this one. So they perform Gizmo Guy, a new, updated down- I mean UPgrade from Easy Way, which was rejected by Nickelodeon because of the word 'thingy'.. sometimes.. I just don't even know. I think it'd have been cool if Easy Way was in 117 and Gizmo Guy stayed in this episode, like they did with 'No one's Lazy' & 'Take a Vacation'. By the end of the song, Pixel has finished crafting the one and only Remote Controller 6000.

This time the Remote Controller 6000 can tie your shoes (oh, so solution, use the remote control because it's more lightweight!), untie your shoes, reverse, turn off all TVs, turn ON all TVs, freeze, do your homework, basically anything! Ziggy drops the lollipop on the floor, and Pixel rewinds it. They do the trick another time.. and Ziggy LICKS the lollipop the second time, because of the three second rule. MY GUY, THAT WAS NOT THREE SECONDS. Even Steph is disgusted.

But she kinda looks like a vampire in the above screenshot for some reason. So, Stephanie decides to go tell Sportacus the news of Pixel's invention.. then runs away because the remote control is gonna do her homework. But Sportacus is doing some practice and warmups. So the gang are hanging out, and the remote control does Stephanie's homework in 4 seconds. HOMEWORK IN FOUR SECONDS WOULD BE HEAVENLY.

For a while, Pixel is totally obsessed with his remote control, and he even plays football, baseball and basketball using it. But Stephanie and Ziggy get bored. In fact, Steph is so bored she starts checking her nails. You have to be the most bored person on the universe to do that unironically.

So, they get mad at Pixel, and they go away to do something like a real game until Ziggy starts yapping. AND PIXEL TURNS HIS VOLUME DOWN. THAT IS SUCH A CRAPPY THING TO DO, REMOTE CONTROL OR NOT. So, then Stephanie tells him to put his volume up, but then we see Ziggy angry moment (!!!!!!!!!!) about how you can't do that to people.

So once they try to leave, Pixel.. freezes Ziggy solid like a popsicle (in his own words). What a little french fry hair boy. This just makes me mad, personally if I was ice cream hair boy I wouldn't take that kind of disrespect.. but they are too mad to talk to Pixel, but another problem has arised - Robbie heard it and saw it all.

He has the idea to remote control Sportacus FOREVER!! Meanwhile, Pixel gets kinda bored and he throws away the remote control. Unfortunately, Robbie has been busting his butt off finding this thing, and it lands in a bin he's carrying after riding a skateboard on accident.

REEMOOOTEEE CONTROOOOLLL!!! XD, Stefan was hilarious. RIP. So, anyways, he dances of happiness, and then Milford walks into town. Robbie makes the skateboard go forward and Milford steps onto it.

Depending on what he crashes into, he could be injured seriously hard if Sportacus wasn't in town. So Robbie is a really devious man. But Sportacus is on the rescue and he gets him off by spinning the puppet around which looks funnier then it is. Sportacus stops the skateboard by doing an astonishing flip and landing on it.

After Sportacus makes sure that Milford is okay, Robbie realizes that the problem is Sportacus, so Robbie freezes him mid frontflip. Genuinely surprised that he managed to do that.

So, anyways, Milford is asking him if he's sleeping, and he whispers that he likes taking naps too. XD! But Robbie isn't amused and he freezes Milford too. So, Stephanie and Ziggy see the freeze victims and ask themselves why Pixel did it, then Robbie reveals he did it (villians always lie but not this softie..) and mutes them.. then he freezes them while Stephanie proves she could have a career as a poser for YouTube clickbaiting thumbnails.

Meanwhile, Robbie decides to have a little fun with Sportacus. (This scene is exactly why my mum declares this her favourite episode.) He makes him run in fast forward, freezes him, makes him run backwards, and.. makes him do.. the cha cha cha. Cha cha, real sporty.

Then he makes him do a spinning flip.. for fifteen seconds. Then he throws a ball at him and freezes him as he catches it in mid-air. Frozeacus. XD. Pixel walks in and tries to run to save them, but trips over his shoelaces, and he TIES THEM HIMSELF. AFTER ALL THAT COMMOTION. MY. GOD. So, Robbie calls for a truck to run Sportacus over, but he clicks the Wildlife Channel instead.

XD. The truck is only like 2 seconds away from riding Sportacus over, but then Robbie fumbles it up. He tries pressing the fast forward button.. but he FACES IT AT HIMSELF. And he throws the control into the air, and Pixel catches it, playing Sportacus, when he shoulda been run over like 30 seconds ago..

So Sportacus kicks the ball away, uses the digger of the truck as a launching pad, frontflips into the driver's seat and stops the truck. Then Pixel unfreezes everyone, and he says he found a better gadget, his own body. Then they perform Bing Bang. Pixel plays with Robbie, then he unfreezes him and he falls into his lair, flopping on the floor.

He stands up and walks off camera then the episode ends.

It was kinda good, actually.

8/10

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number1villainstan · 11 months ago

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19, 22, 34

19. Tell me a story about your writing journey. When did you start? Why did you start? Were there bumps along the way? Where are you now and where are you going?

My writing journey? I'm not sure if it can be called that, but if it can be then it started young. Very young. I've always been an imaginative child, and I believe the story I have of mine is from third grade. My writing journey is my entire life, really, jumping from fandom to fandom, daydreaming and writing and daydreaming and stopping and starting in fits and bursts in a chaotic waveform with no overarching pattern except for forward and getting better. "When" and "why" I started are useless questions--I've been a writer since I learned enough language to be a writer. There have always been stories living inside my head. I am a writer because I am a writer. I was born that way. It is a core part of me.

That being said, there are certain specific milestones to remark on:

When I was 11 or so, I often had the constant urge to write down the stories that were in my head, but I ignored this urge too often. I don't remember why. ADHD task initiation struggles? Lack of access to a computer? An unclear path to accomplish the task? This isn't to say that I ignored that urge 100% of the time--this was around the age when I started making Google Docs with story names, or perhaps I did that earlier. I can't quite remember. But the fact of the matter is--I ignored that urge too often, and now it's gone and I do not know how to get that fire back. It would help greatly with my own productivity now.

When I was 12, I found FF.net and subsequently made an account. A lot of old, terrible fic is still on that old account.

When I was 14, in August of 2016, I decided to do a little writing challenge for myself--or rather, "so that my readers know I'm not dead" (even if I didn't really have any readers): I wanted to write a short piece every month. And I am still writing a 'short piece' every month. The earliest of those tend to be 300-500 words; nowadays they're upwards of 1000 words, and I believe the longest out of all of them is a solid 3k words. And while I've skipped a few months by accident here and there, I'm proud to say I've been quite consistent with this series.

When I was around 16 or so, two things happened: number 1, I decided to switch from FF.net to Ao3, and number 2, I got a cellphone. When I switched to Ao3 I decided to port only my monthlies, because I had a lot of basically-abandoned multichapter fics on there that I had no idea how to finish, and I made switching to Ao3 a new start--I was a chronic pantser at that point, and still am in many ways, but that was the point when I started actually writing out notes and small outlines and doing prep work for my stories. Getting a phone was also a notable moment because it enabled me to work on my stories away from a computer, and because of a little journal app called Day One, in which I began to do daily writing practice that wasn't working on a specific WIP.

As I started to close out high school, I wrote and published on Ao3 my very first finished (and currently only) multichapter fic: start living when your heart stops, which was originally supposed to be 5 chapters and ended up 9 chapters. It was my first proper exercise in plotting out a story, and it was made possible in large part by an enforced and regular routine that I lost when COVID hit and when I went to college.

(There were probably certain milestones that I hit while in college--such as participating in my first (and currently only) bang/fic-and-art exchange event, or switching from Google Docs to LibreOffice--but none are jumping out at me as important.)

As for where I am now? I'm still working on prep work, and I still don't have a good routine for writing. But the ideas that I have are evolving. I've entered an experimental era of sorts, dipping my toes into things I'm not practiced at writing, even with my extensive history of wild AUs, such as symbolism, real-world critiques, longer narratives and more complex narrative structures. I am also attempting to (at least sometimes) force myself to write more than one draft, because I know full well that my writing improves dramatically with more than one draft, but without a solid routine for writing (and with ADHD on top of that) it's difficult to make myself do so. Still, I'm hopeful.

22. How organized are you with your writing? Describe to me your organization method, if it exists. What tools do you use? Notebooks? Binders? Apps? The Cloud?

Not incredibly. I use mostly my computer and LibreOffice to write my stories, and my usual method of organization is to have an Outline/Notes section at the top of the document (or Brainstorming, if it's an MSP) and an Actual Writing section below that, with subheaders for different chapters or scenes. It allows me to make notes of things that may not be said outright in the story but would still inform character's decisions or plot events and to jump around and write scenes out of order without messing things up or losing track of the story.

I also have Day One, a journal app, which I use for daily writing practice--a lot of random ideas and snippets get written down and stored there, and the consistency of writing in it has (I believe) greatly improved my writing-related microskills, like sentence structure and word choice.

34. Thoughts on the Oxford comma, Go:

I love it. Can't get enough of it. It adds so much clarity and conciseness--why isn't it mandatory?

