#I need to buy a bigger one for him because that's the MINIMUM REQUIREMENT for axolotls | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jiminrings · 3 years

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petition for stem koo to do all the things for oc he originally said no one does (make her lunchboxes, makes her cheerful...) bc i think that’s a beautiful redemption arc

cold senior!y/n x stem major!koo masterlist :D

jungkook's day one of his redemption agenda doesn't go that well in the end

"namjoon!!! my man. got any updates for me?"

seokjin strolls coolly on the way to his office, hair slicked back and his dress shirt definitely missing more than a few buttons

what's head admin gonna do??? dress-code him???

fire him???? PLS HE'D BE BETTER OFF!!!!

jin makes student affairs his bitch,,, not the other way around

"for the last time, i am nOt your secretary!!" namjoon stresses as he ceases his typing just to glare at him

he's the university registrar and everyone needs to go through him and at this point he's like a historical landmark from how he's made impact in less than two years

and he and seokjin graduated from the same batch!!!! they're the uncanny always pair for the subjects they shared together

it was definitely weird but functional lol cause one is uptight yet hardworking and the other's relaxed yet smart

sue them for working in the same place they swore they'd never go back to after graduation </3

"if you say-"

"some kid's been waiting for you even before i opened the office. made him sit inside but i just told him that he'd be expelled if he even tries to touch your coffee machine."

namjoon says even before jin could finish the sentence, clearly holding that in until the last minute

jin's obviously a lil annoyed because he's starting work as early as now but the way that joon laid all that out on him is a highlight for him

"thanks. knew you're a secretary for me first and a registrar second."

"no. i'm a national citizen before-"

alright alright he's not listening anymore

this bETTER be important because jin has to hold out his morning routine for whoever this kid is

"what can i possibly do for you today?" he rubs his eyes in preparation, intentionally dragging his steps because just looking at how near he is to his work computer gives him vertigo

"mr. kim!!!"

there is no way

there is no fATHOMABLE way that this has got to be happening to seokjin right now

"..... jungkook. what a pleasure."

he sits on his chair, voice gritted and monotone and he could just feel his eye twitching, his clenched fist under his deck now flipping off the kid in secret

it's a last-minute realization that he grasps that jungkook doesn't know you're his friend and it presents some really unique vantage points

like the time that seokjin recounted about a ridiculous student's filing for theft of his lunchboxes and he turned out to be your crush

or when he used his student affairs capabilities and pulled up resources left and right when jungkook broke your heart then seriously contemplated about messing up his academic record

or that time when he delivered a high and sleepy you to bed and then heard the entire conversation (if you could even call it that) between yoongi and this fucking nerd

"i need your help, mr. kim. you're the closest one to me i could ask!!" jungkook pleads desperately, the big doe eyes not really inducing an effect on him whatsoever lmao

"mhmm. i may not be the person for the job. counseling is right next door."

jin hums without even attempting to get jungkook to elaborate because for all he knows, his services aren't exactly open for people who hurt his friends >:(

(a guy once bumped shoulders with yoongi twice on the same day with aTTITUDE!!! and seokjin just dismissed the dude's concerns when a prof of his, who's a buddy of jin's, suddenly gave him an F)

seokjin IS student affairs

“no, no. you’re the only one who can help me!! you see, i-i just feel this brotherly connection with you and-“

“we talked once.”

god what did you used to see in this kid??

a crybaby aND an easily-attached personality to him? god it’s like jungkook’s just asking jin to pick on him

jungkook doesn’t seem to pick up how jin’s making it obvious he really doesn’t want to be of help if it has something to do with him

he likes interrupting and jin’s just the perfect match to interrupt him even earlier so now they just sound like one of those dubsmash snippets

“MR. KIM!!! how do you make lunchboxes? i don't know how.”

jeez where are his manners :O aren’t nerds like him supposed to worship the ground that admins walk on,,,

but what did pique his attention is the content of what jungkook just said

.... lunchboxes?

jin doesn’t want to give the kid benefit of the doubt because the last time he did that, you got hurt!!!!

if he has to hear hyeji’s name one more time, he’d really waste no time in stripping jungkook’s name from the honor roll

“remember that time i thought someone was stealing my lunchboxes?” he quizzes jin like it’s his job, clueless how he’s poking the bear even more with where he decides to go with this, “yeah. turns out no one was.”

was that not made clear the first time around!!!!!! he knows for a fact that a uni student would trade a classmate for a pack of gum but nO ONE would go for stealing a lunchbox

no one wakes up one day and decides that they’d steal a lunchbox. literally none

“but then this random girl claimed that it was hers a-and well i-...”

kook pauses to gauge jin’s reaction, clearly seeing now the one brow that’s raised at him

oh so if jungkook just asked him how to make a lunchbox, and he called h-word random,,,, then that would mean-

“i may have hurt the original giver of my lunchboxes at the process.”

.... that means he’s asking how to make a lunchbox for you

well that was a pleasant surprise

seokjin snorts briefly at that, dryly chuckling with his eyes widening to stress out his “non-threat” that’s pretty mUCH a threat

“wow. i might just give you a sanction for that.”

does he think jungkook’s a good person? lol he has to think about that for a month

was he wrong for hurting you that way? ultimately yes

but did he think at some point that jungkook’s completely heartless and wouldn’t try to redeem himself to his senior? no, not completely

but is he still on your team, regardless if the kid begs for mercy and you forgive him? yea a hundred percent :D yoongi and seokjin could never be brought out from your circle

"and you're doing this why?"

this is a no-brainer question for jungkook but the question still spooks him, feeling the chills at his neck that responding to seokjin is like a sTEPPING STONE when it comes to you

lmao if only he knew

"i uh, i just really wanna make this right. i messed up completely and it's pretty much unforgivable, but i atleast wanna try and give my best even if she doesn't forgive me, y'know?"

interesting

"mhmm. right, right."

???

he's still mad but he appreciates that jeon's doing the bare minimum of redeeming himself

speaking of, the poor kid looks like he's pissing himself because he may have just embarrassed himself with how long the silence stretches out

maybe,,, just maybe jin's gonna try and be a bridge this time

but like as soon as jungkook lacks for a fourth of a second, seokjin would BURN that bridge faster than a blink

"well first of all, you buy a lunchbox."

RIGHT RIGHT

jungkook grabs a literal pocket notebook and jin pretends he didn't see that because WHO the hell does that!!!!

"of course... okay, proceed!! i'm taking notes," jungkook nods in understanding, jotting down the very important advice of not ordering from online because you can't smell the material through a screen

p.s. smelling containers before you buy them is a VITAL thing to do!! it already tells you about the quality at the first sniff

"are you buying one?"

"buying one for every day of the week. i'm thinking if i should get extras too-

"good idea. i recommend buying eight."

alright seokjin's mentioning some very specific colors and schemes and jungkook's not complaining!!!

MAYBE HE'S ONTO SOMETHING!!!

