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reiderwriter · 8 months

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Baby, If You Only Knew

Pairing: Spencer Reid x female Reader

Part Two of this fic, inspired by Taylor Swift's I Can See You

Summary: On the edge of a break, you and Spencer find ways to claim each other that get everyone's attention.

Warnings: Day 17 of Kinktober - make-up sex, possessive Spencer, marking, biting, love bites/ hickeys, penetrative sex, creampie, breeding kink.

A/N: Day 17 is finally here! I once again wrote this on my phone, but at least it was my nice, new, functioning phone. I hope you like it!

Sneaking back out of the closet wasn't easy when you were so pissed at Spencer. He wasn't able to control his impulses, and now it was your problem. So yes, it was hard to storm out of a closet in the middle of an argument without drawing the attention of all your team members.

They each sent you strange looks as you walked back to your temporary desk and finished up your work, not talking to anyone until the days work had ended and you could escape back to your motel room for some much needed peace.

Spencer didn't feel so strongly about your need to be alone. Catching a hand around the door before you shut it, he let himself in and closed it behind himself as you hugged and threw your bags down.

"I don't want to fight again, Spencer, I'm tired."

"Then don't fight, but you need to listen."

"Oh, do I? Couldn't imagine what else I'll be able to do in my room when you pushed your way in here."

"Don't be unreasonable." He said wrapping a hand around your waist and pulling you up into him once again.

"You know, for someone whose such a stickler for our no public dating rule, you sure have been risky today. Pushing me into that closet, following me into my private room." Your words were angry, but they were softened by the feeling of him against you.

"I told you, if they were good at their jobs they'd have realised how I feel about you by now."

"Sometimes people need words, Spencer to make things very clear," his head fell to your neck then, inhaling your scent before pressing his lips lightly against your skin.

"What people would that be? You? Detective Dreamy?" He pressed another kiss to your skin, distracting you momentarily. Your next words came out in a stutter, and you almost cursed how weak you were being now.

"That's not fair and you know it."

"Let's test that theory, shall we?" He bit down on your neck then, lifting your legs and wrapping them around his centre as he began rubbing up against your core, head not lifting from the spot on your neck he'd evidently taken a liking to.

"Spencer, fuck.." Your moans were breathy, held back by your anger and the knowledge that you were surrounded on both sides by FBI agents trying to get some sleep.

"So pretty for me, just a little longer, I swear." You had no clue what he was talking about, and you weren't sure you cared, letting him suck and kiss and lick in anyway he wanted, just as long as he didn't stop. You could feel his dick in his pants, could feel it poking up against you as his hips shifted up and down, trying to give the both of you some release.

He pulled away sharply after a few minutes, grinning boastfully at the blooming mark on your neck.

"There," he said, wiping his lips carefully, setting you back down. "Is that enough of a public announcement for you?" You clapped a hand over your neck and ran to the bathroom to check your suspicions.

Sure enough, there was a ferocious red mark that you were sure would swiftly discolour to purple.

"Get out. Now, Spencer." He didn't stick around for long after that, evidently just as angry as you, but wearing that stupid smug look on his face still. He left you alone in your room and you wanted to scream and cry and make him come back and finish.

You climbed into bed and let sleep take you.

The next morning, you searched long and hard for an item of clothing that would cover his territorial marking. But your go bag had limited items in it, a fact that he'd known and exploited, placing the mark just high enough to poke over all the tops you out on.

If he was going to play petty, you would, too. Pulling out your lowest cut top, you wrapped your hair up into a bun and decided to forego makeup entirely. He wanted the world to see what he'd done, and you were going to let them.

Just as you'd suspected, Spencer's plan didn't work as he'd hoped. Instead of the team settling quietly and connecting the dots between the two of you quietly, they were almost more curious about what had happened.

"Wooo, mama, getting up too close and personal with the locals are we? Good for you." Morgan had cheered at you S soon as you'd walked into the precinct that morning.

You had similar, careful questions from JJ and Hotchner as well, and Emily had slapped you on the back and laughed maniacally as she asked you if you'd had a good lay. The best part was Spencer got to watch all of it happen, he got to watch himself get proved wrong right in front of his eyes and his stupid ego wouldn't let him say a word either way.

You gave him a wink as you sat next to him, ready to continue reading up on files that'd help you nail the criminal. You had a suspect, now you just needed irrefutable evidence and possibly a confession to be able to return home.

Your local admirer had followed you into the room, however, and you weren't expecting to have such a direct confrontation with the man who'd until this point had been nothing but polite.

"You know, if you weren't interested, you could've said so in a less slutty way. Now you're parading around this precinct like a cheap whore. Not a good look." He said it so nonchalantly, you didn't even realise he was talking to you at first, only really tuning in when Spencer stiffened up beside you.

"Excuse me?" You blinked at him again, wondering if you'd truly misheard him.

"You heard what I said, you look like a who-"

"Finish your sentence and I promise you, I'll have your badge, gun and pension by the end of the day." Spencer growled the words from your side, forcing the man to meet his eyes.

"Come on, you're a smart man, Doctor Reid, surely you know what a little slut she's being, trying to play hard to get." You have to grab Spencer by the arm to stop him from reaching over the table and hitting the man. He responds by pulling you into his chest, effectively lifting you from your chair into his lap.

"My girlfriend is not a whore just because she doesn't want your tiny dick. I'd say that actually makes her quite sensible." Your heart thumps at the confrontation, but choking on the tense atmosphere in the room, you're unable to say anything until Emily bursts into the room, breaking whatever spell had trapped you there in that pissing match.

"Y/N– oh. We, uh, we need you in interrogation." Spencer grabbed your hips and stood you up, but he didn't let his hands leave you as he held his angry gaze with the detective. Spinning you around he bought your lips down to his, smothering you for a good minute before releasing you to Emily. You stumbled slightly, but made your way over, silently reeling at your boyfriends actions.

It was possessive, and shitty, and territorial, and so goddammit funking arousing. The growl in his voice had sent a spark through you that made you want to press your legs together until it stopped. So when the time comes for you to clock off that night, suspect safely behind bars, you practically skip all the way to your motel room.

Once again, you found yourself with an alien object in the door, blocking you from closing it completely. This time, it was Spencer's satchel.

"You trying to shut me out again?" He asks, a small smile grazing his lips.

"That depends, are you going to make me mount you in the office again tomorrow?"

"I was thinking the jet, actually. Join the club, you know?" He dropped his bags by the door and pulled you in for a kiss, letting you moan softly against his skin.

"I'm sorry," he said, pulling away and walking you back to the bed until it hit the backs of your legs and you let them buckle beneath you. "He wouldn't have talked to you like that if I hadn't marker you up like that."

His words were an apology, but the fire in his eyes said he didn't really regret a thing. In fact, you were sure that'd he'd do it all again in an instant, but this time he wouldn't stop short on the violence.

"No, you're not."

"No, I'm not. He shouldn't have talked to you, but I did enjoy watching him realise whose good little whore you are." You gasp at the words as he pushes you down fully on the bed, lips meeting yours again in a furious clash.

"Fuck, Spencer," You gasped, as he ripped apart the tights you were wearing, desperate for access to your body.

"I enjoyed it so much, I think I'm going to do it again. That's what you want, right baby?" He kissed his way down your neck while spreading your neck. It was more gentle than the previous night, more tender, but you knew you'd be waking up just as sore, so what did that matter now.

Nails digging into your skin as he pushed the tights away from your core, you gasped at the contact, opening your chest and neck up further for him as you reacted to the sensations plaguing your body.

You moved your hands up to unbutton his shirt, certain that anything he was going to do you were going to repay tenfold. Undressing became a war between the two of you as you rolled around, mouths still connected, desperate to see each other completely undone first.

Spencer had the advantage of not caring about how much of a wreck your clothes were, and in almost an instant, you were bare to him.

He kissed up and down your neck, over your breasts and down your stomach, leaving a trail of happy red marks to match his previous artwork. Installing each one took time, but you willingly gave him the freedom to bite, suck and sooth your skin, knowing you'd be on display for him for the rest of your life. He was still trapped inside his boxers, cock sufficiently hard and distracting against your core. When he finally pulled away to admire his work, you took the opportunity to push up, rolling the two of you over so you could grind into his large member as you gave reciprocated his kisses.

He stoked a soothing hand down your back as you writhed on top of him, leaving a trail of small love bites from collar bone to collar bone, pressing a few higher just so you knew they'd be seen in the morning.

"That's it baby, you belong to me. Let's show everyone." When he decided you'd done enough, he flipped your position again, finally letting his cock free and shoving it into you with little warning, leaving you crying out his name as you finally received what you'd been begging for.

"Yes, Spencer, right there, right fucking there." Your voice was loud, desperate and raspy, like you wanted to hear what a desperate slut you were. He reciprocated in kind, playing into the pleasure of the moment.

"Oh you like that? You like my cock inside of you? Tell me who that pussy belongs to."

"Spencer! It belongs to you, it belongs to Spencer." His fingers fell to his clit as he pulled his dick out of you for a second. Flipping you over onto all fours, he thrust in again, picking up a rougher pace as you listened to the creak of the bed, the wet slap of his balls against your ass.

"That's right, my little slut, Y/N. My little slutty girlfriend." His arms wrapped around your torso as he began thrusting like a dog in heat, using your warm wet holes to get off, as a place to dump his load.

"Gonna fill your fucking pushy so everyone knows who you belong to. Gonna knock you up and keep you filled so you remember, too." He pulled your head up by your hair as he said the words, and in an instant you were Cummings on his cock, screaming his name as he somehow found the energy to increase his speed.

The hand in your hair was the only thing keeping you from collapsing into the bed, your face covered in the tangle of hair and the drool dropping from your open mouth.

"Did you hear me, Y/N? I'm gonna breed you. You want that?" You loudly moaned another barely coherent 'yes' and then you were away in the clouds, letting your eyes roll back in your head as the first rope of cum shot into you.

He kept his hips flush with yours as he released into you, loving the feeling of your walls milking him for all he's got. He didn't pull out until he was certain that not a drop would fall out.

He make a start to move towards the bathroom when the room phone rang, practically jumping off it's receiver. Picking yp the phone, Spencer greeted the reception clerk, knowing you were still such a panting mess, you'd never be able to carry out such a mundane conversation.

But mundane it was not as you watched your boyfriend flush in front of your eyes.

"We got a noise complaint." He told you shyly, and you greeted him with a fit of giggles, breaking into crying laughter after about 10 seconds of looking at his bewildered face.

"Where from?"

"Room 127. It's the one on this side." He said gesturing to the left. That only set you off into more laughter, frustrating him ever so slightly.

"What? What's so funny?"

"Spencer, that's Morgan's room. I guess if he didn't know from his brilliant profiling skills before he will now."

#spencer reid #criminal minds #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid smut #mgg #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fandom #spencer reid x self insert #spencer reid x reader smut #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x oc #spencer reid kinktober #criminal minds kinktober #kinktober 23 #Spotify

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magicpotatothoughts · 1 year

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SVSSS | The absolute GENIUS meanings behind the name Shen Yuan 沈垣

Ok so most of us already know the meaning of SY 'cause it's in the appendix of the official translation books but I was today years old when I realised just how much meaning MXTX embedded into this name. *spoilers ahead*

Level 1 Meta

Official translation of the word Yuan垣 means wall. But not just any wall, a wall that surrounds something else. It would be specifically used to describe city wall 城垣 or garden fence 花垣 would use this character. This is incredibly fitting for Shen Yuan because his whole story arc is his battle between his logical conscience for survival and his compassionate gut instinct to protect LBH, in other words, to surround and to shield LBH from harm. But this wall of protection functioned against Bingqiu psychologically because SY kept on making decisions without talking to LBH and decided a lot of things on his own. SVSSS is a novel about achieving that balance, to allow both partners to take agency and face life side by side.