#ask #writing #my writing #writblr #jajalala #ask game

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ccatboo · 1 year ago

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May i ask how you're learning coding for wepages? i wanna start learning it too but idk where TwT

heya anon! so, it's been almost two years since i've started my coding journey...

it's a really hard process, i must admit... i'm gonna say the most useless thing ever but it's what worked: practice!

details under the cut (trust me there's a lot)

TL DR; do whatever is fun and make sure to practice often!

i started by using sadgrl's layout builder and in 2-3 days my first iteration was born this monstrocity was rescued from archive.org and dates back to august of 2022 since i have this awful habit of not keeping all website versions archived on github

i spent so many hours tinkering with the layout,, i didn't knew what things did so stack overflow and coding servers were my best friends

a few of my 2023 layouts were just lost to time... ah well... and we land onto the first iteration of catboo i coded from the ground up + it's graphics update a few months later. these are from march and september, respectively

it was not the best, but i really loved them... also nope, no layouts got lost inbetween,, i just barely updated in those months

there was a christmas layout that got lost to time too, but it was mostly me putting xmas hats on all the graphics

aaaand there were a lot of months inbetween the next layout, catboo v2. i spent roughly 4 months coding and making the graphics for catboo v2

it takes time and patience, anon

this is all my personal experience! it might be different for you...

wanna try to make a site? i recommend using vscode with the live server extension, this way you can see your updates in real time

watch youtube videos, use templates, do whatever you want!! have fun!!

as for website host, i recommend either neocities (where i host) or nekoweb (by dimden)

have fun, anon! i wish you luck (and patience. you'll need it)

#man this is nerdy stuff #nerd #infodump #webmaster elly #oughghg i hope u like it anon #text posts #asks

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disco-cola · 2 years ago

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not me actually feeling good about my guitar progress for the last two days after having had some bad days in between (like the more i practiced the worse i got lmao) but all of a sudden it went better and cleaner and fluent and i was somewhat proud of myself for pulling through but then as if someone literally spies on me i all of a sudden just get girls younger than me playing guitar real good on my fyp?! making me feel like absolute useless shit :) i hate tt i honestly hate that you cant control your fyp and just unknowingly scroll into whatever (like I KNOW theres content on there that would leave me feelin good and inspired but i rarely get that) like i honestly agree that comparing yourself is no good in any way but i think everybody still struggles with it but then again i have to remember i literally just got my guitar on august 8th and am just doing this for fun and all by myself (thats at least what i intended i didnt wanna get caught up in feeling competitive i hate that) but ive learned quite a bit already and having been able to memorize all those song and album release years actually did turn out to be a beneficial skill now bc i somehow dont struggle much with remembering what frets and strings to play either but im honestly still overwhelmed and now feel the dumb need to learn something even harder (so far i learned one version of spanish romance then nothing else matters complete including solo before i knew it is frowned upon by guitar elitists like stairway to heaven is apparently lmao but srsly its a great song to learn bc it features a lot of different things that are good to practice? the second solo of maidens strange world the intro to to live is to die as well as the 2nd solo and the intro main riff and solo of whiskey in the jar by thin lizzy) but ive just been practicing all of these daily and guess i will keep doing that for a little while longer idk man i wish i had money for lessons bc especially the apparent need to know theory is pressuring me but these online things just end up aggravating and frustrating me like as soon as someone starts talking my brain shuts off and im also like do i REALLY need this? the only one to hear me play is literally well... ME MYSELF AND I i can do whatever i want??

#sry for that rant i'll probs delete this in the morning but that completely destroyed me #also HENDRIX didn’t even know how to read notes so…#i need to chill #i Act like im expected to play a solo concert at madison square garden in 1 yr from now lmao

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elysianasterism · 8 months ago

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August 29, 2024

Had online class in the morning. Our instructor mentioned smth about edits, and how Wikipedia is usually considered unreliable by teachers due to easy editability. While I kinda agree, I also said that it has lots of sources linked for its articles and that said articles can be edited to make the information more correct. It may be unreliable for academics, but it's not completely useless for academics either, imo.

Then a bunch of onsite classes. Our first instructor onsite swore in class 😅 smth like "have you ever felt like a shitty person?".

Took a while to get to the next class since we didn't have a room assignment and we had to wait for some of our blockmates to confirm. Also our prof there has shitty handwriting, which I felt could be practice for those of us who would actually become pharmacists (because we'll actually have to read shitty handwriting from doctors a lot, right??). Thankfully we were dismissed earlier and I was able to buy a snack while reading a new fanfic chapter.

Then the last class, with our history prof, which was longer. Turns out that kasaysayan, which is how history is normally translated in Filipino, is not completely the same with history. The Spaniards considered history as written, and natives at the time only had oral histories, legends, and the like. Though nowadays they are virtually synonymous. Also the prof mentioned how "what-if" questions about history don't really help with learning history, since they're asking for fictional and imaginative answers.

I went home quickly since it started to rain. Also, both going to and from uni, some people entered the jeepneys to beg for money. I've been warned by my elders to ignore them because who knows what they're actually using the money for? But, like, poverty is rampant here. My only real fear when it happened was getting pickpocketed or having stuff stolen from me, but they didn't seem to do that. Who knows in the future though...But then, they most likely wouldn't do that (even theft) if they weren't poor, right? Maybe it can still happen, but less so. I don't really know what to do.

Anyways, I miiiight have a quiz tomorrow. It involves math, which I'm crap at.

Good night!

#lucie.txt #my journal i guess

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laptrance · 9 months ago

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August 4th, 2024

4 years and 8 days, or 1469 days since my last post on here. Sounds like lifetimes ago, and might as well be. At least 3 to be exact. As expected for such a radical time jump, so much has changed. If I told 2020 me what would happen, I'd probably just laugh it all off in disbelief. But as Myra would sing in the iconic Princess Diaries closing track, miracles happen (when you believe).

Let's see... where to start... I guess where I left off?

REST OF 2020

i was VERY involved with DIY twitter, specifically bands around the LA area. a couple bands in particular i had kind of a parasocial relationship with: mini trees and soft blue shimmer. less so the latter.

pretty much 90% of my social life was online. tweeting and replying to tweets, discord groups. i was honestly having a blast.

i'd visit home every now and then, being somewhat covid conscious.

i took up DJing cause of keb. got a controller and everything. it was pretty fun but short-lived lol

we'd visit las vegas a lot more due to nanay's declining health, and just to support ninang. i think nanay would end up staying in vegas full time. no longer hopping back and forth between us and ninang.

i think dad got covid after christmas. i was honestly really scared for him but we all got vaccinated so he took it like a champ.

2021

i ended up making a couple of mixes for some friends. i thought they were fine haha

the visits to vegas would increase more and more. the last time nany would properly go out was for our birthday dinner at fogo de chao

i had a mad crush on one of the band members from soft blue shimmer. i went on a "date" with them but was politely turned down after they realised it was a date. it honestly felt good being turned down. like i put myself out there for once and wasn't a useless lesbian for once lmao.

i'd go IN on record collecting. racking up 100 vinyl easily by the end of the year.

i finally got a costco membership. that was a milestone of me "being an adult now"

a lot of people at planetary started leaving. first nik, then george. i was like "there's no way in hell im staying here too" so i started applying for jobs. i think i only applied to two things before landing in NINJA TUNE OF ALL PLACES. i still pinch myself after almost 3 years from that. it was like 4 rounds of interviews. started working there september 13th.

2022

Nanay died. I no longer have any grandparents. On both sides. It's the closest death I've experienced so far.

it didn't (still doesn't) feel real that she's gone. she lived a long life (90 years). i always envisioned one of us sisters having her take care of our children the same way she took care of us.

it was hard dealing with her passing. i'd always cry at the weirdest moment. like when we were having a reception at ping pang pong after her funeral, not AT the funeral lol. i still cry sometimes to this day. her death kinda marked a milestone of sorts where it was like "oh you're REALLY an adult now". no turning back to the security and safety of childhood. sometimes i mourn that more than her. but i also think that's what she was to me. safety. unconditional love.

i was still very much on DIY twitter. online life during the pandemic was still a thing i think.

we had to move out of the Fremont house cause the owners were selling the home. despite the weird roommates, i really liked that place. the location was really good.

Kristine ended up joining us at the new house in Rosemead. Had a room with sunlight finally but it was a lot smaller than the basement room lol.

Started taking up a bit of golfing with Dad. he'd take us to the driving range and have us practice out swings. that would pay off on our birthday at top golf lol

Kristine got a boyfriend named Justin. He was her type forsure. I got along with him as well. they dated for about a year and he moved up to norcal which strained the relationship. she broke up with him cause of that and other things.

Got to work on a few cool projects, but I had such a hard time getting press for them. felt like i hit a wall

went to a couple of cool one-off festivals: This Ain't No Picnic and Primavera Sound LA.

one of my coworkers Lauren came to visit LA. it was nice having someone in my department in the office for once.

i started taking up bowling a lot more too. the rosemead house was near a bowling alley in alhambra that had this crazy deal on tuesdays. $2 per game. insane!! i made a couple of friends who were frequent visitors for a minute, but then it rained a lot towards the end of the year which forced them to close for maintenance indefinitely. they permanently closed in 2024.

connie and ant broke up after i think 8 or 9 years together. i honestly thought they would end up marrying each other. me and kristine spoke to them separately shortly after they announced the breakup and before they both moved away. connie went to seattle while ant went to portland.

it hit our friend group really hard. connie and ant were the ones who always brought us together. i think ryan shota and i just ended up doing our own things after that. we don't really hang out as a trio anymore.

i mean i know why they broke up, but i really miss our group. i miss connie and i miss ant. i miss them when they were together. they were the couple i looked up to and wanted to reference my own relationships after.