"what meals should i make? i don't even know what she likes!! and even if i knew what, how would i make it?"

why is his heart racing

yoongi may have taught you how to do your taxes but jin taught you how to cook food that's more than four steps!!!

he taught you how to not flinch at all when you're frying and that's the equivalent of raising you to be the woman that you are now <3

look at him and yoongi being your best friends!! teaching you about taxes and being unnerved at cooking oil and busting out a smoke ring or two <3

in fact, the lunches you've cooked for jungkook are all inspired and derived by seokjin!!!

the fact that jungkook's plan isn't bad and the way everything pieces together with his insight,,,, goosebumps luv

"....hypothetically? what i think she'd like?"

jungkook eagerly nods with stars in his eyes, fingers gripping onto his pen for dear life as he tries to channel all his listening techniques into this lecture

"get a bigger notepad."

wow

"look at you!!" yoongi gushes the moment he sees you, waiting at you from the front door

you're going back to your classes again :D

you don't look as worse as you did four days ago!! you're not as sluggish and as animated too

"please don't," you snort as yoongi doesn't seem to stop looking at you like you've saved the world, giving no fight when he insists on carrying your backpack to your first class of the day

the past four days,, yeah they were undoubtedly rough

you slept as much as you could and for the moments you weren't dejected enough to be awake, you spent it surrounding yourself with seokjin and yoongi as much as possible

that's the beauty of hanging out them!!! you're not required to have a single thought lmao

except for the time when yoongi wondered aloud how eels even live and die (or if they even do???) in the first place and that sent everyone in a spiral and you didn't think of jungkook for a single seconds

you're not intimidated to go back to regular programming or with the fact that it's nOT unlikely you'd see a glimpse of jungkook in the hall and such

but that does mean that even if you're the bigger person, you're still gonna avoid him for as long as you could

speaking of!!!! you're looking for the person now that you're eager to find

"taehyung!!"

there he is :D you'd recognize that fluffy mop of permed hair anywhere

"y/n!!"

tae jumps over chairs in excitement to finally see you again after being so worried for you, engulfing you in a hug immediately

alright you see why yoongi thinks he's a golden retriever

you're clearly not a touchy-feely person but you'd let this one pass,, tae helped you (even indirectly) throughout your downtime anyways

"thank you so much for the cookies. i tried taking smaller bites just because i didn't wanna have them disappear that easy," you confess sheepishly, knowing how you had to pull the i just got my heart broken like two days ago multiple times so the two menaces would stop stealing from your stash

jungkook's excited!!!! seokjin may have given him a tip that "he felt it in his gut" that you were gonna go to class today

he came a little late because he wanted to perfect the very loaded lunchbox that's in his backpack right now

oh weird

you're not in your usual chair

bUT jungkook sees a glimpse of your hair and he's certain that you're there and his heart may be beating out of his ribcage

a baby peach lunchbox with a sticker (of what seokjin said he thought you'd like) on the middle of the lid :D

pork katsudon with furikake rice aND coffee jelly pudding on the side!!! it was definitely pressure-racking to strictly adhere to jin's recipe but god does it look worth it

jungkook's only did miniature taste tests on it and he had to stop himself from devouring the lunch that he's made specifically for you

the lunchbox itself is tied neatly with a silk wrap, adding his touch of sewing your name visibly on it aND there's a scribble taped to the lid too

god jungkook really can't wait to make it up to you

sheesh that was one of THEE longest lectures you've ever felt you had

it was actually the same amount of time it's always been but maybe you've been out of practice from just staying at your dorm for days

tae's great company but he could be a little bit chatty!!! you just nod when you feel his voice go up and he apparently gets excited by that easily

.... he apparently also has a small bladder and he told you that within the whole hour of class

"hold on. i gotta pee before next period. go without me!!!' taehyung hurriedly slings his backpack to his arm, looking ridiculous in a rush

tae's sometimes unintentionally funny because you don't even share next period anyways

you're on your way to the exit when a shiny scarf catches the corner of your eye, having to squint at it because wow does it look pretty

is that-

is that your nAME???

you pick it up before you could even rationalize it, realizing then what it was wrapping when you feel the warmth on your hands

:")

"sorry i forgot my headband!!!"

taehyung stumbles back into the room, catching his breath to run back to his seat and fetch the headband he took from his hair to play with awhile ago

he looks shocked to see what's on your hands, flicking his gaze between you and the item but he doesn't think much of it

wOW that's a really shiny scarf!!!

"tae?"

"hmm yeah? what's up?"

he's about to jog back to the comfort room because he hasn't really relieved himself yet, not bearing to leave his headband in the room when anyone could snatch it up

you raise your lunchbox, a thankful gaze on your eyes that looks so close to crying which is why tae's mORE than lost now

"thanks for the lunch."

.....

jungkook could only helplessly watch.

#EEEEEEEEK :D I HAVE A REQUEST QUEUED UP NEXT BUT WHAT DO YOU WANNA SEE IN THE NEXT PARTS #stem koo #jungkook imagine #jungkook imagines #jungkook oneshot #jungkook oneshots #jungkook au #jungkook drabble #jungkook x reader #jungkook x y/n #jungkook angst #college jungkook au

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ckneal · 3 years

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So, there’s this one angel story in the back of my head that I know I wont write. I wont write it, because it’s utter nonsense, with very little regard for the canonical timeline of Supernatural, and a willfully blurry view on what is and is not “in character.” It’s fluff. It’s all fluff, in the form of a bunch of smaller stories that gradually weave together, following the Love, Actually style of storytelling, but instead of problematic love stories, it’s all about angels playing hooky from Heaven after the Fall.

(Seriously, there is no substance here, I swear.)

Stories include Abner, living out the first half of the movie Family Man, struggling to figure out how to be a good father and house husband after he steps into the life of the raging alcoholic who agreed to be his vessel. There’s also a very minor story about Esther (not to be confused with Hester, who is not in this story because she never deserted her post in Heaven) learning to play the part of a little girl and navigating schoolyard politics, but kids can be mean and Esther learns the hard way that Michael’s approach to asserting dominance in Heaven does not translate well. There’s also Daniel and Adina, who both settle into vessels in the same movie theater where a romantic comedy is playing, and fall into a very innocent, play-acting sort of love after they leave the theatre—like little kids pretending to be in love, recreating the scenes from the movie, but at the same time not really understanding it. Balthazar, Gabriel, and Anael each trying to roll with the luxurious high roller life style, and awkwardly running into each other at VIP poker games, exclusive spas and clubs, and the occasional orgy that they promptly leave IMMEDATELY after running into a sibling (don’t give me weird looks, Balthazar and Gabriel canonically include that sort of thing in their definition of luxury, and the whole thing of their story is their siblings keep cramping their style). Tyrus is in there bowling, somewhere. Benjamin’s playing arcade games with his wife. And then there’s Thaddeus, my pet favorite minor angel character, realizing what’s happening as he’s falling with all the other faithful angels during the Fall and seizing the opportunity to abandon his life as a guard and torturer, settling into a pop star for his vessel—initially for the sake of the cushy lifestyle, but then gradually looking back, before the garden and Lucifer, before everyone was assigned a job in Heaven, like it or not, and the options were to adapt or to be smote, and remembering that back then, he could sing.

