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koala-otter · 4 years

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the teacher and the scientist au: worldbuilding

I am writing some original stuff right now, and as a break where I can keep writing, I’m going to explain some of my worldbuilding/choices that I make when it comes to my modern “the teacher and the scientist” AU. The hope is that it will be fun for others to see what goes into a fic, or give people ideas for their own fics!

*a quick note: I am a white Latina! I have no East Asian heritage! I studied for a while in Beijing and speak Mandarin Chinese fluently, so I kind of defer to my experiences there when making worldbuilding choices in fic (because I believe strongly in writing what you know, especially given the damage you might cause by writing what you don’t know), but will also do research online or through friends on other countries and cultures that inspired the four nations in ATLA. But all of this is just to say that while I do put a lot of thought into this stuff, I am by no means the authority on any of it, and I am open to criticism and of course always want to make sure I’m not doing anything harmful with my writing. I promise to listen and adapt if you approach me about literally anything in my fic or in this post.

Ok now let’s get into it!

1. The setting: Ba Sing Se’s Natural History Museum This is based on a combination of the Beijing Museum of Natural History, the American Natural History Museum in New York, and Beijing’s Forbidden City/Gugong. Beijing I think is probably the biggest inspiration for Ba Sing Se with the ring system and centering of the palace (and I mean the Earth King’s palace is pretty directly based off of Tiananmen Square), so it seems like a pretty solid model for a modern Ba Sing Se to me.

2. The field trip I went on so many field trips to the Natural History Museum when I was little, and they were always the absolute most fun of the year. And I feel like we went to the planetarium basically every time? It was kind of fun to recall and try to capture the experience of being a little kid on this trip in this fic

3. The Lower Ring & the Middle Ring I put Zuko and his students as coming from the Lower Ring for a few reasons. Firstly, I couldn’t imagine Katara and Aang living in either the financial district that is the Middle Ring or the ostentatiousness of the Upper Ring. I think if they were in Ba Sing Se they’d work and raise their family in the Lower Ring (I will be getting into their jobs in later installments of this story, so I won’t explain them here!), which means Bumi goes to school in the Lower Ring, which then means Zuko has to work there in order to be his teacher and for this entire concept to work out (and also the reasons explained in the actual fic where he lived there with Iroh and wants to give back). And the museum is in the Middle Ring because I wanted it connected to the university, which canonically is in Ba Sing Se’s Middle Ring.

4. Sokka as an astrophysicist Because Sokka is a smart kid and a huge science nerd, okay??? And Yue and the space sword. It makes sense. Also, because Ba Sing Se = ATLA’s Beijing, I think of Ba Sing Se University as Beida （北大）or Peking University, which is China’s first national university and one of the most, if not the most, selective university in the country (disclaimer: I did not study at Beida!!). But yeah BSSU is the Earth Kingdom’s most illustrious university and one of the best research institutions in the world, and Sokka’s a tenured professor there. My boy’s world-class brilliant.

5. “Teacher Zuko” Ughhh I really struggled with this. Basically, I was taught in learning Chinese to address teachers as “Surname 老师 (lao3shi1),” which is “Surname Teacher.” But! I didn’t want to give Zuko a surname, because that seemed rife with opportunities for missteps (there’s a lot that goes into surnames of literally any country or culture, from geography to family history and occupations, and I didn’t want to co-opt anything that wasn’t mine to use). So I knew the kids would call him by his first name. But “Zuko Teacher” sounded off. And in Chinese, titles like Mr. or Miss or Mrs. go after one’s surname, while in English it’s the opposite, so I figured for this fic it was appropriate to implement the English convention. So! “Teacher Zuko.”

6. Sokka’s appearance Sokka’s one of those hot, young professors that appear only in popular media, or once in a blue moon. He finds out from Katara that white sneakers are an easy way to look in the fashion know while remaining marginally professional for class, and they become a staple of his uniform. I picture him in Stan Smiths. (And of course they’re a little beaten up! It’s Sokka!)

7. The gaang’s ages Okay, so, I can’t find the actual post where this is broken down, but I think canonically it makes sense that Katara and Aang were 22 and 20, respectively, when Bumi was born. I put them in this fic at being maybe a year or two older in this fic, so let’s say 23 and 21, when they have Bumi, in Katara’s second year of med school. So when this fic takes place, as Bumi is six years old, they are 29 and 27, and Sokka and Zuko are then 30 and 31.

oh my god we’re only 700 words into a 4,000-word fic why did I decide to do this to myself

8. Sokka looking at his watch and having a penchant for exact minutes He’s a master scheduler. That’s it.

9. “My Uncle Mushi lives in Chin City” This was just kind of an opportunity to integrate more from the ATLA universe! Obvi “Mushi” is Iroh’s refugee alias, but whatever another kid can have it, and yeah Chin City is that terrible village with all of those wacky people from “Avatar Day.” So we know the kid’s uncle is wacky. Fat chance of going on a field trip to visit him.

10. Zuko calling Bumi talented There’s that scene in the episode where they go to the Sun Warriors that Zuko calls Aang “a talented kid.” Bumi’s Aang’s son, so I figure by the transitive property Zuko would describe him the same way.

11. Zuko’s scar I don’t know why but I often forget to mention Zuko’s scar in other fics! Either way, I find kids usually respond to people’s differences better than most adults do. Kids just see things and comment on them, which, yeah, can be rude by societal standards, but I’d imagine it would be very refreshing for Zuko after going much of his life with people trying to avoid either staring at the left side of his face or talking about what happened. Also, I didn’t really want to get into the cause of the scar. Obviously Ozai did it. I don’t have an idea of how. Other fics have done that better. Explaining it within the fic the way Zuko would explain it to his class seemed like a good way to tell the reader, “Hey yeah it’s the same cause as in the show,” but then not have to get into it.

12. Sokka hates intro classes Ughhh no one likes intro classes, and I’d imagine it’s even worse for professors. Prerequisites are often too easy for the kids intending on majoring or too hard and meant to weed out the kids who can’t stick with the department’s program. College is funny.

13. Aang volunteers in Zuko’s class From what I can tell, parental involvement in schools is only getting bigger. And Aang is a great dad and I think he’d take any opportunity to get involved with Bumi’s school.

14. Zuko’s backstory I should probably take the time to explain this! Basically I think of this story existing in a universe where after they moved to Ba Sing Se under circumstances comparable to their being refugees in the show, Iroh and Zuko actually stayed in the city, and Zuko got his education there. And yeah! My boy went to BSSU, too!

15. Stargazing at the South Pole and seeing the moon at the North Pole Oh my god the pure amount of thought that went into this. I worked with the assumption that A:TLA takes place on Earth, and that then the rotations of Earth, and the rotation of the moon, are the same as what we experience now (I’ve thought about this extensively, especially as it pertains to the hemispheres and the seasons, but I don’t want to talk about it here, we simply do not have either the time or space). So the South Pole is essentially the same as our Antarctica/South Pole, except that it is capable of sustaining human life for an extended amount of time, and in theory has greater biodiversity (clearly I have also thought about this extensively, but again, we have neither the time nor the space for my theories). I had to read a NASA report on the phases of the moon as seen from the South Pole! And it turns out you can’t see much of the moon down there, and it is always in crescent form. but yeah, you see a lot of stars (but in the opposite rotation of what we see in the Northern Hemisphere), and I thought that was intriguing, especially given the importance of moon imagery throughout the show. Thus, Sokka’s first seeing the moon in the Northern Water Tribe, which ties in perfectly with his meeting Yue, his first love: “You could say the moon was my first love.” (Which someone pointed out in a comment on Ao3, and it absolutely delighted me that they noticed!)

16. Pipsqueak Just looking for more people from the show to serve as first graders in this fic. Someone commented that they pictured him the same size as he was in canon, and I laughed out loud.

17. Tuyanjing I was trying to think of constellations that look like badger-moles, and I honestly just thought, “Ursa Major. Badger-moles look like giant bears.” And “Tuyanjing” (土眼睛) is my own translation of “earth eye,” which was meant to be a nod to the animals’ connection to Toph and their blindness and earthbending.

18. All the stars & mentioning the Fire Nation & Water Tribe navigation I was initially going to write something in this scene about ancient constructions, like the pyramids, that were built using the constellations, and then create some elaborate metaphor about them and Zukka. But the only coherent thought I had about it was that it was “Too Much Work.” Instead I realized okay sailors always use the stars for navigation, and the Water Tribes and Fire Nation are the only nations we’ve seen with boats, so let’s go for that, and it works out because if you squint maybe you’ll read something about the stars guiding them to each other. Maybe we’re evoking thoughts of star-crossed lovers. And then we mention the moon again, and Zuko’s really seeing it for the first time, kind of like Sokka did, so hey I don’t know maybe that’s a symbol of something. Maybe.

And that’s really it I think! Hopefully this was at least entertaining if not entirely informative. I don’t normally write stuff out like this, but it is a good reflection of my thought process while writing most fics. Again, I am open to any kind of communication about the above as well as anything else I’ve posted! And I’d love to hear about any of your own ideas that help you with worldbuilding and writing your own fics :)

#atla #writing stuff #my writing #zukka #the teacher and the scientist

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ashesarrows · 3 years

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The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two by Catherynne M. Valente- FULL REVIEW

This review is the complete version of its counterpart on GoodReads.

This book really disappointed me. The roughest thing is that it’s right in the middle of the series, so you have to read it if you want to continue. There are bright spots (Ell! Saturday!), and I can sense the incredible book Valente was trying to write, but overall, this was a flop. Would’ve been a DNF if I hadn’t promised myself I’d finish the series.

So, firstly: I’m a longtime fan of Fairyland, and I commonly list the first book and Valente herself as my favorite book and author. I had no negative preconceptions about the book going in. In fact, I know I have an irrational fear of series, and at first I thought my struggles with this book could be chalked up to that.

But I loved the second book. It was entertaining, a good follow-up, and a unique new story to explore. When I picked up the third book and only got a chapter in before forgetting about it, I had a lot of excuses—I was burned out. I didn’t like the Blue Wind, and I didn’t want to read about her. I was busy with school.

As it turns out, having picked the book up three years later and finished it this time, none of that was true. This time, I was yearning for more of Fairyland, I quite liked the Blue Wind, and I had ample time to read in.

It just wasn’t a good book.

I talk about planning/pantsing a lot, and that’s once again relevant. I’ll excerpt from my review of another book:

There are two types of NaNoWriMo writers: the planners, & the pantsers. Planners have an outline ready before they write, and pantsers go "by the seat of their pants"—very few, or even no, plans. Both have pros/cons; here I'll focus on a common pitfall for pantsers.

Almost every Western narrative… follows something akin to the 3-act structure. There is a main conflict which builds to a climax and is then resolved (think Star Wars’s Death Star.) For any good narrative, you need MOTIVATION-GOAL-CONFLICT—and occasionally stakes[.]

This book does not have a conflict.

So where do you find 300+ pages of writing? Just have something happen & see what comes next as a response!

The problem is that this makes an unworkable first draft. Things Happening =/= Satisfying Plot Arc. In editing, you have to take everything you've written and organize it into a plot shape, often cutting things that don't fit. (Planning is the opposite; tons of work upfront/you usually end up UNDERwriting.)

...The most common method of writing on Wattpad is pantsing. 99% of the time, writers write & then post chapters on a set schedule. Can't edit plot structure when you upload one chapter a week.

Now, I knew that Valente was a pantser before I read this book, and that she originally uploaded Fairyland one chapter a week. I was very impressed when I first found out; I don’t recall sensing any of these pitfalls in the two previous books. It is hard to write a book with no editing—it is damn well near impossible. Whether I liked this book or not, the first two are a triumph just for that. Valente has been writing this entire series with both hands tied behind her back and her eyes taped shut, and I have to commend her. Even my feelings of frustration are almost overshadowed by how impressed I am that it took three books for her to fail.

Valente herself acknowledged editing concerns in multiple / interviews. From the latter link:

I remember being at a convention right after it really hit, and somebody in the audience asked, “Well, you realize you can’t go back and change anything, because you’ve already posted it online.” And I said, “Oh, shit.” It had never occurred to me that that was gonna be a problem. I kept a couple weeks ahead of the posting schedule, but again, much like writing The Labyrinth in ten days instead of thirty, I just ran ahead with something without knowing that I couldn’t do it and it worked out incredibly well.

Did it? I feel differently, and this review aims to explain why.

This book lacks plot. Valente is attempting a 3-act structure, which relies heavily on a central conflict. There has to be some big mission; some big goal. First book example: September has to beat the Marquess (goal and conflict) OR ELSE everyone in Fairyland suffers (stakes/motivation). Every moment of the book ties back to this larger goal.

The central conflict of this book appears about halfway through. You know the moon, and the yeti, and splitting things? This comes up over a hundred pages in. September, and the audience, has no idea about any of that for a hundred or so pages, and so for that amount of time, the book is unconscionably boring.

The beginning of the book sees September afraid she’s too old to go back to Fairyland, which is a great central conflict idea for the one chapter in which it exists. Aha! A book about growing up and the associated trials and tribulations. That’s a fantastic theme, and yet I forgot about it entirely until the end, where it briefly awakens again, after an entire book of Not That At All. More on this later.

For now, the book takes September back to Fairyland, which should be wonderful, but Fairyland seems to have become all exposition and no action. A whole chapter of The Blue Wind lecturing September, for example. This is a character we don’t know, have no reason to be attached to, and are being actively hindered by as she relentlessly slows the plot down. And then September gets talked at by an alligator or something, and then another something something… I don’t remember any of this, because it was not relevant.

This isn’t like Fairyland #1, where September might need to befriend someone to gain access to magic which would help her on her quest. In fact, for this first half of the book, September doesn’t even have agency! Someone hands her a MacGuffin (I refuse to recall its name) in the form of a box, and she Must carry it to some city or other on the moon. Why? Who knows. She just must. And she does. And you’re thinking to yourself, why isn’t September making her own ship and leading revels? We know, as an audience, that she’s more than capable. What on Earth has got her seeming so meek? She even sasses characters, but somehow always ends up doing as they ask.