2023

discovered the beauty that was california hot pot in downtown alhambra. they gave waayyyy too much food for sooo cheap. that shut down in 2024 for unknown reasons. RIP

also discovered the beauty of Momo Paradise. AYCE shabu shabu WITH tea/soda included AND ice cream at the end. still open as i'm typing this thank goth.

there was a mini tornado in the el monte area??? unheard of for the area.

started hanging out with alex's friends from college (with alex ofc). most of them work for LADWP loll.

i got a mechanical keyboard. im using it to type this very sentence lol

worked on some very stressful campaigns for work. also worked on some really cool campaigns that did well too.

i reached out to this one person from reddit who i thought was really cool. we went to see a deafheaven show and got dinner before. haven't really spoken to them since but would be down to go to another show again!!

i finally switched from an android back to an iphone. there are some things i miss from android but i like having a working and fast phone now.

I ALSO GOT COVID FOR THE FIRST TIME RIGHT AFTER CHRISTMAS. 0/10 RECOMMEND but it wasn't as bad as i thought it was going to be tbh.

2024

honestly the days start to feel like they're blurring. doing the same thing day after day

ninja's CEO was under scrutiny for being sexist and mean in the office (which is true) and some semblance of accountability was attempted but idk if anything changed about the work culture really.

i also applied to a different label PIAS and ende up getting the job but i felt so conflicted on wether to stay or leave. upper management at ninja honestly doesn't care about developing the press department (and i won't forget that) but my press team are day ones and were able to get me a raise that made me stay.

at the same time that ^^ was going on, kristine and i moved out of the rosemead place and moved to ECHO PARK with alex. i honestly still can't believe that i live in LOS ANGELES proper!!

i have another crush again, this time i met them IN PERSON at a show (for work). i didn't really do anything about it until A MONTH after, but i did end up getting her number. maddie did say she wasn't "totally" looking to date right now but encouraged me to reach out still cause she's a good friend and "who knows where it could go!" i don't think she's really a texter...

i started therapy again cause i'm feeling burned out at work and i feel like i've been very anxious as of late. had that confirmed with the therapist and i'm in the process of testing for ADHD.

i think it's helping a lot, navigating how my mind works around this crush with nina s and just working through how i think about things.

aaannnd that's it i think! like i said before, A LOT OF THINGS over the course of four years.

as for the stuff with angelica, i just think about her in the sense of our time together being the closest thing to a relationship i've ever gotten. i totally understand why we don't talk to each other anymore. i think im still trying to recover from that in a way, forgiving myself for how i acted towards her.

meeting people's really hard these days. i aboslutely hate dating apps and the people i am attracted to are usually not emotionally available. im kinda worried i'll still be single (and a virgin) by the time i turn 30. working on that not coming true lol...

i dont think it'll be another 4 years before i come back with an update. i am proud of myself though. look how far i've come haha

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thisisapersonaldiary · 2 years ago

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Entry #1

Friday August 18th, 2023 4:10 pm

I am personally making my entries in the mature section so that not everyone can read them. I mean I am sure that people will still read them regardless but this is a way for me to be even more anonymous. Here are some things that happened: I lost both my grandparents from my mother's side, I lost my father recently (his anniversary date will be next week), and I don't have many friends. My mother is currently trying to pick my brother up from school (he started three days ago) and I am trying not to lose my mind.

I feel like I am always somewhat living under my mother's shadow. She was really popular, had fun twenties, and had perfect skin and body. What am I doing? Currently getting the most useless degree on this planet, gaining weight rapidly, and breaking out bad. With my dad's recent passing and my low self-esteem, I really feel like I am at my lowest. I still haven't seen my boyfriend after getting back from Japan and doing all the funeral stuff. I just don't want him to see me as I am right now. When my brother comes back I will ask him for help on working out and getting to the gym. If I have the opportunity to take action now and change I will do it.

I will also like to note that I am getting random jitters or tremors. This could be due to stress but it's been happening since April. After I came back from my Kansai trip to Japan, I was bitten by a Nara deer and scratched by an Arashiyama monkey and for months I would think I have rabies (even though Japan has practically eradicated rabies). I just have a very anxious mind and I don't know how to help myself. I always think of the worst-case scenario and when one part of my body hurts I think I have cancer or some sort of disease. I hope this will go away but I have a feeling it won't, and that's okay. I haven't talked to friends or seen them, but I would feel bad if I did so before my mom. I want her to be happy first before me. She has gone through a lot of shit and I would feel selfish and bad if I went out with friends. At the same time, I think seeing friends and hanging out with them might help with me mentally, especially with everything that has gone on.

My grandmother (father's side) is going to leave on Monday which I am sad about, but at least my grandpa will stay (father's side). I have to write my cover letters next week for my future field study internship (yuck). Oh well. Nothing else to write for now, if something else happens later I will make another entry.

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rigelmejo · 5 years ago

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i’ve been watching Handsome Siblings on netflix only in chinese to just like. see where i’m at.

and now that i’m on ep 4 it would feel kind of weird to suddenly switch back to english subs ok, for one.

but anyway like general level-wise: i am pretty much at where i can follow a lot of the gist of scenes even if i don’t pause to translate - but then i’m going to be relying on visual context a lot more. which is fine, it means i can go watch a show with no english subs to rely on Ever and at least follow along.

i do notice that if i PAUSE, i can catch the specifics of a lot more scenes. There’s a scene where the two princess sisters are talking to their nephew (who is a spitting image of Jiang Feng), and then after he leaves - discussing telling him to go take a mission to kill Xiao Yu’er, and then when he leaves the two princesses discuss their plan. I paused over and over after EVERY line that episode, because I really wanted to know the specifics of what they were saying. A lot of lines I could read, and there were a lot of one-words-in-a-sentence i had to look up for a more precise understanding. Same with a scene later in the town said-nephew and his girl kickass companions go to - i could follow the gist, but paused after some lines (and looked up a couple words) for more specific details.

I will say that the more characters you learn, the easier life is. Really! The more characters I know, the easier my gist-guess is right, the easier remembering new words (made up of known characters) is, and looking up new words is VASTLY easier because I know their pinyin and can look them up faster than drawing.

If you’re going to do this: I’d still recommend using googletranslate to look up multiple characters you don’t know/phrases, since you can draw and easily get the correct result looked up. I’d recommend pleco if you know the pinyin, or if its a single word (because pleco’s definitions are more thorough and explanatory than googletranslate’s), or if it might be an idiom.

I would recommend that if you like watching stuff on the computer, to get the learn-with-netflix dual subtitle add on, and just click your subtitles for a definition on-the-video-itself instead of needing to open an app like me.

---

I am immensely excited and happy that I can watch a chinese show with no english and follow the gist now. That is a huge amount of progress for me compared with August 2019 when I started (and only knew ‘ni hao/wo hen hao’ and the numbers ;w; ). I am so proud of where I’ve gotten to. I definitely think really focusing on increasing known frequent words helps a lot. (Also, reading a grammar guide - grammar is again becoming understandable, so idk my brain is just acclimating again i guess). I’m going to keep focusing on frequent words, and the 2,000 most common characters, for a while and hopefully eventually this payoff will translate to reading as well.

If you DO happen to want to try watching a chinese show without english and testing yourself/studying, I have some mild recommendations you might take into consideration.

1. If it’s too difficult, do it a little, then come back to it in a few weeks, repeat. This task really only gets enjoyable once you understand enough to be ‘comfortable’ with the remaining ambiguity you still don’t comprehend. That is going to be different for different people. I am comfortable with a pretty high amount of ambiguity/lack of understanding, so I can at least try to watch even stuff-i-barely-grasp at least a little for practice until my brain feels fried. But I’ve been trying this for months... its only NOW that my brain feels relatively okay just watching without pausing, without feeling Completely overwhelmed. And if you do intend to watch without pausing much, you’ll have some degree of not-understanding-everything. Likewise, if you plan to pause the show (and how much you plan to pause it) should be tolerable for you as well. If you have to pause everything, understand everything - do you know enough words to do that in a timely enough manner to get THROUGH an episode? If it takes you a long time, are you willing to intensively focus and look things up that entire time? Basically - what is your tradeoff between you being able to pause and focus intensively on looking things up, versus you being able to watch without pausing and interpret from the words you know/context only. Whatever balance is most enjoyable/bearable for you is when this will start being something that’s easier to do regularly, instead of only occasionally as practice. At least, that’s how it was for me. I’m only finally at a point where I can do this regularly - before I could only do this for maybe 10-20 minute chunks of time occasionally.

2. Pick a genre of show/material you are going to engage in frequently. If you’re ALWAYS watching case-type shows, those words and those scenes will be more familiar to you and easier for you to interpret from context and with less looking things up. If you try this with a wildly different kind of show, you may know MANY less words and many scenes may be harder for you to comprehend the gist of. I watch a TON of case type shows so they’re very easy for me to see and pick up words I’m familiar with, single out the parts that are ‘important explanation’ versus ‘some crowd saying unimportant WOW oh No how Horrible’ type lines. So i can cherry pick important things to pause and look up words for, and guess at what kind of line i’m trying to interpret (i can guess if it’s about a case, an emotional discussion, a simple ‘lets do X’ statement etc - because i’m familiar with the plot type). In a similar vein - an easier show/material to do this with, may well be a show you’ve already watched in your native language/with your native language. For all the same reasons - you will be much more familiar with the context. I could in theory watch Guardian again (which i’ve rewatched... a lot) and I would probably follow the plot very easily. But I like a challenge too much apparently, and I’d rather practice with things I can’t fall-back on my existing knowledge for as much. A show I’ve never seen has much less I can rely on for context, BUT the trade off is I can really clearly test how well i’m comprehending the plot and lines - because they are all completely new to me, so I either comprehend or I clearly do not understand what’s going on/obviously misinterpret. So it’s a very quick way for me to see if I’m achieving anything or not. Whereas if I was watching a show I already saw, I might learn new words noticably, but I wouldn’t be able to tell if I’m getting better at understanding overall plot with no english to rely on (since I already saw it before with english).