And of course, Michael and Adam get a story too—in which Michael lowkey gets into a pissing contest with death, as he and Adam travel the world, hitting up hospital after hospital to heal people. Because the first thing Adam wanted to do after getting out of the cage (okay, second thing—burgers came first) was go to the nearest medical center and start healing people left and right. And at first, they’re having a great time. Adam steals a white jacket he finds in the breakroom somewhere, and anytime someone says he looks a little young to be a doctor (Adam still looking nineteen years old, because I say so), Michael wipes the poor sap’s mind. But eventually—sometime after they’ve cleared out the children’s ward, the cancer ward, the cardiac ward—Billie shows up, sniping at them that they can’t just go around healing people who are destined to die, because there is an order to life and death that cannot be shoved aside. And Billie tries to make a show of it, as Terra did with Dean, by having several people who Adam had healed over the course of the day inadvertently cause several massive accidents. The news suddenly comes pouring out of the television, channels flipping as newscasters talk about tragedies occurring in several different parts of the city they’re currently in. The sound of approaching ambulance sirens fills the air, as in the hospital hallway, doctors and nurses begin hurrying to receive a rush of ER patients.

Adam’s horrified.

Michael does not take kindly to this. He snaps his fingers and makes it so that the carnage has never happened. Because he is the archangel Michael, only two steps away from being a god, and if he says that all of these people are going to live, then they are going to live, and he WILL NOT be intimidated, especially by an amateur reaper whose only qualification for her position was dying at the right time.

Billie in turn lands Michael with a cold stare, and points out that the order to life and death is beyond even God’s authority, let alone daddy’s blunt, sniveling instrument.

As Michael’s eyes start to glow, Adam steps in and says, “So, to be clear, you want us to stop healing people on the verge of death? We can do that.”

After Billie leaves, Michael is outraged, but Adam says, “No, Michael, THINK about it.”

We then cut to other stories, where newscasts in the background reveal that ailments that are not IMMIEDATELY fatal (AIDs, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, etc.) are mysteriously disappearing overnight, worldwide.

Billie is not amused, and tells her reapers to be on the lookout for an archangel at every major hospital in the world.

Cut to Michael throwing open the door of the bunker, muttering aloud to Adam that he’s going to do it, he’s going to bind Death, just like Lucifer did—how hard can it be? Sam and Dean see him as he goes stomping off toward the cabinet where they keep all of their magical dry goods, but Michael snaps his fingers and the two of them are abruptly half drunk in Dean’s man cave, sitting in front of Dean’s flat screen TV, watching some campy monster movie, because that’s lowkey what Michael and Adam assume they do all day.

As they’re raiding Sam and Dean’s supplies though, Adam says, “Wait, I have an idea.”

Cut to Abner looking up while pushing his vessel’s daughter in a park swing, and literally seeing Michael and Adam chasing an ambulance, so they can technically heal the person inside before reaching the hospital.

Yes, I’m aware that Abner was dead by the time Michael and Adam got out of the cage. But see, this story? This story is like when someone gifts you a goldfish unexpectedly, and you put it in a bowl, checking in to feed it a couple times a day, lowkey expecting it to die. But it doesn’t die, it gets bigger. And you’re not a cruel person, so you put it in a bigger tank, but it just gets bigger again, and you don’t really know what’s going on, but you know, you just kind of keep checking in, meeting the minimum requirements but not really getting in there as a guiding force because it’s a goldfish and it’s surely going to die any minute now—but then you look over and there’s giant tank taking up your living room, and you’re thawing out bloodworms twice a day, and looking into tankmates to keep Charles company, and realize that “Oh wow, I guess this is a thing now.”

In short, the story says we’re ignoring the timeline, and it’s calling the shots. I’m just keeping the tank clean.

The angels all eventually wind up running into each other. Abner and Esther happen upon one another in a park, where Esther is morosely realizing that she is terrible at being a human child but she does not want to go home to Heaven, and it just happens to be the same park where Abner goes with his “little nibblet” once a day to let her toddle around the playground while he chats with nannies and other house parents. Anael, Adina, and Daniel meet up when the latter two’s game has reached the point where they’ve decided to get married, and they apparently need to buy something new—preferably blue—as per this very important rhyme someone told them about. Esther and Gabriel run into each other in an ice cream parlor. Thaddeus gets recognized while doing an interview on TV that everyone sees. And, while out joyriding in a Lamborghini, on their way to meet up with the growing community of angels who decided to opt out of their responsibility to Heaven and their father’s legacy, Balthazar, Gabriel, and Anael are all startled to see Michael land on an ambulance stopped next to them at a red light.

Balthazar and Anael are both terrified, as if they’ve just been busted by a parent, because Michael, of course, is the guy who enforces the rules, and isn’t he supposed to be in Hell? They both shoot Gabriel looks as if to say ‘what the hell are you doing’ when Gabriel, watching as Michael climbs down and matter-of-factly wrenches the ambulance doors open, calls out, “Hey, Mike! Is that you?”

Michael looks over, freezes for a second—not prepared to be suddenly thrust into a social situation in the middle of his self-imposed mission to spite death—then his eyes flash and Adam takes over. “Oh hey, you’re Michael’s family? What a small world! I’m Adam, I’ve heard so much about you. Wait, hang on—”

The light starts to turn green, but Adam snaps his fingers and it promptly reverts to red.

Three jaws drop in the luxury car, and they don’t even hear Adam politely explain that he and Michael are in the middle of something, as he ducks into the ambulance, because Michael’s evidently letting a tiny human use his powers like it’s nothing, and what does that mean?

“Sweet dad in the unknown, Michael’s shagging a human. . .”

“Nooo!”

“HOW?”

“Hey, kid, you like weddings?”

At some point in the story, all the MIA angels are together, and Benjamin or someone comes running in saying, “Quick, they’re coming! Everyone hide!”

And everyone scatters, except for Michael, who stands in place, saying, “Gabriel, we’re archangels, two of the most powerful beings in existence. Why would we—”

And then Gabriel picks Adam up like a sack of potatoes and sprints off, calling back, “Trust me, you do NOT want to get involved with them!”

Being a projection, Michael is obligated to follow.

Team Free Will then walks by, looking constipated from whatever Big Awful Thing is currently threatening to destroy the world.

The story, of course, culminates in the wedding of Adina and Daniel, who still don’t quite understand what marriage is beyond promising to love each forever, which of course they will, after all, they are the very best of friends—which is about the same concept that most of the other angels present have. Adam is the first one to actually approach the big awkward question, upon finding out who the bride and groom are.

“Wait, aren’t they brother and sister?”

To which Serafina’s Adam, (who is of course there since Serafina was the original angel to play hooky) whose sons married his daughters, and all the angels, who do not understand what that has to do with anything, all cock their heads in unison and respond with, “So?”

