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#i will post the frog once i find a good photo
ericdeggans · 8 months
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When your job is explaining race and media, what happens when you find a situation you don't want to explain?
That moment came for me this week, as memes were rocketing around social media connected to the brawl in Montgomery, Ala., where a crowd of mostly-Black bystanders ran to help a Black ferry co-captain who was being assaulted by a group of white men.
Video filmed by a group of mostly-Black bystanders on a nearby boat captured it all: The co-captain throwing his hat in the air, once a white man pushed him harshly; an older Black man whaling on people with a folding chair, including a white woman who was just sitting on the ground by then; a young Black man on a boat close by who jumped into the water and swam with amazing speed to the scene, jumping up to throw hands.
And, in moments, Black Twitter jumped to life (I know he’s renamed it X, but we ain’t recognizing that, and the term refers to people being Black across social media anyway. Harrumph).
There was the quiz asking which folding chair are you? There was the graphic pointing out that an early version of the folding chair was invented by a Black man (seems to be true). The photoshopped picture showing glowing rings around Black folks rushing into the fight, mimicking the climax of Avengers Endgame, where superheroes rushed in to save the day. Images dubbing the young swimmer Black Aquaman, Aquamayne and Blaquaman.
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And two of my personal faves: A photoshopped image of the Martin Luther King Jr. statue holding a folding chair. And a version of the brawl video remade as the opening to classic Black sitcom Good Times, with acerbic credits noting the show was “created by Consequences and Repercussions.”
I was blown away by how quickly Black folks across social media were converting horror over a narrowly averted, racialized beat down into funny memes celebrating the reflex of Black folks to stand up for one another, especially when we’re faced with danger from white people.
But when I posted the photo of MLK’s status with the folding chair on my social media feeds, I just added one word: Wow.
I wanted the image to speak for itself. And I wanted people who had questions about what it meant to jump into social media and find out for themselves. I felt the image and its implied humor – that the nation’s most revered civil rights leader might be hoisting a folding chair to defend Black folks in the modern age – was most powerful when not explained.
Unfortunately, some people on my social media platforms insisted on an explanation. One was pretty persistent about it. And I realized I just didn’t want to explain the image, for some reason I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
Yeah, it’s sometimes tiring to always be asked to explain your cultural nuances to the world. But that’s the gig I signed up for, many years ago. And yes, the joking was hiding a fear that today’s climate has left racists emboldened enough to attack a Black man in broad daylight for doing his job. So explaining only resurfaces those darker feelings in ways I wasn’t quite ready to process.
Still, something else was also at play. I always say social media is often like a giant dinner party, where people forget they are sometimes listening in on conversations between other people. In this case, being asked to explain the folding chair memes felt like having someone barge into an ongoing conversation to ask for an explanation. This was a moment where Black folks could be hilariously Black online and we could all share that moment together, laughing and consoling each other in one viral, social media moment.
Sometimes, in situations like that, understanding comes best by sitting back, listening widely and learning. Even for me.
I don’t know if this reaction is fair – especially given how much I’ve encouraged discussion about race over the years. But its all I have left, in a world where I increasingly feel like a frog in pot of steadily heating water, wondering when the heat will begin to burn me, my loved ones, my family, my friends and my people.
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Vanessa Hudgens :
So I wanted to make this post because looking on all the platforms I use to follow Austin Butler himself and/or other fan pages, I can see a lot of you are bothered by Vanessa saying that Austin helped her find her now husband.
I like to start off that I like Vanessa , anyone who follows me on IG will know that. I think him and Vanessa made a lovely couple. He genuinely seemed very happy with her. You can tell they really were down bad for one another. I say this because I don’t want to come across as some fake hypocrite. Posting pictures of him when he was with Vanessa and then turning around to make this post.
However , over the last few years that they have since broken up, she obviously has been throwing shade. Commenting on post making fun of his voice, saying things in interviews, and some of the memes she post to her stories on IG.
I don’t like when she does that. I think it’s annoying and quite rude. I find crazy to that she does this to this very day , even after being married to her supposed “soul mate”.
Vanessa to me comes across as a hurt woman. I don’t condone her throwing shade the way she does , however I feel if she did find her special someone , why keep bringing up your ex? A lot of fans seems to think she is trying to keep her name in headlines. And while I do agree to some extent , I think it goes deeper than someone looking for attention.
Vanessa was with Austin for a decade. They went through a lot together. Her dad passing, his Mom passing. She was in his sister’s wedding, which says A LOT. Not only was she close to Austin , she clearly was tight with his family as well. We seen how happy she was when he got the part of Elvis. I remember her seeing when she was speaking with Ryan Seacrest and how stoked she was telling him the story about how she told him he should play Elvis.Austin has told that story more than once too. Vanessa even had promo photos on her IG for when he finally got the role that she still has up on her profile all these years later.
I honestly feel bad for her in a way. Yeah as Austin’s fan I don’t like her shading him, but I don’t necessarily think she is a bad person based off that alone . To have a relationship as long as they had just end. Not sure exactly what happened with the break up, but from the outside looking in it seems to have ended abruptly.
That has to hurt…like. Especially seeing another girl be attached to his arm during his Elvis press . Someone who in my opinion don’t deserve to be reaping anything beneficial from that. I’m sure she thought that those were moments that they would share. And not because it would get her some level of clout but because that was her man. Vanessa to me seemed like one of those “my man , my man, my man” kind of women when she was with Austin. She saw a future with him I believe . Especially after hearing how on a podcast she stated how when she first met Cole she asked if marriage and kids were important to him. And i remember watching that and the look on her face seemed sad. Like she was reminiscing on something. Like maybe perhaps that’s what she wanted with someone else but didn’t get . To me I think she saw herself marrying Austin one day and having his children, the whole white picket fence shit. Hollywoood edition lol!
The fact that she keeps bringing him up is very telling . You a whole married woman and still throwing shade at your ex. Us a women , I feel like when we really find our someone after kissing a few frogs we could careless about wtf our ex got going on. Not calling Austin a frog , just speaking in general.
As fans I feel like we gotta be like 🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️. I know it’s annoying , but sis is still clearly stuck on him. Which to me says alot about how he was a boyfriend. I’m sure they had their ups and downs but it probably was a good relationship overall. Because who gonna be out in these streets missing someone who was a complete headache and toxic as hell? Especially if they feel like they finally found the person who they feel like was heaven sent….
Austin has been nothing but kind during this too. He can easily throw shade back , but he stays humble and minds his business. Which Vanessa needs to do too smh. Vanessa needs to go heal whatever broke her when her and Austin ended. She has a husband now , marriage is forever.
I’ll end this with I hope as a woman myself she finds peace within herself . I obviously am not for her ass saying the stuff she did , but I don’t dislike her. We have all at one point of time thrown shade an ex. Said some snarky shit. It happens . It’s one thing for some troll to throw shade to Austin, but an ex he was with for years on end….Like I said in the beginning, her acting that way goes deeper than someone looking for attention. Vanessa might have not done anything super duper huge since HSM but she’s still pretty well known. She doesn’t need to throw shade to stay relevant .
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darthferbert · 5 days
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Custom action figure gift for HQ partners
Racy remarks, but no smut. Gender-neutral reader.
Kyotani
He no longer carried the sobriquet "Mad Dog", although some would not have been surprised it had been his nickname. It helped that Kyotani maintained a close relationship with a mature Iwaizumi, even while his senpai was in California. His tense family situation got better, too, once his older sister was settled outside the home. Then he met you, and the absolute trust you shared enabled him to unclench his defensiveness at last.
That's not to say he was a bucket of sunshine or didn't lose his temper at times. He was very protective of his family, and sometimes forgot that teasing could be good-natured and not an attack.
Oddly enough, having Tsukishima and Koganegawa for team mates taught him that he could trust his team. Despite their contrasting personalities, they demonstrated ways for him to cope with stressful situations. Tsukishima never lost his cool, and his deadpan facade could quell idiocy better than Kyotani's threats. Koganegawa could go overboard with his puppy dog exuberance, yet his cheerful goofiness helped to diffuse chest-thumping or rising hostilities. The overgrown setter didn't even do it intentionally. His clueless inquiries and zealous remarks made everyone laugh and cool off. His size was a factor, too, although he wouldn't hurt a fly.
Koganegawa was also useful in another way. He was probably the premier gossipmonger in Miyagi Prefecture, and eagerly chatted about the toys. Tendou forwarded to him the photos he'd collected of other players and their action figures. Makki and Mattsun sucked him into their Instagram accounts, so he already knew about the ones for the Sendai Four. He learned about Tsukishima's toy when he brought to him the glasses case that Tsukishima had left at the gym. They just stared at one another, then nodded. It was a tacit agreement that Kyotani would keep his secret, and Tsukishima wouldn't kill him.
Despite the rising fad for the toys, Kyotani was absolutely floored when you presented him with one of his own. It never occurred to him that you'd get him one. Your love languages were physical touch, acts of service, and words of encouragement, all the things that settled him down and release negativity. He never cared much for material things, except for their functionality.
He was faced away from you in bed that night, so you could lightly massage his soreness after a grueling practice. Your loving hands rubbed his shoulder and lower back, until you pretended to make his action figure walk up his spine.
He quickly turned over at the strange sensation of something hard poking into his back. His eyes widened at a miniature version of him, bleached hair, hot glare, Sendai Frogs uniform and all. The only addition was his rosy cheeks, which always showed up by the end of games due to his exertions. He hated it when it happened. Well, now he and Tsukishima shared a mutual reason not to snitch on each other.
"You're not mad are you," you asked, "I promise I won't post any pictures online."
He chuffed dismissively, "I can't get mad at you, you know that. I'm just...surprised."
You handed him the toy, which he grasped gingerly as if it could break. He bent and twisted it to confirm it was as well-constructed as it looked.
"Just promise you won't let Koganegawa find out," Kyotani sighed, tucking it away in his bedside drawer, "I'd have to punch him in the face if he let everyone know."
You held up your pink to shake his in a silent vow.
Return to Master List
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pbandjesse · 1 year
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I did not have a Christmas cry. So I guess my low feelings today were just that. A coming down off a really nice day. But also I think I was just a little to social and my batteries were drained. It wasn't a horrible day. But it was hard to get through.
I didn't sleep amazing last night. James kept stretching in their sleep and hitting me in the head. And I got real upset getting woken up. They weren't hurting me but they were startling me. Not fun.
James woke me up for real around 930. And I felt alright. I told them not to make the bed and went to get dressed.
They got ready to go to the grocery store. I had sent them a little list last night of things I would like. And so they left and I had some time alone.
I shook out the bed and remade it. Put a few stuffed animals in the studio and tried to make the bed a little more cozy but not to cluttered.
The studio was a point of upset for me today. We had out basically everything in there that we didn't want to have out when we had family here. So it was very packed and horrible.
I would work on my knitting. And do a partial change of the frog tank's water. And as I was doing that James came home.
They were a little rattled by how expensive the store was. And so once everything was put away and we were eating lunch we sat down and talked through our budget. We are falling a little below our monthly expenses. A lot of that is because my monthly pay is always different. Like over the whole year it is fine but my monthly average makes us fall below our needs. Not great.
So James has decided they want to take on another job. I feel uncomfortable with this only because I don't want to ask so much from them. But they want to get back in a restaurant for a few hours a week. And maybe that will be good for them. Some more structure? I don't know. I just want them to feel happy but I also want us to be more secure? It is really hard. We will be okay but we will have to figure it out together.
I got a little bit of energy in the afternoon and while James set up their bike with the stationary attachment to ride on the living room, I started working on the studio.
James was also doing laundry. And I moved stuff around and moved my stuffed animal net up and put some shelves around them. The shelves are kind of shitty but it's something for now. I am thrilled with how much space I made though and while I'm still stressed about the closet at least I made a lot of progress and don't feel so sick over it anymore.
Me and James would spend a lot of time hanging out quietly today. I made some outfits for the next week or so. James played video games. I painted my nails and ate some astronaut ice cream. I also did my flat lay photo. Me and James talked about our favorite gifts. It was a good day even if I felt a little sad at times.
We cuddled for a bit. And I started my yearly post Christmas tradition of starting my birthday wishlist. James also said we can go to tj Maxx and Marshalls tomorrow to start looking at valentines say stuff!! I have been looking at people's finds on Instagram and I want to see something for myself. Just for fun. Valentines day is my birthday holiday so it always feels very special to me.
I practiced with my new darning tool. And James made us pizza and broccoli for dinner. Eventually I would take a bubble bath. And we have been in bed for a while now. I'm watching videos and James is reading. And I don't feel as horrible as I did.
Tomorrow we will go for a drive. And get lunch. And I hope its just a nice day. It's warming up and the sun is staying up longer and that's just really nice.
I hope you all take care of each other. Sleep well and be safe! Goodnight!!
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innocenceinyourarms · 2 years
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When I had the good fortune of meeting the great John A Russo (of Night of the Living Dead fame, among other credits) we had a long talk about writing.