The book also takes all this time to reach any characters we know and love. The readers want Ell and Saturday! We do not care about a horde of lecturing adults with no connection to a central plot or September! Looking back, I can see how Valente may have been hoping to pull off something similar to Alice in Wonderland, but in Alice nobody speaks for a full page. This is just one example:

direct link

I’m hard pressed to even call this exposition, because it tells us nothing about the world we’re in. It’s just a sermon Valente wants us to hear. And worse, because I’ve read the last two books, I know she can pull this off. It doesn’t have to be this way. Many people said many things in Fairyland #1, and it worked because there was a plot that the speeches were part of.

(If you just look at the quotes page for this book, you can see how many there are—and how repetitive they get. X is a Y, okay, alright…)

But this sort of thing reached its peak when it almost ruined Saturday. Don’t worry, he’s generally well-written, but when September meets him and he starts lecturing? It’s just awful to read. Suddenly it’s not Saturday talking but Valente speaking through his mouth, giving those sermons again, and it just makes you want to scream.

This made me recall an old writing rule—“never remind me of the author’s existence.” I want to feel as though real people are really saying these things, and when all of them speak identically, it’s really difficult to believe that. I won’t deny Saturday his right to say poignant things, obviously, but in this case due to the volume of lectures, and the proximity of his to the others, and the obvious preachiness of all of them, it really got in the way of my even enjoying the scenes with Saturday. And come on; that is unforgivable.

But there is a plot. There is an, ahem… other MacGuffin. A paw? A yeti’s paw. Something about time. Look, at this point I just wanted to finish the book. The original MacGuffin had become a new one, which would lead them to the third, and all this because at 100 pages in someone said “hey there’s this yeti we really hate around here,” and September went “sounds awful I’ll go hunt him right now.” And of course she can, because she has been DOING NOTHING FOR THE LAST HUNDRED PAGES. What is she going to do, something else? There IS nothing else to do in Fairyland apparently. Again, what this book does to the world & inhabitants of Fairyland is near criminal.

So the plot starts here, and it’s not great—September takes it up because there’s nothing else to do, and of course her friends come along, but (at least to me) it seems obvious that Valente invented the moon’s political situation and the Yeti just to come up with SOMETHING for this book. It never felt convincing that this had really been happening behind the scenes in the other books. On top of that, since we get very little context (despite the lectures!), it feels less like a vital quest and more like September (again) doing something because someone else told her to. We really don’t get any other perspective on the issue until the very end.

But talking about the end will require a spoiler tag, so I’ll avoid it for now. Let’s take a break to talk about how confusing the book was overall. I often didn’t know where the characters were heading or why, or what role a new character played, or even if they were there or not.

After seeing a GR query about this particular issue, I went back and researched it. The character Candlestick allegedly leaves the party on page 189:

Candlestick had not come with them after all, turning up her peacock tail and refusing to speak further with any of the lot of them.

But then shows up in not one but two lines in the next chapter anyway:

The Tyguerrotype, the thirteen bouncing Glasshobs, the quivering houses—and September and Saturday, A-Through-L and Candlestick—had a little thickness, but no more than a thick sheet of paper. (201)

“Did we see what?” called Candlestick. (204)

I understand why Valente wouldn’t want to make major plot edits to the books after posting them, but why didn’t an editor read through this even once? It would have been easy to fix—delete one line, or even just a word. It seems clear through surrounding context, looking back, that Valente intended to leave Candlestick out of these chapters, so why didn’t anyone confirm that for readers?

It’s just not fair to your audience to leave things like this in. It’s not professional. It makes me look down on the publisher, to be quite honest, because they apparently couldn’t take the few months necessary to re-read the draft and offer Valente edits on these bare minimum issues.

So you can understand why I wasn’t sure what was going on most of the time. Especially in the beginning, when multiple characters existed just to lecture, it was hard to get attached to any one addition to the party because I could expect them to be gone without incident or importance within two chapters.

For example, the Periwig (whose name I refuse to look up) who works with Ell in the library says she has cursed him to stop him from flaming around the books. Yes, Ell is having uncontrollable flaming issues now. As a reader pummeled by random lectures, watching September ferry around MacGuffins, this just felt like an “oh shit we have to come up with a NEW conflict for these characters” ploy, without much thought or logic. And I had no idea what the curse was for over fifty pages, until on page 173 there’s a specific reference to Ell getting smaller after he shoots flame. I’m sure there were more earlier on, but I missed them, and who can blame me after a hundred pages of content that was not relevant to the story.

This plot point is never satisfyingly wrapped up, either. Why did the Periwig think this was a good idea? Could she have undone it? Why did nobody address her about it? And why was it solved the way it was? Nothing made sense.

What’s really frustrating is what could have been. Near the end of the book, I turned to the back cover just to avoid continuing to read, and I looked once again in total bafflement at the two starred reviews of the book pictured there. Booklist’s back cover quote reads as follows:

As usual, Valente enlightens readers with pearly gleams of wisdom about honesty, identity, free will, and growing up. September often worries who she should be and what path she should follow, but the lovely truth, tenderly told, is that it's all up to her.

And, despite having read roughly two hundred pages of this book, it was only once I saw this quote that I understood what Valente was trying to do.

This is a great idea. And there are ELEMENTS of it here, and even elements I quite like. Occasionally, the lectures September hears do in fact correspond to some aspect of this theme (“you become what you are called” is one example of a line I could tell meant something, but needed to be expanded to accomplish anything.) It’s hard, as a reader, to differentiate between lectures addressing a vital theme in the story and lectures that are just talking.

Returning to Ell’s curse, it turns out that [SPOILER] Ell was just flaming for what is essentially dragon puberty, which is a GREAT opportunity to build on this theme! Somehow, though, we don’t get that.. I would have loved to see Ell have to deal with, essentially, a sexual awakening, and that did not happen, and it feels like the cure scene is random and therefore wasted. [END SPOILER]

It doesn’t help that Valente also wastes a scene with FANTASTIC potential where September literally destroys her fate by giving it no prior context, no weight in the plot, no relevance to the conflict, and fifteen tons worth of expositional lecturing to drown in. I want to love these scenes; some of these scenes utilize my favorite tropes! I just can’t get around all the ways Valente is leaving her story out to dry.

Then there’s the clothing September wears, her new designation, Aroostook the car, the attempted blossoming romance between September and Saturday: so many elements which could have made that theme great. It’s like a broken puzzle.

This brings us to the Yeti. I’m just going to go full spoiler, because I’m mad.

[SPOILER]

The Yeti is a reverse twist villain?? Can we stop with this? It’s not interesting & not an engaging surprise & also feels like going “ha ha I fooled you.”

From the moment September set off to beat him, I was wondering—are we really doing this? Based on one random person’s complaint? September has made it very clear that she doesn’t understand the politics of the world she’s inhabiting, and yet: this. Unlike in the first book, where the Marquess’s evil is confirmed by every person she comes across and September ends up fighting her out of personal connection, this just seems like meddling. September has no skin in the game; it’s almost a white savior trope—especially when the history of the Moon parallels colonization!

And then The Gang sees future-Saturday helping the yeti, and instead of thinking “maybe we got this wrong based on one person’s lecture” they think “ah FUCK maybe Saturday is going to be evil” and manufacture totally unnecessary conflict.

But it’s not even that they misunderstood, or that their source was biased; the end result is that the Yeti was seen as evil because he DIDN’T CARE THAT HE WAS. He gives this “none of their business” answer that is fundamentally unsatisfying (and makes no sense—had he explained, THEY WOULD NOT HAVE BOTHERED HIM) because at the end of the day, it means none of September’s actions in Fairyland were necessary. She just showed up and left. Nobody, not even the story, needed her. I guess September and Saturday have now kissed (twice!) which is great for them but not something that makes the whole book worthwhile.

[END SPOILER]

And on top of this, there are typos. I already covered the issue with Candlestick, so here are the others quickly:

“All of us,” September said gently, and held out her hands. “I know what you said, Miss Candlestick, but however you count it, our fates are stuck together and stitched up good.” She paused for a moment, looking down at her flowing black silks and her own small hands. “Closer than shadows, she finished.” (170)

“If you’re not to tired after your cannonades.” (179)

The full moon rose passed the high barn windows, spilling in like milk. (248)

(First sentence ought to have put the end quotation mark after the word “shadows,” but accidentally places it after September’s dialogue tag. The second sentence should use “too” instead of “to”. The final sentence needs to either say that the moon “rose past the high barn windows” or “passed the high barn windows”, likely the former.)

What gets me is that this last sentence is on the last page. Even if Valente and her editors never flipped through most of the book, surely someone would’ve noticed this? It just drives home how little anyone cared. About Fairyland, of all things!

And then Valente, who DID NOT EDIT THIS BOOK, has the audacity to include lines like these.

September reached inside and took out the red book. It was heavy. A girl’s face graced the cover, finely embossed, but it was turned away, gazing at some unseen thing. Perhaps it was her own face, perhaps not. A miniature version of herself, after all. Was it an answer? Was it everything already written? “You can’t argue with something that’s written down,” she said, stroking the red locks of hair on the cover. “If the heart of my fate is a book, there’s nothing for it. Once it’s written, it’s done. All those ancient books always say ‘so it is written’ and that means it’s finished and tidied and you can’t say a thing against it.” Oh, but September, it isn’t so. I ought to know, better than anyone. I have been objective and even-tempered until now, but I cannot let that stand, I simply cannot. Listen, my girl. Just this once I will whisper from far off, like a sigh, like a wind, like a little breeze. So it is written—but so, too, it is crossed out. You can write over it again. You can make notes in the margins. You can cut out the whole page. You can, and you must, edit and rewrite and reshape and pull out the wrong parts like bones and find just the thing and you can forever, forever, write more and more and more, thicker and longer and clearer. Living is a paragraph, constantly rewritten. It is Grown-Up Magic. Children are heartless; their parents hold them still, squirming and shouting, until a heart can get going in their little lawless wilderness. Teenagers crash their hearts into every hard and thrilling thing to see what will give and what will hold. And Grown-Ups, when they are very good, when they are very lucky, and very brave, and their wishes are sharp as scissors, when they are in the fullness of their strength, use their hearts to start their story over again.

(page 184).

Like... all of that, and then she didn’t edit September’s story? I’m appalled.

At this point, you might well say I’m being far too harsh. I understand that. These next five paragraphs are for you.

For the first few months of (re)reading this book, I genuinely felt like I must be a bad reader, or my attention span was gone, or I just didn’t like Valente or her work enough. Looking at all the incredible reviews here, I felt jealous—and frustrated. Why couldn’t I just enjoy this book the way everyone else did?

Obviously, I never want to dislike a book, but this was one that I almost feel betrayed me. I know there’s a significant amount of entitlement there; Valente doesn’t owe me any stories, let alone good ones.

At the same time, I made every effort. I owned all the books, was working hard to read a series despite my long-time struggles with them, and, well, I LOVE Valente! I constantly talk about her work! And even someone like me—someone who’s usually a pretty fast reader, loves the series/author in question, and was determined to finish this book—struggled throughout.

So I’m frustrated that the book made me feel like an idiot. I’m frustrated that, for the apparent crime of being devoted to Valente’s work, I was put through this. This book would be one star if not for the world of Fairyland and the returning cast—if this had not been a Fairyland book, I would not have finished reading it. For that first half, I was bribing myself (with better books) to read one or two pages at a time. Really.

Like I said, it didn’t have to be this way. I know damn well that Valente can do better than this. If Valente had been given the opportunity to edit this draft into a polished book, she could have done it. It’s only because of these restraints that she chose—and she is a grown woman who may choose what she likes—that the book came out this way. It’s genuinely hard to review, because I understand why she wrote the book this way, and I understand why she did not later edit the majority of the text, and I also have the perspective of a disappointed reader. It’s hard to balance all of that.

So two stars it is. I’m a little sad it took so long to review this book, because I was REALLY pumped to review it when I first finished, but I hope that on the contrary letting it sit has allowed me to be more objective and less emotionally upset by it.

I hope to pick up the fourth book soon, but with the combination of it being unrelated to the main cast and the letdown that this book was, it’ll be a while before I feel up to it. Don’t worry, though, because I will come back to update you as to whether the series overall is worth continuing. I have every hope that it will be.