Adam struggles to find words, looking into so many innocent faces. Then Benjamin’s wife puts a hand on his shoulder, whispering, “Shhh, let them have their fun.”

Benjamin’s wife and the two Adams wind up sitting at the venue’s bar, where they order nachos from a very confused bar tender, and watch as the angels go about setting up a wedding. But given that most angels haven’t been on earth regularly in roughly two thousand years, none of them have a clear grasp of what a human wedding entails.

“I heard it’s traditional for the father to give away the bride.”

“I think they’re supposed to kiss over bread.”

“Do humans still slaughter cows at these things?”

“I’m pretty sure someone is supposed to break a glass—”

Several angels promptly throw glassware on the floor.

At no point do the angels ask the humans for advice.

Occasionally, Gabriel knowingly throws out obscure details to keep the confusion going.

“You know, the groom needs to stand with the right arm to the aisle in case a sword fight breaks out.”

“Right! . . .How do we know which one’s the groom?”

At the bar, Adam open’s his mouth to say something, but the original Adam shushes him.

“No no, son, let them get there.”

The angels agree that being the better fighter, Adina should be the groom.

They’re nearly ready to start when Michael suddenly doubles over with his hand over his mouth. It coincides with the sound of Adam pounding the bar top, having just eaten a Carolina Reaper pepper on dare. Michael’s eyes quickly flash silver-blue as he straightens, and both he and Adam are abruptly fine—even if their eyes are still watering somewhat. But a different sort of damage has already been done, as Anael, Balthazar, and Gabriel all abruptly turn toward the triad of humans, having been reminded that the Michael walking around with them is actually a projection. In actuality, Michael is anchored to the human ex-college student sitting at the bar.

All three of them rush toward Adam, but Serafina gets there first, asking Adam if he’s ever tried mushroom tea.

Balthazar gets there next.

“Adam, was it? We didn’t get to talk in the car, let’s fix that. Are you over twenty-one? You know what, this is a family affair, don’t worry—CAN I GET TWO SHOTS OF DON JULIO OVER HERE?”

From that point on, any time Adam turns around, there’s one of Michael’s siblings, wanting to get to know him—by consuming some sort of beverage. Because Adam and Michael are sharing body—and that means they share a liver too. A bet ensues as to how much it will take to get God’s alleged favorite wasted.

Gabriel’s actually one of the first out, having been convinced that Michael would be a lightweight. Little does he suspect that Benjamin and his wife caught onto what was happening soon after Adam was fed his third long island iced tea and second jager bomb, and began quietly cleansing the alcohol from his system through casual shoulder pats and high fives.

Adam does not know what to make of any of this, but it’s Michael’s family and he wants to make a good impression, so he just goes with it.

Thaddeus, of course, is in charge of music, Gabriel and Esther consume the majority of the cake, and Michael catches the bouquet (he may have cheated after finding out what the bouquet toss is for).

#my thoughts #lowkey might be putting this idea out so it'll leave me alone #midam #supernatural angels #the divine shurley family

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plottwiststudios · 2 years

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PlotTwist’s Monthly Summary

November 2021

Sure was a lot of content being thrown at everyone this week, huh? Weird, considering Women of Xal (NOW ON STEAM AND ITCH.IO) has been out for three weeks now. In fact, there was so much, we’re not even dedicating a whole section to the game itself! That’s what the pinned post is for! We’re here for that lovely post content, after all. In short: It’s a high fantasy mystery game with lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of romance options. Writer went mad.

The PTcademy’s People’s Choice Awards

Link to the digital polls here!

Votes close this Sunday (November 28th, 2021). If you are at all worried one of your characters will win “worst” character over some you really don’t like, make sure your vote is heard beforehand! A lot of close calls at the moment. A single vote could balance that out! You only need to type down a name per category, no essays or explanations required!

Women of Xal Soundtrack Available

Link to the 100+ soundtrack here!

If you liked the jams in the game and want to support the composer that wrote over 99% of the tunes, feel free to give him (see: Me) some sweet, sweet Ko-fi points. I’ll use it for buying stocks, paying artists, and paying artists back.

NSFW Mobile Game: “From Our World to Yours”

We found a way to bring a slick little twist into the mobile dating sim genre, and it’s on par with the level of cheeky little original ideas that Women of Xal brought to the table. Only with WAY less complicated branching paths and less stress. This one is Kickstarter bound and will allow us to increase our portfolio while we prepare to step out into bigger and scarier territory (Unreal Engine, 3D, ect.) Details on the story and gameplay have been given to investors.

Wait We Can Invest?!

If you have a spare $500+ laying around and don’t mind being a silent investor, sure! You can DM us for details on that, but in summary, $500 gives you a small cut of company profits for a set period, and is the investment minimum, and $10,000+ is how you take a shortcut into getting your OC into Women of Xal and getting their own arc and optional Date With Xjena. Oh, and a bigger cut and longer term for the revenue sharing. All investors can join a Discord server where we talk about future projects with a more financial focus.

How do I get Women of Xal / The Soundtrack for Free?

BEAT ME IN SMASH, YO. Best of five games, Smash Ultimate tourney settings for professionals. I’ve got 10 million GSP, but that obviously means nothing. (Because I want to be at 10.5 million) Those that do just win free downloads, yo. O: If there’s any interest in such a silly event, I’ll absolutely host it. \o/

Any... Easier Way?

Aww, but I’m actually pretty easy. :’c But alternatively, I’ll have a survey page unlock for everyone who has cleared True Ending in their game. They’ll see a new button and it’ll take them to said survey. Fill it out, and you get a free soundtrack for your efforts. But it certainly isn’t easy; there’s a hardwired character minimum requirement on each question.

Any... Easier-easier Way?

Hey I run a business and can’t even buy juice for fun right now! Not without saying no to art or stocks. ; _;

Until next month

-John

#Women of Xal #WoX #Invest #Soundtrack #Steam

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oscopelabs · 3 years

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‘America’s Not a Country, It’s Just a Business’: On Andrew Dominik’s ‘Killing Them Softly’ By Roxana Hadadi

“Shitsville.” That’s the name Killing Them Softly director Andrew Dominik gave to the film’s nameless town, in which low-level criminals, ambitious mid-tier gangsters, nihilistic assassins, and the mob’s professional managerial class engage in warfare of the most savage kind. Onscreen, other states are mentioned (New York, Maryland, Florida), and the film itself was filmed in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, though some of the characters speak with Boston accents that are pulled from the source material, George V. Higgins’s novel Cogan’s Trade. But Dominik, by shifting Higgins’s narrative 30 or so years into the future and situating it specifically during the 2008 Presidential election, refuses to limit this story to one place. His frustrations with America as an institution that works for some and not all are broad and borderless, and so Shitsville serves as a stand-in for all the places not pretty enough for gentrifying developers to turn into income-generating properties, for all the cities whose industrial booms are decades in the past, and for all the communities forgotten by the idea of progress._ Killing Them Softly_ is a movie about the American dream as an unbeatable addiction, the kind of thing that invigorates and poisons you both, and that story isn’t just about one place. That’s everywhere in America, and nearly a decade after the release of Dominik’s film, that bitter bleakness still has grim resonance.