I was about 15, and honestly forgot much of what was said on that crowded convention center floor, but one statement has never left me, not ever. He said: “Never put all your eggs in one basket.”
The key to success, in his experience was to always have a few different projects going at once. When you are spinning your wheels with one, switch into another.
This is an incredibly long winded way of saying I am not Just A Writer. I am also the prolific maker of plushies. I’ve hidden this away for many years now. I felt it was too childish and not important enough to be taken seriously or admired.
I now see that these little friends I make are a way of pleasing my inner child. When I was little, I made instead of playing, making up little characters as my little friend took shape.
These are an extension of that. An expression of the joy I do often sought but didn’t always find in the world.
Y’all might see a frog, but I see a spot of sun in a world that is too often drab, grey, and hopeless.
So, here is one of my many “children”. Slushy Puddles the freckle frog. He’s an aspiring competitive twitch streamer, but he’s finding it difficult to compete without thumbs. He’s learning to take it slow, and enjoy what casual games have to offer.
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androgynosaurus · 3 years
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There's a place near us with a bunch of old abandoned concrete bunkers that are basically fair game for street artists to practice on without getting into trouble and a few of us have been giving it a try recently
A few weeks ago a friend of mine was painting a giant mural of a frog in a wizard outfit and somebody in a group who was walking past said "FINALLY, the bisexual representation we deserve"
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floridensis · 3 years
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A: When it comes to suspect wildlife photos, can you take me through some of the typical kinds of things you come across?
P: Sometimes, the fakery is not so much a Photoshop or photo editing as it is posing. A lot of popular wildlife photos are actually staged in a certain way. Usually, if it’s too good to be true—like the snails on the frog’s head or the frog on a turtle’s back—it may turn out to be staged. The guy who was taking that photo just keeps them as pets. There’s a praying mantis that keeps getting passed around as a National Geographic photo. Someone ran it through a photo forensics image analysis tool and found evidence that wires may have been involved. Even if there were no wires, the mantises were in a state of distress. In the case of Photoshop or photo manipulation, look out for light sources coming from different directions, things like fuzzy edges or too-sharp edges, or very obvious borders along the edges. Also look at the captions: Sometimes the captions are dead wrong, and it’s actually something else happening in the photo.
A: What harm, in your view, is done by a misleading or edited photo, especially regarding wildlife?
P: This isn’t related to wildlife, but I see accounts indiscriminately pushing content from alt-health sources, such as anti-vaccine propaganda. Very, very occasionally, once an account builds up a following and has reached some sort of influence, traffic wise, they pivot to political propaganda or some other kind of propaganda. In terms of wildlife, faked or edited viral photos might produce heightened expectations for what you can expect wildlife to do.
A: I know what you mean. It almost creates some kind of expectation that wildlife is performing for us. What kind of tools do you use in your work?
P: You can enter an image URL and do a reverse Google image search to turn up where the photo has appeared before. I use another reverse image search engine TinEye a lot. It maintains a pretty extensive archive of where images have appeared for over a decade. KarmaDecay is an image-matching site specifically for Reddit—it finds how many times an image has been reposted, how long ago it appeared, and how many comments it got.
A: What's your advice for average folks on the Internet who aren't investigating suspicious photos like yourself? When should they be skeptical of what they're seeing in a wildlife or nature photo on social media?
P: Generally, if it’s too good to be true, it might just be fake. But also, try to think about what the account posting the image is trying to accomplish. What kind of emotions is it trying to evoke from you? Is it doing so in a manipulative manner? How does this make you feel? And why does it make you feel that way? If the account itself doesn’t cite sources, if it doesn’t say where it found a photo or how it discovered this image—those are reasons to ask questions. If the bio doesn’t mention who is actually running an account, I’m suspicious right away. Do a phrase search for the caption, and see how many times has this photo been posted. Also, as I said before, things to look at borders and light sources and shadows going in different directions. Look for overly-large moons. Large moons are a very popular one.
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dreamsbff · 3 years
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thinking abt a fluffy long-distance relationship w/ eret,,, help i am so soft :,
ahhh pls you’re gonna make me soft too >_< eret would just be such a great s/o...
now playing: electric love by børns
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i think eret would be super mature about a long distance relationship first of all
they see you’re spending time with someone else, that’s cool! if you did something fun he’d love to hear about it. they trust you of course and there’s never any jealousy....
.....although they do wish they could be the one with you so they could cuddle and kiss you :’)
likes calling you and hearing about your day
wants to know the updates on the bitch at work (will give you advice, trying not to give into his sassy side but can’t help), wants to know if you saw a cute dog, wants to know if you’re genuinely ok
eret always makes sure to remind you that they love and appreciate you
likes to send you cool, motivational shit they find on insta, or sometimes just random videos
sometimes you’ll be out shopping and find a dress or pair of shoes or literally anything and you can’t stop yourself from buying two
one for you, one for eret
you’ll send it to him without telling him and when they receive it, they’ll call you straight away on facetime whilst also going on stream
wants you to see they’re immediate reaction but also wants to show chat how cool the new platform shoes you gifted him are! “fuck gender roles”
you once found these stickers of frogs holding bi pride flags and he now has one stuck on his phone case next to a photo of you and him (i actually have them and they’re so cute)
eret knows you love hearing they’re voice so depending on the time difference, he’ll send you voice messages for you to wake up to
“good morning angel”
“i love you so much”
“you’re gonna kill it today”
they’re wholesome and hella supportive like that
calls you when your having a stressful day and if you don’t feel like talking, eret will just ramble on about something until you fall asleep just so you can hear they’re voice
also number one person to hype you up!
retweets any selfies you post or puts them on their insta story
often says that everyone is gonna be screwed when you see each other in person next because together you’re just too hot of a couple
everyone agrees on that
a real power couple
because you just have that connection, you just vibe so perfectly
you don’t get to see each other in person as much as you’d like
but eret does surprise you sometimes
will call you late in the evening, telling you to get to the roof because there’s going to be a meteorite shower any second now that you’ll both be able to see and he wants to watch it whilst on the phone with you
rushes you over the phone, making sure you’re running up the stairs of your apartment building
but when you get to roof
there he is
stood next to a picnic and cushions upon cushions
there’s lots and lots of hugs and cuddles
and also lots of photo taking
eret even brings a polaroid camera so you have photos to put on your wall and he has a newer photo of you both to put in his phone case
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eret uses he/they pronouns (correct me if i’m wrong) so i tried to alternate between them :)
note: ahhh i got this ask and just couldn’t stop myself from making a lil headcanon. i’ve never done one of these before but it was super fun!
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pyroclastic727 · 3 years
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Calamity Box before the Humans: a theory
There’s an ask that this post answers, but the formatting is a nightmare so it links to this post.
Today I present to you a theory that is a little wild, but may find some purchase in Hop Pop’s explanation tomorrow. This is my theory about what happened to the Calamity Box before Anne, Sasha, and Marcy.
First, I take you to a Monday night in March, when I was rewatching the Season 2b trailer and pondering it.
I came to find this photo.
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I found it a bit curious that the third temple was adorned with toads. The Third Temple is a timeless testament to toughness and trepidation, a quality that anyone can have. Heck, beings from outside Amphibia can have that trait and activate the Third Temple’s powers. Which begs the question: why, of all things, would the sacred Third Temple be decorated only with toads?
Now look at the other two temples. 
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The second temple has a giant frog mural on it--the same frog that shows up on the front of the box, and on the coin at Valeriana’s shop in Bizarre Bazaar. The first temple is adorned with newts (and some frogs? That’s the main hole I can find in my theory).
And then you look at the girls and their adoptive families and see the same story. Witty Marcy ends up in a society that praises intellect. Belligerent Sasha ends up in a society that praises warcraft. And genuine Anne ends up in a society most strongly supportive of the bonds of emotion.
But you knew that, we all know that’s the synopsis of it. Of course you did. But when you keep asking why, the answers don’t add up. Why did Anne land in Wartwood? Because she has heart. Why do the Wartwood people have heart? Why did the Heart Gem bind itself to Anne specifically, and what mechanism made it know that Wartwood is the place of heart?
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Let’s back up a bit.
Amphibia is a strange mix of advanced technology and dormant magic. The hills are dotted with mysterious robot factories. Some eyes glow when provoked, other eyes seem like they have an LED in them (see Anne, Grime). There is a literal robot following the Plantars. And there’s a literal magical music box that got sent to another dimension.
It’s clear that something happened.
Maybe this is a bit of a reach. But I look at the clear cultural boundaries of each type of amphibian, the sharp divides between their values, and how their values seem to perfectly align with a gem, and I think there’s no way this is a coincidence.
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I think that in the past, Calamity Box powers were shared with the people. But there wasn’t enough to go around, of course there wasn’t. Each gem could only be charged once, only be deployed once. The Box was a teleportation device that enhanced your natural talents, so you could better survive in a different world. One charge for the way there, in the box, and one charge for the way back, in the Amphibians.
Which Amphibians got the charge? That’s the question that led to such great divisions. You see, someone with the type of power that comes from a gem charge, that’s a powerful person. That’s someone capable of calling upon superhuman--or, superamphibian--power to protect people. Every species would want one.
And every species got one. A Newt was given the wit. A Frog was given the heart. A Toad was given the strength. They already had those innate qualities, why not nurture them? 
The temples then became a hazing ritual. Send ten newts to charge the gem and only one would also be charged. The most worthy of each breed would come back as the champion, until they fell and the championship was passed on to the next one.
For years, that is how it was. One of each breed was given a third of the gem power, and they had to work together to properly wield it. Amphibians were united, with a common goal and common purpose. 
But the amphibians were changing. Each species of amphibians became more specialized. If Newts were good for wit, then they would create universities and a strict intellectual culture. If Frogs were good for heart, then they would stay in small isolated communities and become close with one another. If Toads were good for strength, then they would practice the art of warfare and become a militant society.
They were primed to shatter. Amphibians had more in common with their own species than with others. 
Everything changed when three amphibians were the champions chosen to wield the gem power. You’re probably well acquainted with them: one of each breed, a horned toad, a giant salamander, and a pink frog with orange hair.
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Unless I’m mistaken, those three were: Barrel (who owned a warhammer), King Andrias (as a youth), and someone related to Hop Pop (a sister, a mother, or his dead daughter if we’re feeling ambitious). Andrias, of course, is still alive; giant salamanders have impressively long lifespans (on average 70 years but up to 200). 
During this time, one person sought ultimate power. Maybe it was one of the three. Maybe it was someone on the outside. Either way, that person became the Night that the prophesied Three Stars Burning Bright must expel. 
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That person had ultimate power, the power of the music box, and was encroaching on the three gems. The gem holders had to do something, quick. 
So one of them gathered up all three remaining charges in the box and teleported to Earth. It destroyed the Night, saving Amphibia.
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There was just one caveat. The person who activated the destruction never came back. (Well, either that or just The Night was sent to Earth...)
From there, relative peace came to Amphibia. Each amphibian species lived separate from each other, and prejudice soon followed. Newts condemned the dirty fieldwork of the frogs. Frogs resented the militant rule of the toads. Toads started conspiring to overthrow the Newts. But without the Calamity Box, they were stuck with their own physical abilities. Weakened, the Amphibians found themselves in an era of tension and slow enroachment. Generations went by, until the only people who remembered the Age of Calamity were elders like Hop Pop, Andrias, and Valeriana.
Of course, then three stupid human girls went and opened the box.
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Here’s one last thing. I don’t think anyone else could have activated the box. I mean, they didn’t wind it up, so I’m hesitant to believe that the windup mechanism was even in the box when it was put in the store. Furthermore, someone has to have opened it up in its time on Earth.
The thing is, the box needs three, one of each discipline. That’s why it is so important that all three girls opened it together. What were the chances of a wit, a heart, and a strength coming together to open that antique box? Not very high, since it took them over 5 decades since the box arrived to find it. But somehow the three girls did it, and they’re the only ones who can activate it.
The box knew they were a wit/heart/strength trio because it is made--even programmed--to detect this. It has been recognizing this pattern since the newt/frog/toad trios and temple trials.
Now the question is: how much of this story will Hop Pop verify in After the Rain?
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glitterge1pen · 3 years
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Have You Ever Considered Craft Supplies Instead Of Drugs? Then This Might Be For You.
Kyōtani Kentarou x reader, sfw, fluff, 1,691word count 
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His room for the most part was clean. It’s main function was for sleep though. This was apparent. His clothes, which were mainly basketball shorts and blank t-shirts, were scattered about in a way that told you he threw them there when going to bed.
Kyotani had told you to give him a few minutes, while he was in the bathroom brushing his teeth and struggling with the cap of his eyeliner pen. You felt comfortable enough in his apartment to check the fridge and see if anything was worth your while. But still you felt a bit like an intruder in his bedroom, which is where you had wandered off to.
The walls were white, mostly bare. There was a poster up for some band you didn't recognize, and another one advertising the Sendai Frogs that looked like he had ripped it off one wall to get onto his. You smiled at the thought of him stealing the poster from the grocery store display window or stadium parking lot.