Level 2 Meta

Normally, surnames don't have any meaning. Shen沈 is largely used as a name for things/people buttttttt it can also mean liquid or to pour. Guess what, Luo Binghe 洛冰河 means Luo frozen river. So it could be interpreted that Shen Yuan's entire job in the novel is to make LBH achieve his final crybaby form by getting the frozen river Luo to melt, to "pour".

Also, SY made himself melt as well in a way, his internalized homophobia potential toxic masculinity as well as his need to maintain a cool composure were also things he needed to overcome. We finally see him cry for real in the 3rd book, right after LBH scolds him out of anger and worry. Our protagonist learns to break his own walls down and show emotionally vulnerable parts of himself to LBH.

Level 3 Meta

Chinese characters are made up of radicals, meaning more complicated looking characters are made up of simpler characters (radicals) that give clues to their meaning and pronunciation.

Shen沈 is made up of the radicals:

氵 [ shuǐ ] water 💦

冘 [ yín ] can mean to move on OR doubtful of something/someone

The water radical氵💦 occurs in all three characters in Luo Binghe 洛冰河. This can mean that Shen has influence on Luo Binghe's development and overall life. It also reaffirms their compatibility as as couple. I mean let’s be honest, SQQ cries inwardly and LBH cries outwardly, they are both crybabies.

yín冘 perfect describes the base functionality of SY's character; he has a strong survival instinct but is also extremely doubtful of everyone's intentions, especially LBH's.

Yuan垣 is made up of the radicals:

土 [ tǔ ] soil, earth; items made of earth 🌎

亘 [ gèn ] to extend across (dimension/space), through; from 🚀

I find it so fucking funny that MXTX took the tǔ土 soil radical seriously and literally just had SY zombie-himself out of the dirt after 5 years. But it's also really poetic that it once again goes perfectly with LBH's name; the river and earth go hand-in-hand. no wonder LBH asked for Shizun's hand in marriage. 😳😳😳

gèn亘 perfectly describes SY as a transmigrator, someone who travelled across dimension and space. But also SY is really the ultimate sightseer of SVSSS, casually crossing between the human realm and demon realm while also going on road trips with SQH. It's honestly so fucking mint. But I'm here to point out to you how Xin Mo 心魔 LBH's sword (heart demon) is how LBH travels across dimension/space for the majority of the book.

Ultimately, Yuan垣 highlights the importance of finding a home in the people you love. Bingqiu both enjoy that sightseeing lifestyle but the book constantly has important relationship developments, smexy times and domestic Bingqiu set in the Bamboo House. Ultimately, no matter how far you travel, run or chase, you cannot get away from your problems. You need to extend and make effort in understanding and communicating with your SO 🚀 and work on feeling grounded 🌎 in your relationship together.

MXTX you freaking genius I-

#svsss spoilers #there is another meta coming out about SQQ's name definitely look forward to it #mxtx is a legend and no one can convince me otherwise #svsss #svsss meta #bingqiu #luo binghe #shen qingqiu #shen yuan #scumbag system #scum villian self saving system #ren zha fanpai zijiu xitong #mxtx #mxtx svsss #svsss analysis #danmei #danmei novel #cnovel

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fernsnailz · 2 years

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when did Tails become a wanted criminal? istg archie's timeline is bananas

you’re right about those bananas because the tails enemy of the state lore is kinda wacky wild!!

in terms of timeline, tails became a criminal in issues 178-179 which is nestled between a BUNCH of other crazy arcs (including my beloved tommy turtle sacrifice arc). however, all of the important context regarding HOW and WHY tails became an enemy of the state is a little all over the place. this is gonna be a long one

TL;DR: tails the fox helps overthrow a monarchy (sorta)

heads up i'm going to be spoiling most of the "tails enemy of the state" arc (aka House of Cards), so read it on your own if you're interested! it's a pretty good read

ok so the main thing we gotta start with are tails’ parents in archie sonic: amadeus and rosemary prower.

tails’ parents met when they both served in the military for the acorn kingdom, which is the furry monarchy that serves as the government for sonic’s home. they get married, rosemary gets pregnant with tails, and everything is going swimmingly for them until eggman (named julian kintober at this time), stages a military coup against the acorn kingdom and starts to take over the world.

eggman’s main resource in taking over the world is an invention called the roboticizer, which can take living creatures and turn them into mindless robots that serve him. unfortunately, tails’ dad gets roboticized at the time of eggman’s coup.

before rosemary is roboticized though, something kinda wacky happens.

both of tails’ parents get abducted by aliens, unroboticized, and spend the next 11 years on an alien planet without any contact back to sonic’s world. yeah.

(the aliens are called Bem, they're all scientists and have cute eyelashes.)

11 years pass, and our pal sonic the hedgehog gets lost in space due to Reasons and Events that would take literally forever for me to explain. during his funny little space adventure, he finds himself on the alien planet tails’ parents are on and is reunited with them!

while sonic is there, though, the Bem are hosting a democratic trial for a Bem scientist named Ceneca-9009, who is the alien that transported tails’ parents away from their home in the first place. she's being sentenced to death for kidnapping tails' parents and doing other science experiments related to eggman's roboticization that i don't remember the details of

shenanigans happen, sonic and tails’ parents save Ceneca from execution, and sonic gets back home (unfortunately without tails’ parents - his spaceship was too small). the most important takeaway here is, interestingly enough, the democratic nature of the Bem alien government.

remember, sonic’s home is under rule of a monarchy, specifically the acorn kingdom. on the Bem planet, however, their government functions through democratically elected officials and judicial trials. and tails’ parents REALLY like it compared to the monarchy they know.

eventually, amadeus and rosemary are saved from the alien planet thanks to the help of sonic, knuckles, tails, and tails’s wizard uncle named merlin. i will not be explaining merlin here i honestly have no fucking clue what his deal is

this is REALLY important for tails, because he lived his entire life convinced his parents were gone. in the archie comics, both sonic and knuckles manage to reunite with both of their parents, and tails finally gets that chance as well.

when tails’ parents return, however, it’s clear that they have something big in mind for the acorn kingdom, which is currently going through… a lot. the king, maximillian acorn, is having trouble with Old Man Disease which has previously endangered a lot of his royal subjects (like he tried to order mass genocide once sorta endangerment. dude kinda sucks). because of this, the kingdom is in a transition of power from him to his son elias acorn, who previously ran away to avoid his royal responsibilities. elias is just kinda bad at his job

with the monarchy weakened, the kingdom still recovering from an eggman attack that nearly wiped out their entire population, and two democracy-loving foxes back in town, it’s the perfect setting for a lovely little coup.

(i always get amadeus and elias confused - amadeus is the one with the eyepatch.)

amadeus leads an army of restless citizens to try and overthrow the government, but is very quickly imprisoned. meanwhile, there’s a lot of trouble brewing between sonic and tails for... a number of reasons. sonic insults tails’ dad, sonic had previously dated a girl that tails liked, and tails is kinda getting sick and tired of sonic’s bullshit.

so tails sides with his parents and helps break his dad out of prison, thus making himself an enemy of the state.

when sonic shows up to stop the jailbreak, he and tails have a McFreaking Showdown and yell about their feelings n stuff. meanwhile, tails’ parents go straight to elias acorn and challenge him to a duel for the kingdom.

then like two seconds later sally acorn shows up and makes them talk it out over tea LMAO

so yeah, the coup is very abruptly cancelled and the gang decides to create a democratically elected council to govern alongside the royal family. and oh boy does that constitutional monarchy cause some problems later

and thus concludes the tails enemy of the state lore. House of Cards is a good read imo and there are a lot of good character moments that i skipped over! i think the biggest takeaway here is that sally acorn is the only emotionally intelligent sonic character lmao

#the best tails stories are about him breaking all da rulez in my opinion #in writing this i realized that merlin prower might be the biggest anomaly in the entire series #if someone told me tails had a wizard uncle named merlin and i hadn't read the comics i think i would laugh at them #archie sonic #long post #sth #sonic loreposting #fernasks

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thelastspeecher · 13 days

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Having a really terrible time rn so I'm here to distract myself with thinking about your stormchaser au because my job training today had us do 3 separate "severe weather" information and response trainings.

Anyways I've been thinking a lot about the implications and consequences of a head injury severe enough to give amnesia and I think this was a plot point and not supposed to be like something backed up by giving Ford medically accurate symptoms and disabilities but that's what happens when you're a disabled gravity falls fan in the medical field.

So a severe traumatic brain injury on that level is gonna have some things that are what you'd expect (vision changes, delayed reactions and confusion, issues with decision making and starting tasks and all that fun executive function stuff long term as well...) but also a common symptom, especially if there's damage to the right hemisphere in general, is impulsiveness as well as personality and mood changes just being a thing.

And I imagine for a while after he wakes up and is treated and even after he's released from the hospital and staying with Jack that's really tough - because I imagine at checkups they're gonna ask repeatedly if there's been any significant changes to his mood, functioning, abilities, and "Bill" and Jack have no clue at all. They have no idea who he was and if it's different.

So when Stan and Ford reunite I imagine it's a relief in you can tell me who I was kind of way but also hard bc Stan definitely sees that Ford's changed. Significantly. But is it because of time? Is it because of new influences? Is it because he didn't know who he was so he became someone different? Or is it a fucking symptom?

I got ahead of myself this ask was supposed to be about imagine "Bill" and Jack going to the grocery store soon after Bill gets out of the hospital and is convinced yes he actually should stay with Jack for the time being and they have a grocery list but Ford/Bill is putting pretty much everything in the cart because he's having a really hard time with impulse control and 20 bananas is not excessive we could need them what if I wake up feeling like eating 20 bananas and Jacks like. This man's a mess. Compels me though

Aaaaaaaaaa Anon I loved getting this monster beast of an ask, esp because I myself have also been Going Through It this week.

What you were saying about the personality change and the doctors asking if "Bill's" personality changed after the accident and neither Jack nor "Bill" knowing how to answer it, that's something that I've actually addressed in a different AU. Because I am a hoarder of AUs and I have one where STAN lost his memory in an accident and that's something that was brought up in stuff I wrote for it because I am a Scientist and I do my Research.

Anyways

Idk if I've addressed the personality change thing much in Storm Chasers AU (which, btw very glad that my little AU is on your mind, it makes me happy people are thinking about and enjoying my stuff), but I have set that up! At least in my head. The biggest thing: "Bill" is remarkably chill. Like, he's just an easygoing kinda go with the flow type of guy for the most part. He's very sweet and gentle and just sort of accepts things and takes life slowly. The taking life slowly is partially due to, as you pointed out, some function being lost from the traumatic brain injury, but it's also partially due to said TBI causing a personality change.

Some aspects of the Original Ford do pop up every now and then. He still gets all Researcher Excited about things, particularly the weird and magical things of Gravity Falls. But he has a different perspective than canon Ford. He treats the magical creatures with more respect and viewing them almost as peers. Once he's calmed down from his initial reaction of "omg omg OMG!" Even with his respect for them, many of the magical creatures don't really like Ford, just bc he goes overboard excited with them so much.

Another thing that sticks around, sorta burned into Ford's DNA at this point, is his, ah, "difficult" relationship with his father. When "Bill" and Jack adopt their first son (the Shapeshifter, whom they name Forrest), "Bill" is constantly fretting about whether he'll be a good father or not. He's paranoid and scared and confused and Jack has never seen this side of him. Jack eventually gets "Bill" to calm down by promising that he'll help keep "Bill" in line and let him know if he does anything wrong. And then he says that he won't need to step in at all bc he knows his partner.

(And then a few times Filbrick's parenting shows up and Jack does need to step in.)