In November 2012, though, when Killing Them Softly was originally released, Dominik’s gangster picture-cum-pointed criticism of then-President Barack Obama’s vision of an America united in the same neoliberal goals received reviews that were decidedly mixed, tipping toward negative. (Audiences, meanwhile, stayed away, with Killing Them Softly opening at No. 7 with $7 million, one of the worst box office weekends of Brad Pitt’s entire career at that time.) Obama’s first term had been won on a tide of hope, optimism, and “better angels of our nature” solidarity, and he had just defeated Mitt Romney for another four years in the White House when Killing Them Softly hit theaters on Nov. 30. Cogan’s Trade had no political components, and no connections between the thieving and killing promulgated by these criminals and the country at large. Killing Them Softly, meanwhile, took every opportunity it could to chip away at the idea that a better life awaits us all if we just buy into the idea of American exceptionalism and pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps ingenuity. A fair amount of reviews didn’t hold back their loathing toward this approach. A.O. Scott with the New York Times dismissed Dominik’s frame as “a clumsy device, a feint toward significance that nothing else in the movie earns … the movie is more concerned with conjuring an aura of meaningfulness than with actually meaning anything.” Many critics lambasted Dominik’s nihilism: For Deadspin, Will Leitch called it a “crutch, and an awfully flimsy one,” while Richard Roeper thought the film collapsed under the “crushing weight” of Dominik’s philosophy. It was the beginning of Obama’s second term, and people still thought things might get better.

But Dominik’s film—like another that came out a few years earlier, Adam McKay’s 2010 political comedy The Other Guys—has maintained a crystalline kind of ideological purity, and perhaps gained a certain prescience. Its idea that America is less a bastion of betterment than a collection of corporate interests, and the simmering anger Brad Pitt’s Jackie Cogan captures in the film’s final moments, are increasingly difficult to brush off given the past decade or so in American life. This is not to say that Obama’s second term was a failure, but that it was defined over and over again by the limitations of top-down reform. Ceaseless Republican obstruction, widespread economic instability, and unapologetic police brutality marred the encouraging tenor of Obama’s presidency. Donald Trump’s subsequent four years in office were spent stacking the federal judiciary with young, conservative judges sympathetic toward his pro-big-business, fuck-the-little-guy approach, and his primary legislative triumph was a tax bill that will steadily hurt working-class people year after year.

The election of Obama’s vice president Joe Biden, and the Democratic Party securing control of the U.S. Senate, were enough for a brief sigh of relief in November 2020. The $1.9 trillion stimulus bill passed in March 2021 does a lot of good in extending (albeit lessened) unemployment benefits, providing a child credit to qualifying families, and funneling further COVID-19 support to school districts after a year of the coronavirus pandemic. But Republicans? They all voted no to helping the Americans they represent. Stimulus checks to the middle-class voters who voted Biden into office? Decreased for some, totally cut off for others, because of Biden’s appeasement to the centrists in his party. $15 minimum wage? Struck down, by both Republicans and Democrats. In how many more ways can those politicians who are meant to serve us indicate that they have little interest in doing anything of the kind?

Modern American politics, then, can be seen as quite a performative endeavor, and an exercise in passing blame. Who caused the economic collapse of 2008? Some bad actors, who the government bailed out. Who suffered the most as a result? Everyday Americans, many of whom have never recovered. Killing Them Softly mimics this dynamic, and emphasizes the gulf between the oppressors and the oppressed. The nameless elites of the mob, sending a middle manager to oversee their dirty work. The poker-game organizer, who must be brutally punished for a mistake made years before. The felons let down by the criminal justice system, who turn again to crime for a lack of other options. The hitman who brushes off all questions of morality, and whose primary concern is getting adequately paid for his work. Money, money, money. “This country is fucked, I’m telling ya. There’s a plague coming,” Jackie Cogan says to the Driver who delivers the mob’s by-committee rulings as to who Jackie should intimidate, threaten, and kill so their coffers can start getting filled again. Perhaps the plague is already here.

“Total fucking economic collapse.”

In terms of pure gumption, you have to applaud Dominik for taking aim at some of the biggest myths America likes to tell about itself. After analyzing the dueling natures of fame and infamy through the lens of American outlaw mystique in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Dominik thought bigger, taking on the entire American dream itself in Killing Them Softly. From the film’s very first second, Dominik doesn’t hold back, equating an easy path of forward progress with literal trash. Discordant tones and the film’s stark, white-on-black title cards interrupt Presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s speech about “the American promise,” slicing apart Obama’s words and his crowd’s responding cheers as felon Frankie (Scoot McNairy), in the all-American outfit of a denim jacket and jeans, cuts through what looks like a shut-down factory, debris and garbage blowing around him. Obama’s assurances sound very encouraging indeed: “Each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will.” But when Frankie—surrounded by trash, cigarette dangling from his mouth, and eyes squinting shut against the wind—walks under dueling billboards of Obama, with the word “CHANGE” in all-caps, and Republican opponent John McCain, paired with the phrase “KEEPING AMERICA STRONG,” a better future doesn’t exactly seem possible. Frankie looks too downtrodden, too weary of all the emptiness around him, for that.

Dominik and cinematographer Greig Fraser spoke to American Cinematographer magazine in October 2012 about shooting in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans: “We were aiming for something generic, a little town between New Orleans, Boston and D.C. that we called Shitsville. We wanted the place to look like it’s on the down-and-down, on the way out. We wanted viewers to feel just how smelly and grimy and horrible it was, but at the same time, we didn’t want to alienate them visually.” They were successful: Every location has a rundown quality, from the empty lot in which Frankie waits for friend and partner-in-crime Russell (Ben Mendelsohn)—a concrete expanse decorated with a couple of wooden chairs, as if people with nowhere else to go use this as a gathering spot—to the dingy laundromat backroom where Frankie and Russell meet with criminal mastermind Johnny “Squirrel” Amato (Vincent Curatola), who enlists them to rob a mafia game night run by Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta), to the restaurant kitchen where the game is run, all sickly fluorescent lights, cracked tile, and makeshift tables. Holding up a game like this, from which the cash left on the tables flows upward into the mob’s pockets, is dangerous indeed. But years before, Markie himself engineered a robbery of the game, and although that transgression was forgiven because of how well-liked Markie is in this institution, it would be easy to lay the blame on him again. And that’s exactly what Squirrel, Frankie, and Russell plan to do.