3. If you’re like me - maybe pick a show either heavy on action, or heavy on daily life. While I am familiar with case-type shows... I generally think (for me) they’re harder to follow when your existing vocab knowledge isn’t high enough to follow it... They’re big on mysteries, on plots that are actually not what they appear, and surprises. They’re big on ‘strategies’ and I find for myself, strategies are kind of hard to follow when I know less words. In contrast: if you pick a daily-life type show, you’re more likely to either know the words or NEED to know the words at some point because they’ll be useful to you. And the scenes should be relatively easy to comprehend visually even when you don’t know the words. (My caveat being - if you want the language specifically FOR understanding certain genres, by all means go for the topics you’ll actually be using - if you’re gonna read a ton of wuxia, or case-stuff etc, then go for stuff you’ll Actually Use which might well be THEM). For me... my end goal is to be able to read creative fiction, so wuxia settings and fantastical settings and mystery-words and period-words are all things I better get used to. So I haven’t really watched much daily-life stuff (although there are daily-life scenes WITHIN a lot of dramas, and I do think they’re some of the easiest scenes to follow and comprehend).

Now, why might you pick an action-heavy show: easy to comprehend. Especially if you often watch action-oriented stuff already. The first chinese show I watched a whole episode of in only-chinese (it’s first episode, so that’s when i figured out the entire show’s set up) was The Shaw Eleven Lang (I really wanted more of Zhu Yilong’s acting in my life okay?). I DID in fact, manage to follow the plot. Without pausing much, because I was just watching it with dinner. What made it easier to follow was SO MUCH of the dialogue was really straightforward - stuff like ‘i want that sword’ or ‘i hate you’ or ‘lets eat and drink together to celebrate’ or ‘you need to go save/kill x’ or ‘do you think i’m pretty’ etc. So much of the dialogue was NOT schemes/plots/mysteries, it was really straightforward ‘we are doing X, we like Y, we hate Z’. Which for me are the sentence types I find the easiest to understand, and especially found the easiest at that point in time. In addition, because the show has so much action, often the dialogue is accompanied by action scenes that make it pretty freaking CLEAR what their objective is/what they just said. Yes, there are still plenty of unknown words to look up if you want to pause - but it should be obvious enough that you might have a decent guess at what they mean before you look them up (I had to look up words like sword, princess, clan leader, but those were pretty clear even beforehand from the context of the scenes). After I watched the first ep (which i don’t think i could even find english subs for), I watched the second ep with eng subs to see if i’d interpreted the plot correctly so far - i had. It felt pretty motivating to get through 40 minute episodes without much pausing, and know I’d followed along. I think, at least if you’re already an action-show/movie watcher, action series are going to be a relatively approachable thing to try watching in just your target language. (Another positive is a lot of verbs as commands lines, in context, so for me it’s easier to pick up new verbs, and those kind of lines are very easy to pick up in context - also lines like ‘xiao xin’ be careful, bubi, meiguanshi, danxin, ni fangxin, etc - all these short lines that are easy to understand in the context they often come up in).

(Also, do I recommend The Shaw Eleven Lang? Well... I need to go back to watching it but uh... it’s definitely AN EXPERIENCE... with wild fighter-game-tetsuya-nomura-would-be-proud kind of costume designs, wild af scenes so far, and uh as far as i can tell Zhu Yilong’s on point to play a pretty crazy bastard in it... also there’s a LOT of genuinely kickass girls and kickass main women, which i appreciate, i believe also the main women are all 30+ which is refreshing in general in any-show tbh. also just... everyone in the show is kickass... that’s the point... its a lot like to me, if a absolutely Wild fighting game got a budget for a full drama and just went wild on the plot - very fun to watch, very bizarre... not particularly deep but like, did you play Square enix’s The Bouncer on ps2 for a Good Plot or for an absolutely wild bizarre Time? This show is like the game The Bouncer... just freaking Wild conceptually).

And now, I am watching Handsome Siblings, and managing to get through episodes with only a little pausing for when I want to figure out specifics. It is also very action-scene heavy. At least for me, that’s been making it a lot easier to follow the gist of. There’s scenes where robbers attack - and even if I don’t know every line, its easy to figure out the gist of what’s being said. There’s scenes where people fight - again, very easy to follow. The parts I’ve been pausing the most on are the sisters plotting, because I feel that’s probably the most intensive-mystery in this plot so far, and because I want to make sure I interpret the details correctly when they’re mentioning them (since I think they’ll play out more in the plot later). I think the fact this show is Action-Heavy is making it tremendously easier for me to follow then like... me trying to watch Nirvana in Fire would be. The very straightforward action scenes are much easier to follow using visual context, at least for me, compared to dialogue heavy scenes where the vocabulary is not going to be emphazised with visuals nearly as much. (Another bonus of Handsome Siblings, at least so far, is the dialogue heavy scenes ARE accompanied by visual flashbacks to EXPLAIN the dialogue). Another bonus for Handsome Siblings: the writing seems very straightforward and decently paced. You don’t have to wait long for new scenes, for new developments, and that means a lot of dialogue and action is doing something right away and has a lot of context you immediately see result in something else. For me that just makes it... approachable and understandable in the kind of way like... movies like The Mummy were paced, or Indiana Jones, or Independence Day... do you know what I mean? It’s fun to watch even if you couldn’t understand, and the structure makes it quite comprehensible again even if you heard no dialogue at all. So for me, at least, it makes the balance of ‘ease of watching versus patience to look things up slowly’ much easier. Because its ease of watching is pretty high even for scenes where actual words-you-know isn’t high, so you can save looking-things-up for only when you WANT to, not necessarily as something you need to constantly do just to catch the gist.

---

I tried reading again - I tried reading the novel for the Sleuth of Ming Dynasty. It was BRUTAL because I apparently know NO dynasty-royalty-govt related words (which really explains why Men With Swords political scenes I know so few words lol). I got through 10 out of 39 ‘small’ pages on my phone for the first chapter. I think I managed to follow it, the grammar thankfully was really straightforward and I imagine the original author is quite talented. The difficulty was in the very common use of turns of phrase and idioms for so many parts of sentences, which were all new ‘words/phrases’ i’d never seen before.

#handsome siblings #chinese studyblr #rant #nts #watch progress #a lot of this is notes for myself but if anyone finds it useful thats cool #i am just. so happy about the progress #a few months ago watching a show in all chinese was a pipe dream #and in august that would have been completely unimaginable #i really... started in august practically useless

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misakicchi · 2 years ago

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Commandant, Thank You...

Noan Activation Letter || August 8

I never thought that what you and Commandant Simon were planning was to celebrate my Activation Day for me.

My body was assembled and upgraded with the remains of other constructs, I can't remember exactly when it was made... While yes, I was asked by the staff to choose the information I want, that I can fill in the birthday when I want to commemorate it... so I wrote the birthday date.

I am really surprised that the date I have registered would be allowed with so many regulations, or the fact that you remember it. Thank you again, thank you very much.

This is supposed to reach you when I send you back to Gray Raven's lounge, but I couldn't say anything at the time. Until now, I haven't realized that some things have passed for a long time, so long that I started to get used to forgetting my own or other people's birthdays. With your reminder, I will definitely never forget about it.

Thank you for not only remembering this day, but also rejoicing on the day a sinner was born.

is this considered as getting closer to you and being accepted by you?

According to the habit of traveling merchants, I should have given you something to express my gratitude for your time and effort. But after choosing the reward for Commandant Simon, Captain Paluma and Lillian, I realized that I don't know much about you and your preferences... so I don't know what to give you.

Although there is nothing wrong with giving some practical gifts, the seniors I knew would always say that the friendship that owes nothing to each other is nothing but false and fragile.

Between people, sometimes there is a need for appropriate debts. Good friends will always quarrel, and make up again and again after causing trouble to each other. Only this way, can let go of our guard and become true friends. I'm no longer a traveling merchant, I would rather stay here, so I'm not going to take this as a one off deal.

Can I see you again?

I want to know you, not from other people's mouth, but from your own presence.

At that time, I will definitely give you a better gift in return- a companion.

Of course, if you just want to save this kind of opportunity, it's fine if it's not this notebook or this picture of the starry sky. The reason I drew it is because I want to tell you that I still remember what you said that day.

PS. That being said, I feel a little sorry for just giving you a few useless paintings, so I went out and bought two multivitamin candies for now. Commandant Simon said that the Commandant often buys this to supplement nutrition. You have been very tired during this time, so vitamin supplements are also very important, don't push yourself too hard.

Goodnight Commandant.

From: Noan

Invitation Letter: Noan

Title: Commandant, are you free to come to the library today?

Good afternoon Commandant.

I have already found the book you mentioned where the protagonist only remembers fragments of their memories.

If you are free, you can come to the library to come pick it up, and I will help you keep it. In addition, Commandant Simon is also looking for you, and told me to take you there to find him today.

But if you are busy, I will still keep it for you, everything is based on your schedule. He refuses to contact you himself, but asks be to take you there, which means it's not an urgent matter, right? You go about your own business first, I'll be in the library all day today, and I'll come back when it's convenient for you.