#full review #goodreads #The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two

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sheepyships-archive · 3 years

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what if you.....answered all of them......for tsuki 😳 — @cringyalienships

t...tsukishima?? oh my fuckin god ofc scout you know me so well. thank you for sending an ask! @cringyalienships (gonna be answering w my self-inserts/ocs bc they’re basically me just look not like me shhdgsj-)

strawberry: before getting together, how did your F/O realize they had a crush on you? How did they act around you once they realized they were head over heels?

uhh, well, it’s tsukishima, it was probably something that built up that he tried to repress it and brush it off like it was nothing, but when he couldn’t and he realized it was romantic feelings, he was probably like, “fuck my life.” and he couldn’t bring himself to hate aika for it, because she was just being herself and doesn’t have control over his feelings. as much as he wanted to avoid her, or be cold to her, he also couldn’t bring himself to do that either(he believed that he didn’t deserve her(BRUH), but even though he thought that, he wouldn’t go out of his way to hurt her to make her avoid him), so he just continued on with life, but eased up with teasing her than with others, and even joked with aika to try and get closer. he just waited to see any signs of her feeling the same way. (LET KEI TSUKISHIMA BE SOFT 2020 I WILL FIGHT ON THAT)

rose petal: what traditions do you and your F/O share?

for holidays, they definitely celebrate halloween together, aka: aika forces tsukishima to wear a costume while saying “i got this for you with my money, you have to wear it” and he just groans and puts it on reluctantly while complaining. but usually they go to a store and buy a bunch of candy instead of going house to house(they both agreed that it's better if they just went and bought candy than walking around for two hours). occasionally they will hang out with some of the others. just normal traditions between them are probably doing things like listening to music together, or talking about music or suggesting/showing music and bands to each other(this happens a lot more than they like to admit), and this can go on for HOURS.

cherry vanilla: how does your F/O show their affection for you?

they both show it in small ways in public by helping with schoolwork/studies, sharing earbuds, even just looking at each other, they don’t want a bunch of people to flock around them just to ask about their relationship, so they aren’t super affectionate. but when they are alone, they act like they’ve been touch-starved for their entire lives, and are basically holding onto or resting on the other at every moment, and a lot of the time they nap or spend the night at each other’s houses. but, whenever either of them get hurt, whether they’re in public or not, they will immediately go to them and patch them up/help them feel better the best they can(whenever tsukishima’s hands get injured while playing volleyball, she’ll kiss the spots that hurt, and tsukishima will kiss the callouses on aika’s hands from playing guitar, or any other injuries or scars).

coconut mango: what mementos do you and your F/O treasure?

they definitely cherish letters/origami crafts they give each other(aika makes origami gifts for tsukishima, tsukishima writes letters, i don’t make the rules). but the one they both treasure the most is a small dinosaur plushie that aika was able to get at an arcade, which she secretly bought with the arcade tickets that she won. as they were leaving she looked at tsuki and said, in the most serious tone she could muster, “i have to admit something to you.” at first this kinda freaked him out at first until she took out the dinosaur plushie with a huge grin, that earns her a glare and a elbow jab to the shoulder which made her laugh. aika always brings it to tsukishima’s house with her and he teases her about it.

nectarine: do you and your F/O live together? If so, what does your living space look like?

while they don’t live together at the moment, they definitely plan on living in a small apartment and aika has more experience in getting an apartment and living in one. they kinda just knew their plans without ever talking about it, and when aika does mention it to him, he just says, “i mean, it doesn’t need to be a mansion or a big house, we don’t need a whole lot. i definitely don’t, just you... and your snake.” aika falls in love for a second time, but also smacks his chest and is like, “YOU JUST WANT ME FOR MY SNAKE!!!” which makes them both laugh.

pineapple: what toppings does your f/o like on their pizza? what about you?

tsukishima is the basic bitch who would only like plain cheese on his pizza(i can’t say much though), and that’s it, he thinks it’s too much of a hassle to ask for extra shit on his pizza. aika likes those burger pizzas, where they have burger shit on a pizza, she is in love with it and tsukishima definitely makes fun of her for it and they get into small debates about which is better.

lemon sorbet: does your F/O get jealous easily?

i don’t see tsukishima getting jealous easily, and if he does, it’s rare. he knows that aika is SUPER loyal to him and their relationship, and would probably insult someone if they tried to get her to break up with tsukishima or if they began to flirt with her(something she definitely adopted while being with tsuki), and he’d never do it to her either and doesn’t see the point in doing it when he has a girlfriend who he cherishes a lot. they are both head over heels for each other.

key lime: how would you describe your self-ship’s aesthetic?

tsukishima literally IS the smart cocky kid aesthetic, blonde bitch boy, but with the glasses. now aika is literally an emo but also a chaotic mom friend, but she also has a pinch of pastel goth. both together they probably have the intimidating “we look like nerds, but we could beat you up, and we will depending on the situation.” but they’re also super chill so they won’t unless it’s necessary(aika will throw hands for tsuki if you push her to that point, so don’t test her).

pistachio: when was the last time that you or your F/O cried during a movie?

one night aika probably brings over the land before time(my childhood movie it is so good) and forces tsukishima to watch it, and after some convincing they do. at the hella sad scene at the start(if you know you know), as they’re watching it aika starts to tear up, and buries her face into tsuki’s shoulder to hide it, but her crying was a mix of the scene being sad, and it reminding her of past shit that happened. tsukishima realizes she’s crying and before he thinks about teasing her, he realizes that it’s not just because of the movie and just hugs her instead while pausing the movie, waiting for her to calm down. but after she does, he teases her jokingly to try and make her laugh, it works, of course. (you can see where the angst side of me came out)

matcha: what kind of gifts does your F/O give you? Are they always buying you little presents or do they invest only in larger items for birthdays or holidays?

they’re never really buy gifts unless it’s a special occasion, but most of the time they’ll make playlists for each other since they both like music, and like i said before, aika gives me the vibes that she would make origami-themed things and break into tsuki’s locker and leave them there, or she’ll just leave them on his desk, or in his room, etc. OH AND AND!! whenever the earbuds/headphones they have break, they definitely end up with a new pair by the end of the day with a note that says ‘try not to break these ones, love you. <3′.

blue moon: is your F/O very routine-oriented or do they like to go with the flow? How routine-oriented are you?

tsukishima is semi-routine-oriented, go to school, go to volleyball club, go home, study, listen to music, sometimes it’ll change depending on what happens or what is occurring in the future. he probably doesn’t mean to do it on purpose and doesn’t stress over a schedule, it’s just what comes to him naturally. with aika, she just goes with the flow, she used to be more heavily routine-oriented in middle school because she was more popular then and felt pressured to be “perfect”, and went through life on a schedule. but after meeting the people she hangs out with in highschool(aka monti), she fell out of it and began to just, not really care?

cotton candy: post the last picture of your F/O that you saved!

i don’t think y’all realize how much i love this and how many times i have this picture and the gif saved, it’s not healthy.

teaberry: where would you like to travel with your F/O someday?

honestly, they probably try to look up museums to go to that are more based around dinosaurs and dinosaur fossils, where they are, how much it would cost to go there, etc. they want to make sure everything is perfect if they do ever travel anywhere. but honestly, even if everything went wrong, they would both probably think it was perfect anyways because they’re together.

raspberry swirl: how does your F/O cheer you up when you are feeling down?

usually whenever aika is feeling down out in public, even if they’re in the same room, tsukishima will shoot her a text with a link to a song he found with a text that reads: ‘reminded me of you, i hope you know that i’m here if you need someone to talk to. i love you.’ after sending it, he watches her reaction and relaxes when he sees her smile and look at him. but in private, he’ll hug her from behind and hold her, letting her do what she needs to do to feel better, whether it’s crying, sitting there in his arms, hugging him back, etc. after awhile he’ll start to kiss her face, shoulders, hands while mumbling ‘i love you’ after every kiss. then afterwards he’ll say, “this stays between us.” and this makes aika almost cry laughing.

red velvet: what is your favorite food to bake with your F/O?

they for sure make cookies together, specifically chocolate chip cookies, they both agree that chocolate chip is the best and make them together. usually, it’s tsukishima doing most of the cooking because aika is goofing off, or gettng distracted by her friends, and she will definitely steal cookie dough and be sneaky about it, but tsukishima catches her EVERYTIME, even when he’s not looking he just knows, and can sense it. but when they finish, they are super good and aika always praises him about it. aika also definitely makes tsukishima dino-themed treats and food in general, which makes tsukishima glare at her and say, “y’know i like other things, right?” and aika just shrugs and comments, “dinosaurs and reptiles remind me of you, sooooo...”

OH MY FUCKING GOD IM SORRY THIS IS SO LONG AND TOOK ME SO LONG TO TYPE UP I GOT VERY DETAILED AND LIKE MULTIPLE TIMES I HAD TO STOP AND CALM DOWN BC I AM SO IN LOVE WITH THIS DUDE LIKE JWJWHRFJHWERJ???? ANYWAYS I HOPE YOU LIKE IT!!!!!!!!!

#sylvie . answers ➷#sylvie . rambles ☙#🌕 fill . the . void 🎧#hq!!#haikyuu!!#👾 scout .#sylvie’s f/o ask game 1!!

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carlincalzone · 4 years

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×∆||• Toffee Dear starboy Ah •||∆×

Version by: @skyaoishipper101 (meh)

Original by: @Theniceststrawberry

~∆ Check her/him out in wattpad ∆~

Chapter 3: Safe heaven

Bzzt bzzt.

The forever annoying noise of Cobalt's phone

Buzzed obnoxiously under his pillow.

He let out a husky groan and stretched a limp hand under his pillow.

He clicked his phone on and squinted at the screen, Trying his best to ignore the buzzing crackle at his ears and black spots invading his vision.

'9:20 - math exams today'

Cobalt slammed his face back into the previous dent he'd formed in the pillow before forcefully pushing himself out of the warmth of his bed sheets.

He sluggishly hauled his body over to his drawers, Scanning all his clothes for his school uniform. His hands viciously tore at the different garments before grabbing the proper clothing.

His hands were quick to pull his shirt off and discard it as his fingers nimbly buttoned up his new one. Silk fabric was heavy in his hands as he tightly wrapped the tie around his neck and yanked it into a knot.

It took him less then five minutes to get dressed and style his hair into his everyday normal look, And look intidimadating enough to scare off those who wanting to be social with him, He hoped.

He didn't bother with his breakfast, Not even a snack to munch on. He was too stressed today.

Shajima was by his window as usual. Skillfully flicking up dark ruby colored strawberries and catching them in his mouth. For him this was a luxury. Simply blissful.

His morning schedule was a little like this:

6:30 - Awaken.

7:00 - Watch kittyboy get ready.

7:30 - Watch kittyboy leave.

7:40 - Get dressed.

8:00 - Parents leave house.

8:40 - Nap

9:40 - Eat strawberries.

His next plan was to make some deliciously sweet black forest ice cream cake but his cloud of thoughts was shattered by the splintering sound of a door being slammed.

Shajima turn his head to the window of the neighbouring house, Missing his strawberry which promptly bounced off his button nose.

Cobalt had arrived home and looked... Terrible.

His hair was a complete disaster, It mostly look like it had been grabbed or balled into a fist.

His clothes were entirely creased, His jean sy were very dusted up in the side. His tie was loosely hanging up over his broad shoulder and his top buttons were undone.

Sweat patterned his face, Red cheeks, It rolled in droplets down his neck.

Shajima dreamily gazed at him with a slight blush on his face. The only thing he could think of was how hot Cobalt looked in the whole disheveled style. But he had to push his silly fantasies aside and help his 'friend'.

He plucked of one of the seeds in a strawberry and aimed it at the window panes.

Cobalt lazily looked up at the window but just shook his head. He seemed almost very upset. The faintest trace of fear lingered on his lips.

Shajima lightly pushed open his own window.

"Kittyboy?" Shajima said with a worried tone in his voice. "I'm not in the mood, Shajy."

Cobalt remained quiet as he paced around the room. He kicked at his wooden bed posts and screamed into his pillow.

Shajima patiently sighed. He chewed on a sweet strawberry and blocked out cobalt's whining.

On the one day my outfit is perfect, But Handsomely Hot neighbour ignores me. Shajima said in his thoughts.

"Um. Coby. Quick question." Shajima said breaking the silence. "Shajy, I already told you I'm not in the mood." Cobalt answered, "Why are you home?" Shajima asked. "What?" Coby asked in confusement. "School ends later. Sure I'm homeschooled but It's only common sense."

Cobalt simmered slightly. Shajima knew he was right but he was ready to be Cobalt's problem solver?

"Coby. Why are you home?"

Cobalt inhaled a deep breath before leaning over his window ledge. His hands gripped the windowsill so tightly the the wood cracked off until his knuckles turned white.

"I had an phobia attack because of my classmate pranked me during my exam. Its not that too important, just my nerves fudging me over."

Shajima felt his face and stomach drop. Phobia attacks. He'd had a few and they were god very awful. Who'd have thought the cool, Handsomely hot non-socialable neighbour would have a phobia attack?

"Are you home alone, Coby?" Shajima worriedly asked, "Yes." Cobalt answered, "Do you want to come over?" Shajima asked again. "Thanks but no thanks. I'm unstable right now." Cobalt answered, "Then.. Do you want a strawberry?" Shajima asked again this time hoping his neighbour would agree.

Cobalt nodded as shajima tossed him a strawberry. Cobalt catched it and started gently nibbling the sleek red skin.

"Phobia huh?" Shajima said, "Don't get all smug, Shajy." Cobalt said, "I'm not. I just had an idea for our first voyage." Shajima said while just catching a strawberry with his mouth. "I told you I'm not going on illegal voyages." Cobalt said.

Shajima paused before adjusting his sakura flower crown. Cobalt was still shocked at how there weren't already bees buzzing around it.

"What if I told you it was legal." Shajima claimed, "Nope" Cobalt disagreeing. "Safe." Shajima claimed again, "Nope." Cobalt still disagreeing, "Away from all humanity?" Shajima claimed again hoping this time Cobalt would agree. "...maybe." Cobalt said.

Shajima beamed and clapped his hands joyously. Like a little kid.

"Great! Meet me back at these windows at 9:00." Shajima said. "9:00? Wait at night?!" Cobalt asked worriedly, "Yup! Wear something pretty for me." Shamjima suggested. "I will literally wear a trash bag with holes for my limbs." Cobalt said sarcasticly, "Please don't." Shajima said. "I'm just joking, hehe." Cobalt jokingly answered.

The two boys shook on it and turned to continue their personal duties.

~∆~∆~∆~

9 o' clock.

Cobalt settled on wearing a white polo shirt and black T-shirt underneath, and some black jeans. Nothing special, but he doesn't have a reason to dress extravagantly.

The brunet slid open his window to see a familiar boy pushing open his own.

Shajima was wearing blush pink polo shirt and a white shirt underneath it. His hair was rather considered to be messy and slightly damp. He didn't bothered with jewelry, but did had a single black choker.

He did notice cobalt immediately and waggled his fingers in a typically flirty manner.

"Good evening, kittyboy." Shajima greeted, "Evening, Shajy." Cobalt greeted back. "Ready for an adventure?" Shajima asked, "Sure." Cobalt answered.

Shajima swung his leg over the ledge and half twisted his body.

Cobalt awkwardly knelt by his window ledge. There was no way he'd risk his life to go on a midnight journey with practically a complete stranger.

Shajima swiftly dropped from the window and landed on a thick branch of a tree between there houses. An old chestnut tree that had been there for generations. He rotated his head to see the nervous wreck named Cobalt watching from a distance.

"Are you crazy?!" Cobalt said while his hands rested on his hips as he pulled of a baffled expression.

"Yes." Shajima was for once dead serious, His eyes glinting against the dark starry night atmosphere.

"I'm not jumping!" Cobalt claimed, "Please, Coby." Shajima begged. "Nope." Cobalt answered, "If you fall, I'll catch you." Shajima said.

Cobalt pondered the thought for a second before hesitantly clinging to the window frame.

Do I even trust shajima? Absolutely not. So why am I obeying him? This thoughts run around Cobalt's head.