The “Why?” for such a risk isn’t that hard to figure out. Squirrel sees an opportunity to make off with other people’s money, he knows that any accusatory fingers will point elsewhere first, and he wants to act on it before some other aspiring baddie does. (Ahem, sound like the 2008 mortgage crisis to you?) Frankie, tired of the crappy jobs his probation officer keeps suggesting—jobs that require both long hours and a long commute, when Frankie can’t even afford a car (“Why the fuck do they think I need a job in the first place? Fucking assholes”)—is drawn in by desperation borne from a lack of options. If he doesn’t come into some kind of money soon, “I’m gonna have to go back and knock on the gate and say, ‘Let me back in, I can’t think of nothing and it’s starting to get cold,’” Frankie admits. And Australian immigrant and heroin addict Russell is nursing his own version of the American dream: He’s going to steal a bunch of purebred dogs, drive them down to Florida to sell for thousands of dollars, buy an ounce of heroin once he has $7,000 in hand, and then step on the heroin enough to become a dealer. It’s only a few moves from where he is to where he wants to be, he figures, and this card-game heist can help him get there.

In softly lit rooms, where the men in the frame are in focus and their surroundings and backgrounds are slightly blown out, slightly blurred, or slightly fuzzy (“Creaminess is something you feel you can enter into, like a bath; you want to be absorbed and encompassed by it” Fraser told American Cinematographer of his approach), garish deals are made, and then somehow pulled off with a sobering combination of ineptitude and ugliness. Russell buys yellow dishwashing gloves for himself and Frankie to wear during the holdup, and they look absurd—but the pistol-whipping Russell doles out to Markie still hurts like hell, no matter what accessories he’s wearing. Dominik gives this holdup the paranoia and claustrophobia it requires, revolving his camera around the barely-holding-it-together Frankie and cutting every so often to the enraged players, their eyes glancing up to look at Frankie’s face, their hands twitching toward their guns. But in the end, nobody moves. When Frankie and Russell add insult to injury by picking the players’ pockets (“It’s only money,” they say, as if this entire ordeal isn’t exclusively about wanting other people’s money), nobody fights back. Nobody dies. Frankie and Russell make off with thousands of dollars in two suitcases, while Markie is left bamboozled—and afraid—by what just happened. And the players? They’ll get their revenge eventually. You can count on that.

So it goes that Dominik smash cuts us from the elated and triumphant Russell and Frankie driving away from the heist in their stolen 1971 Buick Riviera, its headlights interrupting the inky-black night, to the inside of Jackie Cogan’s 1967 Oldsmobile Toronado, with Johnny Cash’s “The Man Comes Around” providing an evocative accompaniment. “There’s a man going around taking names/And he decides who to free, and who to blame/Everybody won’t be treated all the same,” Cash sings in that unmistakably gravelly voice, and that’s exactly what Jackie does. Called in by the mob to capture who robbed the game so that gambling can begin again, Jackie meets with an unnamed character, referred to only as the Driver (Richard Jenkins), who serves as the mob’s representative in these sorts of matters. Unlike the other criminals in this film—Frankie, with his tousled hair and sheepish face; Russell, with his constant sweatiness and dog-funk smell; Jackie, in his tailored three-piece suits and slicked-back hair; Markie, with those uncannily blue eyes and his matching slate sportscoat—the Driver looks like a square.

He is, like the men who replace Mike Milligan in the second season of Fargo, a kind of accountant, a man with an office and a secretary. “The past can no more become the future than the future can become the past,” Milligan had said, and for all the backward-looking details of Killing Them Softly—American cars from the 1960s and 1970s, that whole masculine code-of-honor thing that Frankie and Russell break by ripping off Markie’s game, the post-industrial economic slump that brings to mind the American recession of 1973 to 1975—the Driver is very much an arm of a new kind of organized crime. He keeps his hands clean, and he delivers what the ruling-by-committee organized criminals decide, and he’s fussy about Jackie smoking cigarettes in his car, and he’s so bland as to be utterly forgettable. And he has the power, as authorized by his higher-ups, to approve Jackie putting pressure on Markie for more information about the robbery. It doesn’t matter that neither Jackie nor the mob thinks Markie actually did it. What matters more is that “People are losing money. They don’t like to lose money,” and so Jackie can do whatever he needs. Dominik gives him this primacy through a beautiful shot of Jackie’s reflection in the car window, his aviators a glinting interruption to the gray concrete overpass under which the Driver’s car is parked, to the smoke billowing out from faraway stacks, and to the overall gloominess of the day.

“We regret having to take these actions. Today’s actions are not what we ever wanted to do, but today’s actions are what we must do to restore confidence to our financial system,” we hear Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson say on the radio in the Driver’s car, and his October 14, 2008, remarks are about the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008—the government bailout of banks and other financial institutions that cost taxpayers $700 billion. (Remember Will Ferrell’s deadpan delivery in The Other Guys of “From everything I’ve heard, you guys [at the Securities and Exchange Commission] are the best at these types of investigations. Outside of Enron and AIG, and Bernie Madoff, WorldCom, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers ...”) Yet the appeasing sentiment of Paulson’s words applies to Jackie, too, and to the beating he orders for Markie—a man he suspects did nothing wrong, at least not this time. But debts must be settled. Heads must roll. “Whoever is unjust, let him be unjust still/Whoever is righteous, let him be righteous still/Whoever is filthy, let him be filthy still,” Cash sang, and Jackie is all those men, and he’ll collect the stolen golden crowns as best he can. For a price, of course. Always for a price.

“I like to kill them softly, from a distance, not close enough for feelings. Don’t like feelings. Don’t want to think about them.”

In “Bad Dreams,” the penultimate episode of the second season of The Wire, International Brotherhood of Stevedores union representative Frank Sobotka (Chris Bauer), having seen his brothers in arms made immaterial by the lack of work at the Baltimore ports and the collapse of their industry, learns that his years of bribing politicians to vote for expanded funding for the longshoremen isn’t going to pay off. He is furious, and he is exhausted. “We used to make shit in this country, build shit. Now we just put our hand in the next guy’s pocket,” he says with the fatigue of a man who knows his time has run out, and you can draw a direct line from Bauer’s beleaguered delivery of those lines to Liotta’s aghast reaction to the horrendous beating he receives from Jackie’s henchmen. Sobotka in The Wire had no idea how he got to that helpless place, and neither does Markie in Killing Them Softly—he made a mistake, but that was years ago. Everyone forgave him. Didn’t they?