You give his room one last once over before turning to leave. On your way out you trip over a shoe box. You would have just ignored it but a few tufts of paper flew out from the lid. You bend down to collect them but find that these aren't just trash from the shoe box. Quietly, and with a tinge of guilt, you kneel down to gently put the papers back in the box. The little scraps of paper you had found were actually sticky notes, you couldn't decipher the writing on them because of how faded and old the paper was.
You get one quick glimpse inside the shoe box on Kyotani’s floor. There are dozens of papers, printed photos, receipts, tickets, and what you assume are old keys. You feel like you've seen something very private of Kyotani’s and when you turn around to find him standing in the doorway, you gasp in shock.
“What are you doing in here?”
He seems more concerned and confused about you versus the fact that you are in his room. You decide sarcasm is the best choice of action.
“What? You embarrassed about me being in your bedroom?”
“Shut up and get out!”
Kyotani puts his hands on your shoulders and tosses you out into the hallway.
“Hey, hey, what time is it because we might actually be late to the movie now,”
You say pulling out your phone to get a glance at the clock. There was only twenty minutes before you were supposed to be at the theater.
“We’ll be fine, the trailers always play for too long anyways”
He says leading you out the front door.
☽༓・*˚⁺‧͙·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .‧͙⁺˚*・༓☾
When the team wins a game and you head out to eat with the guys afterwards, your eyes don't usually follow Kyotani’s hands so closely. You hope that no one else has picked up on your new habit. But last week's venture into his bedroom has left you reeling in thought.
Kyotani doesn't really like to be hugged. During movie nights he sits separate from the pile of pillows and bodies. He tolerates head pats and high fives. When he hangs up the phone you can feel how difficult it is for him to say something like “bye I love you” platonic or not.
You hadn't really considered it before, at least not so intently in relation to Kyotani. Most people were easy to understand in their affections and how they garnered it. Or if they weren't so obvious, they made some sort of distinction, a simple “I don't like when people do this” or “I prefer this”.
Being friends with Kyotani you had assumed that he was content with what people gave him because he never asked for more. He didn't hug you when you two parted ways, and you never forced him to. He didn't ask or push on others boundaries but now after seeing that shoe box you wondered why he had never advocated for his own. You thought perhaps it wasnt that Kyotani disliked those other forms of affection or care, but rather he didn't regard those other acts as affections at all.
The sounds of the restaurant fade back in as your thoughts simmer down. You feel Tsukishima and Yamaguchi next to you. Enthralled in a conversation about some show they had been binging together. Apparently Yamaguchi had watched a few episodes without Tsukishima and everyone found the annoyed, bitter expression on Tsukishima hilarious, the table erupting in laughter.
“You good? You've been staring at nothing for five minutes,”
Kyotani said to you before taking another bite into his food. He sat across from you, his elbows propping him up over his plate of food.
“Yeah, just tired today,”
You say shaking your head as if trying to wake yourself up.
As the evening wears on, your eyes still follow Kyotani’s hands. Trying to catch the moment of thievery in action. To see if your contemplations are grounded in Kyotani’s actions or rather thoughts with nothing to hold as they pass you by.
But as everyone files out of the restaurant, the bill already split, the copy of the receipt abandoned on the table, you watch as Kyotani lingers for just a moment, to pocket the slip of paper.
☽༓・*˚⁺‧͙·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .‧͙⁺˚*・༓☾
You couldn't remember the last time you had attempted to burn a CD. Was it you who did it or a friend? It was years ago though that was for sure. You had made three playlists on spotify, checking and double checking that they were private playlists. After arranging them and finding the songs that fit just right with each list you started finding youtube videos of each song. From there you converted the links to MP3 audio.
While your computer whirred and the audio filed loaded onto the disk you thought about decorating the CD cases. Of course covering the clear plastic case with glitter gel pen and cute stickers was very tempting. But you weren't sure that was Kyotani’s style. At the same time this was supposed to be a gift from you. You met yourself halfway.  Decorating one CD case like how you would have wanted, and the other with more of a Kyotani flair, the third somewhere in between the two.
When the CD’s were done you carefully placed them into their new plastic homes. Grabbing a black sharpie to scribble the playlist names onto each. You felt like wrapping them would be too extravagant so you settled for tying a ribbon around the two.
☽༓・*˚⁺‧͙·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .‧͙⁺˚*・༓☾
“What the hell do you want?” Kyotani says as he pulls up next to you on the curb outside your place. You had texted him earlier while he was at work, asking if could stop by after he got off. He has the window rolled down and you take it upon yourself to unlock the passenger door and climb inside.
"I wanted you to test these out"
You were hoping that you had done everything right with the computer.You hand him the CD's, he flips them over in his hands inspecting them.
“Is it cool if I take these ribbons off?”
You nod and he turns the car radio on to insert the CD’s. As the first song starts playing you turn to him.
“This is that band you like right? The one on that poster in your room?”
Kyotani is visibly flustered by this.
“Yes? Did you...did you make these for me?”
You throw your head back in a laugh.
“Yes, I made them for you,”
“Oh,”
He says in a rather soft amazed tone.
“Look, I didn't mean to, but when I was in your room the other day I tripped over that shoe box you have,”
You keep your eyes trained on the street outside the dashboard window. Unsure and a bit nervous to see what Kyotani is thinking. Tempted by curiosity though, you do look at him for a brief moment, only to find him also intensely staring off into the street. His face lit up red with embarrassment.
“I’m glad that I saw it though. Because that stuff is important to you and I want to know what you think is important”
The air in the car feels like it is clinging to your skin with tension. You think the pressure will start to crack your bones when Kyotani’s voice splinters the suspense.
“It's easier to feel something when its tangible, when you can hold it, it's why people still buy polaroids and go to museums and shit”
You nod, a jovial ease overcoming you as he continues to speak.
“I don't really like, uh, I guess physical affection or even talking or it’s not like talking, people call it words of affirmation or whatever,”
You hold the smile of your lips down, you don't want him to think you’re teasing him in this moment. You're just happy that he is comfortable enough with you to say such things.
“I know lots of other people like to have those types of things though, and I worked really hard to get used to stuff, but I don't know, this is what I like,”
He says gesturing with the CD case to you.
“I mean so like, birthday cards, post-it notes, bus transfers? Things that are directly attached to memories and people? Anything else you want me to know about?”
While it hurts a little that he’s struggling to talk about this matter, you can't help but revel in the unusual brash shyness of Kyotani. He does mutter something, but when you lean in closer to signal that you didn't hear him the first time he repeats himself.
“Event pamphlets. I know it's trash but I like it”
“Promise you won't get mad?”
You drawl your voice out and make it sweet so he knows you're messing with him.
“Hm?”
He says, eyebrow quirked in question.
“I think you'd be really into scrapbooking”
“Shut the hell up before I kick you out of my car”
☽༓・*˚⁺‧͙·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .‧͙⁺˚*・༓☾
A/N: Took a break from my current writing obsession to spit this out .
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phoenixyfriend · 3 years
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A Smattering of Ideas for a Neji Time-Travel Fic
[EDIT: okay so viewing the post on dash or sidebar blog completely ruins the bullet nesting for some reason. Please open it in a new tab.]
Okay so I actually wrote the first chapter or two of this like... almost a decade ago probably, but the concept was:
Neji, upon dying, gets sent back, and he's perfectly healthy again, pretty much exactly as he was just before getting mokuton-stabbed... except the seal damage wasn't reversed, so he's blind.
I think he ended up like riiiiiight before the Hyuuga Incident, so about of age with Kakashi & co.
But yeah like imagine telling Hiashi about it.
We have a new Jounin! It's a blind Hyuuga.
His seal is gone! He's technically your nephew.
He needs to be retrained for blindness! He needs to be protected for the information he carries.
He's a time-traveler!
Have fun.
The Hyuuga clan has like a million things going on but future Neji is just finding his younger self and Hinata to cuddle them.
He can't see shit but he Needs To Hug Baby Hinata
She's so small? She needs to be protected?
"Sir, you're blind now." "If Lee can be a ninja without chakra, I can be a ninja without eyes." "Sir. Sir that's--that's not the same thing, you can't--SIR." "I'll ask Hatake for advice." "He's still got half of his--SIR!"
Neji is a genius, if there's anyone who can pivot their entire fighting style from "I can see everything" to "I don't need to see anything" it's someone like him. Especially with the "I need to protect all these smols and be strong enough to force people to take my advice seriously if necessary" motivation
BUT But But for the first few days, it's just like. Sir. I understand you want to protect this small child, but you walked into three walls in the past hour. Please st--sir.
Fun option is "Neji spills all the beans... to Hiashi, not the Hokage."
Hiashi: Okay so like. Give me a few days to come up with a cover story for your existence. Neji: That's fair. Hiashi: Do. Do you want me to send in Hizashi or...? Neji: I'll tell him the truth if you do. Hiashi: That's, uh... that's fine. Neji: Then yes. Please. Hiashi, thoroughly unnerved for a variety of reasons: Right. I'll go do that.
Relevant: "Stop trying to convince me to put the Caged Bird Seal on a man who is already blind."
Since that's the ostensible reasoning of the seal, and like. You can't make that argument about keeping the eyes safe when the eyes don't... work.
Courtesy of @firebirdeternal​, along with a bunch of other stuff but especially this:
ooooh feels moment: Neji starts his retraining to become Strong Enough without his eyesight, guess who sees him working his ass off to overcome a disadvantage and thinks "Oh, there's a person I should Be Friends With!"
Part of me just went "Gai gets injured on a mission and, while waiting out his medical leave, gets assigned to Neji as a guide/sparring partner"
Or, well, not assigned. He's just doing one-armed pushups in the training yard with a cast on half his limbs after breaking out of the hospital and zeros in on Neji like "Ah yes, medically inadvisable training, a Bonding Activity!"
Neji goes from "I can see everything" to "I can't see shit but if you're within arms reach you're fucked"
A lot of it comes down to Neji building up non-Byakugan sensing abilities, I think?
It won't help him read, but it'll sure help him avoid getting punched.
I think that's really the crux of his New Style, however he works it out, instead of having this Massive Range of perfect perception he just trains his other senses until he still has that perfect perception effectively, just in like a two foot radius around his person
and then he goes full Rock Lee and trains speed and reaction time until that two feet is enough
I want Daredevil-style bitchiness at some point, in the "Okay, I'm sure the contract is lovely, but do you have it in braille, perhaps?" sense
And Toph-style stuff
Genma, in the Jounin lounge: "Hey guys I think I've got a design finished for the new tattoo I'm gonna get, what do ya'll think?" 'holds up scroll' Kakashi: "Why would you get a tattoo of an ugly couch?" Genma: "It's not an ugly couch it's the Hokage Monument!" Neji: "It looks perfect to me" Genma: "Thank you! I worked really hard on-..... why do you feel the need to do these things."
Also I want Neji to have the same approach as Matt to a cane. He can make do without it, but it sure does make his life easier when he's off-duty.
Like, yes if he focuses his entire, highly trained person, on perceiving his surroundings, he can sense his way around. But that is very tiring
Like that is a lot of work to be doing, when you are just trying to get to the coffee shop for a bagel
Neji learns Sage Mode solely because he wants to be able to tree-hop again
Neji visits Kakashi like "I can't ask the Inuzuka for this because their dogs are clan-specific, but do you know where I can find a guide dog that can double as a ninken in the field?"
Neji asking Gai to help him pick out a feminine yukata because if ANYONE is going to not judge...
Listen I'm just really invested in what Naruto SD told us about how often Neji cross-dresses
Someone asked me which summons Neji learns Sage Mode from, and 
I mean, Hashirama supposedly just. Learned it? Without summons?
So maybe Neji does that and just learns from Jiraiya or something
Though it's not... particularly safe.
Birdie had the best response
learning it Without a Summon is very much in the vein of Neji's past attitudes towards Special Secret Techniques, given that he learned the Kaiten with no help even though it was a Secret Technique of the Hyuuga.
"I know it's possible to do, so the hard part is already over, the rest is just figuring it out and doing it"
Neji: I'm here, I'm queer, I'm blind as fuck.
Neji hanging out with Gai and Kakashi is, admittedly, not that different from hanging out with Lee and TenTen
Kakashi is a bit more likely to join in on the shenanigans than Tenten was, but he's still just as available for "We're judging you" sessions
Neji, sipping tea as Gai yells: this is my comfort zone.
Neji with a white cane: This is my whacking stick. Hiashi: Don't you mean walking stick? Neji: No.
Because... what ninja wouldn't ensure that any normal part of their daily life was fit for battle.
Like if Karin can hide lockpicks in a photo and a knife in her glasses, Neji can ensure his white cane is suitable for battle.
(Going off the earlier Daredevil comparisons, I’d say this is similar to Matt turning his cane into billy clubs sometimes.)
Neji, assuming the role of Chief Babysitter for SmolNeji and Hinata, senses Lee and Tenten at the park. Nudges SmolNeji: "Go, be friends with them"
SmolNeji, watching Lee faceplant into the dirt while trying to jump off the swing while Tenten chases two boys around with a weird frog she found: ".... why"
Neji: "Just trust me"
Also consider older Neji giving baby Hinata shoulder rides
Baby Hinata is delighted by this whole affair.