One foot reached the stony wall of his house.

He looked back at Shajima, Both his eyes locked onto his every movement. Static and half by half. Shajima looked so different from this angle. He looked so-

Slip

Grab

Thud

Cobalt felt his body slam into a solid object. His hands was no longer gripping the window, But found its way to hold something else. Something warm. With fingers.

Wait.

Fingers?

Cobalt pulled himself back to see shajima smiling warmly at him. Both of them on the branch.

Teetering dangerously backwards, shajima wrapped a protective arm Cobalt's waist, Both holding hands with astonished expressions on their faces. Shajima seized the moment to pull Cobalt's waist closer and jump off from the branch, To the ground.

Once on the ground, Cobalt backed away and patted himself down; As if looking for any damage marks.

"Thanks." Cobalt thanked Shajima, "No problem, I had a feeling you'd suck at sneaking around." Shajima said.

Shajima didnt leave a second for his friend to protest in his defense before walking past the tree, And into the lane behind them.

Cobalt jogged to keep up and tugged the sleeves of his polo shirt.

"Where are we going?" Cobalt asked, "A place only I know of." Shajima answered. "Which is? Cobalt asked again, "Near. Now shut your mouth, boy." Shajima said.

Shajima took a sharp right towards a local forest.

A white metal sign scribed with metallic black lettering was nailed into the damp soil bordering the forest.

Blue moon wisteria forest

Cobalt followed like a curious toddler till he heard a distant noise.

A sound of pure serenity. Seems like running water. A nearby stream.

He'd never been in the woods so far before so he wouldn't know if they had a stream, But the woods didn't have a stream.

Shajima pushed aside a large pebbled path they'd been following, His eyes lighting up like a child on Christmas morning.

"We're here!"

Cobalt mimicked the action and pushed the lush foliage. His jaw as his head spun.

It was just like a painted scenery the water reflected the beautiful starry night sky, The water twinkled like the stars, There was a dock where you can tie a boat or catch some fish.

It was a lake.

Cobalt gasped as Shajima began pacing up to it, His hands tracing the corrugated stone prostrusions. Birds cawed from trees overhead.

Shajima eventually sat on near the edge of the dock and looked at the water, Letting his shoulders sink inwards and back onto the wooden dock.

Cobalt perched beside him, Both of his legs laying in the edge if the dock same as Shajima.

"Beautiful, right?" Shajima asked, "Yes, it is." Cobalt agreed. "I noticed this place the day me and my family moved into town." Shajima said, "You found this so soon?" Cobalt asked, "Of course. I thought it'd be a nice stargazing spot." Shajima claimed. "It's always the stars with you." Cobalt said, "Yup. I want to be one." Shajima said. "You are a star." Cobalt said while giving a glance at shajima.

Shajima giggled and hummed to himself. A song Cobalt has never heard.

Cobalt watched the fireflies glowing as they danced among the darkness. Time shifted as the clouds in the sky dissipated into a sheet of black.

"So. This is your new safe heaven?" Cobalt asked, "I guess so. It seems like it could be a new home." Shajima answered, "What about the house beside mine?" Cobalt asked again. "That's a house. Not a home. Home is where the heart is." Shajima said.

Shajima let out a shallow breath as he widely grinned up at the moon. Full and round, Like a pristine white plate.

"How about I share this new heaven?" Shajima said, "What do you mean?" Cobalt asked. "You said... You're unstable and... So am I." Shajima answered, "So?" Cobalt said, "you are the only other person to know about here. Let's make it our place." Shajima said.

Shajima stand up and somehow a scar peeked out from his shirt that Cobalt never noticed, He sooner held his hand and looked at Cobalt. Cobalt took the hand into his own. The Contact was icy but soon comforting.

"Yeah... Our place."

∆{stay tune for the next chapter guys TwT}∆

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leenaevilin · 4 years

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[Personal] ただいま (tadaima) ~ Leena is back in business

as some of you might have already realised... I’m back from my 6 weeks ‘break’ \(^_^)/

soooo... let’s reflect a bit on what I learned these past few weeks:

※ you can catch a f**king damn cold on a plane despite wearing a mask 😷 you just need to be on the one plane where every other single passenger is sick!!

(I actually came back 2 days ago but was so brain dead that I didn’t feel like writing any personal thoughts or being social... I only did my usual info posts because I didn’t actually have to use my brain笑)

※ if you are nice to the people you buy stuff directly from and give them sweets from your country → they give you free stuff O_O

(I got 2 CDs [CUBERS ~ Taka’s group] and several extra trading bromides [I had way more but already gave them to some friends^^])

※ Leena spends way more money on her №3 than on her №1 & №2 together O_O

possible reasons:

→ Channaka’s (№1) schedule never fits Leena's!!! (don’t announce a stage greeting on the same day as my birthday the day after I bought my ticket for Birthday @ DisneySea... grrrrr... and don’t stay in Kansai the whole time I’m in Tokyo!!!! ahhhhh, this guy makes me crazy!!!)

→ Leena could only see Channaka (№1) on screen 1x and Kei-chan (№2) on stage 1x this time... but Shin-chan (№3) on stage 4x & on screen 4x!!!!

→ Tsukipro knows exactly how to get Leena to spend her money on Shin-chan

♡ S.Q.S Epi4 ~ TSUKINO EMPIRE trading bromides: 15/16 [only missing 1 T^T]

♡ Gekijouban SOARA trading bromides: 14/23 [shuugou-shashin are a pain in the a**笑]

♡ Gekijouban SOARA sign bromides: 5/5 \(^_^)/

♡ Alive Stage~ Epi 2 trading bromides: 25/32 [again, shuugou-shashin are a pain in the a**笑]

... and these are only the trading bromides!!! I got all badges + every Shin-chan/Ren related goods笑

→ after seeing how much weight Shin-chan lost since last year you simply wanna spend money on him so he can get himself a nice meal!!!

look at those thin legs O_O... he was always skinny but right now he really makes me worried!!!

→ I’m always looking for rare and/or ‘old’ stage DVDs with my top 3 (~5) and this time I was really lucky with Shin-chan stuff!!!

♡ 舞台アニドルカラーズ! キュアステージ (butai anidol colors! cure stage)

♡ 舞台バグバスターズ ―Stage BLUE― (butai bugbusters -stage blue-)

♡ 舞台 STORM LOVER ~波打ち際の王子SUMMER!~ (butai storm lover ~namiuchigiwa no ouji summer!~)

♡ 舞台『君死ニタマフ事ナカレ零_改』(butai kimi shi ni tamau koto nakare zero kai)

+ 舞台 OZMAFIA!! (butai ozmafia!!) [thx to my partner in crime we were finally able to add it to our collection!!!]

※ when 7 foreigners attend the same show Japanese get confused σ(^_^;)

(especially when those foreigners try to force themselves to ride an already full elevator and later the doors won’t open at the 1st floor)

→ watching Alive stage~ episode 2 seiran no shou shonichi with you guys was awesome^^ got fanservice from Kou~sama during kyakuseki-ori and made a bunch of girls around me really jealous... (Hide-kun... thx for staring about 30sec into my eyes but please give those other girls some attention, too 😂)

※ Leena likes Kei-chan's new low voice!!!

I went to see the tousute (with deprofundisad) right before I went back home and OMG... I loved it!!! it’s soooooooooo different from all the previous once and I’m totally in love with the new style!! I was a bit worried about Kei-chan playing Hizen... but I totally changed my mind!!! he is the perfect choice for the role!!!! I love the sound of his voice (though he doesn’t talk as much as the rest of the cast... what is a good thing I think because I believe he is straining his voice a lot to get that low!!!)

ps: if you are one of the lucky persons who already saw it, please send me an ask about your thoughts/theory about a mysterious certain someone^^

※ Leena still loves meeting new friends!!!

I’m soo happy that I was finally able to meet Tina, Josie, Terri, Adeline, Momo and many more new friends!!! thx for spending time with me ~♡

AND PROBABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT THING I REALISED

※ Leena can’t live without her best friend!!!

spending almost 6 weeks at my best friend’s place (only a few days at my other friend's place) made me realise that I can’t live without her!!! she is the person I trust the most in my life and accepts me 100% for the way I am. I love her to the moon and back and I’m so glad that I can attend her wedding in January!!!

#personal #I'm back #I love my life #fandom is the best #this cold sucks

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trashcanmarvelfan · 5 years

Text

Best. Job. Ever. (Tom Holland x Reader) 2/?

Summary: Reader gets a job on the set of Spider-Man: Far from Home for the 3 weeks they are shooting in New York City as what she thinks is a production assistant, but a twist of fate has her reassigned as Tom Holland’s personal assistant. As she & Tom grow close during filming, will their budding friendship turn to more or will they go their separate ways after filming concludes?

Warnings: Language, but that’s pretty much it? This is basically a PG-13 rom-com.

Word Count: 1860 for chapter 2.

Author’s Note: As this was written WAY before Spider-Man: Far from Home was released (actually before Avengers: Endgame was as well) I’ve kept plot details and which scene was being shot on what day extremely vague. Also, I’m American but tried to write Tom as British as possible, although I do think he’d try to stay(ish) in character and use as much American slang as he could while he’s still playing Peter.

Requests are always open!

Cross-posted at AO3.

The next morning, Y/N woke up before her alarm, so she got ready early and headed downstairs to get her and Tom each a coffee before going back up to their floor. She knocked on Tom’s door and was looking at her phone when the door swung open.

“Good morning, Tom, are you--” Y/N’s eyes widened as she looked up.

Tom stood before her in nothing but a towel, a toothbrush sticking out the side of his mouth.

Holy shit, he’s practically naked, she thought, feeling her face heating up . “I’m-- I’m sorry, apparently I’m early, I’ll come back--”

Tom yanked the toothbrush out of his mouth. “No, no, come in, it’s fine.” He stepped out of the doorway and ushered Y/N inside, gesturing to the armchair in the corner. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll just be a few moments.” He disappeared into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

Y/N had seen Tom shirtless on screen before, but nothing compared to seeing his chiseled abs in person. Mmmph.

She mentally shook her head before placing Tom’s coffee on the dresser and sitting and taking a sip of her own, letting the warmth of the coffee calm her. Get it together, Y/N. You're here to do a job, not moon over your celebrity crush.

A couple of minutes later the door opened and Tom stepped out, fully dressed this time in a pair of jeans, sneakers, and a blue plaid button-down shirt. “So sorry about that. I was up late studying my lines so I got a bit of a late start this morning.”

Y/N checked the time as she stood. “It's ok, we have a couple of minutes to get downstairs.”

Tom hurried to drink his coffee then grabbed a hat and his sunglasses so he wouldn't be recognized, and he & Y/N made their way downstairs to the hotel lobby.

As soon as they stepped off the elevator, Y/N's phone buzzed with a text. “Perfect timing. The driver's here.”

They exited the hotel to find a nondescript newer model black town car waiting for them.

“Mr. Holland, Miss Y/L/N,” the driver greeted, shaking their hands briefly. “My name is James, and I'll be your driver to and from set while you're in town.” He stepped over to the car and opened the door for them.

“Ladies first,” Tom insisted, gesturing to the car.

Y/N slid into the back seat, Tom following behind her. They buckled in while James settled himself in the driver's seat.

“Okay,” James said once he had buckled in and eased the car into traffic, “we’ll have you at your destination in just a bit.”

Tom pulled out his phone and started scrolling through it, so Y/N took advantage of the silence to look out of the window. A few seconds later, her phone buzzed with a notification.

Instagram: tomholland2013 just posted a photo.

She glanced over at Tom, who had just put his phone away. She tapped on the notification and Tom’s Instagram popped up.

It was a selfie that he had obviously just taken, with the caption “On my way to set. Can’t wait for you all to see the finished product! #spidermanfarfromhome”.

She grinned over at Tom, who had been watching her. “You’re really good about keeping your fans in the loop.”

“You follow my Insta?” he asked with a smile.

“Yeah, I have for a while. I follow a lot of the Avengers cast.” Y/N shrugged, like it was no big deal.

Tom pulled his phone back out. “What’s your username? I’ll follow you back.”

Y/N gave him her Instagram username and sure enough, a few seconds later she received another notification.

Instagram: tomholland2013 is now following you on Instagram.

“I'm going to have to screenshot this momentous occasion so I can post it to my Insta,” Y/N joked.

Tom laughed. “I can do you one better. How about a selfie together?”

Y/N grinned and shook her head. “Nah, I'm not really going to post it. I wouldn't take advantage of your celebrity status just to gain a few Instagram followers.”

“Well how about just for us then?” Tom leaned closer to Y/N-- or at least as close as his seatbelt would allow him-- and pulled out his phone once again.

Y/N leaned in as well and smiled as Tom snapped a selfie of them together.

He texted it to Y/N and she saved it to her phone.

“All right, folks, we're here,” came James’ voice.

Y/N looked out the window. Sure enough, they had arrived at the set.

James stopped the car, got out, and opened the door for them, Tom sliding out first and Y/N following suit.

“Ok, so I just got the detailed schedule for today and it looks like it’s going to be pretty tight. You’ve got just enough time for hair, makeup, and wardrobe if you go right now. Filming is scheduled to run from 8:30 till noon when everyone will break for lunch for an hour, then it's back to filming until 5 pm.” Y/N looked at Tom. “Do you need anything right now? Coffee? Tea? Food?”

“Actually I'd love a croissant from the craft table if you wouldn't mind fetching me one,” Tom replied somewhat sheepishly. “ I could smell them when we walked in.”

Y/N nodded. “I'll go grab one and meet you in hair & makeup.”

“Thanks so much, Y/N.”

Y/N walked over to the craft table and grabbed a croissant for Tom as well as a muffin for herself and headed back to the hair and makeup room.

“Oh, darling, you’re a lifesaver,” Tom said, taking a bite of the still-warm croissant.

Y/N laughed. “It was no problem. Do you need anything else?”

Tom shook his head. “No, nothing else at the moment, thanks.”

“Um, ok then… I guess I’ll see you on set? I feel kinda weird just hovering while you’re trying to get ready.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Tom replied. “I’m almost done here anyway.”