Uhhhhhh I got sidetracked just like you lol.

I agree "Bill" has some impulse control issues. Arguably, canon Ford has those already (as does Stan, in some ways, worse than Ford), and those just get dialed up to eleven for "Bill". "Bill" constantly trying to throw things into the shopping cart is just a sign of what is to come. Luckily, Jack has the patient of a saint. Jack also finds "Bill" incredibly attractive, which definitely helps with his tolerance for the odd behaviors lol.

#also yes Stan has so many Feelings about ''Bill'' versus Ford #after the first few days he really gets a feel for how much his twin is different #and is so reluctant to Address that or even Face it that Angie has to practically drag him to Ford and Jack's place #(and then during those visits while Stan and Ford awkwardly talk and try to catch up #Jack and Angie are just gossiping and chatting and Angie is making a Delightful impression on Jack)#Storm Chasers AU #ask #Anonymous

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autisticandroids · 2 years

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sastiel

i actually do enjoy a certain amount of sastiel but i don't generally enjoy sastiel as it is enjoyed by sassies. like obviously i do see cas being in love with dean as a core element of his character so that's an impediment, but lots of sastiels enjoy a bit of tragic semiunrequited sastiel.

but i'm more talking about like... i enjoy sastiel that's toxic on its own merits. because i think that sam and cas could never really have a healthy relationship with each other, platonic, romantic, or otherwise, while dean or even the ghost of dean hung over them. like he's been so destructive to both of them in entirely different ways, and they would need to unpack that before they could even vaguely understand each other. cas being in love with dean is a part of this but it's only one part.

also i love like. toxic midseasons bunkerfamily, and i think sastiel would add a lot to that dynamic. like first of all i think sastiel would make dean so happy, because he's weaving the web of his family tighter. if sam is invoolved with cas, sam can never leave; if cas is involved with sam, cas can never leave. and then also the aforementioned toxic dynamic re: them both still centering their lives on dean.

then also i enjoy a certain amount of sam sexuality crisis because i think the shape of his realization that he likes men would be shaped primarily not by the fact that that makes him queer but by the fact that he's terrified of men. which is fun to me.

also there's a sastiel fic that i'm never going to write but love thinking about sometimes where the premise is that dean is dead and jack is god (but functionally dead, whatever he is is in no meaningful way "jack" anymore) and sam THINKS that cas is dead and so sam just like. kind of runs away. he changes his name and moves to a new city and gets a real job and starts... uncoiling. he deletes all his contacts and stops speaking to anyone he knew before dean died. it's not rational, but it's something about the combination of grief and freedom. he makes a life for himself. but he also doesn't really have like tools to make new relationships. there are people he says hi to, and he's cordial with his boss and coworkers, but he has no clue how to involve anyone in his life. so he has no real relationships.

anyway, like five years after dean dies, there's a knock on sam's door. and sam opens it thinking it's the postman, but on the other side it's cas.

so it turns out that jack resurrected cas from the empty as soon as he became god. he also resurrected all of the other angels, told them to figure out governing themselves but NO apocalypses, and left them to their own devices. the first thing they did was throw cas in the heavenly dungeon, to await trial for war crimes. that trial has now been completed. the angels were going to execute cas, but a few pled for mercy on cas' behalf, suggesting permanent banishment from heaven instead. the angels accepted this, since a lot of them realized, correctly, that this would probably actually be a more torturous punishment.

anyway cas shows up on sam's doorstep because he really has nowhere else to go. like, he's still an angel, he could go sit in a cave for a few milennia, but sam is his friend. he's lonely. he's alone.

so sam listens to this story. sets him up in the guest room. and then doesn't hear much from cas. he knocks on the door about once every two days, and usually gets a polite answer. a couple times he thinks he hears cas going out while sam is in bed, but he doesn't check on it. when curiosity finally overwhelms him, he sticks his head in the room to check. and finds cas just. lying on the bed. eyes open. staring at the ceiling. big blown up kinkos printout of a photo of dean on one wall, the same of jack on the other.

and sam just. flinches back.

because here's the thing. sam loved dean. he did. but sam's life began when dean's ended. he's so much happier now that dean is gone.

and sam cared about jack. he did. but he was okay with jack becoming god, he didn't worry about it. didn't miss him too much.

and the guilt of all that just hits him like a truck, seeing how disabled cas is in his grief.

sam leaves cas alone a lot more after that.

a few months later, sam wakes up to find cas making coffee in the kitchen. when cas is done, he doesn't drink any himself, but he does hand sam a mug. sam is overjoyed. maybe cas is healing a little.

cas still doesn't talk much, not that he was ever a chatterbox, but he does start emerging from his room and trying to complete small domestic chores for sam. doing the dishes, scrubbing the sink, unclogging the shower.

eventually, they're spending time together. cas isn't all there, but he is someone to talk to, someone to be with, and sam is so terribly, deeply lonely. he's free now, but he's lonely.

over the next few years sam and cas end up like. boybestfriends, basically. but they don't get together mostly because it hasn't occurred to sam that you can be gay yet. and cas is at this point too utterly passive in his life. like cas was already a deeply passive person but grief and the extreme depression it brought on has left him with a pretty extreme lack of interest in Doing pretty much anything. like he does what sam asks and what he thinks sam wants, because sam is his friend and also sam gives him company and affection which he craves. but he doesn't make any decisions on his own.

anyway sam gets cas to go help garth or somebody on hunts sometimes, since he's an angel and all. sam's out of the life, but cas doesn't have to be. but on one of these hunts, cas doesn't come back. the hunter he was with says there was a big burst of light and then cas' vessel was empty on the ground. so obviously, sam thinks cas is dead.

this... isn't great for sam. he freaks out. because cas is still pretty much his only friend (and maybe something more) at this point. he has a big breakdown.

and then two days later there's a knock at the door and a strange woman is on the doorstep. and it's cas, of course. he wasn't killed, just ripped from his vessel. and he can't get back in, because jimmy is dead and can't give consent. so instead he approached a terminal cancer patient. promised her a painless death where she wouldn't be struggling to breathe every moment. took her body, and let her soul fly to heaven.

anyway, the combination of the thinking cas was dead and the vessel switch make it so that sam asks cas on a date no more than a month later. so they kind of... fall into a relationship.

sam feels like intensely guilty over the fact that he only wanted to date cas once he was in a female vessel for a while. especially since cas already at some point admitted to sam that he was in love with dean. that that was his greatest secret. that that was how he died. it's kind of irrational on sam's part but there you are. this is actually a big barrier for him in terms of asking to date cas at first. but then he does some self-examination and is like wait. i actually was into cas before i just had heteronormativity brain. guess i'm bisexual? anyway.

sam also starts feeling weird about the fact that cas does all these domestic chores now that he has a female vessel but it's not like sam asked him to do them, and if he doesn't let cas do chores cas just sits and stares into space (cas refuses to leave sam's apartment under any circumstances).

anyway sam and cas have this relationship. eventually they decide to have a baby.

and name it dean.

obviously.

cas remains listless and absent but is still the baby's primary caretaker. but he's still like obsessed with grieving dean and jack. additionally, cas is tormented by guilt because he feels like he replaced jack, so the baby makes his depression even worse. baby dean is extraordinarily well cared for physically but kind of gets shafted in the emotional department. sam tries to make up for it but he has, like, a job. he can't be there for little dean all the time.

sam has had the job of being cas' emotional caretaker for most of their relationship, but little dean starts sharing in the burden. which isn't great for a kid.

anyway, the thing about nephilim is that, like angels, they're immortal. and they go to the empty if they do die.

the final beat of this fic is sam, in heaven. there's been a certain amount of opening up, but not as much as in canon. you can see other people sometimes, but you're still trapped alone with your soulmate 98% of the time.

so dean says, i heard you got yourself a girl. a kiddo, too! even named him after me. i can't wait to meet 'em. and sam just... grimaces. him and dean are gonna have eternity together. he's gonna have to explain this to dean someday.

down on earth, little dean is trapped with cas. neither of them will ever be able to enter heaven. neither of them will die. cas is still an empty shell.

eternal torment for everyone.

#spn #asks #anonymous

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vvildflowerrr · 6 months

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vent post ab chronic depression

people don't talk about how hard it is to actually reach out to people.

like I get told all the time to just reach out to people, but I find it so difficult when I never know what's going on in my friends' lives and know many of them are going through their own shit anyway. how can I justify bringing up what I'm going through to them?

I'm so sad, I'm so lonely, it's hard to move day in and day out. I can't remember the last time I had a genuinely good day.

I remember all the reasons I got sober, but every time I end up sitting alone or even with other people just remembering what things used to be like and the people I love that I never get to see now and I just think relapsing would make things better, even if just temporarily. But I know it won't help.

I made chili today, in a slow cooker, and it's so good, I'm proud of that. But while I was waiting I sat in my room, which finally has furniture in it, and scrolled through every streaming service I pay for looking for something to make me laugh or feel better. But romcoms are sad to me, I can't laugh at regular comedies, nothing new interests me, but watching my comfort shows makes me feel sad too because it's the same stuff all over again.

I'm not even 25 yet, but I'm worried I don't have enough time in my life to do everything I want to do. The career I want feels unattainable, I'm still hung up on the same person I have been and don't have a clue where to start with dating or if that would even be a good idea for me, I don't have the experience to find a better paying job that doesn't kill my soul and even if I did, I lost my car awhile ago, so how would I get there?

Everything is expensive, I hate the way I'm functioning, I hate the way the world around me is functioning, and I don't think there's anything I can do to make it better.

I have friends but I miss my other friends. I hate that everyone is so busy that we've become so distant. The last time I hung out with someone it was me being depressed and stale, I felt terrible, like I harshed the vibes by just inviting them over to be around me.

I'm just complaining now. But genuinely, with all this, I genuinely can't say I know where to go from here. I mean, I can't even romanticize the past too much, I was miserable then too. I've almost always been miserable, and I'm so tired of it. I don't know if I'll ever be happy, I don't know if that's even a possibility for me.

My mom once told me she didn't think she was made to be happy and maybe I internalized that a bit too much, but I feel that way right now too.

I'm open to it changing, in fact, I want it to. But I'm exhausted, my brain feels like it's dying every day, I can't make anything click, I can't make art, I'm not even listening to music anymore, and when I do it's all just kind of there. The only reason I haven't kxlled myself is because I pay a portion of the rent and bills and it would be so hard on my roommates. And because I wouldn't be able to see my cats again, and I'm so close to that!! I've already made my peace with the fact that I'll be a passing memory to my loved ones, hell, I feel like one now anyway.

I don't want to perform like I'm fine but I also don't want to make anyone worry about me or change how they interact with me. And I know I have reasons but I don't feel like I should be this sad. Fuck, sometimes I'm not even sad, most days I'm just numb, and if I'm not numb I'm just weeping at the dumbest shit.

I don't know where to go from here, I just don't. I'm gonna fall back into my cycle after throwing this into the void. I may even delete it at some point (then again, probably not because I'll want to show it to my therapist and look back on it later, hopefully at a time when things are better rather than worse).

I just hope something turns around soon.

#vent post #vvil posting

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prof-peach · 2 years

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I guess you probably started to play the game, so how is your experience so far? The fact that within the first five minutes of the game we learn that it is pokemon that go small and not the balls making them small still blow my mind!