More time with big brother, and a new even bigger brother? Best times.
Bigger brother needs help reading sometimes and Hinata is so excited to help. Hiashi even approves because helping older Neji read things like menus and the like is helping Hinata learn how to read, so it benefits everyone.
Consider also: Neji encouraging the smols to play with bby Naruto, a Hyuuga elder (or possibly Hiashi, but I want him to be a confused accomplice) complains exactly once and Neji exudes such a powerful "Do not test me" energy that he just kind of. Drops it.
Neji's attitude towards baby Naruto is somewhere between "They're good dogs Brent" and "I died for him once already, do you think I'd hesitate to kill?" and it depends entirely on how seriously he thinks you're talking shit about him
Neji plays with the smols, including smol Naruto, by just being the Perfect Straight Man. Just taking every nonsense thing Naruto says Completely Seriously and using deadpan reactions to chaos to make them giggle. This drifts into Feels for Naruto when he's the first adult who takes his "I'm gonna be the Hokage" completely seriously
"Of course, chibi-Hokage-sama"
Hiashi: "What.... are you.... doing?" Neji: "Ah, Hiashi-sama. Please exercise caution, the floor has mysteriously transformed into molten rock. I suspect enemy action, but have no further intelligence at this time" SmolNeji, Hinata, and Naruto: 'wild giggling as they dangle from rafters/stand balanced precariously on chairs'
Hiashi takes one step into the room and all the kids start screaming so loud he steps back out in shock
Neji out in Konoha just Causing Shit with plausible deniability
Listen. Neji is PETTY.
Someone describes Naruto as "the annoying blonde child with the whiskers, you know, the skin brat" and Neji says "I'm a sensor and have encountered no demonic chakra"
"okay just avoid the blonde kid with the whiskers"
"I don't know how to tell you this..." 
"Sir, I know you're new in town, but that kid isn't really good news--" "A child can't be news unless they're recently born." "No, I mean, didn't anyone tell you to avoid the blonde kid with the whiskers?" "Naruto's blonde?"
Possibly "Hinata's blonde?"
He just, aggressively misunderstands that any insinuation about Naruto is about the Hyuuga heir instead
Birdie said they like the idea that he uses the aggressive deliberate misunderstanding to force people to either be embarrassed by how they're acting by having to spell it out or give up in quieter shame
Sometimes Neji gets tired of being obtuse and just lets Gai do it for him
Gai babysits on occasion, SmolNeji is aghast, Hinata mostly just confused, Naruto is delighted
Naruto is just Stars In Eyes about Gai
Kakashi: this is not the excuse I expected to have for visiting Naruto but I'm taking it
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astormyjet · 3 years
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Winter of 2018 - Summer of 2021 TIME FILES WHEN YOU’RE IN YOUR 20s!!!!
OH BOY. It’s been three years (or more) since I updated this. “Time is a weird soup!” to quote a fave. I guess I quit tumblr around the time there was a purge of content and creators and a smack down on a lot of the fandom communities. Tumblr has always been something of a crapshow though so I’ve been more productive with my time than I was in some ways, but I’ve also found other ways to waste my time. *cough twitter/netflix/youtube/MTGArena cough*.
General Life Achievements since 2018 -JLPT N3 GET in 2019! -Blackbelt GET in 2018! -TESOL 120 Hour and BE 50 Hour Cert from online provider GET in 2021 -STUDENT LOAN BANISHED (Thank you grandparents) -Survived Apartment flooding in early 2020. -Mystery anxiety related illness and chronic pain in my left leg from early 2020 - Present. -A mythical 6th and 7th year on the JET Programme. -Started posting on Instagram a lot more about my wanderings around Matsuyama/Uwajima. Mainly old buildings and stray cats. @astormyknight -Surviving so far in Japan with old rona-chan.
2018 was rough. I was given an additional school in the first semester (March to July) as we had someone find a better job. I enjoyed it, but it was a bit of a rough go especially when I was transferred that August after three fantastic years at Tsubaki JHS and ES and only a semester there. I legit went through the five stages of grief - which I think is another reason I stopped blogging. I was given my current base school along with four other schools. Going from 2(3) to 5 schools was a bit of an adjustment. I still feel a bit spread out.
That said, I keep running into teachers and students who were at the Tsubaki’s. The teachers shuffle around every April, so it's always a lottery with which new faces are going to be old friends (or enemies…). A couple of kids moved and transferred into my current schools from Tsubaki too. So I have one kid I can say I've been teaching for 6 out of the 7 years I've been here!
One of the kids who was in JHS 3rd grade when I first got here (in 2015!) hangs out around one of my favorite cafes, so I got chatting with him recently. He's in his second year of nursing school - his class nearly broke me in the first year, it was really a trial by fire with those kids. I was 22 then, and he’s 20 now, so it was interesting chatting to him about that first year of teaching. His younger sister was one of my favorite students too, she was in the group of kids that graduated in the March of 2018, the year group that went through Tsubaki JHS with me - they’re newly minted University students now!
This Thursday morning when I was cycling in to work, a kid who was 2nd year JHS when I left  (so 2nd or 3rd year JHS now) pulled up with their Mum in a van and got their mamachari out of the back to bike to school. The franticness of it all was hilarious. Their Mum legit sat on the horn until I pulled over. I was so happy to run into this kid, even at social distance and both of us late to work/school - because we both remembered each other and as they were going around the corners they were yelling each time they turned and humming the old elementary school directions chant and pelting me with questions about what I’ve been up to.
I've had so many students and schools now, that everything is kind of running into a blur. I remember flashes of kids faces and voices, random memories of in class or out of class shenanigans out of the blue. Also, I now, more than ever, have issues remembering kids' names, but I still know their faces (even with their masks), whose homeroom class they were in, who their friends were and which club they were in. I get random flashbacks to past conversations with them when I see them on the street or we run into each other. I feel bad because the first thing former students ask is ‘Do you remember my name?’ and I always have to be like, ‘Honestly, no, but I remember you did this on x day, x month in x classroom’.
Socially in 2018 -2019 - a few of our friends went home and things shook up a little. Our DnD group changed a bit - one of our players stepped into the role forever DM (THANK YOU RALPH). From memory the newbies were great - some of them just went home at the start of last month and it’s weird not seeing them around (JESS DO YOUR BEST!). I think we only have one or two people left from that rotation. There’s no 6th year ALTs, and only two 5th years.
Aug 2018 - Aug 2019 was the year of Hiura - my mountain school. Dang man, they were so cool. The students of the JHS and the ES combined barely hit 30, so each class was between 3-10 students depending on the grade. It was easier to get to know the kids, their abilities and their goals than it has been for me at other schools. I miss it so bad, being in nature once a week did my country-kid heart so good! The bugs! The frogs! The river! The mountain! The monkeys! The lizards! The dilapidated houses and hidden shrines!!!! The random crabs in the English room...I forgot that there was such a thing as freshwater crabs, and being right next to a river, the invasion wasn’t as out of place as I first thought...  
The area is so picturesque and calming. Every week up there was a small adventure (after getting over my motion sickness from the bus ride up). The kids were constantly pranking either myself or the main English teacher. There was always some new weird bug or lizard in a tank to be educated about. There were chickens on the way to the JHS that used to escape from their cardboard box prisons to run riot on the gardens. There were old people to freak out with my youth and foreignness! The kids also got to do a lot of extra classes, sumiyakai (making charcoal the traditional way), planting and maintaining rice paddies, setting up vegetable gardens, raising fireflies, conserving a special breed of fire lily (only found in this particular mountain valley) and another rare flower, wilderness training ect.
I wish I could have stayed there a lot longer but SOMEONE (read...the BoE) decided that schools had to be shuffled again(thank goodness the dude who has it now was able to keep it from the 2021 shuffle, he's the best fit for the school). I had so many good memories from there, I wish I had been more consistent in writing it down. I do have a bunch of photos and videos from there though, so that's nice. The only thing I don’t miss is the bus trip up and down - not only was it motion sickness, there was a healthy dose of fear each ride as the driver brought us perilously close to the edge of the mountain drop…
2019 - 2020 was interesting. With the school I got given instead of the Hirua’s I was roped into more demonstration lessons which was a lot of pressure because I was also involved quite heavily with the JHS observation and training lessons too. They were somewhat rewarding, the third graders are now super smart 5th graders, but the teachers  who need to embrace the new curriculum and ways of teaching really haven’t taken on anything from the lessons....
Outside of work as well, I was given the chance, thanks to an ALT buddy of mine, to join in with the local festival. It's been one of the biggest highlights of my time here, and I am gutted it’s been cancelled for the last two years, but I understand the reason…. I was able to travel to Okinawa too during that summer for an international Karate seminar with the Dojo I train with. I met the head of the style I currently practice and a bunch of people from around the world. I also got to see Shuri castle before it burned down. So that was a stroke of luck. One of the places I want to go when/if we get out of this pandemic is Okinawa. I want to see more of those Islands so bad. Just before the whole pandemic thing too - I managed to see the Rugby World Cup, a Canada vs NZ match, I even ran into Tana Umanga in Oita city!!!
2019 - 2020 was supposed to be my last year on JET, so I was frantically Job hunting. I went to the Career Fair in Osaka in early Feb/Late January 2020. I applied and got interviewed for a position in Sendai in early Jan 2020. In the end though - the Rona hit. We started hearing whispers of it around the end of 2019, then the cruise boats happened, and then Japan refused to cancel the Olympics...every holiday season there is a new wave of infections, my nurse friends in Tokyo are struggling....my teacher friends in more populous areas of Japan are struggling…
JET couldn't get new ALTs for 2020-2021, I took the extra year when it was eventually offered, as the one job I had managed to get a serious offer for was hesitating because with the rona setting in, things were uncertain. There was a lot of time spent adjusting to the new rules surrounding what we could do in class with the kids as well as textbook change. Schools shut on and off during the spring months. 
I also got a reminder of my mortality mid May with an unrelated illness which is still smacking me around a bit - stress/age, it does things to the human body it has no right to. It's only been in the last three months I’ve been able to exercise like I used to, I’ve put on a bunch of weight I can't shrug off (one part medication, another part diet) My relationship with food needs to change, and I really need a kitchen that allows me for more than one pan meals. I also need to figure out what to do with a left leg that is in constant pain from the knee down and a heart that misses beats when stressed out (mentally and physically…). 
My apartment also got flooded by the guy upstairs at one point, I spent most of late February/early March living in a hotel while my walls and floor got redone - I think this was one of the things that really stressed me out and kicked my anxiety right up a notch, it was right when things were getting REALLY bad with rona-chan in Hokkaido and schools were shutting down here as it was filtering into the prefecture and so Japan closed schools for the first time…
Classes in covid times have been weird. We’ve been wearing facemasks full time since the early stages of the pandemic (March 2020) - so I admit that I get a bit pissed off seeing both Americans and New Zealanders back home bitching about just having to start wearing them full time in public. I have asthma and have been suffering with the things on during the 30*C plus with high 90s humidity summers. Teachers were offered vaccines late July 2021, just days before the Olympics were open - and I finished my two shots in the middle of August. But the overall distribution and take up of the jab has been slow.  As mentioned above, we can't play a lot of the games we used to play with kids in classes anymore, and a lot of the activities outlined in the textbook curriculum need to be adjusted too, so we’ve had to be creative. We use hand sanitizer a lot more too. One of the things I miss the most though, is eating lunch with the kids.
Socially from summer 2020 - now 2021 we played a lot of DnD and board games, both online and in person when we could. There were no new ALTs again for the 2021-2022 JET year, and those of us who were in 6th year were offered a 7th. Four out of six of us took it. As a whole we’re down from a peak of 38 ALTs for Junior High and Elementary school to 22 for now. We hopefully will get a new person at the end of September, and 4 more in November. Which will bring us to 27. This has led to ANOTHER round of school shuffles.
Summer vacation has been weird the last two years. With rona-chan, we haven’t really been able to travel. All the summer festivals (all the Autumn and Winter ones too!) have been cancelled, so the changing of seasons just feels, wrong. I dunno. There is so much we all miss from pre-rona-chan, and so much that doesn’t happen that makes this just feel like one long long unending year of sadness, coldness, raininess, unbearable heat and repeat. I’m tired. Time is going so fast, but so.dang.slow.
I lost my favorite school (AGAIN GDI!!!) and gained the school I taught a semester at in 2019....I had my first day there on Wednesday. Schools actually started back on September 1st so there was some drama as the BoE didn’t communicate fast enough about our school changes. We legit got told on the 27th of August (on a Friday) our schools were changing effective September 1st, but somehow some of our schools found out on the Monday 30th August. In July we were told we would be changing schools at the end of September, so.a lot of ALTs and schools were left short changed, not having opportunities to say goodbye to co-workers or students/having their planning for the semester more or less thrown out the window too. I love my job. I really dislike the way the BoE treats us, the Japanese assistant language teachers and our schools.