His stylist dusted some sort of translucent powder on Tom’s face then finished taming his wild curls into Peter’s signature hairstyle. “Ok, you’re all set,” she said.

Tom hopped up. “Shall we?” he asked Y/N.

They made their way to wardrobe, where the wardrobe supervisor took a look at Tom, handed him a t-shirt to change into, then declared him ready for filming.

Tom unbuttoned his own shirt and took it off before carefully pulling the t-shirt over his head. “Ok, all set,” he said.

They then headed to set, stopping every so often for Tom to say hello to someone, including Jacob Batalon, who played Ned.

They finally made it to the set proper, where the director, Jon Watts, was wrapping up a conversation with a lighting tech. “Ok, fantastic. Thanks Josh.” He turned to Tom and Y/N. “Tom, my man! How's it going?”

Tom gave him a fist-bump/bro hug combination. “Jon, great to see you.” He gestured towards Y/N. “This is Y/N. She's my P.A. for the rest of the shoot.”

Jon shook her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Y/N replied.

Jon clapped his hands together. “Ok, let's get this show on the road! Places people!”

Y/N silenced her cell phone as everyone scrambled to get into their places and Jon called for quiet.

“And… action!”

Y/N watched in fascination as Tom seamlessly transitioned into Peter Parker. She had literally only known Tom a couple of days, but she could see how much of himself he put into the character.

They repeated the scene a few times from different angles, Tom and Jacob clowning around between takes.

Finally Jon called “cut” and broke for lunch.

Tom walked over to Y/N. “What did you think?”

“That was fantastic,” Y/N replied. “I can tell you really put thought into your portrayal of Peter.” She held out two bottles of water. “Oh, here. I thought you might be thirsty, but I didn't know if chilled or room temperature water was best.”

“Wow, thank you so much.” Tom reached for the room temperature bottle of water and took a swig. “Shall we get some lunch?”

“Oh, I figured you would want me to go pick you up something,” Y/N replied questioningly.

“We’ve only an hour, so there’s not a whole lot of time to actually go out. Lunch is usually catered in,” Tom explained.

“Well in that case, sure. Lead the way.”

Y/N and Tom hung out with Jacob and some of the crew during lunch, Tom introducing Y/N to everyone. Most of the crew had been together during the entire film shoot, some having also previously worked on Spider-man: Homecoming.

After lunch, a few more scenes were shot, and finally the set wrapped for the day.

Y/N waited near the entrance to the set and checked her email while Tom changed back into his button-down.

“Ready to go?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m ready,” Y/N replied. “James is waiting out front.”

They made their way to where James was picking them up and had a comfortably quiet ride back to the hotel. They thanked James and headed through the hotel lobby to the elevators.

After they stepped onto the elevator and hit the button for their floor Tom asked, “so what are you planning on doing this evening?”

“Oh, probably just catching up on some reading,” Y/N replied. “You?”

Tom rubbed the back of his neck. “Actually, I was thinking about dinner?”

“Oh, yeah, ok. I can go back out to get you something once we get back to the hotel if you want to go back to your room and relax--”

Tom shook his head. “Actually I was thinking about the two of us having dinner, together. Even though last night was technically a meeting I really enjoyed your company. I eat alone so often that it’s nice to have some someone to chat with, y’know?”

Y/N felt bad for Tom. She couldn’t imagine having your every move scrutinized just because of who you were and not really being able to go out and enjoy life for fear of being mobbed. She thought a second. “Um, sure. Ok.”

“How does Italian sound? I know this fantastic restaurant not far from here. And don’t worry, it’s nothing overly fancy.”

“Italian sounds great.”

The elevator doors opened and Y/N and Tom stepped out into the hall, Tom turning towards Y/N with a grin. “I’ll come ‘round at say, 7?”

“Ok, 7 it is.”

“Fantastic. See you soon then.”

“See ya.”

Y/N watched Tom walk towards his room before heading to hers. As soon as she was in she pinched herself. Yep, this is real . She was actually going to dinner with Tom Holland! As friends, of course, but still… She sent Laura a quick text: Going out to dinner with Tom. More later! She plugged her phone in to charge before gathering the things she needed in order to shower and get ready.

Tagging: @thoughstofaredhead & @greenarrowhead

#tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #Tom Holland fanfic #Tom Holland RPF #Tom holland fanfiction #avengers fanfiction #marvel fanfiction

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fairyscribbles · 6 years

Text

Fart Machine. (BTS, Suga)

Hello darlings! Long time no posts, I’m really sorry about that T_T Things are more stressful than I thought and it’s been a bit tough T^T. First off, thank you all for your kind messages. I kind of really know that I’m being irrational by being worried about things like these, but then there are moments where I just can’t help it, and I try keeping it bottled and it blows up like this. Your messages were so supportive and nice, they really helped me. Thank you for that.

I will be starting work today! I will be teaching my first two classes, and I hope they go well! So since I’m starting to work and get back into some kind of schedule, I’m also posting a little something that I thought of! I also have two or three other stories almost finished or finished, so I will post more when I come back home! In the mean time, please enjoy soft!yoongi (my heart ♥)

Being the mother of a four year old rambunctious Taehyungie, you have heard many strange things come out of his little mouth. Every time when you thought you heard it all, he would come up with something that swept you off your feet, just like this morning.

You were in the kitchen, preparing breakfast when you heard the soft pitter patter of bare feet and the silent steps of formal shoes.

“You be a good fart machine today!” Came the bright exclamation of your child, one that made you almost spit out your coffee.

Yoongi, on the other hand, didn’t seem affected in the slightest.

“That’s what I do, you know.”

“You…you be the best fart machine today!” Tae tried again, holding onto Yoongi's hand as they walked down the stairs, a prerequisite the man set when going down the stairs, ever since that one time when Tae took a tumble because of his socks. His fall was scarier than it was painful, but it still gave the man enough nightmares to strike a deal with the baby to always hold onto his hand when going down stairs.

“Is it so stair monster don’t grab me again?” Tae asked with a solemn look on his face, so serious that your face would break out in a smile.

Yoongi, on the other hand, looked like he was announcing the worst news ever, nodding briefly.

“Mommy and Yoon-Yoon would be very sad if it took you, bubba.” Tae seemed to think it through before nodding to himself, entwining his pinky finger with Yoongi's.

“Okay, I will.”

“You…you go be the best fart machine at wo~rk!”

“You bet I will, that’s what I do all day.” As Yoongi caught sight of you in the kitchen, he smiled at you briefly.

“You make sure to tell your mom to be a good fart machine, too.” Tae was already heading to you, babbling absent mindedly instead of replying. Yoongi, already late and with shoes on, blew you a soft kiss before heading out the door with a “love you, bubba. Bye,” leaving for work.

Tae was looking up at you with a grin, but something flickered in his eyes.

You leaned down with a big smile.

“Fart machine? What is that about?”

“I…I didn’t tell Dad I love him.” His sentence shocked you, and you could see that even though Tae was still smiling, it seemed like it was more of the muscles frozen than the actual emotions behind it.

Yoongi is not Taehyung's biological dad. He left the picture even before he was born, leaving the two of you alone. On one hand, you felt like you couldn’t blame him, the two of you being so young, but as little TaeTae was growing up, you started to find reasons why you detested him.

Taehyungie wasn’t strange or weird, he was just different. His young mind was very bright and sometimes his mouth didn’t catch up, making him babble incoherently. He also saw the world in a different, beautiful way. You do admit that sometimes his imagination was too wild and he might come off as weird to strangers.

You’ve dated other men in the past, yes – and most of your relationships crumbled on the fact that you had a child. Sometimes it was the responsibility of a child, and one special time someone hurt your precious boy so bad the guy was lucky he was able to leave on his own and not be wheeled out on a stretcher.

Taehyung was very enthusiastic about finding a dad. He knew that other kids had a dad and seeing them interact sometimes or hearing the kids show off their dads made him long for a father figure as well. And when you found a boyfriend, he was over the moon. He had something like a daddy!

You do admit that he started calling Seungho ‘daddy’ a bit earlier than the others. Maybe it was because he was Asian, a striking contrast to the blue eyed and blond guy that was before him. You apologized to Seungho about it and he waved it off with a chuckle and you thought everything was okay.

That is until you overheard a conversation between the two of them as you were making dinner. Seungho came from work and was splayed on the couch, barely able to take two breaths in before Taehyung swerved out of his room at lightning speed with a booming 'daddy!' coming from his mouth.

The annoyed sigh Seungho gave in reply made you concentrate on their conversation.

“Listen up Taehyung.” Seungho grabbed Taehyung by his shoulders, stopping his excited hopping.

“What, daddy?”

“Let’s get this straight. I’m not your daddy. Your daddy left and is never coming back, you hear? Just because I’m with your mom doesn’t mean I’m your daddy. I’m not, and I will never be, so stop calling me that.”

You were usually very caring and soft around Taehyung, but the second you snapped out from shock because of what you heard (it was right when you heard Taehyung’s soft 'oh' of rejection), you were hurling the plate full of food prepared for Seungho on the ground and stomping into the living room. You saw Taehyung holding his tears in, little fists clenched, biting down on lower lip, big eyes filled with so much hurt, and the piece of trash sitting beside him with the audacity to look shocked, you turned into rage personified. You didn’t give him a chance to explain or weasel himself out of it. He was barely able to get his things before you sent him off with a warning that if he ever came close to you and your family, he will never see sunlight again.

Taehyungie wasn’t the same after that. It took him a few days to grow back into his cheerful self, but you never heard him say the word daddy, and you vowed to yourself not to let your son go through that again. You promised you will never let another man hurt him like that again, and you took a long break from dating after that.

And then came Yoongi.

At first seemingly cold and distant, but you later realized the man held so much emotion in his soul, he was just unsure how to express himself well. Even though that, he was reliable, trusting and overall so perfect, you felt like you could introduce him to Taehyung.

Any weirdness Taehyung threw at him, he took it in stride. Whatever strange story Taehyung invented in his head, Yoongi expanded, never shutting him up, but on the contrary holding serious conversations over anything and everything his little mind produced.

But never in the year and a half you were a family has Taehyung called him daddy. At first he was MinMin mister, and then if he was sleepy he would be meow meow (a nickname which was wholly Yoongi’s fault when he stretched after a nap and let out a sound that sounded strangely like a meow) or Yoon Yoon.

But never daddy.

You snapped out of the trance as you saw Taehyung waddle over to the door quickly, trying to catch up with Yoongi.

“I love Dad! I love my dad!” he kept telling, fumbling with the door to open it. When the handle finally pressed down and Tae opened the door, he yelled out the longest and loudest “Da~d!!!!!” you ever heard.

To hear this coming from your son, something that you thought you would never hear him say, made you tear up.

“Daddy!” Tae wailed as he ran down the front yard to Yoongi’s car. He still hadn’t left, and he peeked out from the side of the car with wide eyes.

“What’s going on, buddy?”

“I love you, dad!” Taehyung reached Yoongi, sniffling as his little fists tried to wipe his tears.

“I love you, too, bubba, but why are you crying?” from where you stood, you couldn’t understand what he was saying, but it didn’t stop Yoongi from nodding and placing a soft kiss against the top of his head.

“I love you Daddy,” Taehyung mumbled almost pitifully as Yoongi stood up with one last kiss to his forehead.

“I love you, too, Taehyungie, you have a good day now, okay?”

“Okay, dad. I love you.” As he turned back to walk to you, he pointed at something that was on the side.

“I love that water,” he said even more pitifully and Yoongi looked at you, a wide smile on his face that you reciprocated.

“Love you, kitten,” he called out to you, and you called back with a “love you too, baby.”

“I love you, daddy!” Taehyung seemed to want to have the last word in the say as he waddled back inside.

“I miss daddy,” he confessed to you once you closed the door, still sniffling slightly.

“It’s sad when dad leaves for work, huh?” you cooed understandingly, crouching down to wipe his tears and snot. Taehyung nodded, his chin quivering in a clear threat that he might start crying again.

“Do you want to send a video to daddy? We can tell him to come back soon.” That idea seemed to intrigue him, and he nodded vigorously.

“But we can’t cry, because we don’t want daddy to be sad, right?” Taehyung agreed with you, already reaching for your phone (it didn’t matter that the kitchen counter was too high for him to reach).

You hoisted Taehyungie up into your arms, bouncing him on your hip as you kept one hand around his when he fumbled with your phone. He was a smart boy and you already sent a video to Yoongi before, so he knew very well to keep the phone up so the two of you could see each other in the camera.

“Are we not crying anymore?” you checked one last time, and Tae looked at himself closely before nodding.

“No cry.”

“Okay, I’m turning on the video!” and with that, you pressed the big red button on the screen, and waited for the time to show up on the top half.

“Okay Tae-Tae, go ahead.”

“Daddy!” he yelled out, a big smile on his face.

“Have fun at work! Make all the farts you want!” you laughed, waving at the screen and calling out a “love you daddy!” to prompt Taehyung from doing the same.

After hitting send, you sat down with Tae on the couch, waiting for Yoongi’s reply. You didn’t have to wait long, a notification with Yoongi’s video reply popping up. It was a simple reply with Yoongi still in the car, the most brilliant smile on his face as he called out to Tae to keep some farts for when he comes back home so the two of them can have a competition (a prospect that made Tae giggle with glee and you groan in disgust).

“I’m gonna tell Kooky about fart compeshion!” Tae called as he hopped off the couch, heading for the pink bunny resting near Tae’s play area. Almost as if it was planned, your phone dinged with another notification, a text from your fiancée.

“Daddy, huh? Wouldn’t mind you calling me that ;)”

Even though the idea made you blush, you laughed at the thought.

“Dream on, fart machine.”

#yoongi #yoongi scenario #yoongi story #suga #suga story #suga scenario #bts #bts story #bts scenario #bts yoongi #bts suga #story

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lemon-rawr · 7 years

Text

Ideas for Animal Crossing Switch

A new animal crossing game hasn’t been announced yet but I’ve been getting so hyped up about an animal crossing game on the Switch that I have to share what I would like to see next! Some of the ideas you’ll see are ideas I’ve seen floating around on tumblr, but some of them also come from my dreamy little mind hihi

This post is going to be super long, so if you don’t read it that’s totally fine! But if you do, thank you, and don’t hesitate to add some ideas if you feel like it!