From: Noan

#punishing gray raven #pgrbday #roughtranslation #pgr noan

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pourlabeaute · 4 years ago

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♡ Becoming my dream girl ♡

Thank you @2pretty for your amazing guide ♡

My dream girl is an improved and elegant version of myself. She practices self care on her daily basis through every single attitude and decision. She isn't dramatic or exhagerated, she's perfectly balanced and thinks before speaking anything that could destroy her peace or others'. She manages to keep up with all her college activities and business tasks while looking put together, awake and beautiful. She's smart and studies every week day for both college and work but still taking weekends to rest and find balance. She has the ability to prep beautiful dishes, she's very body-active, learned Spanish in some months by herself and has a lot of money invested so she can get her family a house. She's full of an elegance that comes from within and she shows a bit of it through her social media by sharing a sneak peak into her lifestyle.

♡ 15 facts about my dream girl ♡

she studies at least 1:30h every week day.

she knows how to start the day and she takes the weekends to slow down, rest and to prepare for the coming week both mentally and by scheduling actitivies.

she never misses any appointment and she does everything in advance.

she is well spoken and has etiquette.

she's always put together, head to toe and a beautiful bright smile.

she knows how to keep her house clean, organized and beautiful.

she is fit and has a great body control because she gets active at least three times a week.

she speaks Portuguese, English and Spanish.

she has saved $20k and she has built up the best investments.

her wardrobe is full of versatile pretty items and she wear everything with grace always expressing her true self. She doesn't have any defective or useless item on her wardrobe.

she never puts herself in danger, she always takes the best decisions for her own comfort and safety.

she knows how to balance thoughts and she thinks twice before starting any discussion that may destroy her or others' peace.

she keeps in touch with her family calling them every Friday and visiting her mom every other weekend.

she knows how to make beautiful and delicious dishes.

her social media are clean and they only add up to her elegant manners.

♡ Becoming her ♡

♡ Every day habits

Always take an uber drive when you go to unknown or to unsafe places

Get the groceries mostly online so you don't come home with heavy bags

Face washing and shower every morning followed by a nice and healthy breakfast

Study at least 1h for school and 30 min for business

Schedule and set alarms for every appointment a day or hours before it's due

Daily teeth care

Think a lot before saying anything that could start fights or disagreements

Always practice making beautiful dishes, even for simple meals

♡ June (1, 2, 7)

I will focus on getting used to having classes and to study again. So I must study every week day and be consistent on my morning routine. I must keep balanced my work and my studies so I really need to schedule everything on my work. I must start getting my body active again. On the first 2 weeks I should save 2 days for either working out, dancing, stretching out or to do yoga. Then I must add one more day. I will take Mondays to clean my apartment.

♡ July (5, 6)

Time to focus on getting furnitures I still miss, especially for the living room and for my bedroom. I will save 1k in my currency for that. I must get decor items for both and to make a little comfort space in my bedroom. My hair always annoys me because I usually feel like it's not put together and it messes a lot with my overall look along with my nails, I get to change that. My teeth are quite yellow and I'm hating it, go back to a beautiful bright smile lady. I'm dying to get my nails done but I keep on saving it for later so I don't spend money on nails. This month will require a lot of money but I'm ashamed of my apartment's look and I don't want that anymore, I want to be proud of it.

♡ August (10)

I'm hoping now that I started to slowly get new clothes on June, along with makeup, but this is the time to make it more intense, to get more at once and to throw out every item that I feel ashamed about whether because it's old or because it's defective.

♡ September (8, 15)

My birthday month and break from college, so I expect using my free time in a productive yet relaxing way: improving my Spanish. I will already have built a nicer enviroment, willl be already using better clothes and looking put together all the time, so I can also start focusing on my instagram, start making tiktok videos and maybe a Youtube channel.

♡ October (4, 14)

Time to focus on good manners and to work on creating beautiful meals. I will learn these mostly from Youtube videos and blogs, but traditional books won't be left behind if I can have any.

♡ November (2, 3)

A month to work harder on scheduling and doing things in advance so I can exceed 9 and make it $40k instead.

♡ December (1, 3, 9)

The last college semester has come, time for the last exams of the year so it's important to study every day and to get things done days before due. A hard month for business so both schedules should be aligned and I will end the year with more than double the first goal.

known sources: 3rd pic, food pic, 1st and 5th pics, 6th pic

my updates: click here

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bobbinlacebliss · 4 years ago

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Finished project: Rosemary (for in-progress pictures check out my "rosemary" tag)

Honestly I am not sure what exactly this is supposed to be or be used for as it appears to be an entirely useless item, but I sure learned a lot about honeycomb rings! Started September 2020, finished August 2021. Quite the runtime although I was not actively working on it for most of that time - I didn't do any bobbin lace at all between February and August in fact! and I took a couple of other breaks before then as well. I frequently became frustrated with this project because of all the broken threads - I lost track of how many times a thread broke in this dang thing, it was truly just constant. I have to wonder if I got a bad batch of thread or something, because really, my god. total insanity. at least I got a lot of practice fixing them...

I'd like to maybe mount this to some fabric to make it look a little more like an actual Thing instead of a weird random scrap of whatever, but... I've never mounted lace before and I'm a little scared because I don't really know how to sew, lol. we'll see!

#bobbin lace #finished project #rosemary

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katzkinder · 4 years ago

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Strawberry Madeleine

Tsurugi used to use Mikuni’s old uniform as pajamas.

He’s aware of how pathetic it is. How it sounds. How it probably would have been more subtle to shout that he missed him through a megaphone, for all of Tokyo to hear.

Of course, it doesn’t smell like his old roommate anymore. It hasn’t for a long time, especially not after having been washed and given to Mahiru to run around in for a whole week, over a year ago now. Especially not after it needed to be bleached, and deep cleaned, because of all the blood and dirt and dust that had been practically ground into the white fibers.

Frankly, it’s a miracle that old thing is still around.

He never expected to get it back, but he did, and he’s only a little ashamed to admit that he held it the same way someone would hold a cherished stuffed toy, inhaling the smell of fabric softener chosen with Kuro’s delicate skin in mind. He had called himself creepy, and Yumikage… Had flicked his forehead. Called him an idiot.

The way he had explained it, it made such perfect sense.

Mikuni... Was a familiar pain, like a bruise that never quite faded and you press your fingers to it just to remind yourself you’ve been hurt.

Yumikage, Junichiro, Freya, Mahiru, and Kuro are a comfort he never thought he deserved, and that old uniform, one of the only few possessions of his that had survived, the new softness of it and the new smell, are proof that whether he deserves them or not… They are his.

Anyone would cherish that, wouldn’t they?

***

One day his phone lights up in the evening twilight.

“I made too much. That offer to join us for dinner is still valid ☀︎”

Attached is a picture of a simmering pot of curry that makes his mouth water so much he nearly drools all down his front. There’s something familiar about it he can’t quite place, but it’s easily ignored and Tsurugi wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, thumbs flying eagerly over the screen.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes ☆” he replies, then, after adjusting his course accordingly, practically skips off down the sidewalk.

Two minutes from his destination, his phone buzzes again.

“I left the door unlocked for you. Come right in!”

Tsurugi... Tries really hard not to cry in the middle of the street as words half remembered while his soul was tangled with Mahiru’s filter back to him.

If the window is shut, we'll just go through the door.

***

Sometimes Tsurugi goes to Mahiru’s house to play.

It’s a childish way to put it, like they’re both in elementary school and he’s showing up at the front door to ask his friend’s uncle if Mahiru is home, but it’s also the only proper way to describe it, because he is playing.

He’s free now, or about as free as he can be with those debts looming over his head, and he wants to play. Kuro, meanwhile, wants to show him lots of different games, so if he has a day off, and the both of them are available… To the Shirota apartment he goes.

It’s always a mess.

Not the apartment, no, never the apartment. He doesn’t think even C3, with its white walls and white floors and white sheets and everything, everything, white, was even half so clean as that little apartment where three people lived.

What’s always a mess is himself.

This time, though… It’s Mahiru.

***

Tsurugi knows he’s a messy person. Tsurugi knows he’s not very good at cleaning up, though he often tries. It’s overwhelming though, sometimes, looking at it all, all the trash and garbage that had accumulated, all the things he didn’t need anymore, didn’t want, and maybe part of the problem was that his mind hardly ever stayed “adult” long enough to make any real headway.

It’s not like anyone went into his room to begin with, anyway, so why bother?

Mahiru, though, is different from him. Mahiru likes to clean up as he goes, so he supposes it shouldn’t be a shock that he gets frustrated with him and with Kuro, who have their little area in front of the TV set up with snacks, and drinks, and piles and piles of games to try out, and a third controller for Mahiru because sometimes instead of watching, Mahiru will join them, tempted by their cajoling and whining and Tsurugi’s bright, high pitched yelps.

This is not one of those times.

This is a time when Mahiru got frustrated and stormed off, and… Well, Tsurugi isn’t quite sure what to do.

A single look at Kuro shows he doesn’t either, wide eyes watching the hall his Eve disappeared down and slowly the umaibo he had been munching on disappears into his mouth.

“Should we… Clean up?” Tsurugi asks, hesitant. Their characters on screen continue to idle, the timer ticking down. Kuro hits pause. Stands, stretches, cracks his back and Tsurugi can’t help but wince because that can’t be healthy…

“...Yeah,” the Servamp finally says, and bends down with a muffled groan to start gathering chip bags and drink containers. “It’ll give him time to cool down.”

“Does this happen often?” Tsurugi stands, too, and casts his eyes about for something to pick up, but there really wasn’t much. Kuro’s already got it handled.

It makes him feel just a little useless.

He was a grown up, wasn’t he? … Wasn’t he?

***

Giving Mahiru space to calm down seems to have been the right choice, because when they find him, curled up on his bed and looking just the slightest bit ashamed of his outburst, he looks ready to apologize at any moment.

But Tsurugi doesn’t want an apology.

He wants Mahiru to come play with them.