The new school I have is used to having an ALT there twice a week, who plans all the lessons and executes them. I’m at three elementary schools. I'm only at each once a week, I want to plan, but being that I miss an entire lesson in between visits, it's going to be difficult to do so. Not impossible, but being that I'm already doing it for two other schools, who are at two different places in the textbook ah…….. From what I have talked to my new supervisor about though, it sounds like the teachers have taken on more of the lesson planning and I'll be able to contribute ideas when I'm there. I just want to and wish I could do more without being confused all the time. (This is all usually done in my second language too, not in English so extra levels of confusion and miscommunication abound).
 I feel like this at my JHS too a lot of the time. I want to contribute more, but even with constant communication with my main in school supervisor (who is a badass and pretty much on the same page about everything with me) I still feel about as useful as tits on a bull. Especially now that classes have been cancelled and or shortened, there's less time to do stuff. Any game or activity I plan is usually cut in favor of making up time in the textbook. When I'm in class, I'm back to being a tape recorder, the fun police and general nuisance. 
Also in the last week...my two of my schools were  shut due to students testing positive for the rona. This is the second time my schools have had a scare in the last 8 months. And by shut, I mean the students were all at home, but the teachers  all had to come into the office. Because why not I guess….. I mean,  the cases increasing is really not unexpected with the amount of people who were travelling over obon and the increase of cases due to the Olympics/Japan being slow on vaccinating/delta being the dominant strain/Japan's leaders doing relatively little except asking shops and restaurants to limit people coming in at one time and closing before 8pm. I know my schools weren't the only one shut either - but still High Schools were having their sports days this week. I kept on seeing groups of kids hanging in the park after, so that was a little bit nerve wracking.
It's just frustrating - we’ve been on half days to “minimize the risk of infection” for kids and teachers, as if only being at school from 8am through to 1pm is going to reduce the risk.  My schools have only just started testing out Microsoft teams and Zoom lesson equipment. Thankfully our school’s run in this time was contained real quick, the family was super good about informing us when they got their results back, and the fact they needed to be tested. The homeroom teacher and the students from the same class were the only ones tested, and they all came back clear, which was nice. But the information came back so SLOW. 
I’m a little irritated because I found out on Wednesday night what was going on, and even if I am vaccinated, I am super worried that I will end up being the covid monkey due to being at different schools three days out of five. I think other than being worried that I will catch it myself and get real sick, my biggest fear is that I will be protected from bad symptoms from the vaccine, but still be able to pass it onto some of my more vulnerable friends and students. The whole thing is a mess.  
Other than Covid and BoE drama, life is good. I’ve had a couple of other big changes - both fantastic and not so great, but yeah.  I have my health (and health insurance!) for now. I have a job, for now. I have a sense of existential dread for the next 12 months, but we’ll see where we end up. Life post JET is going to be way less cushy and I am TERRIFIED. I mean, I have a BA in Eng/Ling and no idea what to do with it…..because I am NOT suited for academia.
TLDR: Love my job. Don’t like the system. What is life? Future scary. 
14 notes · View notes
muwur · 4 years
Text
snapchat headcanons
✧ hc’s ✧ for using snapchat w ur boi toi ft. the pretty setter squad
❧ gn reader
✎ 3.1k words
a/n: kinda a combo of how they use sc and the kinds of snaps they send you! along w wat u send them, and uh... dating stuf n shenanigans? texting/snapping habits? my fantasies? IDEK ANYMORE EOFHEFJ
this was born from the recesses of my mind , which desired nothing mor than snapchats from suga , us sending cute selfies , others bein dumb n chaotic , no context videos , n him snapping me photos of some mangoes on sale he said he’ll buy for me DXX it’s too late for me now
doing research on hq bois and surfing thru sc features (im just now realizing theres quite a bit?? im hoping i address most of them at some point lolol) instead of real life tings aHHhhhHAHA
requests: open! will be working on a suga one i got, dw, requester!
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sugawara
✧ sends good morning and good night snaps
✧ so he’s rlly good at keeping streaks, probs has the longest ones (one of them being y’alls streak)
✧ posts tidbits of volleyball practice on his story every once in a while
✧ snaps you pics of his sleeping teammates when they’re coming back to school after a long day of matches , adding a single ‘❤️’ as a caption
✧ he will also create colorful masterpieces on all of them
✧ gives daichi a santa beard, tanaka a squiggly stache (i imagine it to look like spongebob n patrick’s seaweed ones now that were mEN), n kageyama sum angry brows,,, wait he already has them lolol u good der kags
✧ posts a picture of you when you’re hanging out, captioning it: “🥰“
✧ has conversations with you purely via snaps
✧ ranges from casual chats and checking up on u to crackwhoring ( ** indicates the photo, while the “” quotes indicate the caption, all snaps are italicized, otherwise its regular dialogue)
✧ suga: *peace sign* “hey sweetheart, how r u?”
✧ you: *pics of homework* “ahh, drowning in school ;-; i cant wait for this week to be over fghjkl”
✧ suga: *close up with :o on his face* “let’s study together tmrw!”
✧ or
✧ suga: *complete darkness* “its 3 am n i cant sleep”
✧ you: *the top half of your head, laying on a pillow* “ ;( aw babe. do u want me to send something to help u sleep?”
✧ suga: *still in darkness* “y u still up?? go sleep. n 🥺 yes pls”
✧ you: *snaps pics of feet* “that’ll be 50 bucks, pay up” 
✧ suga: *darkness remains* “can we make a trade instead? i promise to make it worth ;)”
✧ ok now u BOTH cant sleep (im sry my crackheading be acting up around 2am eeryday, i stan a mischievous suga--)
✧ video chats (in the darkness lol) instead until you both pass out (im not in luv u r 😭)
✧ super down to take filtered selfies w you
✧ does all the silly ones with you (things like ’angry face’ or the frog one)
✧ but also rlly digs lookin cute with you using some heart crowns, y’all an aesthetic (n crakhead) duo fosho
✧ def subscribes to life hacks and tries them out himself, has a 50% success rate
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kageyama
✧ doesn’t rlly use snapchat too much
✧ but when he does
✧ will either send you a picture to indicate he’s at volleyball practice (wow wat a sexi lookin gym floor)
✧ or some random picture of whatever he’s doing at the moment (*drinking milk*)
✧ this is mostly in order to save streaks
✧ he’s so bad at streaks
✧ “why does it matter?? what’s the point of sending just black screens or whatever’s in front of you at the moment??”
✧ can’t keep a consistent streak for more than 3 days and also doesn’t care (until hinata challenges him to see who can have the longer one)
✧ when you send him videos of him playing, he really focuses on them to try to improve his technique. asks you to send those vids to him (assuming u saved them, which u did)
✧ but when you look over his shoulder when he’s watching a video and give him some compliment (“i recorded at the perfect moment! that was a really good set, kageyama!”), he gets a bit flustered
✧ gets even more flustered but pretty happy whenever you post videos on your story showing karasuno winning some points with captions like:
✧ “footage of the legendary quick >.>” or “karasuno crows flyin high!” or “these bois make my heart 😭 im so proud”
✧ you WILL catch him off guard in photos, using filters that surrounds his head w/ emojis like 🥺💖🥰💘
✧ you also put these on your story (to his dismay)
✧ ppl comment on these mor than anything else (n for those who dont rlly kno kageyama, theyre kinda surprised to him like this)
✧ hinata snickers “hey kageyama you look pretty good here--”
✧ takes some selfies with you, mostly cuz you want them
✧ saves them after u send them over (n secretly cherishes them)
✧ occasionally watches his subscriptions, they’ll usually involve sports, mostly volleyball (who woulda guessed)
✧ you use his bitmoji to test out random facial expressions you would never see him wear
✧ you: “can you smile and wink like this? act like you’re the obnoxious charming guy in a shojo.”
✧ will actually attempt, but it looks so bad that you die inside and he never wants to try again cuz of ur laughing outburst (you: “😭😭 bb im sorry i couldnt help it”)
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oikawa
✧ literally sends you anything and everything
✧ morning bathroom selfie to show off how good his hair came out that day, saying:
✧ “he has risen”
✧ or “i woke up like this”
✧ and my favorite, “you’re lucky you get this content for frEE”
✧ selfies with iwa, who just looks annoyed and exasperated at the camera
✧ sends you pics of his lunch and snacks (“bet u wish u had milk bread too”)
✧ always packs extra milk bread so he could convince you to stay at his practice after school--
✧ FILTERSS
✧ I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENUF
✧ will either use the filters that make him kayooottt (cute)
✧ loves the ones named ‘hearts,’ ‘soft,’ ‘peach,’ ‘butterfly cheeks,’ vsco filters LOL, etc
✧ uses ‘big mouth’ when he feelin a bit sASSY; also loves to use this one when he rants, it channels his inner valley girl
✧ sometimes he’ll be snacking or drinking something while he does so (“hey guys today im gonna eat these milk buns from my favorite bakery and this bomb orange juice and complain about this little kid who talked smack to me earlier and almost made me cry--”)
✧ takes cute selfies with you, is an aesthetic selfie king, puts them on his story to show off he’s hangin with you
✧ but on your story you only post the ones he looks bad in LOL
✧ has separate stories for his every need, some r private (and lucky you, ur included in all of them)
✧ titles them ‘mean things iwa said to me today,’ ‘ranting hotbox + mukbangs,’ ‘a day in the life of oikawa,’ ‘volleyball 🏐,’ ‘unpopular opinions,’ etc. 
✧ fitting room photoshoots lol
✧ “y/n, what do you think of this??” “and this?” “oOH WHAT ABOUT THIS??”
✧ ends up calling you through video chat so you can live critique his choices
✧ “oikawa, please no, i can’t be seen with you in public if you wear those--”
✧ also changes his bitmoji’s outfits from time to time, hopes you’ll notice, but you don’t LOL (oikawa: ;((((((( )
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kenma
✧ uses sc usually just to reply to messages ppl send him
✧ indifferent about streaks, but keeps a few with ppl he’s closer to
✧ mindlessly plays the snapchat games with you, finds some of them kinda cute
✧ you both made his bitmoji for him, dressing his up in the orange cat suit
✧ you also helped make kuroo’s and put his in the black cat suit to match--
✧ snaps you every time he gets a new game, starts playing it, and once he finishes
✧ started to post some gameplays and reviews on his sc story (might as well add them to sc since he was already on other social platforms), and ended up amassing a large following
✧ follows the tech and gaming stories on sc
✧ as well as the ones with cute animals--
✧ open to selfies with you, usually wears a calm expression and holds up a peace sign
✧ even occasionally sticks his tongue out
✧ his story is occasionally heavily bombarded with candids of him w/ pretty sc filters, all taken by you
✧ but of all the filters, you love using the clout glasses on him
✧ especially when he’s just minding his own business
✧ “kenma, in his tru habitat” when hes cocooned in a blanket
✧ “kenma, on his way to steal yo manz” while on his way to the bathroom
✧ “kenma, next iron chef. watch out gordon” as he’s cooking instant ramen
✧ “kenma” n das it
✧ but he thinks it meme-y so he lets you do whatever you want, kinda digs it
✧ you end up dedicating your snap story to memes of kenma and the nekoma volleyball team. ppl are in it for the shits n giggles n hot bois
✧ you later discover someone else did the same thing with their volleyball team filled with hot bois from shiratorizawa, and you befriend tendou and share funni internet tings
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akaashi
✧ 99% of his photos include either you or bokuto or both
✧ bokuto spams akaashi’s story and contact list with selfies and videos of himself using weird filters, often gets you to join him
✧ has several streaks, but will send something with more substance than a black screen or his bedroom window
✧ will usually involve smthng that just happened to him or smthing he saw, like:
✧ “a kind older lady offered me some apples in return for helping her”
-or:
✧ “how do i break the news to bokuto that the yaikniku place he’s been wanting to go to for the past week ,,, is closed today”
✧ o n let’s not leave out:
✧ “is it possible to conjure a ghost using a wooden spatula, ketchup, and a chalk drawn hexagram? bokuto’s been paranoid ever since he tried last night and i dont know what to tell him. seriously, help”
✧ looks through stories occasionally, comments whenever bokuto makes questionable decisions
✧ also comments on whatever you’ve posted. his words range from “you’re cute” to “why,” depending on the content
✧ ppl know when y’all are hanging out cuz he’ll post smthing to indicate he’s with you, usually it’s some candid and you’re not paying attention
✧ appreciation posts for you as well! esp if you got him something, like onigiri or his fav, Nanohana no Karashiae , for lunch! (akaashi: *snaps a pic of his food* “thank you y/n for feeding me”)
✧ prefers video calling over texting/snapping whenever possible tho
✧ occasionally reminisces thru his sc memories
✧ enjoys the flashback feature and will send them to you and bokuto (cuz they’re about y’all anyway lolol)
✧ also has secretly saved a bunch of selfies of himself, consists of him trying out a lot of the filters (he feelin himself)
✧ you, one day, looking thru his phone and discovering them: “akaashi, you’re so pretty wtf”
✧ akaashi: “...”