First I’ll start with features that we’ve previously had in games that I want to see again. (Keeping in mind I have only played wild world, new leaf and happy home designer)

- Being able to choose your skin tone. This is a feature they implemented well in HHD, and I think they could probably include a discussion bubble with Rover for that purpose.

- Bring Céleste’s observatory back!!! She deserves better than to tend a shop 24/7.

- Make NPCs as interesting as they were in wild world: Blathers used to go on a tangent giving you information about your donations, that was so cute and informative, I feel like he’s been censored. (Maybe leave an option for players to pick? If they don’t want to listen to Blathers go on he can ask the player if they want to hear more about their donation?) Also it would be great if they brought back cool backstories that you unlock through talking to NPCs, the Able Sisters have a very heart-warming story that has been shortened in new leaf. Maybe we could get Tom Nook’s back story or KK’s, or Brewster’s?

- This is in the same vein as the point above, but make villagers a bit more interesting: I played wild world again not so long ago and I was surprised at how fun and full of personality the villagers are. Once I tried to bamboozle a villager into giving me a t-shirt, they wouldn’t have it! Don’t get me wrong, new leaf villagers are adorable, but wild world villagers keep you on your toes!

- Interactions with furniture items like in HHD: One of my favourite features to play around with in HHD is the interaction with objects (warming your hands by the fire, dancing to a stereo, bringing out a frying pan in front a stove). It would also be nice if the villagers inside their houses could still be able to do little cute tasks like in HHD (sweeping, dancing). Little details like that just brighten up my day!

- Bring back carpets, ceiling decorations, curtains, different types of windows: this is a no brainer. Being able to place furniture items on half spaces is also something I would have difficulty living without. What could be cool is if we could have a choice between different shapes of rooms like in HHD, it would help make houses a little bit more personal and unique.

- Having a little garden that you can decorate with furniture items: this is a feature I loved in HHD. I remember when I was a child playing wild world, I would dream I could put a pool in front of my house and have a little garden. When I saw the HHD trailer, I was just sooooo happy, it was like a dream come true.

- Bring back public works projects: this is also a no brainer. Public works projects are amazing, and one can only strive for more of them.

- Customisation: being able to customize objects was a great addition to new leaf. Maybe this could even be expanded on: being able to customize clothing into different colours, PWPs…

Now for “new” things:

- Maybe introduce new NPCs, with new buildings! I was thinking it would be great to have a bigger Main Street, sort of like in city folk (which I have barely played). What I thought would be great is if we were put in charge of developing and decorating Main Street, kind of like a town developer or something: you could choose what exterior the building has, what type of building it would be, its exterior and it would be fantastic if we could decorate the inside. (Maybe also have an option where the player can choose a standard form if decorating is not their forte) I’ve seen so many great ideas on tumblr, with people saying there could be a library or a bakery, that would be awesome.

- Isabelle as mayor: I am ready to relinquish my role of being mayor to Isabelle, who is frankly better suited for the job. What I thought we as players could be, is town developers, we would help Isabelle revitalise the town.

- Having a bigger world and different levels of terrain: this would make your town look so much cooler! With a bigger town, there would be a possibility to have more villagers, maybe 12 instead of 10?

- Of course, it would be nice to have more villagers, and to see old villagers come back (without having to buy their amiibo card). I’ve seen so many cool ideas for new villager species: bats, kittens, owls, sharks, snakes. I thought of meerkats and red pandas as new species to put in. More personalities would also be appreciated.

- Placing PWPs more intuitively: we could for example choose a section of the map and place a PWP with the touch screen on an area in that selected part of the town. It would also be fantastic if it were a little faster to get PWPs suggested…

- More things to donate to the museum: gyroids, artefacts (like old furniture or vases), books…

- More plants: different types of trees, more flowers (chrysanthemums, poppies, lavender bushes…), more colours for flowers, water plants (lily pads…)

- A bigger variety of house exteriors, although the four we have are quite good.

- Being able to invite more friends to your town at a time: I believe that with the Switch 8 consoles can connect at the same time? It would be cool to have more people over. It would also be great if you could click an option where visitors cannot make any changes to your town (they can’t cut down trees with an axe, trample flowers, or dig holes everywhere). Having this option would prevent a lot of heartache. Of course, if you know and trust the people you are playing with, you could have the option to leave your town normal.

- Being able to visit NPCs after hours: imagine if you could visit Isabelle after town hall closes for the night or the Able Sisters after the store closes, wouldn’t that be adorable? They could have a house in a different part of town or have a back door in their store for you to visit after hours.

- And finally cooking: Animal Crossing is a life simulation game, I think implementing a food system would be nice. Your playable characters would get hungry around dinnertime, and you could play a little minigame and cook a dish for them to eat. I always feel sorry for my mayor who only gets to eat a piece of fruit once every blue moon. Fruit prevents scurvy, but it’s far from a balanced diet. Now this should not be a feature that is too compelling, whenever you are logged off, of course your playable characters would feed themselves, and if you go months without playing, your playable characters would fend for themselves. I just think this would be a cute addition to the game, it would add some realism. It would also be adorable if you could walk into your villagers’ homes and find them eating their dinner or preparing food. I mean villagers talk about food constantly, but never eat any, it’s sad. Villagers could have different eating schedules depending on their personality for example. Or you could maybe plan dinner dates, and this could trigger another minigame where you cook together. Anyway, this is just something I daydream a lot about, but it might make animal crossing a little too much like cooking mamma…

Those are all my suggestions, it feels good to have them all in one place rather than scattered all over the place in my mind! For those who got this far, thank you and don’t hesitate to add more ideas, I’d like to see what you come up with! A new animal crossing game would be amazing regardless of some of my suggestions, but it’s good to dream a little…!

#animal crossing #animal crossing switch #animal crossing switch ideas #nintendo

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mysidewriting · 7 years

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Through the Storm

Note: Hey everyone, I don't know if this is really necessary but I will say it anyway - eventually this story has various T rated themes (I guess) such as strong language, alcohol use, and super super mild gore (basically just infers it, doesnt get descriptive). Also! Thanks for reading! I hope everyone is enjoying what I have posted so far c:

From the start --> Previous Chapter

Chapter Two

Dad was acting strange

After a week in Kanto I was well aware that he was hiding something. Every time I came back to the house he was startled and seemed ready to jump away from me. I'd seen him on the phone for hours at a time and I knew it wasn't my mother or work that was on the other end of the line.

I wanted to question him about it, but there was this uneasy feeling in my gut every time the thought crossed my mind. My own body was telling me I didn't want to know what he was up too. I had my suspicions but I hoped to Arceus they weren't true

In three days I was due in Pallet Town to meet with Professor Oak and learn about his research. Before that, I wanted to stop and see Lillie. She had picked up a side job at a convenience store a month or two ago and I vaguely knew her schedule just from our short conversations over the phone.

She was off tomorrow, if my assumptions were correct, meaning I only had to wait another twenty four hours before I saw my best friend for the first time in two years. The word excitement didn't even explain my feelings over this. I could not wait to see how much stronger she had grown while away, couldn't wait to see the Pokémon she had teamed up with.

I was even excited to see the progress her mother had made in her mental health. I wanted to know who Lusamine really was rather than have this horrid, corrupted image of her stuck in my mind. She clearly had to have some good in her if she had raised two of the most important people in my life.

The day was much more pleasant than the last time I had been out. The sun was high in the sky, dipping behind thick fluffy clouds sporadically. A pleasant breeze fluttered through the expansive meadow I was exploring, creating a smooth rolling wave through the grass and flowers. Kai and Null were leaping through the thick greenery, playfully chasing after each other and ignoring the imposing stares and chatters of the disturbed wild Pokémon underfoot.

One of the disrupted Pokémon charged at me and I quickly side stepped out of the way of the blue spiked beast. It turned as I moved and cried out at me, I released Tsunami to calm the foe before lugging a pokeball towards it. Rotom whizzed up as the ball flashed white, confirming my capture. It was a nidorina, a poison type Pokémon with considerable strength. I welcomed her to the team before recalling Tsunami and quickly catching up with my other two mons.

I decided to return to my father's earlier than I had been throughout my stay with him. The sun was only just starting to set as I opened the door to the house and I was surprised to hear two voices coming from the kitchen. The second voice, the one that did not come from my dad, was obviously a woman's. The way she giggled made my stomach churn and my heart skip a few beats.

Keeping as quiet as possible, I stalked into the kitchen. Only glancing around the corner to see who was over and why. My dad was cooking, a glass of wine in one hand and a skillet in the other. A woman dressed in a tight black dress stood next him, the hand that wasn't holding her own wine resting on my father's back. He turned to face her, planting a kiss on her lips. I slapped my hand over my mouth and slunk back to the living room.

He's having an affair?! I felt sick with hate and disdain for the man. I had thought that, although my father and mother were apart at the moment, they were doing fine. Mom always spoke fondly of him and he called rather frequently... He had always been welcome to visit, he had been invited a countless amount of times but he claimed work was holding him back. Mom... She would not handle this well. I knew she still loved him, she missed him so much and wished he was there with her in Alola almost everyday. This would wreck her poor weak heart, likely set her back with her medical issues. Stress wasn't good for a healing mind and body - that was the whole reason we had moved in the first place. I couldn't tell her... not now while I was away. But I couldn't not tell her either. I couldn't bare to let her go on thinking so highly of a cheating man.

My hands shook with rage and my eyes overflowed with tears as the woman let out another flirty giggle. I couldn't believe that my father would give into such a primitive urge... to be with another woman while the other was away. I'd always thought he was higher minded than that. But then again, who could think negatively of their father they remembered so fondly.

I can't stay here.

I rushed to my room, quickly collecting my things and shoving them into my bag. I left a note on the bed, words scribbled out in lines across the sheet of ripped notebook paper. Not knowing whether to tell him that I knew or to just leave him a goodbye. I settled with "how could you" and ran out the front door, making sure to slam it hard on my way out.

Despite my prior hesitance to ride on the back of Type:Null, the minute I was outside I called it out and hopped on it's back. I leaned into the neck of the strange beast and tried to hide my tears from the many passersby staring at my Pokémon. I told Null to just run, get out of here... I didn't care which way we went or where we ended up... I just needed to get away.

The beast seemed to understand my pain and charged out of the city at top speeds, whizzing past hordes of startled onlookers.

I need to talk to Mom, she needs to know this is happening. No. I need to talk to Lillie. She'll be more steady minded about this, she'll talk me through it. She'll help me figure out what to do.

Once out of the city I redirected Null towards Cerulean, stroking it's feathered neck and muttering my thanks. I momentarily wondered how I had gotten through day to day life without my Pokémon to keep me company and keep me safe. How anyone could manage anything without these nonjudgmental companions. My heart panged with guilt as I thought of old Brutus back at the house. I would probably never see the grey growlithe again, I should have kissed him goodbye.

The air surrounding Cerulean smelt like the river that wrapped around it, fresh and lively. The heavy pounding of Null's mismatched feet came to a stop and I slid off it's back, patting it's side and feeding it a few berries before recalling it to its ball.

The marble of the city streets reflected the brilliantly colored sky. The bright oranges and reds of the sunset danced through my vision as I wandered the neighborhoods next to the downtown shops that Cerulean was well known for. Lillie lived in a small white house with her mother, the front lawn well landscaped with the flowers Lusamine had named her children after. I searched for that house, knowing I would be able to tell which one it was with the minimal description I had received.

I found a house that matched the image I had in my head of Lillie's home. A large window in the front granted me a sneak peek into the building and I could just see a girl with long, icy blonde hair sitting at a computer desk. I grinned, it had to be her. My phone vibrated as I approached the front door, readying myself to knock and possibly explain to foreign faces that I had the wrong house. I checked my phone before doing so - Hau was video calling me, Lillie and Gladion's names on the list of others invited to the chat.

Really? Right now?

I denied the request and knocked at the door, not surprised to see it was Lusamine who answered. She looked at me blankly for a moment and I worried she hadn't heard me when I said hello. Then her face softened. "Ah, you must be one of Lillie's friends."

"Yes I am." I said, relieved to hear the words. "Is she here? I came to surprise her." The smile I pulled across my face was genuine despite the ounce of hesitance and worry resting in my gut.

The clearly changed woman nodded and invited me into the house before turning and calling for her daughter. I awkwardly stood just inside the door for a moment, looking around the rather bare house. There were few decorations and not much furniture beyond the necessities, I had expected Lillie to go crazy over decorating a house... But I suppose it was rather hard too when the main focus was on helping someone regain their mental strength.

Lillie's voice echoed from another room in response to her mother, "What's going on Mom? I'm talking with friends!" So she accepted the video call...

"Someone is here for you!" Lusamine replied with a musical lilt. I followed the older woman into a kitchen that overlooked the room Lillie was in, the girl seated at a computer.

Lillie sighed and stood from the desk, I felt my body lock up in suspense and time seemed to move much slower as I watched her turn to face the kitchen. Her bright green eyes met mine and shock plastered across her ivory face.

A moment later she charged at me, wrapping her arms around me in a tight embrace and yelling, "What are you doing here!"

I laughed and hugged her back just as tight and willingly moved with her as she hopped and spun me around with the hug. "Oh my Arceus, Moon! How did you get to Kanto?!"

She released me from the hug so I could properly reply. "I'm actually here for league stuff, but I thought I'd come and surprise you while I could."

She hopped in place again, her long hair bouncing and falling majestically across her shoulders with the movement. Her hands clasped together as she spoke, "Oh thank you thank you thank you! It's so so so nice to see you again!"

I giggled as she hugged me again. Her mother's voice sounding out over the noise of both our excitement. Both Lillie and I turned to see she was now seated at the computer talking with the two guys waiting for Lillie.

The girl ran over to attempt to pull her mother away and I burst out laughing as I saw Lillie's red cheeks. I stepped into the living room too.

"Oh but Lillie, your brother is on the screen! I want to talk to him!" Lusamine said with a tone similar to that of a grandmother.