The vicious assault leveled upon Markie is a harrowing, horrifying sequence that is also unnervingly beautiful, and made all the more awful as a result of that visual splendor. In the pouring rain, Markie is held captive by the two men, who deliver bruising body shots, break his noise, batter his body against the car, and kick in his ribs. “You see fight scenes a lot in movies, but you don’t see people systematically beating somebody else. The idea was just to make it really, really, really ugly,” Dominik told the New York Times in November 2012, and sound mixer Leslie Shatz and cinematographer Fraser also contributed to this unforgettable scene. Shatz used the sound of a squeegee across a windshield to accentuate Markie’s increasingly destroyed body slumping against the car, and also incorporated flash bulbs going off as punches were thrown, adding a kind of lingering effect to the scene’s soundscape. And although the scene looks like it’s shot in slow motion, Fraser explained to American Cinematographer that the combination of an overhead softbox and dozens of background lights helped build that layered effect in which Liotta is fully illuminated while the dark night around him remains impenetrable. Every drop of rain and every splatter of blood stands out on Markie’s face as he confesses ignorance regarding the robbery and begs for mercy from Jackie’s men, but Markie has already been marked for death. When the time comes, Jackie will shoot him in the head in another exquisitely detailed, shot-in-ultrahigh-speed scene that bounces back and forth between the initial act of violence and its ensuing destruction. The cartridges flying out of Jackie’s gun, and the bullets destroying Markie’s window, and then his brain. Markie’s car, now no longer in his control, rolling forward into an intersection where it’s hit not just once, but twice, by oncoming cars. The crunching sound of Markie’s head against his windshield, and the vision of that glass splintering from the impact of his flung body, are impossible to shake.

“Cause and effect,” Dominik seems to be telling us, and Killing Them Softly follows Jackie as he cleans up the mess Squirrel, Frankie, and Russell have made. After he enlists another hitman, Mickey (a fantastically whoozy James Gandolfini, who carries his bulk like the armor of a samurai searching for a new master), whose constant boozing, whoring, and laziness shock Jackie after years of successful work together, and who refuses to do the killing for which Jackie secured him a $15,000 payday, Jackie realizes he’ll need to do this all himself. He’ll need to gather the intel that fingers Frankie, Russell, and Squirrel. He’ll need to set up a police sting to entrap Russell on his purchased ounce of heroin, violating the terms of his probation, and he’ll need to set up another police sting to entrap Mickey for getting in a fight with a prostitute, violating the terms of his probation. For Jackie, a career criminal for whom ethical questions have long since evaporated, Russell’s and Frankie’s sloppiness in terms of bragging about their score is a source of disgust. “I guess these guys, they just want to go to jail. They probably feel at home there,” he muses, and he’s then exasperated by the Driver’s trepidation regarding the brutality of his methods. Did the Driver’s bosses want the job done or not? “We aim to please,” Jackie smirks, and that shark smile is the sign of a predator getting ready to feast.

Things progress rapidly then: Jackie tracks Frankie down to the bar where he hangs out, and sneers at Frankie’s reticence to turn on Squirrel. “They’re real nice guys,” he says mockingly to Frankie of the criminal underworld of which they’re a part, brushing off Frankie’s defense that Squirrel “didn’t mean it.” “That’s got nothing to do with it. Nothing at all,” Jackie replies, and that’s the kind of distance that keeps Jackie in this job. Sure, the vast majority of us aren’t murderers. But as a question of scale, aren’t all of us as workers compromised in some way? Employees of companies, institutions, or billionaires that, say, pollute the environment, or underpay their staff, or shirk labor laws, or rake in unheard-of profits during an international pandemic? Or a government that spreads imperialism through allegedly righteous military action (referenced in Killing Them Softly, as news coverage of the economic crisis mentions the reckless rapidity with which President George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan and Iraq after Sept. 11, 2001), or that can’t quite figure out how to house the nation’s homeless into the millions of vacant homes sitting empty around the country, or that refuses, over and over again, to raise the minimum wage workers are paid so that they have enough financial security to live decent lives?

Perhaps you bristle at this comparison to Jackie Cogan, a man who has no qualms blowing apart Squirrel with a shotgun at close range, or unloading a revolver into Frankie after spending an evening driving around with him. But the guiding American principle when it comes to work is that you do a job and you get paid: It’s a very simple contract, and both sides need to operate in good faith to fulfill it. Salaried employees, hourly workers, freelancers, contractors, day laborers, the underemployed—all operate under the assumption that they’ll be compensated, and all live with the fear that they won’t. Jackie knows this, as evidenced by his loathing toward compatriot Kenny (Slaine) when the man tries to pocket the tip Jackie left for his diner waitress. “For fuck’s sake,” Jackie says in response to Kenny’s attempted theft, and you can sense that if Jackie could kill him in that moment, he would. In this way, Jackie is rigidly conservative, and strictly old-school. Someone else’s money isn’t yours to take; it’s your responsibility to earn, and your employer’s responsibility to pay. Jackie cleaned up the mob’s mess, and the gambling tables opened again because of his work, and his labor resulted in their continued profits. And Jackie wants what he’s owed.

“Don’t make me laugh. ‘We’re one people.’”

We hear two main voices of authority urging calm throughout Killing Them Softly. Then-President Bush: “I understand your worries and your frustration. … We’re in the midst of a serious financial crisis, and the federal government is responding with decisive action.” Presidential hopeful Obama: “There’s only the road we’re traveling on as Americans.” Paulson speaks on the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, and various news commentators chime in, too: “There needs to be consequences, and there needs to be major change.” Radio commentary and C-SPAN coverage combine into a sort of secondary accompaniment to Marc Streitenfeld’s score, which incorporates lyrically germane Big Band standards like “Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries” (“You work, you save, you worry so/But you can’t take your dough”) and “It’s Only a Paper Moon” (“It's a Barnum and Bailey world/Just as phony as it can be”). All of these are Dominik’s additions to Cogan’s Trade, which is a slim, 19-chapter book without any political angle, and this frame is what met so much resistance from contemporaneous reviews.

But what Dominik accomplishes with this approach is twofold. First, a reminder of the ceaseless tension and all-encompassing anxiety of that time, which would spill into the Occupy Wall Street movement, coalesce support around politicians like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and fuel growing national interest in policies like universal health care and universal basic income. For anyone who struggled during that time—as I did, a college graduate entering the 2009 job market after the journalism industry was already beginning its still-continuing freefall—Killing Them Softly captures the free-floating anger so many of us felt at politicians bailing out corporations rather than people. Perhaps in 2012, only weeks after the re-election of Obama and with the potential that his second term could deliver on some of his campaign promises (closing Guantanamo Bay, maybe, or passing significant gun control reform, maybe), this cinematic scolding felt like medicine. But nearly a decade later, with neither of these legislative successes in hand, and with the wins for America’s workers so few and far between—still a $7.25 federal minimum wage, still no federal paid maternity and family leave act, still the refusal by many states to let their government employees unionize—if you don’t feel demoralized by how often the successes of the Democratic Party are stifled by the party’s own moderates or thoroughly curtailed by saboteur Republicans, maybe you’re not paying attention.