I personally am choosing to look at that like some misconception due to a lack of prior knowledge. I have yet to figure out how to rationalise it, but honestly its so jarring. why is it only back in time that this has been discussed??? Hate it haha, makes zero sense lore wise, functionality wise, and generally begs the question, why has no one mentioned it sooner? It feels like somewhere along the line its disproved in more modern games, where i'm not sure yet. Does every single pokemon know Minimise? cant be possible! Makes little to no sense for me personally but i see folks enjoying it so whatever, gotta run with the stuff you love! That aside, i'm actually really enjoying the game, this is ooc obvs, speaking as a player, and a fan, but peach will have BIG issues with Laventon, totally hate Volo, BUT theres a good number of characters that she will vibe with SO hard, one of which is Cyllene. That stress eating crazy stern woman will fill her with such joy when they finally meet, something about her will just amuse peach so much, perhaps it's her harsh reality checks, or her work ethic, theyre very symilar in being brutally honest, and after handling so many adults who coddle the kids, this one being so forward about potentially dying at every turn would nourish her soul. She will love Kamado, he's got her energy for battle, they're on the same page, I can see them fighting together in a friendly way. Oh theres that strong lady who teaches people fighting styles (can't recall name, red hair, head of something) again, love her, and so will peach haha. Thats as far as i got today, been running around doing not a lot! found an eevee in my first visit out of the town, (near that place where theres a big ass rapidash) so that was a surprise to get so early in game. I have however made a lot of notes, and been working along side playing, so i've only been able to put about 2 hours into it so far. theres no jump button, thats a bit strange, and I was saddened that your pokemon don't follow you once released from the pokeballs, BUT its so far been a lot of fun, and i've had a great time with Grey tearing it to shreds, planning fixes for the comic, and designing villains and story lines to fit the actual gameplay! Until today i've had little clue as to why we were thrown back in time, and what the story will be. Turns out its so very loose and vague that ANY story will fit into this just about. Opens a lot of doors. Just makes me excited to do my job so win win! Hope everyone else is enjoying, seen a lot of nice feedback! people have warmed to it, even if only some aspects.

#ooc #pokemon legends arceus #pokemon spoilers

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everythingsinred · 3 years

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Let's Talk About NatsuMikan: Natsume (pt. 18)

Hiya! I'm posting late, on account of my job. Editing these takes about an hour depending on the post and inserting the images takes a little more, but I didn't have a solid block of time to work on it, so I worked on it in pieces and I only just now finished.

This arc highlights Natsume's powerlessness. He's distancing himself from Mikan to protect her, but by doing this, he leaves her defenseless at times. He wants to be there for her but can't because of the corner he's been pushed into, and in his desperation he turns to anonymity.

Chapter Eighty-One

Hotaru, Natsume, and Ruka are running after them, but are caught by Tsubasa, who asks them what their plan is, exactly. Ruka turns to Natsume, who turns to Hotaru, who pretends she was just practicing her running for the Festival and then the boys started following her for no reason. This comic relief is a badly-needed break from all the bullying and blackmail of the arc so far.

This arc is full of fun comic relief, but the main plot is so depressing and frustrating that sometimes the comic relief is not enough.

In any case, all three of them know that the others are all working to take care of Mikan, even if she doesn't know it. They're all looking out for her in their own ways, even Natsume who seems to have publicly turned against her. At least Hotaru and Ruka can see the truth: he's still quite concerned about it, but he's in something of a bind now.

The next we see of Natsume, he’s walking with Tsubasa, being spied on by both Hotaru and Ruka. It’s here that we discover that Tsubasa has been transferred to the DA class, but is keeping this secret from Mikan. Moreover, he and Natsume are on a mission to locate Yuka, and they’re both aware that Mikan is her daughter. It’s interesting to know just how much information the DA class has on the other students that the other kids have no clue about. Hotaru and Ruka are shocked by this information, but for us as readers, it also demonstrates just how much work Natsume--and Tsubasa--are putting into protecting Mikan.

All this information is stuff they have to consider on their missions. They want to protect Yuka, because she’s Mikan’s mother, but they have no choice but to pursue and chase after her with raids and attacks. On top of that, Tsubasa is keeping his new ability class a secret, and Natsume has to hurt her with this Luna farce. It’s a lot to put on two kids, not that the ESP or Persona have much issue putting pressure on kids.

For Natsume in particular, it was fun while it lasted, being close to Mikan. He had relished and enjoyed it, and now he has to change pace. He’s willing to, because that’s how he can keep her smiling and having fun, even if he’s not on her team and can’t even be in her inner circle anymore. He’s willing to sacrifice anything for her, but we can see that it’s not any fun for him. Mikan is suffering in sadness, yes, but so is Natsume.

The next thing he has to do only makes things worse.

He confronts Mikan about the rumor Luna made up, about Mikan showing her underwear to the Fuukitai to avoid punishment. It’s obviously bogus: Mikan would never even think to do that, let alone actually do it. He knows that too, because Natsume knows her very well. He asks because he has to.

Mikan avoids answering, brushing it off as none of Natsume’s business, because she is also under Luna’s watchful gaze. So they end up having an argument in front of everyone, both not saying what they really mean, and instead doing as Luna commands, to keep everyone safe. Mikan points out that she isn’t his partner--or anything--anymore, so he should mind his business. Natsume then asks if that means his concern is a bother, and she confirms: yes. It’s a big fat pain.

It's heartbreaking and frustrating in equal spades.

It’s almost as if Natsume was testing something. Now he knows that Luna must have threatened Mikan in the storeroom. Something sinister happened there, and now Mikan is different, dishonest, mean. That’s not what she’s actually like, and now he’s concerned. Luna’s shadow is spreading and it’s threatening to encroach on Mikan’s light.

Chapter Eighty-Two

Natsume walks off, having heard all he needs to hear.

Luna is causing mayhem and strife to punish Mikan and Natsume specifically for their misbehavior on New Year’s. She wants Mikan to be isolated from Natsume in particular because he’s her number one protector. If there’s a wedge between them, Mikan is easier to target. After all, Mikan’s purpose at the academy is to lure in Yuka, and the more danger she is in, the more likely Yuka is to try and save her daughter. If Natsume is around, threatening Mikan becomes tricky. He’d never allow anything bad to happen to her, hence his desperation and sacrifice in this arc. In order to fulfill their goals regarding Yuka, they need Natsume out of Mikan’s picture.

Of course, despite Natsume’s secret intel being superior to Ruka or Hotaru’s (and definitely to Mikan’s), he’s still not entirely in the know. Yuka being the main target, for example, is information Natsume is not privy to, and couldn’t even imagine. This is a game Natsume is unaware that he cannot win. If he doesn’t distance himself from Mikan, she’ll be threatened, but if he does, she’ll be threatened. In reality, there's no way he can win this round.

Chapter Eighty-Three

Anyway, the Sports Fest doesn’t slow down for the kids’ drama. The athletic meets have begun, and now there is a relay race.

Ruka and Natsume are on different teams for the relay, and this has inspired Ruka to beat his best friend, so he can be number one in Mikan’s eyes for once.

I will talk way more about the “love triangle” aspect of NatsuMikan and the question of choice, autonomy, and agency in Mikan’s essay, because when it comes to Natsume's side of things, he's very much resigned to losing every romantic game, every relay race, every competition. It's no contest. He's not competing. He's withdrawn from the race, now more than ever. He will not participate. He is destined to lose, after all, so why even bother?

And so Ruka wins the actual relay, and Natsume watches as everyone has fun without him, something that he’s been accustomed to before. It hurts more now, undoubtedly, because for a time, he was actually a part of the group. Knowing what it feels like to fit in and have fun with everyone makes it even worse when it’s gone again. He used to separate himself from the rest and suffer all on his own, but now he’s returned to that state.

He hasn’t quite let go, either. His effort and commitment to the Sports Fest, despite all the drama with Mikan and Luna, demonstrate just how much he actually wants to participate. It’s not about having his friends around him. He actually likes being able to have fun, and be allowed to take part in an event with everyone else, even if he isn’t technically by his friends’ sides.

His bad feelings are only exacerbated by Luna, who shows up to taunt him. He shouldn’t worry about Mikan and Ruka, because they’ll be torn apart eventually. Whatever happiness they find right now is temporary. It won’t last, and Luna will make sure of it.

But Natsume loves both Mikan and Ruka, and that does not reassure him at all. He’s selfless, would rather they be together anyway. In a perfect world, maybe she could pick him, and it makes him sad that the world isn’t perfect and he can’t have what he wants, but he’s always at peace with losing. So he’s not at all comforted by the idea that the happiness his loved ones have found will dissipate in no time.

Chapter Eighty-Four

Luna then giggles, because whether or not Ruka and Mikan’s being split apart will result in Natsume’s happiness is another question entirely. She wants to rub it in that even if Ruka is out of the picture, he can never be with Mikan. Joke’s on her though, because Natsume has already come to terms with this the moment he fell in love with Mikan. He hasn’t been humoring ideas of love confessions and weddings and living happily ever after. It’s outside the realm of possibility, because his circumstances do not allow him much happiness at all.

The future seems bleaker than ever, and knowing that Ruka and Mikan are being kept under watch by the school, Natsume keeps an eye on them too. He’s feeling sad and heart-broken too, of course. He’s not perfect. He can’t erase feelings of jealousy or the ache of unrequited love just because he feels it’s his duty to make peace with them. It hurts, but he’ll carry through. That’s what he’s always done.

But people are gossiping about his presence, putting his position in jeopardy. Luna can’t know he’s still hanging around Mikan, even if Mikan herself is clueless to this. Before he can be discovered, he steals someone’s mask, the mask of a boy named Kusami whose hairstyle looks an awful lot like Natsume’s.

If only he could be allowed to just steal people's identities and not have to face any consequences for it. Alas.

Unfortunately for Natsume, the Borrowing Race is about to begin, and Kusami was arranged to be a participant. He put the mask on to avoid responsibility for his spying, but it’s bit him in the butt now.

Kusami benefits from this, indirectly, since kids who call him moron get the cold shoulder from Natsume, who doesn’t have the same easy-going personality.

It seems nobody actually wants to participate in the Borrowing Race. It’s very personal and vulnerable: you have to borrow a person or item you’d least want to borrow, as dictated on a small piece of paper assigned to you. It’s then judged by some mind-reading alices to test the validity of the borrowed items. The concept of the race functions around embarrassing and humiliating people, so naturally nobody would want to participate.

Natsume has gotten himself into trouble here. He can’t even make a run for it, though he really wants to, because for some reason people are hell-bent on Kusami competing. He’s in the second round, and starts running as he--or Kusami--is supposed to. He gets his paper and although we don’t see what’s written on it quite yet, we can see a focus on Mikan in one of the panels, so we can tell his first thought is to borrow her.

To confess anonymously in front of the whole school or to not confess anonymously in front of the whole school--that is the question.

And then in a few pages, emboldened by the mask he’s wearing, Natsume runs toward Mikan and grabs her wrist. He’s decided he will borrow her, because maybe she’ll never find out his true identity, and he can be selfish just this once. This could be his only chance ever to be honest about how he feels. He's had to lie and hide it for so long that it makes sense he'd take the first opportunity available to go for it. This is quite possibly the most selfish thing he’s done. If he gets caught, he’ll be entirely exposed.

Unlike Ruka, Natsume can't really win this race. He won't be number one in Mikan's eyes, ever. He can't ever tell her it's all for her. The very best he can do is compete with a mask on. Ruka can try his hardest and impress Mikan and Natsume feels he never will. It's not much of a competition when one person cannot and will not compete.

He runs, despite her confusion and obliviousness, or perhaps because of it.

And just as the fireworks displaying his prompt start going off in the sky, he lets her go and walks away resolutely. There. He’s participated.

“The person you love.”

Mikan is chasing after Natsume, but he can’t be caught. Being caught would ruin everything, and would make his selfish act even more selfish. He shoves the mask back into Kusami’s face, and takes off.

You'd think he'd be a bit happier to have finally confessed his feelings but he just looks miserable.