"You can talk to him whenever you want, just not right now!" Lillie said, pausing from pulling on her mother's arms so she could rest her fists on her hips in frustration. "It's my turn to talk to him."

I covered my mouth, attempting to drown out the sound of my incessant laughter. Gladion's voice fizzled over the speakers, nearly drowned out by the sound of Hau's loud chuckles. "I can call you later, Mom." He sounded annoyed.

"Oh fine fine. I'll leave you kids too it then." Lusamine said with a dismissive wave as she stood from the desk and wandered off to another room, humming pleasantly under her breath.

I glanced to Lillie as she took the seat again, pouting dramatically at the screen before matching my gaze and waving me over. "Come talk with all of us?" She asked.

This meant I'd have to explain myself to everyone, finally. Explain that I was gone for six months... I didn't mind it, if anything it would be relieving to get it out of the way. Now that Lillie knew I was here there was no reason to not tell the others.

So I did as she asked and we both squeezed into the one computer chair, giggling as we bumped and squirmed against each other awkwardly. When I finally looked up to the computer screen both Hau and Gladion were staring at us with huge round eyes and slack jaws.

"Moon!" Hau yelled out of surprise, "what?!"

Lillie had a huge grin on her face, "She came to visit me!"

"Yeah that was part of it." I said, tilting my head to the side. "I'm technically here for work."

"What?!That's why you're 'off' but 'busy'?" Hau said, accentuating his words with air quotations. His mouth was pressed into a thin line, his annoyance with the situation rather obvious.

"Yeah." I said, dragging the word out as I wathced his face on the screen. "I'm basicaly on vacation, but also expanding my horizons as a champion." I laughed.

Lillie's eyes grew wide, "That's so cool that they let you do that!"

"I thought so too! It is cool!" I passed her a thankful smile.

"So you're just in Kanto?" Hau said, "I'm even more jealous than. I want to see Lillie!" He cried out.

Both Lillie and I laughed, her cheeks turning slightly pink. "Kanto fo rnow, then the rest of the regions with professors afterwards." I said.

"You're going to every region?" Gladion scoffed, his arms crossing over his chest.

"Yeah." I was starting to feel awkward having all this attention on me, but it was necessary.

"Damn." Gladion muttered, his eyebrows rising high across his forehead.

"So when will you be back then!?" Hau called. "I wanted to go get pizza on Ula'Ula with you and Glad-boy sometimes soon." He pouted.

I watched Gladion's green eyes roll at the strange sounding way Hau said his name and I let out a nervous laugh, "well here's the crazy part... I'm spending a month in each region."

Both the guys fell silent and I felt my own mouth press out into a thin line, though it was of guilt rather than annoyance. Lillie bounced next to me, making the overcrowded chair rock with her movements.

"You get a half a year off!" She nearly yelled, the smile on her face was relieving to see. But of course she wouldn't be impacted by me being away from Alola for so long since she never saw me to begin with. It was the other two I was worried about upsetting. "That's so exciting!"

"You're gone for s-six months?" Gladion stuttered and I nodded sadly.

"How dare you." Hau grunted.

The conversation eventually moved on once Lillie explained that a trip like this was a once in a lifetime chance and it would have been wasteful to not go. After that was mostly settled we started discussing Lusamine's mental health progress.

She was no longer polluted by the ultra beast's toxins, so her sanity was back in place. They had used the famous researchist Bill's work to fix that situation and it was nice to hear that the whole ordeal was over. Lusamine was still a little lost on her place in life and didn't seem to remember anything beyond her children's faces and names. She needed constant supervision to assure she didn't accidentally harm herself and Lillie was feeling more like a nanny than a daughter. She didn't much mind though, she cared very deeply for her and wanted to get her back to her old self.

I couldn't help but notice that Gladion had basically dropped out of the conversation after remarking about me being gone for six months. Hau had become slightly less energetic and more sullen after finding out, but still acted relatively normal. I found it surprising that Gladion would be the most upset about it. I was so surprised that I refused to believe that was the actual reason he had grown so quiet. He had to have been distracted by something.

We were all on the call for an hour or so before Hau had to sign off to help Hala with getting the tauros penned in for the night. After he had left, Lillie asked Gladion if he really planned on calling their mother soon, to which he denied.

"Well then why did you say you would?" Lillie complained, huffing at him.

I sat there awkwardly, twirling a lock of hair around a finger. I didn't really want to sit and listen to them bicker about their mom, they'd done it enough times for Hau and me to realize that it was a growing issue. Considering the stuff I planned on telling Lillie about after this, though, it was only fair for me to listen to her familial issues as well.

Gladion shrugged, "To get her to leave."

"That's not nice." Lillie protested.

He sighed reclining backwards in the chair he sat in and looking away from the screen, "she won't remember anyway, Lill."

That set Lillie off and she stood from the seat, nearly knocking me over with the force. The tips of her ears were red. "Well maybe if you actually did call her, or talk to her in general, she would remember things better!" She fumed.

"You're the one who wanted to send her away in the first place, Lillie." He snapped back.

She groaned and stepped away from the computer desk, leaving the room. I watched her figure recede down a hallway as she told me to hang up and that she'd be back momentarily.

I looked back to the computer screen to see Gladion rubbing tiredly at his face, his hands dropping away after a moment and his eyes locking on mine. "Sorry." He apologized.

"It's fine." I mumbled.

He sighed frustratedly, "tell her I'm sorry too. There's no use in letting this petty argument get out of hand."

"Well you probably should talk to your mom..." I said without really thinking, then sputtering out quickly. "Not to take sides on this or anything it's just..."

"No your right." He grumbled, "I do plan on talking to her eventually, I just don't feel like speaking with the equivalent of a ninety year old woman for hours."

"I don't blame you for that." I said with a short laugh.

He simply nodded in response.

"I should go, there's some things I need to talk to Lillie about." I glanced down the hallway to see she was heading back towards the living room once again. She seemed to have calmed down a bit, her face was no longer enflamed in annoyance.

"Alright, enjoy your trip, Moon." He muttered, his voice oddly flat, before cutting the call short himself.

I closed everything off the computer before setting it to go to sleep. Lillie walked into the room and flopped onto the couch and I quickly told her that he had apologized. She brushed it off, claiming he always did but never actually attempted to solve the issue.

Moving to sit on the couch next to her, I readied myself to explain everything that had happened in the last few hours before I arrived at her house. The ball of nervous energy in my stomach tightening and expanding as my mind drifted back into thoughts of my parents. "Lillie, something crazy happened tonight and I really need to talk to you about it. I need your help."

Note...cont: So I guess I'll have to rearrange my chapters because this hella long and I still have a couple more pages left of chapter two! Haha.

#gladion x moon #fanfic #lonashipping #gladion fanfic #pokemon #romance #adventure #Hau x Lillie #through the storm #through the storm chapter two

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poptarts-and-rainbows · 7 years

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It’s been 96 hours.

Personal story/venting time. I’m trying to get sober.

I don’t have any friends where I’m located- which is my own fault, I have a tendency to isolate myself while I warm up to new environments enough to feel comfortable talking to people (and I’m moving again in a couple months, so I honestly don’t really even see the point in going through the effort of getting to know people and learning to care about them, just to leave and have to say goodbye and hurt again in March).

Plus, I’ve been spiraling for a bit, so the couple of long-distance friends that I *can* talk to about things are probably starting to get sick of my drama. The last few weeks have been especially difficult and they’ve had to help me a lot. Not to mention, the one is on vacation in Vegas right now and the other is hanging out with her boyfriend tonight, and I don’t want to bother her.

So… here I am, screaming into the void of Tumblr again.

I’ll keep all other details under the cut because it’s kind of a lot, and most people won’t care or want to see this all over their dash.

Anyway. I’ve had a problem with drinking for… close to the last 9 (ish) years. The first couple of years weren’t actually problematic levels, but that’s when I first learned I love the burn of alcohol. Especially vodka. Before I could purchase my own supply I didn’t really drink all of that often- it was just hard to get my hands on and I hadn’t learned how to function during a hangover yet, so one good binge could keep me tied over for a while, back before I finally turned 21.

Then, as it goes, things got progressively worse. I developed a severe problem quite rapidly. Honestly… it started almost immediately. I guess it was always just waiting.

The weekend of my 21st birthday, the very first time I legally went to a bar, I nearly died- Trexx. I didn’t know it at the time, but my friends were trying to get me to come out, so they took me to the best gay bar in all of Syracuse. Plus, Thursday nights? College night. Buy one get one free, all night, and the best Drag Show I’ve ever seen (I’ve been to a few since then- in different States and in other countries).

My birthday was on a Monday that year. That night I went out to a restaurant and my friend bought me a beer with dinner- but liquor has always been my vice (although I did foray into the world of wine for a while, as it is more socially acceptable to be a wino than drink a bottle of vodka alone), so I sipped politely on my glass of Blue Moon and just bid my time until Thursday.

When Thursday finally came, not only did I throw back 18 drinks in about four hours, my dumb drunk-ass barricaded myself in the bathroom stall (of which there were only two) to throw up, and then drifted in/out of consciousness for several minutes. With there only being two stalls, people noticed- and it was actually one of the Drag Queens got me out.

I couldn’t even see clearly when I opened my eyes, but I recognized her green wig. I’d spoken to her earlier in the night, one of my friends was a “Townie” (born and raised in Syracuse, but also going to the school) and knew her, and she’d bought me a drink in celebration of my big day, and gave me the chip for the second free drink too. When she helped pull me to my feet, she called me sweetie and asked if I was ok. I brushed the concern off with an easy smile and told her I would go look for my friends- she let me go.

When I went into the main room, the bouncer did not. I guess I was obviously out of it. I was probably stumbling and about to pass out, or puke right there on the floor. I still couldn’t see anything, but I still remember hearing him say “this one is done” and feeling him grab my shoulders. The next thing I knew, I was outside on my hands and knees in the snow. I wanted to just lay down, but I kept thinking “I’m right in front of the door. If I stay here, I’ll be in the way and people will step on me.”

So I got up, wearing nothing but flats, skinny jeans, and a t-shirt, in the middle of winter in Upstate New York, and stumbled down the road. I found a stoop about a block away and sat down. I threw up over the guard rail and stayed there until the bar was closing, about two hours later. People had passed by pretty consistently, a few had asked if I was ok- but, because I couldn’t talk, I would just hold up my thumb and they would keep moving. One group, at closing time, stopped and asked if I want to Syracuse University- I nodded, they said they would take me back to campus, and I reluctantly agreed. I couldn’t stop shivering. Then one of the girls in the group recognized me, I had pink streaks in my hair at the time and we’d also met earlier that night through my Townie friend, so she went back inside to get my friends who had been freaking out for hours. I made it home fine, but I missed all of my classes the next day and threw up until Monday.

That was just the beginning. My first real introduction ended in disaster, but it didn’t stop me.

I was recovered by the next weekend and did it again. Then again… and again. I learned not to wander off, but I always drank hard and fast. I didn’t even make it to my 22nd birthday before I had friends telling me they were worried. That summer, my mom gave me a book about drinking too much (”Smashed”). The author actually also went to Syracuse. I skimmed it with mild interest, but she started drinking when was 14. I was an adult. What I did was legal, and nothing really bad had ever really happened. I was fine.

The next semester began and I got better at hiding it. I bought bottles and drank, secretly, in my room when I was supposed to be studying- it was cheaper than going out anyways, and nobody else had to know. When my friends and I did go out, I would split off “to meet another group” after so I could go get obliterated at the bar closest to my apartment, without worrying anybody. It was college, anyways. Land of keg stands and unlimited beer pong. Everyone did it, I was fine.

Right before my 23rd birthday, I joined the Army. During the first 8 weeks (Basic Training), there was no alcohol. Hell, we were excited when we were allowed to have chocolate milk! Through that time, I didn’t miss drinking- but, it was mostly because they literally worked us to exhaustion every single day. There was no time to miss it.

After Basic, we left to our Advanced Individual Training locations (technical training), but we still lived under a lot of rules. We could earn different privileges/freedoms, but we still technically weren’t supposed to drink, but it didn’t take long for the people who earned the right to leave base early in our training cycle to start coming back to us with stories of bars, parties, and getting wasted.

By that time, I was close to 3 months sober- and I hadn’t even had to try! I didn’t crave it right away, but they reminded me it existed. I didn’t earn my off-post privileges for a while, so I had one of my friends smuggle me back a bottle of vodka in a jug of orange juice as soon as I could- and, oh god, the first familiar burn of that liquor… it felt like going home. Getting my friends who were allowed off base to bring me back alcohol was harder than getting older students to buy it for me when I was a Freshman, though, so I was still fine.

Once we graduated and all joined the “Real” Army, however, those restrictions were gone. When I was off duty, nobody cared what I did (drinking-wise), as long as I was back by morning and able to do my job.

In the beginning, I was still new to the Army. I was still scared of everyone, this whole new world I lived it, and I desperately wanted to make a good impression. So I only drank on the weekends, Friday and Saturday nights, like a sensible person.

Did I still drink excessively those two nights a week, loosing track of how many shots I had after eight or nine? Did I eventually start finishing a whole bottle of vodka in a single weekend, alone? Yeah… and then that bottle became one and a half. Then I started to chase my hard liquor with wine coolers. Eventually, two nights weren’t enough. I started throwing Wednesday night in to the mix, too- it was middle of the week, after all! It was just to get my through to the weekend. Then it was any night I knew I didn’t have to run the next morning, because running while you’re hung over really sucks (and when you sweat it smells like straight liquor, and other people know). Then I stopped even caring about that.

There were months, on and off, that weren’t so bad, of course. I either just, naturally, didn’t feel like drinking during those times, or our training schedule was just too intensive. When things got bad, my roommate and some of my closer friends would periodically express concern, so I would back off. I wouldn’t drink for a few nights in a row, keep it on the down low during the week, sip on more water between shots during the next couple of weekends, and learn to throw up quieter in the bathroom- until people stopped looking so closely again, because people only see what they want to see. Then the cycle would start over.

It’s the Army, though. Just like college- most of us drink, and more than we should. It’s part of the culture! It’s what is expect from us and among us. With the company I kept… occasionally there was concern, yes, but most of them weren’t much better off than me. I was still fine.