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koganegawa
✧ sends you selfies of him before practice
✧ during breaks
✧ and after practice, usually makes a comment about how it went for him that day like:
✧  “i hit a decent toss today and futakuchi actually complimented me!”
✧ that, or:
✧ “i got yelled at 17 times today 😢😩”
✧ has quite a few streaks, his longest ones being with you and hinata
✧ def uses filters
✧ tries out every funny one he finds and sends you videos
✧ “look y/n im an aaaaAALlliiEEENnnNNN oo oo hoo hhhooOOh”
✧ “now im a chicky nuggy!!” (chicken nugget)
✧ also enjoys the doodle feature
✧ but he uses the filter with the clout glasses unironically--
✧ usually when smth good happens to him and he feels happy and/or cool about it
✧ “just beat the boss in this game on my 69th try B)”
✧ “kogane, that’s--”
✧ plays sc games with you and thinks bitmojis r cool
✧ kinda sad he cant find a hair option that matches him tho lolol rip
✧ you: “you hair’s just,,, unique,,,”
✧ subscribed to anything sports and fitness, as well as pop culture so he can stay in the loop
✧ also watches everyone else’s stories, pointing out whenever he sees smthing cool and/or interesting
✧ “woahh, karasuno’s at nationals right now! i wish we could’ve won, but next year for sure!!”
✧ you encourage him at all his games, hyping him up irl and online
✧ “koganegawa: best setter 😍!!”
✧ luckily you didnt record the parts he completely messed up LOL
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semi
✧ before going out with you, snaps you a pic of his casual outfit like:
✧ semi: “does this look ok”
✧ you: “babe you look great, tendou was just messing with you”
✧ will make unwanted appearances on tendou’s snap and complains to you about them
✧ “i didnt consent to being part of his meme page” and
✧ “okay, but he didn’t only have to share all the moments i messed up--”
✧ also indifferent about streaks but will do them
✧ sometimes sends snaps/streaks indicating he’s practicing his music
✧ when you see these you usually ask him to send you vids or if you can come over n watch
✧ initially is a bit shy about it but he loves what he does and you and knows you’re genuinely interested and supportive so he agrees
✧ secretly rlly enjoys having you as his personal audience
✧ lowkey into asmr, like the soap cutting shit as well as chewing crunchy things
✧ also watches food porn and clips of mukbangs, then can’t resist going on youtube and watching the whole thing
✧  “y/n, can we try this, it looks so good--”
✧ will also often watch oikawa’s stories, especially his ‘ranting hotbox + mukbangs,’ and makes comments about him being an idiot
✧  “this kid he’s talking about is a savage”
✧ but admits they’re quite entertaining
✧ just looks serious in all the selfies you take with him
✧ you: “can you look like you’re enjoying yourself?”
✧ semi: “i look cooler like this tho”
✧ sc memories filled with shenanigans from you and the volleyball team, doodles, and mirror selfies with him experimenting diff looks (you: “tendou, you got him way too concerned about this”)
✧ also enjoys showing off he’s with you, taking a short video of you when you hang out
✧ you: “semi, i look bad right now”
✧ semi: “but you can never look bad”
✧ you: “🥺 bb”
✧ viewers: “aw”
✧ shiratorizawa: “can he be this nice with us LOL”
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shirabu
✧ his main mode of communication with you is mostly through the regular messaging app, so he doesn’t use sc too much
✧ also doesn’t care for streaks and is bad at keeping them
✧ will answer to you or his senpais rather soon tho
✧ but lets all his other notifications pile up a bit before finally going thru them
✧ goes through the snaps he receives really fast, spending like 2 seconds each to look at them cuz aint nobody got time for dat
✧ doesn’t even rlly open goshiki’s LOL
✧ you have fun using filters on him and taking videos while he’s just doing his own thing peacefully like studying
✧ it takes him a second to notice and when he finally looks up, he just gives you an exasperated look
✧ cue you cracking up with laughter bc the filter finally shows up on his face
✧ his eyes and mouth are now on mike wazowski
✧ that, or his face becomes so disturbingly moRPhed like an alien
✧ caption: “ken-chan, my future medical man 😍”
✧ “y/n, please, this is like the 7th time in the last 20 minutes--”
✧ finally convinced him to take a study break and hang out with you
✧ which usually consists of snacking and light banter while you lay your head on his lap
✧ and scrolling through snapchat stories and showing him what everyone else is up to and cool things you’re subscribed to
✧ “loooook, dr. miami’s doing another butt job! is this the line of work you’re studying so hard for?”
✧ “no, it’s really not”
✧ is actually very soft with you and likes having the photos and vids for memories
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atsumu
✧ sends you snaps where his brother looks bad, captioning it:
✧ “this is evidence that im the hotter twin”
✧ likewise, osamu sends you snaps where atsumu looks even worse
✧ like, the mans passed out, looking rekt and open mouthed, drool seeping into his pillow
✧ osamu: “u still have time to break up with him”
✧ also lucky for you, atsumu also loves to take unflattering photos of you and send them to you randomly at like 2 am
✧ you: “nani tf when did you even take this??”
✧ usually posts a snap while he’s out somewhere like at a match, the gym, outside on a run, a party, or just hanging out with you or his frens
✧ however, makes sure you look good if you show up on his story cuz he wants to show you off
✧ doesn’t really care for streaks, but has a lott
✧ but also has a tON of unopened snaps
✧ is the type to send just a black screen n call it a day, or maybe spice it up by sending a pic of the sexi gym floor (a comeback) w his shoe in the corner
✧ will, however, consistently respond to you and kinda looks forward to ur snaps (secretly hopes you show ur face)
✧ but when you dont:
*in class*
✧ atsumu: *a smirk on his face* “your content’s kinda dry today” 
✧ you: *your sexi desk* “my nudez ain’t free, i demand compensation”
✧ atsumu: *grasped his chin in thought, but angled the cam up bc he needa hide his phone in class lolol* “what if i... take you out on a romantic excursion”
✧ you: * your face but with ‘sausage’ filter* “🥵🥵🥵🥵 yessir, what u want”
✧ rlly only wants to have pics of your face wat a closeted sOFTIE
✧ likes to have content on his flashbacks
✧ usually has other social media sources to keep up to date with things
✧ actually rlly digs using sc filters, mostly ones that’ll make him look like a queen
✧ captions a selfie of you two like: “me >>>>>>> y/n”
✧ but nearly everyone who comments on it is like: “i think you flipped the sign, bro 🤥”
✧ judges ppl who are into soap cutting asmr (you will never hear the end of it if you also like it)
a/n: sc kinda dying for me, my use went from suga to an atsumu to like nearly nonexistent LOL
also o gawd i already have ideas here n there for a pt 2 so stay tuned fjxnwfesd hope it takes me less long cuz this one took me fkin foreva LOL
idk y i made semi like mukbangs but i feel like he’d be rlly into them--
429 notes · View notes
heyheshi · 4 years
Text
Mirror Selfies, Fake Hickeys, and Cheetos... And Lots of Make Out Sheesh
3.3k words
written and uploaded: August 27, 2020
🦋 - fluff
🌙 - angst...? Idek now honestly lmao
💎 - smut, well just lots of make out sheesh
Please like and reblog! Also please don't post my writings anywhere!
Have y'all heard "Half The World Away"? This piece could have been a song fic since it's about being best friends but I've already wrote like half of this when I got the idea and this is in your POV so I'll be doing a song fic soon! And it's about HTWA! in Harry's POV on my 2nd month!
Masterlist
_________
You checked out your outfit one last time in front of your full body mirror - smoothing out those little wrinkles and making sure that your chosen clothes emphasizes your body in the most flattering way. My butt's poppin!, you thought to yourself.
The attire of your choice wasn't entirely revealing, wearing a white sailor pants with eight gold buttons in front - four on each sides, a sheer laced white sleeveless bodysuit that plunges just enough to show a bit of your cleavage, and white pumps. You look elegant in your opinion but not elegant enough to not get hit on in a club.
You're not trying to empress anyone but you also don't wanna look like you just got out of bed on your cousin's party. You decided not to wear any makeup - just some eyeliner and lip gloss, your hair parted in the middle in a low tight ponytail. You added a few gold accessories to accent everything.
You're sure that the club's packed and you're gonna get sweaty, you don't want any makeup to ruin your white clothes. Keeping your fingers crossed that you can keep everything clean and intact throughout the night.
Natural and elegant. Keep it natural and elegant, your mums words keeps replaying in your head.
You took your phone out from your purse that's laying on the dresser - opening the camera app and posing for a couple of mirror shots but only having three of your favorite - one doing a very cheeky pose by smiling big at the mirror while winking, your other hand doing the 'gun'; one looking sweet and shy, looking at the mirror with your eyes wide while holding a strand of your hair as if you're a child being handed your favorite sweet treat; and one looking sexy and seductive, putting your pointer finger on your lip as if biting on it as you look straight into the camera through your mirror.
Giggling to yourself after checking out the photos, you opened the messages app next and clicked on your conversation with your best friend Harry.
"Think it passed the "okay" looking?", you typed...
And sent!
You found him attractive but vowed to not cross any lines but you're feeling extra brave tonight so you also sent him the one where you looked really really hot - in your opinion.
Honestly, you'd say you're tall but not tall enough to rock a sailor pants the way Harry does but to your surprise, you looked rather ravishing tonight.
Your best friend of 2 years gifted you these pants as a joke as you always teased him about wearing one so one night he brought you these pants and said, "you better at least look okay in it" but now jokes on him. You thought that those three pictures will do the honors of mocking him.
As you're locking your front door, you hear your phone notification - a new message from "Sugar Baby :<", an inside joke that you used as Harry's contact name.
"Who was I kidding, you look good in anything. Take care and don't forget our plans tomorrow!", the message said, quickly responding with two frog emojis, you locked your phone.
---
The club really is packed but your cousin had this private booth for everyone so it's all good. You partied like a college student with your cousin and her other friends, managing to not ruin your clothes despite of everyone's clumsiness.
You don't remember much besides drinking and dancing and talking and laughing and kissing this guy - Austin. He was one of those guys that looks like they modeled for some clothing magazine - an underwear apparel perhaps.
It didn't get far with Austin, you mostly just danced and made out but you're also not sure since you're too drunk to comprehend anything. The last thing you remember was you saying goodbye to your cousin and Austin getting you a cab then you're back to your house.
You didn't remember if you paid the driver more than the real rate but you didn't care, you're too excited to try this hairstyle you saw on one of your cousin's friend.
Opening your front door and locking it after you got in, you kicked off your heels and got a bottled water on the fridge to bring to your room. Everything looks blurry but the digital clock on your bedside table reads 2:13 AM.
The last thing you remember was removing your almost non-existent makeup after changing your clothes and sitting on your dresser.
---
You woke up on your bed feeling light-headed but at the same time feeling like you have 10 pounds of rock on top of it. You noticed that you're laying on your bed wearing your worn out college shirt, some underwear and a tiny pair of shorts. Your blinds shut all the way and your clock reading 9:48 AM.
Freaking out, you remembered your plans with your best friend today. Scrambling out of your bed to your bathroom, you brushed your teeth and washed your face thanking the heavens for giving you enough time to change out of your clothes last night - which is now on your hamper near your bathroom door - and cleaning your face properly.
You also noticed that your hair is properly styled - your hair's upper half's sectioned into three then braided to meet in the middle, while the half down's curled into waves.
You left the bathroom and went to your dresser to check your phone. You saw that your hair curler is still plugged but turned off - quickly unplugging it - and your other hair styling supplies laid on your dresser.
You head is still pounding as you look through your messages and missed calls. None of them from "Sugar Baby :<". Sighing, you racked your mind as much as you can to remember why your hair is styled this way and why hasn't your best friend called, maybe he got called in the studio last-minute, your mind told you.
Shaking your head, you slowly opened your door to strut down to your kitchen to eat some breakfast and take some Advil to at least ease your headache.
You were about to put some cereal on your bowl when Harry appeared out of nowhere startling you, a few bits of your corn flakes now scattered on your table.
"Mornin' sleepy head", Harry chuckles, greeting you with a teasing smile as if to mock you for mocking him last night when you're the one who's hammered right now. You looked at him with scarred eyes then pulling your eyebrows together as if questioning him.
"You gave me a spare key, remember. Knew you'd be hung over so I didn't woke you up, just let myself in. Was in the washroom when you got down.", he said answering your unvoiced question, "oh I also got you some waffles from your favorite diner, it's in the living room.", you only smiled at him as a sign of gratitude.
You started cleaning up your mess when you heard him speak once again, "wild night huh?", Harry teases you.
You looked up to meet his eyes, "Huh? What're you talking 'bout?", you asked in your morning voice, only having to talk right now for the first time.
"Huh? What are you talking about?", Harry failed miserably on trying to copy your voice, you only laughed at him. "C'mon love, don't be shy now!", he added.
You shake your head at him and looked down, "I really don't know what you're talking about...", you kept your head down as your tried to think of everything that happened last night that might connect to what Harry was saying.