Natsume has been very selfish now. He didn’t have to grab Mikan. He could’ve borrowed anybody and lost. Does it matter if he wins? He’s not Kusami. He could’ve just gotten the race over with and run away, but instead he played along, because he wanted to confess. He’s never been so honest in his life. He wants her to know he loves her, even if she doesn’t know who “he” is. And if he gets caught, then Mikan will know for a fact that Natsume Hyuuga loves her, and everything he’s done so far--hyping up Ruka, distancing himself, being cruel to protect her, allowing Luna to cling to him--will have been for nothing. She’ll know it was all a ruse, and then she’ll be open to all sorts of dangers. But he risks it, because he just can’t hide it anymore. He always has to hide, always has to pretend, always has to sacrifice his own feelings for the sake of others. This time, he’ll say exactly what he means, made all the more easier by the fact that there’s a mask on his face.

He’s done something like this before, particularly when he kissed Mikan on Christmas.

And the Christmas kiss is nothing compared to this: an actual love confession. The kiss was just that, and he had plenty of excuses for why he’d kiss her. It wasn’t because he loved her, no way! It was because she kept saying the other one didn’t count. Or maybe he just wanted to know what it felt like. That’s all. The excuses were just another mask to hide behind.

What excuse could he possibly give for a love confession that a panel of mind-reading judges corroborated? If he’s caught, she will know.

All his tiny instances of selfishness are smaller examples of the same idea: he lets himself be affectionate for once. He can say he prefers her with her hair down, or hug her during the SA class labyrinth, or cuddle with her when he’s having a nightmare, just this one time, and then he’ll give up for good. She won’t notice. It won’t have an effect. It won’t have consequences. He’ll give up for good after; he’ll just do this one selfish thing and then never again. But he can’t give it up, and eventually Christmas happens. He kisses her, unloading so much affection into one action, as if he’s trying to just get it over with. He’ll just get all his love out with one kiss and then he’ll be okay to watch her fall in love with anybody else but him.

But he can’t. He can’t stop doing these little selfish things. He can’t suffocate his love and leave it to die, hidden and smothered like a skeleton in a closet. Despite his every attempt to kill it, to hide it, to pretend like it’s not important, it has only grown stronger. He loves her more and more everyday, and the more he loves her, the harder it is to pretend like he doesn’t care if he never gets what he wants.

He wants to be with her. He wants to kiss her and protect her openly. He wants to sit next to her in class and smile with her. He wants to spend time with her and be on her team for school events. He wants to hold her hand and tell her he loves her.

He doesn’t want to give it all up and wreck his own chances.

The longer he’s loved Mikan, the harder it’s been to be selfless like this. The yearning has only gotten stronger, and now it takes all his power to be cruel to her. What used to come naturally, like being cold and distant and insulting her, has become difficult. What comes naturally to him now is to confess his love or hold her hand or be around her.

Despite the fact that Natsume was the only person who seems to have borrowed the correct person for the race, the White team still loses, on account of him not actually being Kusami.

At the end of the chapter, he sits alone, brooding in a tree.

He hasn’t been caught, so his actions have no consequences for now. He can sit there and mourn what could have been. He can’t be with Mikan, let alone confess his feelings. This was just an excuse to live out a fantasy. He wants to be loud about his feelings, not muffle them. But this is Natsume we’re talking about. He never gets what he wants. And in his opinion, he shouldn’t because Ruka deserves a happy ending way more. And Mikan would never love him back anyway. Ruka would be better for her.

This is just another instance of Natsume promising himself that he’ll do one more selfish thing before he gives up forever. But we know he’s bad at keeping his word, and this is no exception.

Chapter Eighty-Five

Before Mikan can confront Natsume about the borrowing race, Luna steps in, covering for him, claiming she was watching with him from the bleachers during the race. She clings to his arm and drags him off, spurring even more rumors that he and Luna are an item.

She's so violent with him for really no reason.

He tells her to get off, but she reminds him that she’s just done him a favor (though it’s really just a favor to herself). She grabs his hand and holds it tight, and again people get the wrong idea. It’s interesting how such physically painful things come across as romantic to the people around them, who think that Luna is simply holding his hand. Natsume’s persistent look of misery and apathy doesn’t deter people at all from rumors that he’s dating her. After all, Luna is clinging to him with a smile on her face and he’s not doing anything to peel her off, so it must mean they have feelings for each other. Natsume has been so good at hiding his feelings, that nobody--not even the girl he really loves--knows what it looks like when he’s loving and affectionate to somebody. They think he's into Luna, and can't see that what he really needs is help.

Chapter Eighty-Six

Luna has just arranged a terrifying fall for Mikan, knowing she’d use her alice as a knee-jerk reaction to save herself, thus causing others to think she did it for the attention. Mikan could’ve been seriously injured, or worse, and is definitely in trouble now, so Natsume is furious.

He confronts Luna, and the only thing stopping him from hurting her is that he could put Mikan in even more danger by doing so. But Luna is remorseless, giggling that she had no choice but to threaten Mikan. After all, she’s just doing what the principal said they’d do. Mikan should have been put in Persona’s custody in the DA class immediately following the Hana Hime party incident, but Natsume’s sacrifices have allowed her to skate by. Luna is there to observe and punish what she perceives as bad behavior, and anything less than abject misery from Mikan is bad behavior to her.

She warns Natsume: if he really wants to protect Mikan, then he’ll make sure she’s hated. That way, she won’t be in danger.

Powerlessness.

Natsume can’t go around confessing his love to her with a mask on anymore. He needs to sacrifice their relationship entirely in order to keep her safe. And so he does.

He’s sitting on a bench, surrounded by his classmates. Permy is adamantly defending Mikan. These rumors that Mikan fell on purpose for the attention are obviously stemming from Luna, who has the whole class wrapped around her finger. She turns to Natsume, looking for back-up, but Natsume has been told clearly what to do in order to really protect Mikan, and it has nothing to do with standing up for her against these rumors.

Instead, he says that it’s best not to be involved with Mikan anymore. He doesn’t want to see her or hear about her anymore, and he doesn’t want to associate with anyone who associates with her. He tries to give off the impression that he hates her, that he’s disgusted by her.

Then he sees that she’s been there all along, listening.

This is almost like the scene where he tells her he hates everything about her. He’s doing the hard thing to protect her. He’s lying, willing to hurt her, willing to be the villain, if it means she’s in the light and out of the dark.

But this is different.

Mikan could take it before. She yelled back that she hated him too, just as much, and even though that was a lie, it was still something she was able to say. She could argue and fight. This time she crumbles and runs away.

And he’s different too. Before, he could walk away, resolute and determined. Knowing that she’ll be better off this way was enough for him. He didn’t even look back. This time, he can’t leave things like that.

After all, last time was easier. He didn’t think she actually liked him back then. It would really only hurt him. He knows better now. Mikan cares about him, and it doesn’t matter what shape that care takes. It only matters that hearing Natsume call her worthless brings her to tears now, and that’s enough for him to feel way more conflicted.

This time, he apologizes.

He doesn't say he's sorry, but he's saying he's sorry.

He finds Kusami, steals his mask once again, never saying one word to a kid who has been generously keeping his secret for him. He runs after Mikan, and when he finally catches up to her, he hugs her.

Wearing the mask while hugging her is like wearing a raincoat in a hurricane. It won’t change anything or protect him at all. In fact, all he’s doing is giving her confirmation that it’s him, but he doesn’t care.

He doesn’t want her to think he hates her. He can’t stand it anymore. He’s sorry and he didn’t mean it.

He hugs her and this is different from his selfish hugs during the RPG or when he was having a nightmare. Those were little stolen moments for him to remember. He could take them from Mikan and cherish them as precious memories, even if she never thought of them again. This one is different. This one is for her, to comfort her, to apologize.

It’s all the things he can’t say. I didn’t mean it. Sorry. I have to do this. I really do care about you, I promise. It’s not real. Luna’s making me do this.

But before she can turn around to look at him, he leaves again.

He knows, because of Luna’s warning, that Mikan’s life will only get harder. He wants to help her, but by helping her, he’s placing himself further from her, making it harder for him to protect her in the future. If he’s distant from her to keep Luna at bay, then he’s not around to protect her from Luna in the storeroom, or during the cheerleading competition.

It’s what one might call a Catch-22. No matter what he chooses, he loses. And the worst part is that so does Mikan.

Conclusion

Natsume isn't an active participant in the last few chapters of this arc, so this is how I'll wrap the meta here. In the next arc there will be much to say about him. The Sports Fest went deep into Natsume's love for Mikan. It's not surprising that his love inspires selflessness. Natsume will always put others in front of himself and the more he loves someone, the more fervent he is about self-sacrifice. The truly beautiful thing about Natsume's love for Mikan is that it inspires selfishness too. And I never mean selfish as bad when I'm talking about Natsume. His love for Mikan is special in that it makes him want things for himself too.

I'm having doubts about being able to post tomorrow, so I apologize for only two posts this week. Expect normal posting next week at the very least! This essay is probably more than halfway through already, though I can't say for sure how much is left. Where I am now in terms of essay-writing is already deep in the Time-Travel Arc and as a result there's entire chapters I've skipped. Like. Seven in a row at times. Yikes. So basically we're pretty far in!

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captainkurosolaire · 3 years

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Prompt #7 ~ A Tale Saved

Previous - ♫Raccoon City♫ - References

(Third Person: Narrative) "I never speculated. It'd be you who saved my life... again. In youth an unsung hero emerged and rescued me. Showed me hope and taught me to be brave. When I seemed to be sentenced to abuse. 'You're going to learn overtime you'll be in power, and th' Captain of yer fate!' This stuck with me. I dedicated to learning medicine, so I could spread in healing people, like you affected me." A quill bronze-skinned feminine hand took pause from her diary entry. -- Sometimes those who hurt the most, are those wishing to prevent others from experiencing the same struggles, prevent from suffering in that horrible realm, that seems nearly inescapable. They put on tough faces for others to prevent showing old wounds that still linger, trauma doesn't disappear instantaneously. It's a processed mend which paces in everyone's unique recovery. When finding work in a free clinic underneath the slob, mangy, putrid soul's of the lower and less regarded, she always held work with suturing and stitching up squabbles between pirate's, rowdy uncontested foul. A place in which her past carried the most wounds, she returned wanting to find more. While redefining that place. The learning experience and challenge of continuous work, left her unknowingly developing remarkable skills. Of course her failure's in saving netted her many unpleasant threats from Crew-mates, Captain's, she couldn't fix up or yells. It was easier to lay the fault of the healer in grievance. Then a fool or unwise decisions caused by the injured and the company responsible for securing the well-being of their fellow. Bottling up and stacking her shortcomings, she woke up with only her will in activity, reinvigorated to hone better, determined and reciting to herself, that fateful day she was shown kindness in a cruel world if it existed, at all... Slowly steadily she earned a reputation and whispered rumors of her talents in the realm of an underground circuit of criminal's, heathens, outcasts. Though she never heard this appraisal or bolster at first because of the nature of her clients.