So he speaks first, apologizes, sincerely, and promises that he and Kuro will clean up after themselves properly, but when they are done.

“You don’t need to keep everything nice and neat all the time, y’know. Part of being a grown up is knowing when it’s time to play and when it’s time to put your toys up.”

Mahiru makes a face at him, buries his chin deeper into his knees. “Tsurugi-san, no offense, but I don’t wanna hear that from you of all people.”

“Ouch, haha.” He sits, plopping down gracelessly next to the still pouting teen, making him bounce and emit a startled noise, and Kuro shuffles forward, slides down on Mahiru’s other side. “...You’re right, though. I never really learned how to clean up and put my things away all nice and neat like you do. No one ever taught me.”

Mahiru shifts, glances at him curiously. Having seen Tsurugi’s room at C3, he definitely believes it.

“...I guess,” he starts, slow and picking his words carefully. Kuro makes an encouraging noise beside him. “Because I never really felt like the apartment was ‘mine,’ I always ended up cleaning after every little activity. Because having it be messy... Made it feel more lived in than it was.”

“... Mm. That’s exactly it. The illusion of company...” A self deprecating little chuckle. “Guess we both learned to handle that feeling in different ways. If Kuro-chan and I make a mess, we... Might need your help to clean it up properly. But... Can you trust us to clean up when we’re done?”

“... I can try.”

“Good!”

Kuro finally speaks up, because this was a conversation for them, not him. But the moment has passed, and it feels safe to say something a little stupid, a little funny. “We’re serious about the needing your help on how it’s done, thing.”

“Ugh, I believe you. Tsurugi-san, one time I put this guy in charge of loading up the washing machine and you know what happened?”

“Wait, Mahi, no—“

“Ohh, do tell~!”

“Bubbles. Bubbles, everywhere. My downstairs neighbor had no idea where all the suds dripping onto her balcony were coming from!”

“Pfffhahaha! Kuro-chan, seriously?! There are directions on the box!”

“And I followed them. Our washer is small, though, so it was too much...”

Kamiya Tsurugi was an adult.

Shirota Mahiru was a kid.

But, if they could teach each other the things they had missed out on…

Perhaps it was all for that reason, huh...

Tsurugi wonders if Mahiru will be able to make good on that promise for a cake this year.

***

The end of August comes again, and, just like he had hoped, Mahiru bakes him a cake. Covered in glistening, sweet strawberries, with loads of white, sweet cream, it’s almost too much, especially when paired with how Freya and Iduna had come by, are each sitting in Yumikage’s living room while Freya’s subclass play some noisy game with Takuto.

Some part of him didn’t think Mahiru would really do it. But not only did he keep his promise, he’s pressing a wrapped gift into his hand, a small one that rattles when it moves, this grin on his face as Tsurugi turns it over in his hands, this perfectly wrapped gift with yellow paper and citrus themed washi tape keeping it together. Mahiru’s Servamp lingers back, a noisemaker hanging unenthusiastically from between his lips. And yet, despite his carefully practiced indifference, there’s no denying that Kuro is also eager, just as eager as his Eve.

“Go on. Open it.”

So he does. It’s... A cellphone charm. “...Cinnamoroll...?”

Mahiru beams at him and shows off his own phone. Tsurugi snorts, a smile cracking at the sight of the Pompompurin character charm that dangles merrily from it.

“How’d you know my favorite~?”

“I asked around~”

“Thank you, Mahiru-kun,” Tsurugi answers him, feeling his throat close up, just the slightest bit. His eyes sting, and he holds that little charm close to his chest. “I love it.”

It's such a small gift. A tiny one, one perfectly suited to a high schooler’s budget, but it means so much.

Because it didn't have to be given.

Mahiru takes his wrist and leads him back to the core of the party, where they are all immediately mobbed by Tsurugi’s own homegrown family.

Vampires, magicians, humans. Adults, children, immortals.

People his own age. People who aren’t.

Tsurugi is loved.

He’s happy he was born.

#kat's katerwauling #servamp #pawprints #tsurugi kamiya #mahiru shirota #happy birthday tsurugi!!!#ao3 version will be up tomorrow

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morom-sneh · 2 years ago

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The Third Thing

BY DONALD HALL

Jane Kenyon and I were married for twenty-three years. For two decades we inhabited the double solitude of my family farmhouse in New Hampshire, writing poems, loving the countryside. She was forty-seven when she died. If anyone had asked us, “Which year was the best, of your lives together?” we could have agreed on an answer: “the one we remember least.” There were sorrowful years—the death of her father, my cancers, her depressions—and there were also years of adventure: a trip to China and Japan, two trips to India; years when my children married; years when the grandchildren were born; years of triumph as Jane began her public life in poetry: her first book, her first poem in the New Yorker. The best moment of our lives was one quiet repeated day of work in our house. Not everyone understood. Visitors, especially from New York, would spend a weekend with us and say as they left: “It’s really pretty here” (“in Vermont,” many added) “with your house, the pond, the hills, but . . . but . . . but . . . what do you do?”

What we did: we got up early in the morning. I brought Jane coffee in bed. She walked the dog as I started writing, then climbed the stairs to work at her own desk on her own poems. We had lunch. We lay down together. We rose and worked at secondary things. I read aloud to Jane; we played scoreless ping-pong; we read the mail; we worked again. We ate supper, talked, read books sitting across from each other in the living room, and went to sleep. If we were lucky the phone didn’t ring all day. In January Jane dreamed of flowers, planning expansion and refinement of the garden. From late March into October she spent hours digging, applying fifty-year-old Holstein manure from under the barn, planting, transplanting, and weeding. Sometimes I went off for two nights to read my poems, essential to the economy, and Jane wrote a poem called “Alone for a Week.” Later Jane flew away for readings and I loathed being the one left behind. (I filled out coupons from magazines and ordered useless objects.) We traveled south sometimes in cold weather: to Key West in December, a February week in Barbados, to Florida during baseball’s spring training, to Bermuda. Rarely we flew to England or Italy for two weeks. Three hundred and thirty days a year we inhabited this old house and the same day’s adventurous routine.

What we did: love. We did not spend our days gazing into each other’s eyes. We did that gazing when we made love or when one of us was in trouble, but most of the time our gazes met and entwined as they looked at a third thing. Third things are essential to marriages, objects or practices or habits or arts or institutions or games or human beings that provide a site of joint rapture or contentment. Each member of a couple is separate; the two come together in double attention. Lovemaking is not a third thing but two-in-one. John Keats can be a third thing, or the Boston Symphony Orchestra, or Dutch interiors, or Monopoly. For many couples, children are a third thing. Jane and I had no children of our own; we had our cats and dog to fuss and exclaim over—and later my five grandchildren from an earlier marriage. We had our summer afternoons at the pond, which for ten years made a third thing. After naps we loaded up books and blankets and walked across Route 4 and the old railroad to the steep slippery bank that led down to our private beach on Eagle Pond. Soft moss underfoot sent little red flowers up. Ghost birches leaned over water with wild strawberry plants growing under them. Over our heads white pines reared high, and oaks that warned us of summer’s end late in August by dropping green metallic acorns. Sometimes a mink scooted among ferns. After we acquired Gus he joined the pond ecstasy, chewing on stones. Jane dozed in the sun as I sat in the shade reading and occasionally taking a note in a blank book. From time to time we swam and dried in the heat. Then, one summer, leakage from the Danbury landfill turned the pond orange. It stank. The water was not hazardous but it was ruined. A few years later the pond came back but we seldom returned to our afternoons there. Sometimes you lose a third thing.

The South Danbury Christian Church became large in our lives. We were both deacons and Jane was treasurer for a dozen years, utter miscasting and a source of annual anxiety when the treasurer’s report was due. I collected the offering; Jane counted and banked it. Once a month she prepared communion and I distributed it. For the Church Fair we both cooked and I helped with the auction. Besides the Church itself, building and community, there was Christianity, the Gospels, and the work of theologians and mystics. Typically we divided our attentions: I read Meister Eckhart while Jane studied Julian of Norwich. I read the Old Testament aloud to her, and the New. If it wasn’t the Bible, I was reading aloud late Henry James or Mark Twain or Edith Wharton or Wordworth’s Prelude. Reading aloud was a daily connection. When I first pronounced The Ambassadors, Jane had never read it, and I peeked at her flabbergasted face as the boat bearing Chad and Mme. de Vionnet rounded the bend toward Lambert Strether. Three years later, when I had acquired a New York Edition of Henry James, she asked me to read her The Ambassadors again. Late James is the best prose for reading aloud. Saying one of his interminable sentences, the voice must drop pitch every time he interrupts his syntax with periphrasis, and drop again when periphrasis interrupts periphrasis, and again, and then step the pitch up, like climbing stairs in the dark, until the original tone concludes the sentence. One’s larynx could write a doctoral dissertation on James’s syntax.

Literature in general was a constant. Often at the end of the day Jane would speak about what she had been reading, her latest intense and obsessive absorption in an author: Keats for two years, Chekhov, Elizabeth Bishop. In reading and in everything else, we made clear boundaries, dividing our literary territories. I did not go back to Keats until she had done with him. By and large Jane read intensively while I read extensively. Like a male, I lusted to acquire all the great books of the world and add them to my life list. One day I would realize: I’ve never read Darwin! Adam Smith! Gibbon! Gibbon became an obsession with me, then his sources, then all ancient history, then all narrative history. For a few years I concentrated on Henry Adams, even reading six massive volumes of letters.