"So you're telling me nobody tried to hit on you with THAT outfit last night?", he joked.
"Uh well someone did but nothing happened, I swear, so please just tell me what is it. My head hurts when I try to think."
Harry took his phone from his pocket and gave it to you, the camera app opened. You can see your tired looking face on the screen, "look at your neck, you got three.", Harry explained.
Trying to find what he's talking about, you moved your hair away from your neck and saw it. Three bruises on your neck, a hickey perhaps? One below your right ear, one just above your left collarbone, and one in the middle of your neck.
"Oh...", was the only thing you said as you further examined the bruises and giving the phone back to Harry. You're sure that Austin didn't leave a mark then you realized something.
At first it looked like a love mark but when you looked closely to it, you'd realize that it's a burn - your hair curler burn. After realizing it, the events after you went home last night came rushing back making you hold your head.
You remember everything from changing your clothes, to removing your make up, to sitting on your dresser and clumsily trying this hair style you saw on the party and managing to burn yourself more than usual as you curl your hair, then going to bed after you gave up by turning off the curler.
Looking back at it, your hair style and burns doesn't look that awful for some drunk fella doing it. And for some reason, you don't want to tell your best friend the truth so you just shrugged it off as you finished cleaning up your mess.
You can feel his eyes burning on your neck as you rounded the table and giving him a hug, "thank you for the food.", you said and went to plop down on your couch in the living room, leaving H astounded and confused.
You started opening the take out boxes that contains your waffles and some other breakfast as Harry opened your T.V. and launched Netflix.
The silence was nice for your head with only a few laughs here and there as you both watched and eat some breakfast but Harry was unusually very quiet, not making any remarks at all.
You decided to ask him later and finished off your food, Harry already done with his a few minutes ago. You stood up the couch and took your trash to the kitchen then taking some pain reliever for your head before going back to the living room.
When you went back to Harry, he was just looking absent-mindedly on the television so you sat really close to him and took his right arm so you can tuck yourself beside him, bringing back his arms but this time around your body.
"What's the matter?", you asked as you looked up at him, the medicine already taking its effect making you less dizzy.
"Just tired love.", he said not looking down at you. You only nodded and never thought much about it and looked back to the show you both were watching while caressing his hands that's laying near your tummy.
A few more minutes on the movie, you called out his name, "Harry, I can tell something's bothering you...", you whispered.
Harry being Harry, whipped his head so fast that your lips accidentally touched in a peck. Sighing, he moved his head away from yours, "later.", was the only thing he said, not giving you any explanation.
You knew that the sigh wasn't because of the accidental kiss. You've shared a kiss or two before when you were both drunk or accidentally kissed like this so it wasn't new but it didn't stop you from running your tongue throughout your lower lips when he wasn't looking.
He was acting really strange. He's always really affectionate and flirty when it comes towards you so - always mocking you or telling you jokes and distracting you most of the time by tickling you as you cuddle with him - so you know that something's bothering him right now.
He looked at you when you started to move away from him, only for you to straddle his lap and hug him, something you usually do when he's feeling down.
Yes, it doesn't look like something best friends would do but you both became really comfortable enough around each other to do this.
The show long forgotten as you tended your Harry, running your hands through his hair as you pecked his hairline repeatedly. Harry had his head on your neck as he holds you tight against his body, his two big hands covering almost all of your back.
You don't know how much time has passed but you didn't mind until you felt Harry's hand going at the back of your neck, finger tips felt like he's tickling your skin but you didn't make a huge deal out of it.
Your legs now feeling a bit numb so you adjusted yourself on his lap, Harry's head snapping back to you, "stop moving, Y/N.", he said sternly and you whispered an apology. You knew how much he hated it when you two cuddled and you can't stop moving.
He just put his head back to your neck again and for a few minutes everything is peaceful until you felt ticklish on the spot where Harry's head's placed but you refrained from moving, not wanting to upset him any further.
The movement was barely there for a few minutes until you can firmly feel his lips kissing and licking your neck, "H-harry, wh-what are you d-doing?", you tried to push him away but he only hold you closer, your moans threatening to spill as he continues his movements.
You then felt him suck and bit on your neck, a movement you knew will give you a mark - Harry's mark, and then you realized that where he's doing it is the spot where you burned yourself.
You cannot stop yourself from finally gripping his hair to push his head more towards your neck, both of you moaning a bit.
"What're we doing?", you panted heavily as Harry moved his head, probably heading towards your other burn below your ear.
His mouth working deliciously on your skin making your stomach churn and making you grind on him in return, moaning in delight.
"I'm just making sure that those marks are now MY marks.", Harry looked up to you with droopy eyes then went back to marking you.
"I- bu-", you couldn't form any coherent word, let alone a sentence so you just let your best friend mark you as much as he wanted.
You know it's wrong and that you vowed not to cross any line but his lips just felt too good on your skin to stop it.
You gripped his hair tightly making Harry moan as he marked you on the thrid spot, the middle of your neck, one of your sweet spots - and you think Harry noticed as your moans and whimpers of his name got louder making him suck harder.
You grounded you hips on his, feeling him get hard. You yanked his hair away from your neck and met his lips in a hot steamy kiss. His hands now on your hips, helping you move your hips against his.
Moans, pants and whimpers was all you can hear around the living room until you pulled away.
"I- Harry what are we thinking?!", your frustration is heard and can be seen on your face, your lips swollen and your neck red and starting to bruise from Harry's earlier assault.
Harry throw his head back on the couch, "fuck! 'M so sorry love! I- I always- fuck! I just, was so jealous of the guy I couldn't contain my possessiveness and you're not even mine!"
You only looked at him surprised, "I-", you didn't finish your sentence as you went back to kiss him again which took Harry by surprise but eagerly kissed you back.
"It was a burn.", you panted against Harry's lips.
He pulled away, looking at you confused, "what?".
"Nothing happened last night, we only made out, it wasn't hickeys, it was hair curler burns...", you explained blushing.
He put his hands on your arms, caressing it lightly, "why didn't you tell me?"
"Dunno", you shrugged, "guess I wanted to know how you'd react, make you jealous maybe...", you looked down ashamed of yourself, feeling so small under his gaze.
Harry only laughed as he run his fingers along his marks, "well it worked. Got really jealous, love.", he said and angled your face to meet his eyes. "Liked you since forever and I was jealous, thought he got to take THAT outfit off of you last night...", Harry murmured, his ears looking red out of embarrassment making you feel a bit better.
"Liked you since forever too... and good thing I went home alone, huh?", you teased Harry, ruffling his hair a bit and putting both of your hands on his shirt clad chest.
"He still got to kiss you..."
"Well then guess you got a lot of making up to do!", with that you kissed him again, hungrily. Until he pulled away.
"Cheetos.", Harry said then went back to kissing you again but you're too confused to continue.
"H, what?"
"Those three pictures last night...", he kissed down your neck as he continued, "Cheetos, salsa-queso for the one where you looked cute and cheesy...", slowly going back up, "the sweetos Cheetos - the cinnamon sugar puff ones - for the one where you looked like a child...", he pulled away at last making you breathe out finally, "and flamin hot Cheetos for the one where you looked really sexy.", Harry smiled cheekily at you as you pondered on what he said.
"You couldn't have thought of something better to compare me to, huh?", you laughed at him but you think it's sweet, really.
Harry played with the tips of your hair and said, "I bet you fifty bucks that you sent that last picture just to seduce me."
"Well Mister Styles you're right!", you laughed, "why? Are you mad?"
"Mad? That outfit made me lose control, really thankfully it led to this."
You pecked his lips once more, "hmmm, you're right... so what now...?"
"Well for starters, you could've called me to take care of you last night...", his sweet words ran through your head until he continued, "and well you owe me...", he did this cute thinking face that you love, "you have to wear it again, this time, with ME beside you, want us to match too!", you giggled at his childishness but let him continue.
"That's just an excuse to take it off of you the next time around!", he overexaggeratedly winked at you, letting you know that he's joking - maybe not but honestly you don't mind!
You sighed then smiled, "that's it?"
"Well you do owe me a date, miss."
You removed yourself away from him and stood up, "is that so? You gotta call me SUGAR MOMMY first!", you teased him.
"Stop! Come back here!", Harry made a grabby hands at you while jutting out his lips.
"Okay, just tell me when and where!", after that words came out of your mouth, Harry quickly went to where you're standing and kissed you for a few seconds before carrying you to your bedroom where you spent the rest of the day kissing and laughing and planning for your first date. Making a mental note to buy those Cheetos to bring along to your date.
Your headache long gone and the both of you not feeling any hunger as long as you got each others lips. For the first time in months, you felt really happy, now you wouldn't be jealous of Harry being with other people, and him to you but the thought of putting your friendship with him at risk scares you to death but with him beside you, you knew that it'll all work out in the end.
_____
275 notes · View notes
ingek73 · 3 years
Text
Game, set, and twat: Whether it’s Meghan or Naomi Osaka, Piers Morgan’s MailOnline-enabled bullying has a pattern...
... the mediocre hack’s mediocre hack hates women who don’t dance to his tune.
Mic Wright
11 hr ago
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If someone had a blog and Twitter account where they relentlessly attacked a series of high profile women — many of them women of colour — for perceived slights and their refusal to pay the writer attention, we’d usually call that person a bully and a troll, and if they persisted in that behaviour they might even find themselves facing legal consequences.
But Piers Morgan has a TV career and a MailOnline byline so he’s given impunity to mock, abuse, and denigrate women while claiming he’s just a ‘critical voice’. His latest target is Naomi Osaka, the 23-year-old tennis player who is currently ranked number 2 in the world, is the reigning champion of the US Open and Australian Open, and became the first woman to win back-to-back grand slams since Serena Williams in 2015.
By contrast, Piers Morgan is a mediocre hack who owes his controversy-baiting career to Simon Cowell who pulled him out of the dumper of history and plonked him on the America’s Got Talent panel after he was frog-marched out of Fleet Street for slapping faked photos on the front page of a national newspaper. That incident was the last in an ignominious run at The Daily Mirror and, before that, in the Murdoch press, which I have covered extensively in the past.
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[image description] Twitter avatar for @Nabilu
Nabil Abdulrashid
@Nabilu
If time machines existed Piers Morgan would go backwards in time to chat shit about Rosa Parks
May 31st 2021
346 Retweets2,456 Likes]
Morgan’s latest creepy obsession was triggered — I use that word deliberately — by Osaka’s decision not to speak to the press during the French Open at Roland Garros because interviews were affecting her mental health. She subsequently withdrew from the tournament altogether after winning her first match, having been fined $15,000 for not speaking to the media and warned she was at risk of being expelled from the event.
In her statement yesterday, Osaka wrote that she had suffered “long bouts of depression” since she defeated Serena Williams in the 2018 US Open Final and received significant media attention. She continued:
I never wanted to be a distraction and I accept that my timing was not ideal and my message could have been clearer. More importantly, I would never trivialise mental health or use the term lightly.
Nothing in either of Osaka’s statements support Morgan’s sneering labelling of the player as “Narcissistic Naomi” or “world sport’s most petulant little madam”. Once again a 56-year-old man is using his vast and undeserved media platform to bully and harass a woman half his age. And — surprise, surprise — it’s actually just a new front in his obsessive one-sided war on the Duchess of Sussex.
Beneath the frankly unhinged headline, Narcissistic Naomi's cynical exploitation of mental health to silence the media is right from the Meghan and Harry playbook of wanting their press cake and eating it, Morgan writes:
Naomi Osaka is a brilliant tennis player…
… She is also the highest-paid female athlete in the world, raking in $55.2 million in the past 12 months, $5.2 million from tennis winnings and $50 million from endorsement deals with the likes of Nike, Beats by Dre, Mastercard and Nissin…
… Unfortunately, Ms Osaka is also an arrogant spoiled brat whose fame and fortune appears to have inflated her ego to gigantic proportions.
How else to explain her extraordinary decision to announce she will no longer participate in media press conferences, supposedly to protect her mental health?
Morgan is pretending that he doesn’t know that money is not an impregnable suit of armour to protect your mental health. Osaka could be the richest woman in the world and still face anxiety and depression. In fact, at just 23, the pressures of her performance-driven, endorsement-laden life are arguably more likely to lead to those feelings than a ‘normal’ one.
But rather than seeing Osaka as a young woman in an extraordinary position who is struggling with those demands and finding the hectoring, hostile, and entitled attitude of the press hard to handle at the moment, Morgan calls her “petulant” and continues:
[She] was fined $15,000 for refusing to appear in front of the media… Of course, given that she earns around $6,000 an hour, Osaka will recoup this fine while she sleeps tonight, rendering the fine utterly meaningless.
What's not meaningless is her frankly contemptible attempt to avoid legitimate media scrutiny by weaponizing mental health to justify her boycott.
Morgan departed Good Morning Britain after the row that followed his comment that he “didn’t believe a word” of the Duchess of Sussex’s statements about her mental health during the Oprah interview. Now, the mental health analyser has logged on again and he has determined that Naomi Osaka does not meet his standard of distress. Sadly, he secured his professional qualifications in this area by scrawling a certificate in crayon on the back of a Pizza Express kids menu.