Remembering that maintaining positive influence is a battle. It's more likely to be uncovered and swallowed with misfortune and realism because it comes in more dreadful abundance. Helplessness felt like strangling her chest. It didn't matter how much she cauterized and bandaged, or fixed, it kept spilling over the staples that never lasted. She felt eventually her passion was becoming aimless and starting to wither again. The First Crewmate brandished in gold appeared at the clinic with a cutthroat approach. His motions were proposed. "I require you... My grandmother is gravely injured and cannot use the function of her arms." Naturally she rejected sweetly, "You'll have to bring her during business hours and follow the queue." The seemingly unreadable only registered as another barbaric brute who couldn't get what they wanted sighed out and pulled out a deadly knife. "You'll find the time to save them." I was reminded of my past, the same abuser and all those I walk aside that run quantities in Limsa, I felt pitiful that my voice remained mute. Then as that First Crewmate honed in a linkpearl call to demand their client. I never suspected it'd be a Captain; the same one from my childhood and neither did I suspect you also recognized me. Damaged and appendage arm's that couldn't be lifted ton's more scars, scrapes, wounds and I could tell was also conflicted approached. And instead you rejected and redefined everything one would assume by the surface. "Judas... Ye really holding her hostage? I'm sorry mate, but this isn't how I'll be treated. I'd rather remain, armless and dysfunctional... You haven't any clue what the sacrifice cost a healer or how they're never given proper gratitude for the lives they save, especially under this rat-sack of a City-State. Long ago, I wouldn't have been any better, I'd selfishly desire only t' see myself conditioned. I owe my past. Debt's aren't a pirate's comfort." Confused, the two bickered against each-other. It's when I saw the frustration and panic, the First Crewmate who was forced to disarm, was doing this out of not only reason, but admiration and love. He stormed off irritated with almost a disappointing and deadly dirk-gaze. Then I watched heels beginning to leave determinedly willingly to go without preserving themselves selfishly, rather be shattered, while also an apology was muttered low. I froze as if time was halted. The curiosities and you disappearing again, like almost, as if you were a ghost. There once, then vanishing without a trace of peep. Eventually that's when I found myself first following. Finding out you were troubled too like myself. I couldn't fix the arm's entirely but instead you praised me for my attempt and then you offered me a job, or to join your Crew. To explore mending outside and maybe expanding out would do me better, you said. I struggled joining for a while, but because it was you, I saw you held hope for me. The Crew is assorted with amazing wild people, from all acts of cultures, each carrying such lofty dreams, grand visions. Most larger than themselves. I felt like an outcast, and when you needed me the most and the Crew. When that dark-caster appeared, Silv'a, on the seas, turning me to a sheep, I once again felt useless and discouraged, defeated. Tried silently to vanish and not be a burden. I felt only the emotion of drowning under the pressure. Attempting to plunge deep down under the seabed. But you showed up on the decks even at night when all others were asleep, you saw how I shut myself in days and became more quiet and reached to me. Like I was a star, you once already saw loss. "...Casta, it's because yer ordinary. You fit with us. You remind us ov' everything we may forget or miss. You're special beyond all. We-- I need you upon this sea-vessel in my life. I don't need you to become violent, or monstrous, I need you to be yourself, and remind me what it's like not to be one." "You exist as a world, only you can Captain and show me. I will follow and always b' there t' see yer wonders and secure t' protect; you

and I... Believe we can heal together. Though your steps are yer own, what do you wish?" You said with an arm extending out, ready to give an embrace, or still chase to throw yourself under with me. I could see in your eyes that you knew what it felt to be alone and tried hoisting others from the same. It was a step away from walking overboard, or turning to you and the sail. I'm writing and devoting these chapters to this journey, this is my diary logs reciting, The Tales of the Goldbrand... I want all to know even though you believe in fading like the pirate's of old. I chose to live, Captain... You showed me what that means, again... - My Captain, who saved your Crew Surgeon, Casta. <3

#Prompt - Speculate #FFxivWrite2021 #FFxivWrite #Casta #The Surgeron #She who wrote Tales #Creative Writing #-Captain Kuro Solaire #Judas Caesar #Tales of the Goldbrand #FFxiv #Beyond Crew #Ground Me #The pact's we make can suture souls #Unspoken to Spoken #Ordinary Importance

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petroltogo · 3 years

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In the Varia Handler AU, I'm so curious what the Varia's reactions would be to so many different things. What about when they realize Tsuna has genuinely been trying to help them? That he sent them away partly to protect them? That he saved Xanxus? That Tsuna's been told nothing of the situation, and didn't know they were working with Vongola under duress? What about when Lussuria realizes he's been purposefully traumatizing someone that the Varia should actually adopt? I'm dying to know, lol.

Okay, so, as much as I’d love for the ‘verse to do a 180 and for the Varia to suddenly look at Tsuna the way he deserves and wrap him up in bubblewrap, that’s probably not how it would go.

Because the bitter truth is: They appreciate that Tsuna is genuinely trying to help them, but not that much. Because that is Tsuna’s job.

[Sure, they’ve had handlers before who were a bit too into their power fantasy of having complete control over the Varia, but they don’t suffer fools so those never lasted long. Most of the handlers were actually competent and, more importantly, professional. They might not have liked the Varia -- and those feelings were returned -- but they didn’t go out of their way to make them miserable because overall Vongola is smart enough to know what a valuable resource the Varia are and they want to put them to use.]

And the Varia are professionals, but they also despise Vongola. Tsuna doesn’t make things worse but he can’t make them better either because he’s still a symbol for the leash Vongola has on them and they hate it.

[continues under the cut]

[That Tsuna sent them away while planning Xanxus’ rescue? We all better hope the Varia never learn of it because they would be fucking. pissed. Just. Xanxus is their boss, their leader and they, his strongest, his most trusted, his most loyal, are sent away. For what? Their honor? Their reputation? Their safety? Like they give a single fuck about that when Xanxus’ life is on the line? What if Tsuna had failed? They would’ve never gotten the chance to learn what happened to their boss and probably still take the blame regardless of how airtight their alibis would’ve been and-- Yeah. That would not be a pretty conversation.]

That Tsuna had no clue about the blackmail -- well, it depends when, exactly, they realize it. In all likelihood, they either find it hilarious, use it to their advantage or are supremely unimpressed by this kid because he doesn’t just suck in the field, apparently he can’t even do proper research.

[Never forget: The Varia don’t want to like Tsuna. And they take their work and their skills very seriously.]

Now Tsuna saves Xanxus.

[And if you believe that he simply reveals that to the Varia I have bad news for you, my dear friend, because Tsuna would go on the run from Vongola with a frozen statue without backup before he ever considered clueing the Varia in. Aaand now I think about how hilarious it would be if Tsuna went on the run with Xanxus and the Varia were tasked with hunting him down lmao]

Let’s move fast-forward to the point where the Varia find out. Which is plenty of time after the actual rescuing happened. So of course they’re elated and so damn happy -- right up until it dawns on them how long their stupid handler’s been keeping this shit from them. “Strongly mixed feelings” puts it very well.

Still, they are greatful and they do like Tsuna. The reactions and relationships vary with each member and I imagine that this Tsuna is probably closest to Squalo and Bel. Squalo because Tsuna had to learn to work with him to have functional team and so they already have this professional understanding they can build on. Bel is a very simple person: he either considers you interesting or only worth killing. Once Tsuna makes it into that very small, very exclusive first category, they get on pretty well.

Leviathan is more distant in this. Not unpleasant but here Tsuna isn’t the miracle savior popping up out of nowhere and that makes it harder somehow, makes him more suspicious. [What’s your motive?]

Viper is watching, more intrigued by Tsuna than they will admit, but here Mukuro is also circling Tsuna like a vicious guarddog and the distance he inforces is very real. Plus he makes for an interesting and distracting opponent, so...

And it’s funny that you mention Lussuria specifically because Lussuria is probably the one who dislikes Tsuna the most. [Lussuria hates traitors more than any of them and just because he can benefit from Tsuna’s actions right now doesn’t mean he can trust them.] Lussuria plays a good game, is very good at faking it, but he’s the most emotionally distant member of the Varia and has no plans to change that any time soon. It’ll take more than a favor he owes Sawada for him to change his opinion on the kid. And even once their relationship improves, he’ll probably never go quite so far as to regret how he’s treated Tsuna.

And all this probably makes it sound worse than it is but you have to understand: This isn’t a ‘verse where the Varia adopt Tsuna, it’s a ‘verse where Tsuna adopts the Varia. He considers them his long before they acknowledge him and it will take more than Xanxus’ return for quite a few of them to really realize it.

[Hell, maybe a few of them don’t want to realize it. When it comes down to it, you can only be loyal to one person, to one cause that you can put above every else. Who says any of them are eager to seek out someone else to tie themselves to? Especially with Tsuna essentially in a position of authority over them, a position only Xanxus is supposed to hold. This Tsuna, after all, is so much more of an active player than his AU counterpart already. So much more of a threat.]

I know we all want to see some of that main fic fluff but here’s the thing, the irony: These Varia already respect Tsuna much more than the Varia in the main fic do at the start if in a different way. The categorize him as a threat and despite his bumbling that wariness never really fades. They might not respect Tsuna as a person, but as a Vongola operative they take him seriously in a way main fic!Varia don’t. They probably will one day soon, but that’s not the point right now.]

#ReRe answers #this could've been a villain's origin story 'verse #AU for this could've been a heroine's greatest regret #Tsuna as the Varia's handler #Tsuna & the Varia #headcanon #KHR #Katekyou Hitman Reborn #Varia #Sawada Tsunayoshi #ReRe writes #Anonymous #lovely people #it was supposed to be fluff but i made it too dark #sorry about that #relationships and feelings are complicated

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imagineseclipse · 5 years

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TWNG 4- Introductions are overrated.

<<<Part 3 Part 5>>>

So it turns out you did in fact survive your first couple of days at Beacon Hills high, though you would never admit it to your father. Deep down you knew that you wouldn’t have made it past the first day if it wasn’t for Phoebe and the Stilinski siblings.

No one really payed much attention to you and it seemed that had you worried all for nothing. You were now successfully on your third day, Seb and Ally had tried their hardest to make you feel welcome and if you ever needed anything you knew that they were now on the list of people that you could go to. However that didn’t shift the uneasy feeling in your stomach every time you walked through the entrance doors.

You had become friends with the Stilinski’s within hours of you first meeting and now on a cold thursday morning the four of you were sat huddled together on the bleachers watching as Lacrosse practice was being cancelled due to the weather.

You sat with a Stilinski sibling on either side of you, Phoebe sat one level below the three of you, her legs resting on the bench.

“So, you’re a banshee like your mom?”you turned to Ally, who nervously tugged at her leather jacket.

“A pathetic excuse for one anyway”she mumbled to herself.

Phoebe reached over, squeezing Ally’s knee supportively. You furrowed your eyebrows questioning Ally’s sudden mood change.

“A bit of a sore subject for her”Phoebe answers your mental questions.

“I mean, how am I supposed to be a banshee if I don’t scream?! If someone’s dying nearby I mean, I definitely can’t tell”she exclaimed angrily brushing her hair out of her face as the autumn wind started to pick up pace.

“My mom got her powers so early on and I’m just, maybe I’m just not functioning maybe there’s something wrong with me, I haven’t had one premonition, not even a tiny little hint that something is going to happen”she continued to rant.

“Maybe that’s because nothing is actually happening Ally I mean, nothing like that has really happened in the whole 18 years that we’ve been alive”Seb tried to calm his sister down.

“Or maybe it has, and I just wouldn’t know because I’m useless”Ally wailed as she slapped her hands down by her sides.

“Ally, look, everyone’s different everyone develops at different times, one thing I can guarantee is that you’ll be just as good a banshee as your mom is”you reassured Ally, playfully nudging her arm.

“You really mean that?”she smiled over at you, running her hands through her hair.

“One hundred percent”you answered, beaming back at your new friend.

“Apparently I was a nightmare as a child though y’know with all the screaming and stuff”Ally started to reminisce about her childhood whilst you turned to Seb who was stuffing his face with chocolate.

“And you, what are you?”you enquired, trying to stifle a laugh as chocolate fell out of his mouth as he spoke.

“I’m Seb”he replied a little too quickly, you blinked a couple of times wondering if he actually took the time to think about the question being asked.

“No, I mean like what are you, do you have any supernatural abilities?”you asked again, this time slower.

“Oh me? No, I’m just human although I do have a sick whip”he smiled proudly.