But there was also ping-pong. When we added a new bedroom, we extended the rootcellar enough to set a ping-pong table into it, and for years we played every afternoon. Jane was assiduous, determined, vicious, and her reach was not so wide as mine. When she couldn’t reach a shot I called her “Stubbsy,” and her next slam would smash me in the groin, rage combined with harmlessness. We rallied half an hour without keeping score. Another trait we shared was hating to lose. Through bouts of ping-pong and Henry James and the church, we kept to one innovation: with rare exceptions, we remained aware of each other’s feelings. It took me half my life, more than half, to discover with Jane’s guidance that two people could live together and remain kind. When one of us felt grumpy we both shut up until it went away. We did not give in to sarcasm. Once every three years we had a fight—the way some couples fight three times a day—and because fights were few the aftermath of a fight was a dreadful gloom. “We have done harm,” said Jane in a poem after a quarrel. What was that fight about? I wonder if she remembered, a month after writing the poem.

Of course: the third thing that brought us together, and shone at the center of our lives and our house, was poetry—both our love for the art and the passion and frustration of trying to write it. When we moved to the farm, away from teaching and Jane’s family, we threw ourselves into the life of writing poetry as if we jumped from a bridge and swam to survive. I kept the earliest hours of the day for poetry. Jane worked on poems virtually every day; there were dry spells. In the first years of our marriage, I sometimes feared that she would find the project of poetry intimidating, and withdraw or give up or diminish the intensity of her commitment. I remember talking with her one morning early in New Hampshire, maybe in 1976, when the burden felt too heavy. She talked of her singing with the Michigan Chorale, as if music were something she might turn to. She spoke of drawing as another art she could perform, and showed me an old pencil rendering she had made, acorns I think, meticulous and well-made and nothing more. She was saying, “I don’t have to give myself to poetry”—and I knew enough not to argue.

However, from year to year she gave more of herself to her art. When she studied Keats, she read all his poems, all his letters, the best three or four biographies; then she read and reread the poems and the letters again. No one will find in her poems clear fingerprints of John Keats, but Jane’s ear became more luscious with her love for Keats; her lines became more dense, rifts loaded with ore. Coming from a family for whom ambition was dangerous, in which work was best taken lightly, it was not easy for Jane to wager her life on one number. She lived with someone who had made that choice, but also with someone nineteen years older who wrote all day and published frequently. Her first book of poems came out as I published my fifth. I could have been an inhibitor as easily as I was an encourager—if she had not been brave and stubborn. I watched in gratified pleasure as her poems became better and better. From being promising she became accomplished and professional; then—with the later poems of The Boat of Quiet Hours, with “Twilight: After Haying,” with “Briefly It Enters,” with “Things,” she turned into the extraordinary and permanent poet of Otherwise.

People asked us—people still ask me—about competition between us. We never spoke of it, but it had to be there—and it remained benign. When Jane wrote a poem that dazzled me, I wanted to write a poem that would dazzle her. Boundaries helped. We belonged to different generations. Through Jane I got to be friends with poets of her generation, as she did with my friends born in the 1920s. We avoided situations which would subject us to comparison. During the first years of our marriage, when Jane was just beginning to publish, we were asked several times to read our poems together. The people who asked us knew and respected Jane’s poems, but the occasions turned ghastly. Once we were introduced by someone we had just met who was happy to welcome Joan Kenyon. Always someone, generally a male English professor, managed to let us know that it was sweet, that Jane wrote poems too. One head of a department asked her if she felt dwarfed. When Jane was condescended to she was furious, and it was only on these occasions that we felt anything unpleasant between us. Jane decided that we would no longer read together.

When places later asked us both to read, we agreed to come but stipulated that we read separately, maybe a day apart. As she published more widely we were more frequently approached. Late in the 1980s, after reading on different days at one university, we did a joint question-and-answer session with writing students. Three quarters of the questions addressed Jane, not me, and afterwards she said, “Perkins, I think we can read together now.” So, in our last years together, we did many joint readings. When two poets read on the same program, the first reader is the warm-up band, the second the featured act. We read in fifteen-minute segments, ABAB, and switched A and B positions with each reading. In 1993 we read on a Friday in Trivandrum, at the southern tip of India, and three days later in Hanover, New Hampshire. Exhausted as we were, we remembered who had gone first thousands of miles away.

There were days when each of us received word from the same magazine; the same editor had taken a poem by one of us just as he/she rejected the other of us. One of us felt constrained in pleasure. The need for boundaries even extended to style. As Jane’s work got better and better—and readers noticed—my language and structure departed from its old habits and veered away from the kind of lyric that Jane was writing, toward irony and an apothegmatic style. My diction became more Latinate and polysyllabic, as well as syntactically complex. I was reading Gibbon, learning to use a vocabulary and sentence structure as engines of discrimination. Unconsciously, I was choosing to be as unlike Jane as I could. Still, her poetry influenced and enhanced my own. Her stubborn and unflagging commitment turned its power upon me and exhorted me. My poems got better in this house. When my Old and New Poems came out in 1990, the positive reviews included something like this sentence: “Hall began publishing early . . . but it was not until he left his teaching job and returned to the family farm in New Hampshire with his second wife the poet Jane Kenyon that . . .” I published Kicking the Leaves in 1978 when Jane published From Room to Room. It was eight years before we published our next books: her The Boat of Quiet Hours, my The Happy Man. (When I told Jane my title her reaction was true Jane: “Sounds too depressed.”) I had also been working on drafts of The One Day, maybe my best book. Then Jane wrote Let Evening Come, Constance, and the twenty late poems that begin Otherwise. Two years after her death, a review of Jane began with a sentence I had been expecting. It was uttered in respect, without a sneer, and said that for years we had known of Jane Kenyon as Donald Hall’s wife but from now on we will know of Donald Hall as Jane Kenyon’s husband.

We did not show each other early drafts. (It’s a bad habit. The comments of another become attached to the words of a poem, steering it or preventing it from following its own way.) But when we had worked over a poem in solitude for a long time, our first reader was the other. I felt anxious about showing Jane new poems, and often invented reasons for delay. Usually, each of us saved up three or four poems before showing them to the other. One day I would say, “I left some stuff on your footstool,” or Jane would tell me, “Perkins, there are some things on your desk.” Waiting for a response, each of us already knew some of what the other would say. If ever I repeated a word—a habit acquired from Yeats—I knew that Jane would cross it out. Whenever she used verbal auxiliaries she knew I would simplify, and “it was raining” would become “it rained.” By and large we ignored the predicted advice, which we had already heard in our heads and dismissed. Jane kept her work clear of dead metaphor, knowing my crankiness on the subject, and she would exult when she found one in my drafts: “Perkins! Here’s a dead metaphor!” These encounters were important but not easy. Sometimes we turned polite with each other: “Oh, really! I thought that was the best part . . .” (False laugh.) Jane told others—people questioned us about how we worked together—that I approached her holding a sheaf of her new poems saying, “These are going to be good!” to which she would say, “Going to be, eh?” She told people that she would climb back to her study, carrying the poems covered with my illegible comments, thinking, “Perkins just doesn’t get it. And then,” she would continue, “I’d do everything he said.”

Neither of us did everything the other said. Reading Otherwise I find words I wanted her to change, and sometimes I still think I was right. But we helped each other greatly. She saved me a thousand gaffes, cut my wordiness and straightened out my syntax. She seldom told me that anything was good. “This is almost done,” she’d say, “but you’ve got to do this in two lines not three.” Or, “You’ve brought this a long way, Perkins”—without telling me if I had brought it to a good place. Sometimes her praise expressed its own limits. “You’ve taken this as far as the intellect can take it.” When she said, “It’s finished. Don’t change a word,” I would ask, “But is it any good ? Do you like it?” I pined for her praise, and seldom got it. I remember one evening in 1992 when we sat in the living room and she read through the manuscript of The Museum of Clear Ideas. Earlier she had seen only a few poems at a time, and she had not been enthusiastic. I watched her dark face as she turned the pages. Finally she looked over at me and tears started from her eyes. “Perkins, I don’t like it!” Tears came to my eyes too, and I said, rapidly, “That’s okay. That’s okay.” (That book was anti-Jane in its manner, or most of it was, dependant on syntax and irony, a little like Augustan poetry, more than on images.) When we looked over each other’s work, it was essential that we never lie to each other. Even when Jane was depressed, I never praised a poem unless I meant it; I never withheld blame. If either of us had felt that the other was pulling punches, it would have ruined what was so essential to our house.

We were each other’s readers but we could not be each other’s only readers. I mostly consulted friends and editors by mail, so many helpers that I will not try to list them, poets from my generation and poets Jane’s age and even younger. Jane worked regularly, the last dozen years of her life, with the poet Joyce Peseroff and the novelist Alice Mattison. The three of them worked wonderfully together, each supplying things that the other lacked. They fought, they laughed, they rewrote and cut and rearranged. Jane would return from a workshop exhausted yet unable to keep away from her desk, working with wild excitement to follow suggestions. The three women were not only being literary critics for each other. Each had grown up knowing that it was not permitted for females to be as aggressive as males, and all were ambitious in their art, and encouraged each other in their ambition. I felt close to Alice and Joyce, my friends as well as Jane’s, but I did not stick my nose into their deliberations. If I had tried to, I would have lost a nose. Even when they met at our house, I was careful to stay apart. They met often at Joyce’s in Massachusetts, because it was half way between Jane and Alice. They met in New Haven at Alice’s. When I was recovering from an operation, and Jane and I didn’t want to be separated, there were workshops at the Lord Jeffrey Inn in Amherst. We four ate together and made pilgrimages to Emily Dickinson’s house and grave, but while they worked together I wrote alone in an adjacent room. This three-part friendship was essential to Jane’s poetry.