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[image description] Twitter avatar for @PaulbernalUK
Paul Bernal
@PaulbernalUK
What is it about Naomi Osaka and Meghan Markle that gets Piers Morgan so worked up, I wonder. Image
May 31st 2021
1,726 Retweets10,537 Likes
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He claims that after reading Osaka’s Instagram post about press conferences, which he calls “an orgy of narcissistic twaddle”, “several times” he experienced “mounting fury”. Remember, this is a 56-year-old man contorting his melted waxwork face into an angry rictus over a 23-year-old woman he doesn’t know choosing not to appear at a press conference. I am not convinced that Osaka is the narcissistic one here.
Morgan continues:
One thing’s very clear: This has got nothing to do with mental health.
What Osaka really means is that she doesn’t want to face the media if she hasn’t played well, because the beastly journalists might actually dare to criticise her performance…
… This is straight out of the Meghan and Harry playbook of wanting to have the world’s largest cake and eating it, by exploiting the media for ruthless self-promotion but using mental health to silence any media criticism.
One thing’s very clear: This has got nothing to do with Naomi Osaka.
What Morgan really means is that he’s still beetroot red over a perceived slight by Meghan back in 2016, which he only started ranting about after he didn’t get an invite to her wedding and was “ghosted”. That came after two years of him tweeting about her as a “friend”.
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Piers Morgan is simply using Naomi Osaka as another way to wage his sad fuck guerilla war against the Sussexes. And Osaka is just the latest in a long string of young women to fall short of his weirdo expectations.
He berated Lady Gaga on social media, attacking her after she spoke about dealing with PTSD after being raped, and goaded her so much that she agreed to an interview clearly in the hope of getting him to stop.
He attacked Arianna Grande after the Manchester Arena attack and kept up his bullying for six months until she agreed to have dinner with him after what he said was a “chance meeting”. After she had conceded to spending time in his fetid presence he shifted tack and started creepily calling her his “soulmate” — she was 26 at the time.
These obsessions with young women are often framed as “feuds” in the press, but they are, in fact, byline-enabled stalking. Morgan has a huge platform and he abuses it to get women to concede to him, to make mollifying noises, to pretend that they are his friends just to get him to stop.
The only difference between Piers Morgan and a street harasser screaming at a woman to smile is that MailOnline and ITV pay him handsomely for the privilege. Tonight, Morgan’s ‘Life Stories’ interview with Keir Starmer goes out on ITV and he’ll once again get a chance to dominate the headlines. His views are given credence by the political elite even as he continues to abuse women for attention and praise.
It’s a tactic he’s used for decades, stretching back to his time on The Sun’s Bizarre column, where he insisted on inserting pictures of himself cuddling up to celebrities. His ‘feud’/obsession with Madonna has run on for decades, beginning in his Fleet Street days when she didn’t give him the exclusive on her first pregnancy and continuing right up until now.
As with Lady Gaga, Morgan has repeatedly mocked and dismissed Madonna for saying she was raped in the past. However, unlike Gaga, Madonna has refused to pay homage to Morgan with an interview. He preemptively ‘banned’ her from his CNN show back in 2011 though she had shown not one scintilla of interest in appearing, and tried to reignite interest in his hatred for her in 2016 by saying he would end “the feud” if she apologised to him. He’s still waiting for that call.
Morgan’s attack on Osaka, which is simply another attempt to get at Meghan, came two days after a Daily Mail interview with Jan Moir in which he grumbled:
[Meghan] thinks she’s beaten me? She might be in for a surprise because I suspect I’ll be back soon. If Meghan thinks she has cancelled me or won the battle, she is in for a big shock. I’ve never been more popular.
It made me think of this moment in Mad Men:
Michael Ginsberg: What do I care? I got a million of them… a million…
Don Draper: Good. I guess I’m lucky you work for me.
Michael Ginsberg: I feel bad for you.
Don Draper: I don’t think about you at all.
Meghan is Draper. Morgan is a total Ginsberg — smug and self-satisfied, convinced that Meghan is as obsessed with him as he is with her, certain that they are having a feud between equals and not the same dynamic as every woman cursed with a sad but sinister stalker.
And while Morgan acts like he’s a brave truth-teller, he only dares pump his horseshit opinions into MailOnline’s open sewer once he’s fairly sure that there are enough other media bullies taking the same line. The Australian’s tennis correspondent Will Swanton filed his misogynist screed a full day before Morgan got round to his.
There’s a clue as to how Morgan expects young women to act around him in the latest instalment of his journals — The Diary of Samuel Creeps — which are published in The Mail on Sunday.
Recounting his visit to what sounds like a truly mind-numbing party (“…drinking cocktails, nibbling canapés and having actual ‘fun’ in the garden of the Notting Hill home of Gabriela Peacock, nutritionist to the stars.”) he describes an encounter with Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie:
Princess Beatrice arrived with her husband Eduardo. They announced her first pregnancy today, and both seemed ecstatically happy.
‘Please thank your mum for her supportive texts when I left GMB,’ I told her. ‘She’s always been very loyal to me, and I greatly appreciate it.’
‘Well, you’ve been very loyal to her,’ Beatrice replied, ‘and she appreciates that too.’
I’ve always had a soft spot for Fergie.
Princess Eugenie, who gave birth to her first child three months ago, joined her sister. ‘If you two need any parenting tips for your expanding Royal creche, I’ve had four kids so am something of an expert,’ I suggested.
Their regal eyebrows shot up in synchronised horror. ‘No, we’re good thanks, Piers,’ came the firm, unified response.
I’ve known both Princesses since they were very young, and they’ve been through a lot of tough times in the media spotlight, especially lately over their father Prince Andrew’s shameful friendship with billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
But they never complain, or give whining interviews, or publicly trash their family, and they’re always incredibly nice, polite and good fun – which all makes such a refreshing change from their narcissistic, self-pitying, family-abusing, spoiled-brat cousins over in California.
Piers Morgan wants to be treated as famous rather than infamous, and likes women to indulge his antics and act as if they’re amused by his sweaty-handed attention. Fergie — a woman devoid of discernible talent beyond tolerating her ex-husband’s second career as the top Yelp! reviewer at Jeffrey Epstein’s houses — is a-ok with Piers because she sucks up to him. Similarly, her daughters are delightful because they’ll tolerate Morgan’s dad jokes and fetid familiarity.
Morgan is not a journalist, a truth-teller, a maverick, or a commentator in anything but bad faith. He’s nothing more than a misogynist with a MailOnline byline and some big money contracts. Don’t let him pretend to be anything else.
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delcat177 · 3 years
Text
Before New Pokemon Snap
While this game I have waited for for 22 years loads up, before I spend the night playing, I wanna tell tale of my time with the first one.
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(The player’s guide is so nostalgic!)
Yon Longe Poste
I was interested in nature photography as a kid. And by interested, I mean kinda really obsessed. My father had been a journalist and had his own interest in nature photography, so after developing some skill on a little plastic snap camera, he did one of the few bond-y things we did when I was a kid and taught me how to use his old 33mm. It was a wonderful thing with a telephoto lens that I’d carry in a case around my neck, snap the lenses back and forth as needed on my daily field ramble. 
Mom had commented on my patience with the snap deal, I would sit by the hummingbird feeder motionless for as long as it took to get shots, and a real field camera took it from the backyard to the woods. I could usually get birds and could always get some Pure Michigan nature, but I was constantly angling for animals--with 24 to 36 shots, depending on how I pooled my allowance, I spent a lot of time hunting for frogs, snakes, turtles, settling for butterflies and my dog. The one time the latter met a big touchy porcupine, I didn’t have my camera and was preoccupied with my poor be’needled boy, and when I went back, it was gone.
So, remembering a family story about how Mom had once found a porcupine chewing on the door because it was trying to get salt out of the wood, I requisitioned a piece of plywood my father promised was extra salty, took the shaker for good measure, and put it back where the needling had happened.
I haunted that spot all summer, but life isn’t as interesting as it can be, and porcupines are nocturnal. It wasn’t safe to be in the woods after dark, we had coyotes, so I took my solace in finding one day that it had, at least, been happily gnawed.
When I saw the first Nintendo Power previews of Pokemon Snap, I went “ah, yes, a blessing from the gods” and started work on a local Christmas cookie empire (different story entirely) to be ready for the release date. June was four months from my birthday and six from Christmas. I needed to be on LOCK.
And when I finally gave over my $63.59 (state tax was six cents) for this limited, low-poly, rail-ride of a game...
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...I absolutely adored it like few things I have ever adored. The only thing missing was Oddish, and I was okay with that, kinda, I guess, if they had to.
I played nonstop. If I got bored with the ambience, which was rarely, I put on one of my sister’s CDs--RENT, usually.
Yes, I was listening to RENT at 12.
Until Mom heard La Vie Boheme.
At any rate, I got every last cent’s worth out of it. I filled my Pokedex. My last Pokemon, pulled from a sneak peak at a player’s guide in Wal-Mart, was Muk. I still have creepypasta/Pokegod theories about how Mewtwo was supposed to be in the game (why 63 Pokemon, not 64??). The Album, where you could save your pictures, let you write a few words on your faves, and I did my best to take funny snaps and caption them. The pun “Karp-E Diem” was used.
My skill increased. I learned how to stop the ride indefinitely at the Charmander section and played with them, throwing them apples and seeing how many consecutive heads I could bonk (I think my record was 7?). Then, with a tip in the NP letters session, I found out you could glitch the game by constantly changing direction in the kart, lagging it from moving, so that events timed to the movement went off early. This is the best way to get the most AMAZING shots of Pikachu riding Articuno without hacking, still.
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It must have gone on for a year, at least, before I beat the game.
REALLY beat it.
Pokemon Snap is a limited game. Each Pokemon can have a maximum score assigned to it, a cap where it’s simply absolutely perfect in shot.
And for Mew, the highest-scoring Pokemon in the game and the only Pokemon on the last level, I was consistently getting 9900.
But that wasn’t quite right.
The thing is, Professor Oak reviews your shots and tells you exactly why you did or did not get each bonus. To get all bonuses on Mew, she needs to be in the right pose, (a sequence of item throws, easy), exactly in the center (again, easy) and exactly the right size.
The last part is worth 100 points exactly.
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If I could have submitted every photo I had of Mew, I would have cleared it out easily and mindlessly. I would have gotten 10000 points, the only five-digit score in the game, somewhere in the 60 snaps I was allotted for the level. She was right in front of me, all I had to do was click-click-click.
But that’s not how the game worked, and this is where it shines. It’s also where I am very curious to see if it’s going to be the same.
Like I said, Pokemon Snap was a limited game. It’s notoriously difficult to emulate, because it uses some advanced jury-rigging of the N64′s capabilities to call and recognize a photo of a Pokemon. To streamline that, and presumably to allow for this precise experience, the player can only select one photo they took of a Pokemon to be reviewed per play.
I wasn’t just trying to catch the perfect shot.
I was trying to find it out of all the shots I took.
Over and over again, I went through the stage, snapped pictures, pored over my album, selected the single entry what I was sure was just right, went to judging. Over and over again, I heard Professor Oak go “whAt a PItY”, in sound byte form. The CDs became necessary to halt murder.
It took weeks. But one day, from sheer little-kid determination, I got my snap. I JITTERED hearing the “Just right!” byte, held my breath--
10,000 points.
The perfect score.
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(This isn’t mine, of course, and also is a 9900--that foot is the real problem, so I’m glad to see I’m not alone)
It automatically saved to my best-score slot. I wish I had taken picture-pictures. I felt pride on a deep, genuine level that like my hummingbirds, I had at last gotten just the right moment, had just the right eye.
I’ve honestly been thinking a lot about my father lately. We didn’t have a great relationship when I was in the house with him, but...being a teenage “daughter” and being an adult son are two different things.
And it didn’t stop at Pokemon Snap. After being kicked out of an evangelical school, I started attending classes for high-schoolers at the community college, and Photography was my first. I ended up taking the class four times and passing it twice--I wasn’t bad at the subject, but rather had a hard time getting transportation to the college to do the course work. I had to withdraw the first and second times, pulled a C on the third, and took it one last time as I was graduating to shine up my GPA since I knew I had a reliable car and I could lock in the A.
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My sister and my mom, maybe my dad all thought I might end up a wildlife photographer. I professed the interest, and unprofessed it once I started reading about how harsh locales are in that job. I suspected getting bugs up my nose in 110-degree heat wouldn’t be as fun as the idea sounded. Instead, I leaned toward my librarian interests, and now I’m sitting here developing games and writing.
If I could tell myself back then, before all of it, that photography would never make me a dime, would cost me all my allowance on film, would be one of the albatrosses of my college years, and that technology would make all of the practical experience I learned in development a moot point...
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...we would both know it was worth every single moment, one moment at a time.
Hekk.
Maybe I should send Dad some photos.
so is it done installing yet
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