“Interesting, what car do you drive?”you questioned, intrigued.

“Roscoe”he answered as his mind wondered dreamily. Your eyebrows knitted together. Confused.

“What brand is Roscoe?- oh so you got the jeep”your mouth formed an ‘O’ shape, thinking about all the stories Derek had told you about the blue jeep failing the pack. You rotated to face the field once more. Not wanting to have a debate with Seb about his ‘not so sick whip’.

“Oh shoot, we’re gonna be late to our next lesson”Phoebe pushed herself up from the seat in front of you. You all said your goodbyes for the time being, all splitting up to go to your different destinations.

Phoebe dropped you off outside your lesson, which unfortunately was Chemistry. You hadn’t yet experienced a Beacon Hills chemistry lesson but you were about to find out what it was like.

“I’ll meet you outside of the nurses office so we can have break together”Phoebe pinches your cheek before disappearing out of sight.

“Great tour guide you are Pheebs I don’t even know where that is”you muttered as you made your way into the classroom.

“Ah, here she is”the teacher ushered you to the front of the class.

“Everyone could I have your attention please... and that doesn’t mean put your earphones in and pretend to listen to what I’m saying” the teacher started to complain.

“If you haven’t met her already this is y/n Hale, she’s new here so please make her feel welcome”he spoke out to the whole room, getting no replies except for some grunting and whispering.

“So this year we're partnering everyone up because last year the grades that were submitted just weren't good enough so as a school we're hoping that if we team you up it will make it easier for the work to be completed on time"He informed you.

You nodded in response, not that your grades would help anyone you hated Science. Your eyes focused on his name tag. Mr. Harper scanned the room searching for a empty seat.

"Ah, perfect"he concluded his search as he lead you over to the right side of the class.

"Teddy"he called out trying to get a students attention.

A boy with platinum blonde hair turned to face you, his mouth parted slightly as his eyes roamed up and down. You shuffled around on your feet uncomfortably.

"This is your new partner, try not to set her on fire like you did to my classroom"the teacher rolled his eyes leaving you with the male.

"That was a funny one Mr.H, you really just won’t let that go will you?”The boy you assumed to be Teddy retorted before flipping his middle finger up at Mr.Harper who had his back turned to the class.

"Aren't you going to introduce yourself?"Teddy watched you as you perched down in the seat next to his. You figured that if he was asking that question then he definitely was not listening when the teacher had introduced you to the class.

"Introductions are overrated"you shrugged, pulling out your empty book, you really didn’t have the energy to spark up conversation about your last name. Especially as you still weren’t sure as to who was supernatural and who wasn’t. You had to be cautious.

"I guess i'll go first then, the names Teddy Dunbar"he ignored your previous comment, leaning forwards whilst chewing on his pen lightly.

Your eyes sparkled at this revelation and it seemed as if Beacon Hills really was a Beacon for the supernatural.

"As in, Liam Dunbar?"you asked inquisitively.

He frowned.

"Look I know, it really does suck my dad being the lacrosse coach and all but please-

You let out a laugh.

"Wait, Liam Dunbar is the coach here?!"You gawped. Excited that you'd be able to meet another one of the original McCall pack members.

"You didn't know did you? So I really did just drop myself in it"Teddy facepalmed before pinching the bridge of his nose.

"How do you know my father?"Teddy stopped rambling for a second.

“Let’s just say our parents are acquainted”you sighed, not wanting to get into the hundreds of stories you had heard about Liam and his days as a beta.

"You're Y/n Hale?! The new girl who wolfed out the other day in the quad I knew I recognised you!"Teddy grew excited, slapping his pen down on his page.

You didn't understand why he was working up a fuss about this, it really wasn't one of your best moments.

"Thanks for bringing that up"you muttered, finding yourself chewing on your own pen.

“It's okay you know, I've lost control so many times during school hours”he tried to comfort you.

“And no ones seen you?”you asked.

“Not that I know of, I’ve kinda picked up some tips and tricks I’m getting better with my anger”he nodded slowly.

"You do know about the McCall pack right?!"you checked, hoping that you hadn't revealed any secrets. You also had successfully found a way to change the conversation subject.

“Of course I do, I know about everything my Dad never stops talking about it"he shook his head.

“So you know the Stilinski's and the Mccall's?"you quizzed.

“More than I'd like to, our parents are literally stuck to the hip, especially recently”he grumbled out the last part , jotting down some notes before pushing them toward you so that you could catch up. You were just about to ask another question when Mr.Harper announced that you would have to go library to do some research.

Teddy offered to stay behind so that he could take notes from the lesson for you since you would have to catch up, making sure that he wrote down the names of the books you'd have to retrieve.

“"Are you gonna be okay finding the Library all by yourself?"he queried as you began to back away from the table you now shared.

"I'm sure I'll find it...eventually"you sent him a not so convincing thumbs up before disappearing back into the corridor, realising that you didn't have a clue where to go.

Following the signs to the library had made it much easier for you to navigate around, taking mental note of the different directions you had been taking. After what seemed like hours you finally stood outside of the library doors.

When you entered the library you immediately had visions of your father telling you about the shelf where everyone had engraved their names. You used the labels to guide you around the maze filled with books.

You sighed to yourself, knowing that it would take you hours to find the books you needed. As you approached your destination it seemed as though someone had already done the job for you, all of the books were scattered around on the floor and a girl with deep black hair sat in front of the shelf flicking through the pages of a textbook.

Her hand tracing over some initials that even your amazing eye sight couldn’t read. You slowly approached the girl, not wanting to alarm her. She glimpsed up at you, nodding to herself as if she was having a conversation, the girl pushed herself up from the floor picking up another book resting it carefully on the metal shelf.

The girl looked up at you, her eyes narrowing as she reached up, taking out her earphones.

“I’ll call you later”she spoke quickly and she presumably hung up on the person at the other end of the line.

“Hi, sorry if I was interrupting”you apologised sincerely. The long haired girl stayed silent, just watching you.

“You’re new here”she stared forwards at the writing on the shelf. Was it really that obvious?

You stared down at her satchel, her name neatly written out on white tape.

Lottie Yukimura

"You're Kira Yukimura's daughter?!"you blurted out excitedly. You knew she was a kitsune, from the way her eyes burned bright. You fell silent, not wanting your statement to come out weird, like you were being intrusive.

Today really was just getting becomimg more interesting by the second, however something had crossed your mind many times.

“Do I know you?"she asked bitterly as she snatched up her bag.

"No-no sorry, not personally but our parents knew eachother"you enlightened her, offering her a small friendly smile. Usually you would have given an equal amount of attitude back but you really didn't want to be attacked by a moody Kitsune on your third day.

"Second name?"she bluntly asked.

“Hale”

“Derek and Braeden?"She enquired again, relaxing a little.

"That's my mom and dad"you answered. Suddenly the conversation shifted and she became very uneasy. As if she had caught onto something.

“I'm sorry I have to go"she mumbled at a fast pace before briskly disappearing into the library.

"Nice to meet you too"you shook your head disappointedly as you bent down to start picking up the books she’d left behind.

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captainsafia · 6 years

Text

Problem solving with Safia: the optimizer’s dilemma

I have a confession to make.

I'm getting pretty bored of reading the Node codebase.

I know, I know. I've only been doing it for about three weeks now, but what can I say? I've got a rather short attention span. Maybe I'll get back to it at some point, but for now, I'd like to try some different things.

I was recently reminiscing about some of the things I liked doing when I first started coding in my teens. As it turns out, I liked solving some of the problems on Project Euler. In fact, I kept a little blog where I maintained the solutions for the problems that I was solving. I will avoid linking to that blog here because some things just need to die in obscurity.

Anyway, I figured that I would pick up where I left off and start solving some of the problems here and live-blogging my solutions as I write them.

It turns out that the last problem that I solved (or at least publicly blogged about the solution for) was problem 22 back in September of 2012. That would've been the start of my sophomore year in high school. Feels like centuries ago!

So with that in mind, I figured that I would start, six years later, by working on the solution for problem 23. It goes a little something like this.

A perfect number is a number for which the sum of its proper divisors is exactly equal to the number. For example, the sum of the proper divisors of 28 would be 1 + 2 + 4 + 7 + 14 = 28, which means that 28 is a perfect number.

A number n is called deficient if the sum of its proper divisors is less than n and it is called abundant if this sum exceeds n.

As 12 is the smallest abundant number, 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 6 = 16, the smallest number that can be written as the sum of two abundant numbers is 24. By mathematical analysis, it can be shown that all integers greater than 28123 can be written as the sum of two abundant numbers. However, this upper limit cannot be reduced any further by analysis even though it is known that the greatest number that cannot be expressed as the sum of two abundant numbers is less than this limit.

Find the sum of all the positive integers which cannot be written as the sum of two abundant numbers.

Alright! So the main goal here is to find the sum of all positive integers that cannot be written as the sum of two abundant numbers. The problem text also tells us that every number greater that 28,123 can be writtern as the sum of two abundant numbers. So this narrows down our search space to numbers between 0 and 28,123. That's a pretty large search space, although we have these things called computers that are stupid and fast and we can put them to work!

I'll admit that I used to be the kind of programmer who would sit and look at problems like these and try to cook up a clever solution right away. But I got older (and wiser) and realized that in most cases, you'd be totally find just throwing a for-loop at the problem. So I created a quick little template for what the solution would look like.

def abundant_terms_for_sum(x): fancy math stuff that I'm unsure of yet def non_abundant_sums(): total = 0 for x in range(28123): if not abundant_terms_for_sum(x): total += x return total

Pretty basic, right?

Side note: I'll be using Python 3 to solve these problems. That's the same programming language I used to solve them when I was a teenager. Although looking back at my blog, I solved some of them using Common Lisp. Maybe I'll take a crack at doing that now!

Now, since I first started solving these problems in my sophomore year of high school, I've had about 6 years of advanced algebra and calculus classes taught to me. That being said, I still have no clue what I'm doing when it comes to math. So I headed over to the good ol' trusty Google dot com to see if someone who liked numbers way more than me had figured out a clever way to determine whether a number could not be the sum of two abundant numbers.

Side note: If you can't be clever yourself, you can always leverage another person's cleverness!

I couldn't find anything useful on the Internet, so it turns out I'll have to use my own noggin for this one. I suppose the point of these problems is to put the noggin to work anyways...

So, my general strategy for things like this is to create an outline of the program with a scaffold of all the functions that I think I might need to call.

def generate_abundant_numbers(): create a list of the abundant numbers less than 28123 ABUNDANT_NUMBERS = generate_abundant_numbers() def abundant_terms_for_sum(x): for num in ABUNDANT_NUMBERS: difference = x - num if difference in ABUNDANT_NUMBERS: return True return False def non_abundant_sums(): total = 0 for x in range(28123): if not abundant_terms_for_sum(x): total += x return total

So basically, my plan is to generate a list of all the abundant numbers that are less than the boundary we set at 28,123 in a global called ABUNDANT_NUMBERS. Then, the abundant_terms_for_sum function will check if the terms of the sum of x are in ABUNDANT_NUMBERS and handle it appropirately. The only unfilled function here is the generate_abundant_numbers function. I did some hacking around to figure out if I could implement something using for-loops and mathy-math and came up with the following.

def get_proper_divisors(n): divisors = [] for x in range(1, n + 1): if n % x == 0 and n != x: divisors.append(x) return divisors def generate_abundant_numbers(): numbers = [] for x in range(28123): proper_divisors = get_proper_divisors(x) if sum(proper_divisors) > x: numbers.append(x) return numbers

Now, this piece of code took so long to run, I had to trim my hair by the time it was done running. Well not really, I actually ended up just halting it as it was checking the 93rd number but you get the gist.