Until I wasn’t.

Last year happened- and… I’d lost my best friend (tag: “Dear A”). I couldn’t sleep. I could barely function. I hid in the bathroom and cried at work. I had headaches all of the time experienced the second most severe depressive episode of my life. I didn’t know what to do, I was alone in the beginning there too, so I turned to alcohol- the solace that was always there for me, that was never too busy, or left, the thing that could make me forget how much everything hurt- and things started to get out of control, more so than ever before.

At first it was excused, laughed off- the military drinks. In Korea we drink more. I was expected to be sloppy at first, but I never found my groove. I started ignoring my limits. I put myself in dangerous situations, and things did happen there. I blacked out more often than not. Sometimes I couldn’t even find my room. I would fall, get hurt, and not remember how it happened. I even chipped my front tooth. I spent more than one morning puking at work, for hours. My supervisor had to peel me off my floor and roll me onto my side on more than one occasion. I was sent to the hospital three times. Eventually, I was given an ultimatum- get my shit together, or be forced to see professionals. I got my shit together. For a while.

My last couple of weeks in Korea passed without any incident anyone else knew about. I still drank, but it was like before, when I could manage it and keep it to myself. I did it quietly, and nobody knew the difference.

I got to Kentucky in the beginning of June- it’s been full two months, and in those two months months, I have literally spent more days drunk than I have spent sober. Not a drink or two after work, not pleasantly buzzed, but drunk. It’s been mostly harmless, I don’t leave my room. I’ve cried a bit, slept on my kitchen floor a couple of times, and have had to make a few phone calls to be talked off the ledge on a few separate nights, but mostly… I still thought I was fine.

Then drinking every day, it became- “hey, I woke up still drunk this morning, I’m going to have one shot- just one- before work.” Then that shot had to be a double instead, of course, because what’s one shot really going to do for me? I drove to work, without incident (“this actually isn’t that hard”), drove back home for lunch. Three more shots, no food. Go back to work. Pick up a new bottle when I was on my way home at the end of the day. Drink until I pass out. Repeat.

Last Friday, while blacked out, I apparently stumbled my way out of my room and towards the parking lot- some people who work in the same office building as me saw and asked what I was doing. According to them, I said I was going to get my cigarettes from my car- but because I could barely stand up straight, they sat me down and gave me some of theirs instead, and then made sure I got back to my room safe. The thing is, I didn’t have any cigarettes in my car. I had run out Thursday night, and knew that before I started drinking. Which meant, I had planned on driving.

Either this stops, I do better, or something I can’t take back is going to happen, and it’s going to happen soon. I can feel it. Most alcoholics don’t change until they hit rock bottom, I was reading the A.A. site, and I’ve gotten a few books, and that’s what they all say. Alcoholics refuse to admit they have a problem until there is overwhelming evidence that proves differently. They argue they’re fine, that they can do better, that it isn’t really that bad… all things I tell myself too. I don’t want to have to fall that far. I don’t want to mess up my life forever, or end somebody else’s. I don’t want to crash and burn any more than I already have. So far I’ve been lucky. I’ve been given passes I shouldn’t have been, and more time than I deserved to do the right thing.

I’m Irish and Native American. I was practically bred to be an alcoholic. My father is one, he doesn’t have his license anymore because of it. His father was too, and that contributed to his death. I didn’t grow up close to either of them, but their blood is my blood. I grew up with my mother and step-father, though, and he is also an alcoholic. A violent and mean one, and he helped raised me since I was four. Genetic pre-disposition. Turbulent childhood household. Emotional abandonment. Issues with depression and self-worth. I’m text book.

At exactly 12:00am on 1 August 2017, I dumped the last of my vodka down the drain. I have now been dry for almost 96 hours, for 4 days. It’s the longest I’ve been sober in the last 2 months, and I am craving it bad. I miss it. The first day, my stomach and head hurt (long after a hangover would typically start), I broke out in sweat, and I couldn’t figure out why. Then I ended up having to pull a 24 hour shift. I slept for 4 hours the morning after, and then was too wound up to sleep at all that night. I’ve managed about 3.5 solid hours a night, since then. I’ve been agitated since I first woke up on the 1st, especially today, I almost threw my phone across the room earlier because I kept hitting the wrong button and it wasn’t doing what I wanted it to do. I had to put it away and take my third shower today, just calm down. I can’t focus. I can’t sit still, my leg is always bouncing, my foot kicking, or fingers tapping. I feel empty and sad. Now, I’m not only lonely for people, I’m lonely for my alcohol too. The holes I’ve always had are still gaping, but now there’s no vodka to fill them.

The thing is… I’ve tried to quit before. I pretend I haven’t. I was once even asked if I had every tried to stop, and I said no. I looked back at all those times and told myself “Well, I wasn’t being serious then. I was just doing it to see how long I could go. There was no actual reason to quit. I only needed a break for a couple weeks. I never said I was going to stop forever.” and I always swore “I’ll do better now. My tolerance is back down a little bit, so I’ll control it better. I’ll just have a few, one or two nights a week.”

I never did, though. Maybe a few weeks would pass where I could drink in moderation, but then I would have a particularly bad Tuesday, or something, and drink an extra night- and, eventually, two shots became three, and then three would stop feeling like three, because my tolerance would come back, and three would become four- and after four, I stop caring that I set a limitation for myself.

Honestly, I don’t think I’m the sort of person who can drink in moderation, and that scares me. I want to be the type of person who can just throw back a couple and still have a good night, maybe have just a glass of wine to relax, but I don’t think I’ll be able to do that- if I want to get this under control, I know, rationally, I will have to stop forever. I’m going to have to give up my one constant and reliable comfort. Usually I only make it a few days, usually five, because then the weekend has come again. Sometimes I can resist during the week, but once the weekend comes, and I don’t have work to distract me… it becomes almost impossible. Outside of training, when I literally did not have physical access to alcohol, only one time have I made it to 10.

Today is Day 4. Today is Friday, the night I have consistently been drunk since I’ve come to Kentucky. The cravings are bad. There’s a liquor store about 5 minutes down the road, but I’m laying here and typing this instead. The top of my foot has been knocking against my bed’s headboad for the last hour, and I can feel a bruise forming. I want to say “just one last night of letting go, and I’ll do better after” but I know I won’t.

I know I need to stop, but I don’t want to. There’s a voice in the back of my head that is screaming it’s ok if it kills me, if I drink until I can’t see and end up crashing my car into a tree, or downing a bottle of pills because I just don’t care anymore- but that’s wrong. I know it’s wrong, so I’m trying to stop. I’m pulling at my hair and pacing my room just to get through this, even though I don’t really want to. Drinking might kill me, but this feels like it will. I need to do this, but I feel like I need to do everything myself, or it doesn’t really count as having done it- and I don’t know if I can handle this one.

#terryn talks #personal #story time #tw alcohol #tw alcoholism #tw: alcohol #tw: alcoholsim #alcoholic #tw: alcoholic #alcohol abuse #alcohol recovery #i'm attempting to get sober #i'm sorry #i'm losing my mind #i don't have anyone to talk to #rambling #if anybody would like to offer advice #i'm totally here for it #sobriety

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corneliussteinbeck · 7 years

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GGS Spotlight: Chrissy King

Name: Chrissy King Age: 31 Location: Waukesha, WI

What does being a Girl Gone Strong mean to you? To me, being a Girl Gone Strong means being unapologetically authentic and choosing to live life on my own terms. It means embracing my body, realizing my strength and badass-ness, and refusing to allow others to make me feel like I’m not enough — because I am enough. It’s about realizing my strength in the gym and in all areas of my life. It’s about realizing that I’m in control of my destiny.

How long have you been strength training, and how did you get started? I have been strength training for roughly five years. I got started when I joined a gym because I wanted to lose weight. I legit just wanted to be “skinny.” However, I hired a personal trainer who introduced me to strength training and through a series of events, I was introduced to powerlifting. It was love at first lift! This also paved the way for me to stop focusing on being a smaller version of myself and instead focus on gaining and developing strength and appreciating all that my body is capable of.

What does your typical workout look like? A typical workout is usually focused around one of the big three: bench, squat, and deadlift. I add in some accessory work around that. I also throw in a couple of metabolic conditioning workouts each week as well. I have a sick obsession with training glutes, so there’s usually some of that thrown in on most of my training days.

Favorite Lift: Deadlifts. I’m also very partial to squats.

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Most memorable PR: My most memorable PR was at a USAPL meet I did a couple of years ago. It had been my goal to pull 405 pounds for a while. I had never attempted it before, but I knew that I was so close, and I knew I could do it. I was feeling so strong and empowered and went for 407 for my final attempt.

I approached the bar with confidence and it came up with more ease than I expected. It was amazing! I literally jump into my coach’s arms. It was a magical moment.

Top 5 songs on your training playlist: I don’t have five particular songs but here are my favorite artists to jam out to when I’m training:

Anything Drake

Beyonce

Bruno Mars

Chance the Rapper

Rhianna

Top 3 things you must have with you at the gym or in your gym bag: Belt, Olympic lifting shoes, and headphones.

Do you prefer to train alone or with others? Why? I generally train alone, but the gym where I train is a small strength and conditioning gym so when I show up at 5 am to train, there are usually only like five or six of us there. I’m doing my own thing and working with my coach, but we are all interacting with each other. It’s like a little family, and I like it that way.

Every once in a while, I really enjoy going to the gym when it’s closed and training 100 percent by myself. The silence and serenity mixed with lifting weights makes me feel super at peace. It’s a time for me to train, reflect, and enjoy the quiet.

Most embarrassing gym moment: My most embarrassing gym moment is when I was going for a PR on my deadlift, and I peed all over the floor in front of everyone. That had legit never happened to me before, and I was super embarrassed. Ironically, I didn’t stop pulling, and I got the lift.

Best or most memorable compliment you’ve received lately: Someone recently told me that my twist out was bomb (in relation to my hair). My hair and I have an interesting relationship, and we are finally learning to get along, so that was a super dope compliment to receive.

A compliment you gave someone else: I recently told one my clients that her dedication and tenacity inspires me and helps me appreciate what I do even more.

Favorite meal: Pizza

Favorite way to treat yourself: My favorite way to treat myself is to read a good book or take a nap. I have a busy schedule and naps give me life. Also, I rarely watch TV, so everyone once in a blue moon, I’ll spend two or three hours binge watching something that I’m about 12 seasons behind!

Favorite quote: “There is freedom waiting for you, on the breezes of the sky. And you ask “What if I fall?” Oh but my darling, what if you fly?” -Erin Hanson

Favorite book: Too many to choose an absolute favorite, but recent favs are The Compound Effect, You Are A BadAss, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, and I’m Judging You.

What inspires and motivates you? So many things inspire and motivate me. I love to see people overcoming obstacles, owning their power, deciding to live their best lives, and talking about sh*t that matters.

What do you do? During the day, I work for the federal government in a management role. Basically, I spend way too much time in front of the computer. At nights and on the weekends, I’m an online health and fitness coach helping women develop strength and confidence and create stress-free and sustainable lifestyles.

What else do you do? When I’m not working, I really enjoy reading a good book, writing, and hanging out with my family and friends. Traveling is my absolute favorite, and I look forward to doing more of that over the next year.

Describe a typical day in your life: I wake up at 4:15 each day and hit the gym by 5 a.m. I usually train until 6:30 and get to work by 8. I’m usually leaving work by 5 p.m., and then I’m back to the gym to train a few clients, work with my online clients and my monthly coaching group, create new content, and respond to emails and social media.

I usually try wrap up and settle for the night by 10 p.m. Oh yeah, somewhere in there I eat some dinner and talk to my hubby, too.

Your next training goal: I’ve got my eye on a 500-pound deadlift.

What are you most grateful for? I’m most grateful for the opportunity to spend my time doing the things I love and to have the support of those around me. I’m grateful that I have the opportunity to create the life I want; the kind I never need to get away from.

What life accomplishment are you most proud of? The life accomplishments I’m most proud of are graduating from college and my professional career development. Neither of my parents (nor my grandparents) attended college, so it was very important for my parents that their kids pursue a higher education. This may seem insignificant to some people, but for our family it was major.

Which three words that best describe you? Driven, Optimistic, and AlphaAF

What’s a risk you’ve taken recently, and how did it turn out? A risk I’ve taken over the last year is starting an online fitness business and writing more. It was super uncomfortable for me to put myself out there and put my art in the world, but I knew that in order to grow I had to be okay being uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable is part of the process.

The best cure to fear is to just take action, and I still remind myself of that every day. It’s pretty much the coolest thing I’ve ever done.

What’s the coolest “side effect” you’ve noticed from strength training? Well, before I started strength training it was the running joke in my family that I was the weakest person they had ever met. I literally couldn’t carry a case of water. Now, it’s super cool to never even have to wonder if something is too heavy.

Secondly, when I was on vacation in the Dominican Republic last year, two separate people asked me if played tennis like Serena Williams. I take this to mean that they thought I was very muscular and athletic looking, and took it as a huge compliment. Me? An athlete? Why, thank you very much!

How has lifting weights changed your life? Strength training changed my life because it allowed me to be comfortable in my own skin. I finally stopped caring about being smaller and focused on how cool it was to see myself getting stronger. Lifting gave me a new appreciation for my body and all that it’s capable of. I my changed my focus to being strong and fit for life.

It also helped me realize that I’m stronger than I thought and more capable than I thought. This transferred over into every area of my life and gave me confidence to do new things and stop doubting myself.

Most importantly, it taught me to stop attaching my self-worth to my body fat percentage or the number on the scale. I developed the ability to love my body through every part of the journey instead of just relegating to love my body when I was finally “skinny.”

What do you want to say to other women who might be nervous or hesitant about strength training? I want to encourage women to just start. That was the hardest part for me. I think it can be intimidating if you are new to strength training — especially if you are watching other women who you view as incredibly strong. I encourage women to find their tribe; a group of women who support and encourage each other.

It’s important to remember that everyone starts as a beginner. I distinctly remember my first personal training session. I couldn’t do a single push up. I never thought I could be strong. But years later, here I am. I’m stronger physically, mentally, and emotionally, and it all started with strength training.

Feeling inspired?

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