Meantime we lived in the house of poetry, which was also the house of love and grief; the house of solitude and art; the house of Jane’s depression and my cancers and Jane’s leukemia. When someone died whom we loved, we went back to the poets of grief and outrage, as far back as Gilgamesh; often I read aloud Henry King’s “The Exequy,” written in the seventeenth century after the death of his young wife. Poetry gives the griever not release from grief but companionship in grief. Poetry embodies the complexities of feeling at their most intense and entangled, and therefore offers (over centuries, or over no time at all) the company of tears. As I sat beside Jane in her pain and weakness I wrote about pain and weakness. Once in a hospital I noticed that the leaves were turning. I realized that I had not noticed that they had come to the trees. It was a year without seasons, a year without punctuation. I began to write “Without” to embody the sensations of lives under dreary, monotonous assault. After I had drafted it many times I read it aloud to Jane. “That’s it, Perkins,” she said. “You’ve got it. That’s it.” Even in this poem written at her mortal bedside there was companionship.

#words #love in general #donald hall #jane kenyon

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heloisedaphnebrightmore · 5 years ago

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Mine [Oliver Wood x Reader]

Title: Mine Pairing: Oliver Wood x Female!Reader Word count: 1.8k Published: 27 August, 2020 Author: Heloise Daphne Brightmore Notes: I am sorry, I just can't get enough of Oliver Wood, my adorable Scottish man. So much fluff fluff fluff that you will need a dentist! Summary: Oliver is wrapped around your finger, but he doesn’t mind. He just wants to hold you and he isn’t afraid of showing it even when your friend is angrily rumbling about her crush on a boy, but even more when you try on his jersey.

Harry Potter Characters Masterlist | Masterlists

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Oliver Wood was the handsome captain of Gryffindor's quidditch team and your boyfriend. The boy was crushing on you for months, before he finally confessed his feelings for you, after months of nagging from Fred and George Weasley.

You had liked him before, he was attractive after all, not to mention funny. You loved how passionately he talked about Quidditch, even when it was already clear that noone wanted to hear another word. You smiled at his behaviour from afar, but dared to make no steps further.

When he finally got the courage, you thought he was having a laugh and you did tell him to go and humour someone else, but he didn't give up convincing you. When you finally realised that he meant every word of his confession, you simply threw your arms around him and kissed him happily.

Since then you have been a power couple and you loved every moment of it. He was your man and he loved to remind you of that. One way or another.

You were sitting in the Gryffindor common room, your legs thrown over Oliver's lap, one of his arms wrapped around your waist, the other laying on top of your thigh, whilst he was hiding his face in your neck. You were quietly listening as your friend was complaining about the boy she has been interested in. You tried to give your complete attention to her, but it was a very hard task as your boyfriend attempted to sabotage you.

"You smell so sweet." He murmured into your neck, his warm breath sending shivers down your body, goosebumps appearing on your skin as he bit into a sensitive spot.

"Oliver!" You scolded him in a whisper as you tried to concentrate on your friend's rumbling, but as soon as you felt his hand wander upwards your thigh, your breath hitched.

"I love the school uniform. But you know what I love even more? When you take it off." He chuckled, his low tone making your heart beat faster.

"Oliver!" You growled lightly, not wanting your friend to notice your boyfriend's affectionate behaviour. "Can you stop?" You asked, concentration long gone from the conversation you were having with your friend.

"You promised to be with me today. Only with me. But here we are, listening to whatever your friend is saying. I haven't been listening to tell you the truth." He shrugged, but you couldn't stop the silent giggle to leave your lungs.

"I know, babe. But she needs me." You tried in a soft tone, but he just growled.

"I need you too." He hinted a small kiss on your neck, making you squirm in your place.

"I promised to sleep in your room tonight. Is that not good enough?" You raised a brow as you pulled his face out of your neck and looked into his eyes. "I promise you, all my attention will be yours when you come back from practice. How does that sound?" You offered and you could see a tiny mischievous smile hiding in the corner of his pouting lips.

"Hey, are you listening to me?" Your friend asked in a sharp tone, making you squint.

"Yes, yes, Oliver is just going." You attempted to save the situation.

"Aye, just get rid of me." He scoffed, but you knew he was just playfully sulking.

"I would never. I love you." You kissed him as you took your legs from his lap and let him stand up. "I will see you later, babe." You pulled him down once again and kissed him longer, sweeter.

"Kiss me like that again and I will not even go to practice." He spoke as his eyes remained closed, still under the affects of your kiss.

"You wouldn't do that." You chuckled. "Just go. You will get loads of my kisses when you come back." You winked and by the look on his face, you knew he was debating to pick you up and run upstairs with you or to leave and attend his quidditch practice. He let out a loud sigh, before turning around, shaking his head to go upstairs, collecting his quidditch uniform.

"So where was I?" Your friend asked as she started off on another rant about how the boy was useless and gave her mixed signals. You wanted to feel sorry and wanted to comfort her, but you couldn't. You loved your boyfriend more than you thought you ever would and it made it really hard to feel empathetic especially when you were so happy, you were almost walking above the ground on little pink clouds.

You were listening to your friend for another hour, before you went to your room to take a shower, get into your pyjamas and pack some of your most necessary items into your small bag. You walked over to the male dormitory, heading up to Oliver's room. You knew his roommates were gone, for some reason, it never caused an issue for him to send them away as if he had some kind of a power over them. You didn't mind though. You had more time to spend with him, alone, your bodies tangled up under the heavy duvet.

As you walked into his room, you threw your bag beside his bed and jumped on the soft mattress. You took out your book and laid across the bed, body parts thrown across each corner of the bed. Then your attention deterred from the book as you recognised the piece of clothing hanging on the side of the bed. His quidditch jersey. A playful smile appeared across your face as you placed your book back into your bad and stood up to reach for the clothing.

You pulled his jersey closer to you, hugging it around your body, his scent involuntarily finding its way into your nostrils. You heaved a deep, satisfied sigh as an idea popped into your head, making you smile.

You quickly took off your pyjamas and pulled his jersey over your body, its bottom reaching just below your butt. You snickered as you pulled the neck of the clothing to your nose, inhaling his scent happily.

You were about to head to the bathroom to check how you looked when the door flew open, a groaning quidditch captain throwing his bag down beside the entrance as he shut the door loudly, before his eyes met yours.

He raised his brow questioningly as his brown irises wandered down your body, taking in each and every exposed inch he has found.

"What did I do to deserve such a beautiful sight?" He asked as his tongue darted out of his mouth, wetting his lips, his lustful dark brown eyes finally meeting yours.

"I just thought I would try it on." You chuckled with a shrug, the clothing rolling up slightly as your shoulders moved upwards. You have seen Oliver forgetting his eyes on you before, you have seen his lustful gaze more often than ever, but this time his expression felt more dominant, more possessive.

"Well, you are gorgeous." He breathed, stepping closer, wrapping his arms around your waist as he pulled you against his chest. "What made you put it on?" He asked as he nuzzled into the crook of your neck, hinting tiny kisses on the surface of your skin.

"It smelled like you and I missed you. It made me feel closer to you." You spoke with a slight blush across your cheeks, feeling your ears heat up at your straightforward confession.

"I told you I should have stayed with you." He sighed as he pulled back enough to look into your eyes, his mischievous gaze attached to yours. "But if I recall correctly, you promised me your complete attention and loads of your kisses, am I right?" A cocky smirk taking over his lips as he heard your light giggles.

"When have I ever declined a kiss from you?" You asked as you threw your arms around his neck, crossing them behind him.

"Never. You wouldn't be able to do that." He grinned as he bit into his bottom lip, his eyes focused on your pink ones. He leaned closer, his mouth grazing yours, the distance between you almost painful as you felt his breathing against your skin, making you slightly shiver.

"I would." You breathed, but your head felt dizzy, your breathing shaky under his intense stare and closeness. "No, I wouldn't." You confessed as you closed the space between you, pulling him closer, melting your lips together with his. Each time you kissed him, you felt like falling in love with him over and over again.

You didn't understand how he did it, but his simple presence made you feel giddy and just plain happy. You could have just watched him all day and you knew you wouldn't be able to remove the smile from your face. He just made you happy even by simply existing.

As you parted you hid your face in his neck, covering the heavy blush on your cheeks.

"I am now certain you wouldn't." He chuckled happily, kissing your temple. "But if it's any consolation, I would never be able to keep myself away from you." He smiled sweetly as you unhid yourself, looking up into his big brown eyes.

"You wouldn't?" You asked, a cheeky grin spreading across your face.

"I almost missed Quidditch because of you today." He raised a brow, proving his point.

"I'm glad then, but I would never ask you to miss Quidditch." You smiled sweetly, caressing his cheek with your thumb.

"And I would never decline a kiss from you." He chuckled confidently as you hit him across the chest.

"Oh hush, Wood." You giggled and pulled him down for another kiss, feeling his hands wondering under his spare quidditch jersey, feeling your warm skin under his touch.

"You should wear this more often, love." He breathed into the kiss.

"I definitely will." You replied quickly, capturing his lips again.

Although it was your first time putting on his jersey, it wasn't the last. His jersey on you made him feel as if you have completely belonged to him and he voiced it on many occasions, whispering into your ears "Mine", enjoying as his words made you blush harder under his intense gaze.

Tags: @inkhearthes @bonziandfonzi @hufflefluff-writer @fific7 @haphazardhufflepuff @obsessedwithrandomthings @kalimagik @accio-rogers @peachesandpinks @harrypotter289 @nebulablakemurphy @firewhisky-kisses @iliveiloveiwrite

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