The big culprit here is the fact that there are two iterations that go from 0 to 28123 so the time complexity (oh gosh, did I just use those words?!!?) of this particular implementation is O(n^2).

If this was a technical interview, this is the point where I would stare blankly at the screen and babble out my stream of concious to the poor person on the other end of the phone. Since I'm just doing this alone in my bedroom, I'm going to stare really hard at the code until some revelation hits me through some form of air-based diffusion.

Just stare really hard.

Keep staring.

And thinking.

So there are a few things that I can do here. The problem statement that 12 is the smallest abundant number. So I updated my code to refelct this.

def generate_abundant_numbers(): numbers = [] for x in range(12, 28123):

The next thing I realized was a problem with my abundant_terms_for_sum function. When iterating through each of the ABUNDANT_NUMBERS I needed to do a better job of skipping throug the abundant numbers I knew for sure were not part of the solution.

def abundant_terms_for_sum(x): for num in ABUNDANT_NUMBERS: if num > x: return False difference = x - num if difference in ABUNDANT_NUMBERS: return True return False

With these changes, I noticed that the program was running much, much faster. I hadn't actually done anything to alter the time complexity of the implementation, but the minor changes I made helped improve the run-time for the average case that I was dealing with.

At this point, I actually decided to let the program run all the way through. I still hadn't actually verified that my implementation was correct, so it was kind of silly for me to be working on optimizing something that might not have been totally accurate.

So I let this rather slow code run for a little bit while I went out and pretended that I wasn't really a robo — errr, while I cleaned up my apartment.

Once it was done running, I pasted the answer I got into the checker and found out I was correct. What a relief! Now I can do some more optimizations without

The next thing I did was make some improvements to the way that proper_divisors and generate_abundant_numbers worked. Overall, these changes reduce the space complexity of the program since I'm directly computing the sum of the proper divisors instead of storing the divisors in an array and then summing them up. This helped a little bit because as it turns out the time complexity of the sum function in Python is O(n).

Side note: I know I'm using the words time complexity a lot and it might be scary if you are a new programmer. You can read more about what time complexity is here or here but basically it is just a fancy way of answering the question "How long will this program take to run?"

The next thing I did was refactor the non_abundant_sums function to take advantage of list comprehensions.

def non_abundant_sums(): return sum([x for x in range(28123) if not abundant_terms_for_sum(x)])

So, my current solution thus far looks like this.

def get_proper_divisors(n): total = 0 for x in range(1, n + 1): if n % x == 0 and n != x: total += x return total def generate_abundant_numbers(): numbers = [] for x in range(12, 28123): sum_proper_divisors = get_proper_divisors(x) if sum_proper_divisors > x: numbers.append(x) return numbers ABUNDANT_NUMBERS = generate_abundant_numbers() def abundant_terms_for_sum(x): for num in ABUNDANT_NUMBERS: if num > x: return False difference = x - num if difference in ABUNDANT_NUMBERS: return True return False def non_abundant_sums(): return sum([x for x in range(28123) if not abundant_terms_for_sum(x)]) print(non_abundant_sums())

To be honest, it is still pretty hecking slow.

First and formost, the get_proper_divisors function takes a really long time to run. I optimized it using a pretty common optimization for factorization algorithm that relies on one of the properties of the factors of a number.

def get_proper_divisors(n): limit = math.sqrt(n) if limit.is_integer(): total = -limit else: total = 1 for x in range(2, int(limit) + 1): if n % x == 0: total += x + int(n / x) return total

The next thing I did was remove the reliance on abundant_terms_for_sum and just use Python's any function to check if there were any abundant terms that added up to a particular sum.

def non_abundant_sums(): total = 0 for x in range(28123): if not any((x - i in ABUNDANT_NUMBERS) for i in ABUNDANT_NUMBERS): total += x return total

Despite these changes, the program was still running a bit slow. Specifically, there were two for-loops in the code that iterated up to 28,123, the one in non_abundant_sums and the one in generate_abundant_numbers. I decided to combine these two functions together and avoid pre-allocating the dependent numbers. I also ended up using a set to store the date because I realized that we don't care much to have duplicate summation entries in our data set.

def non_abundant_sums(): total = 0 numbers = set() for x in range(28123): if get_proper_divisors(x) > x: numbers.add(x) if not any((x - i in numbers) for i in numbers): total += x return total

Sweet! Now the program runs a little faster. Here's the final code for the curious.

import math def get_proper_divisors(n): limit = math.sqrt(n) if limit.is_integer(): total = -limit else: total = 1 for x in range(2, int(limit) + 1): if n % x == 0: total += x + int(n / x) return total def non_abundant_sums(): total = 0 numbers = set() for x in range(28123): if get_proper_divisors(x) > x: numbers.add(x) if not any((x - i in numbers) for i in numbers): total += x return total print(non_abundant_sums())

So basically, I started off writing a lot of very simple code then I shaved a ton of it off. This is usually how things go for me when I'm solving problems. Just dump whatever I can onto the screen and then see if I can make it better!

There's a big life lesson in there somewhere….

#problem-solving-with-safia

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theoptimistbellasworld · 5 years

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When Adulting Becomes Tiring

Adulting. Quarter life crisis. Never thought that it is an official thing. I know I am going through some crisis or melancholy phase, but I thought I am just overreacting to the change of season in my life.

Millennials like me have experienced an awesome childhood. Life back then was comfortable and simple. Like what I also saw on Facebook a few days ago, they described it as waking up in the morning with our breakfast ready, school uniform already ironed, warm water for our bath, and TV on for the morning news. That, for me, was a stress-free life. No social media. No notifications to check. No worries about whether your message was read, or even seen. No fear of missing out. All you need to worry about is finishing your homework or reviewing enough for the day’s long quiz.

Once school is done, we are in a hurry to go home because we don’t want to miss our favorite afternoon cartoon series. After the leisure of television, just do some of the homework then go out and play outside with friends and cousins. Volleyball, langit lupa, text, pogs, jolen, chinese garter, agawang base, patintero, tumbang preso, luksong baka and more kalye games. We get to play and pick a fight with the kids from the other street, and get to meet new playmates and friends. Real life friends. Our only screen time would be playing the brick game or Super Mario on the family computer. Our favorite past time is to hang out at dusk, with a guitar, playing and singing the songs of our favorite bands: Eraserheads, Parokya ni Edgar, Spongecola, Callalily, Rivermaya, Kamikazee, Silent Sanctuary, MYMP, 6cyclemind, Moonstar88, Hale, Paramore, FM Static, The Red Jump Suit Apparatus, Life House, Boys Like Girls, My Chemical Romance, Goo Goo Dolls, and the list goes ooonnn! (I know you have a lot of bands in your mind, but these are just my favorites. And yah, this is my jam back then. LOL. And friendships are strengthened because of this jam! Haha)

Now we are getting nostalgic huh? But my point is, life, when we were teens, was fine and easy. The words I used a while ago were comfortable, simple, and stress-free. What happened now? Have you felt the transition? Have you noticed that you became fully aware of life and society’s issues? Do the burden and responsibilities seem too much for you now? Same besh. Same. And I realized it is not just because we age, but also because we mature, and times are changing fast. This current generation is so different from ours that causes our transition to be overwhelming.

I read an article from Grace Communion International that explains what is happening. Tho it talks about midlife crisis, I'm pretty sure we can get something from it:

The midlife years have always been a time of reflection. With one’s life supposedly half over, we try to reevaluate who we are and what we want to do with the rest of our lives. Factor in anxiety about growing older and comparisons to others or unattainable standards set by advertising, and it is easy to see how this period of time segued from what was once called the “midlife transition” into a “midlife crisis,” a term introduced in 1965 by psychoanalyst and social scientist Elliot Jaques. How do we cope with all of this midlife melancholy without becoming suicidal?

The roots of these feelings run deeper than emotional dissatisfaction with life. We all want to feel significant in some way—to leave a positive mark on society and those around us. When the midyears hit, we realize many of our youthful dreams will never come true. It can be deeply disappointing. Even if those dreams did come true, it can leave us unfulfilled and wanting more. We are dissatisfied. So either way, almost any path looks better than the one we’ve taken.

We have more, more, more of everything, yet feel less, less, less satisfied.

Mid-lifers search in all the wrong places to fill the void of lost youth, unrealized dreams, or discontentment. Some have an extramarital affair, get plastic surgery, buy a new convertible, or switch jobs — finding out too late that these outward appearances cannot replace the emptiness inside. Perhaps that’s when suicide looks appealing.

Society has made it easy to bail out. Just a handful of pills, an endless sleep and all feelings of inadequacy are over.

But is midlife suicide a solution or a symptom of our modern society? Society tells us we must be happy all the time. Yet society tells us ever so subtly that we will never measure up: We are not young enough, pretty enough, thin enough, rich enough or smart enough. Even religion often makes us feel that we are not good enough and that we do not do enough. This “not enough” syndrome leaves people feeling helpless and hopeless, making the void in their lives seem even bigger.

Source: https://archive.gci.org/articles/mid-life-melancholy/

One of my favorite writer, John Piper, cited an experience of a midlife meltdown in one of his articles:

There is something to men in midlife crisis. I remember one time, I was 40, sitting on the steps halfway through vacation sobbing. Noël comes down the steps. She asked, “What’s wrong?” I said, “I don’t have a clue. I don’t have a clue why I’m so sad.” And that season lasted several years, and the grace was that I could still function.

Source: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/walk-with-me-through-a-midlife-crisis?fbclid=IwAR30LDixYMPJn5X8n-wk1ZGJ2MD0728rrAQf6wGaN08I9Yee2_sjzbseDYo

So you see, this is not something that we just make up because we are too emotional with what is happening in our lives. These things really happen and you are not alone in this struggle.

I tried to enumerate what are the major things that make me worry or anxious. Now, these are just my personal struggles but have heard with friends of the same age that they worry about these things, too. Maybe as you read, you can relate and you can say we are on the same rapids. ;)

Financial Stability

We are no longer students who are just waiting for our allowance and if in case it won’t be enough, we can just ask from our parents anytime. We are professionals now. We work to earn our own money, pay our own bills and to at least give some to our parents. But as the supply increases, the demands are increasing too. Our income doesn’t seem to be enough for the things we need to pay for. And worst, we can’t save for a house and a car, or just even maintain a savings account. We declare that we are financially unstable.

Dreams

“This is not where I am meant to be.”

“I should be this or that.”

“I want to be like him/her”

We have dreams that seem to be impossible to happen or out of our reach. And because of the rejections and disappointments we have experienced, we ended up burying those dreams in the deepest of our hearts.

Settling Down

Settling down is an unspecific way of indicating you have found a life partner and stopped dating or jumping from one relationship to another. But the problem with this generation is, people can’t be contented with the one they are already with. And this is so heartbreaking.

I have heard and seen relationships falling apart only because the other person got interested with someone else and chose to dump the current relationship for a new one. This creates fear or trust issues for some people. Thus, dreaming of settling down becomes the least priority.

Some don’t want to settle down because they think they are not yet ready. They think they are not yet financially and emotionally capable. But we can’t pretend that we do not want it and we do not worry about it. Deep inside we all want to build our own family and go home with the person that will be our “constant” and “forever”. Especially if we are already on our ideal marrying age.

Talents/ Hobbies

I am not sure if I am the only one who gets anxious about this, but do you have a talent or hobby that you really love doing yet because of work and other responsibilities in life, you no longer have the luxury of time to do it? Then when you see someone excellent on that thing, you can’t help but be jealous and wish you can still do it too.

I wrote about these things because I want you to know that you are not alone in this journey. You don’t have to go through it and figure things out all by yourself. Thank God because these things are just for a season. And we can learn a lot from it. That I will share on my next blog. ;)

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