More acutely, then, the mutinous spirit of Killing Them Softly accomplishes something similar to what 1990’s Pump Up the Volume did: It allows one to say, with no irony whatsoever, “Do you ever get the feeling everything in America is completely fucked up?” The disparities of the financial system, and the yawning gap between the rich and the poor. The utter lack of accountability toward those who were supposed to protect us, and didn’t. And the sense that we’re always being a little bit cheated by a ruling class who, like Sobotka observed on The Wire, is always putting their hand in our pocket. Consider Killing Them Softly’s quietest moment, in which Frankie realizes that he’s a hunted man, and that the people from whom he stole would never let him live. Dominik frames McNairy tight, his expression a flickering mixture of plaintive yearning and melancholic regret, as he quietly says, “It’s just shit, you know? The world is just shit. We’re all just on our own.” A day or so later, McNairy’s Frankie will be lying on a medical examiner’s table, his head partially collapsed from a bullet to the brain, an identification tag looped around his pinky toe. And the men who ordered his death want to underpay the man who carried it out for them. Isn’t that the shit?

That leads us, then, to the film’s angriest moment, and to a scene that stands alongside the climaxes of so many other post-recession films: Chris Pine’s Toby Howard paying off the predatory bank that swindled his mother with its own stolen money in Hell or High Water, Lakeith Stanfield’s Cash Green and his fellow Equisapiens storming billionaire Steve Lift’s (Armie Hammer’s) mansion in Sorry to Bother You, Viola Davis’s Veronica Rawlings shooting her cheating husband and keeping the heist take for herself and her female comrades in Widows. So far in Killing Them Softly, Pitt has played Jackie with a certain level of remove. A man’s got to have a code, and his is fairly simple: Don’t get involved emotionally with the assignment. Pitt’s Jackie is susceptible to flashes of irritation, though, that manifest as a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, and as an octave-lower growl that belies his impatience: with the Driver, for not understanding how Markie’s reputation has doomed him; with Mickey, for his procrastination and his slovenliness; with Kenny, for stealing a hardworking woman’s tip; with Frankie, when he tries to distract Jackie from killing Squirrel. Jackie is a professional, and he is intolerant of people failing to work at his level, and Pitt plays the man as tiptoeing along a knife’s edge. Remember Daniel Craig’s “’Cause it’s all so fucking hysterical” line delivery in Road to Perdition? Pitt’s whole performance is that: a hybrid offering of bemusement, smugness, and ferocity that suggests a man who’s seen it all, and hasn’t been impressed by much.

In the final minutes of Killing Them Softly, Obama has won his historic first term in the White House, and Pitt’s Jackie strides through a red haze of celebratory fireworks as he walks to meet the Driver at a bar to retrieve payment. An American flag hangs in this dive, and the TV broadcasts Obama’s victory speech, delivered in Chicago to a crowd of more than 240,000. “Crime stories, to some extent, always felt like the capitalist ideal in motion,” Dominik told the New York Times. “Because it’s the one genre where it’s perfectly acceptable for the characters to be motivated solely by money.” And so it goes that Jackie feels no guilt for the men he’s killed, or the men he’s sent away. Nor does he feel any empathy or kinship with the newly elected Obama, whose messages of unity and community he finds amusingly irrelevant. The life Jackie lives is one defined by how little people value each other, and how quick they are to attack one another if that means more opportunity—and more money—for them. Thomas Hobbes said that a life without social structure and political representation would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” and perhaps that’s exactly what Jackie’s is. Unlike the character in Cogan’s Trade, Dominik’s Jackie has no wife and no personal life. But he’s surviving this way with his eyes wide open, and he will not be undervalued.

The contrast between Obama’s speech about “the enduring power of our ideas—democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope”—and Jackie’s realization that the mob is trying to underpay him for the three men he assassinated at their behest makes for a kind of nauseating, thrilling coda. He’s owed $45,000, and the envelope the Driver paid him only has $30,000 in it. Obama’s audience chanting “Yes, we can,” the English translation of the United Farm Workers of America’s slogan and the activist César Chávez’s iconic “Sí, se puede” catchphrase, adds an ironic edge to the argument between the Driver and Jackie about the value of his labor. Whatever the Driver can use to try and shrug off Jackie’s advocacy for himself, he will. Jackie’s killings were too messy. Jackie is asking for more than the mob’s usual enforcer, Dillon (Sam Shepard), who would have done a better job. Jackie is ignoring that the mob is limited to “Recession prices”—they’re suffering, so that suffering has to trickle down to someone. Jackie made the deal with Mickey for $15,000 per head, and the mob isn’t beholden to pay Jackie what they agreed to pay Mickey.

On and on, excuse after excuse, until one finally pushes Jackie over the edge: “This business is a business of relationships,” the Driver says, which is one step away from the “We’re all family here” line that so many abusive companies use to manipulate their cowed employees. And so when Jackie goes coolly feral in his response, dropping knowledge not only about the artifice of the racist Thomas Jefferson as a Founding Father but underscoring the idea that America has always been, and will always be, a capitalist enterprise first, the moment slaps all the harder for all the ways we know we’ve been let down by feckless bureaucrats like the Driver, who do only as they’re told; by faceless corporate overlords like the mob, issuing orders to Jackie from on high; and by a broader country that seems like it couldn’t care less about us. “I’m living in America, and in America, you’re on your own … Now fucking pay me” serves as a kind of clarion call, an expression of vehemence and resentment, and a direct line into the kind of anger that still festers among those continuously left behind—still living in Shitstown, still trying to make a better life for themselves, and still asking for a little more respect from their fellow Americans. For all of Killing Them Softly’s ugliness, for all its nihilism, and for all its commentary on how our country’s ruthless individualism has turned chasing the American dream into a crippling addiction we all share, that demand for dignity remains distressingly relevant. Maybe it’s time to listen.

#killing them softly #andrew dominik #andrew dominik film #brad pitt #Jackie Cogan #james gandolfini #richard jenkins #ray liotta #scoot mcnairy #ben mendelsohn #american cinematographer #financial crisis 2008 #independent film #beastie boys #oscilloscope laboratories #film writing #musings

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tomuraxashes · 3 years

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Found you - part 1

- Tenko! - a young, white haired boy run towards him from the swings.

- Touya-chan! How could you come? - he asked with confused tone in his voice.

He remembered his friend told him yesterday he wouldn't make it to come even today to the playground.

- Ah, it was easy. I convinced my mum to go and visit her parents together and after we came back I just asked her to take me out here. So I am here! - the young Todoroki smiled.

- Oh, I'm happy then. - the black haired boy said somehow delightfully, but his little cute face immediately turned back to the gloominess it was before - but wat if your dad finds out?

- Dont worry Tenko, after he learned that you are a Shimura, he doesn't really mind when I hang out with you. Sure, I still have to train but he allows me to have a friend, moreover a friend from a hero dynasty. Common bullshit of his, ya'know.

- Yes, I see, but I'm still worried about you! Your scars on your arms .. I .. let me see.. let me try to heal it!

- No need - Touya opposed - I don't have big scars today, I didn't receive any serious injuries. I don't want you to harm yourself just because of these small scratches.

- I don't care.. - the little boy said with a serious gaze in his ruby eyes - besides my mum or Hana-chan, you are the only one for I would use it.. You are the person I like the most, and why should I have this quirk, if not for helping my loved ones?

Now give me your hand...

They boys were at the Todoroki's house, playing inside of Touya's room. But they still could hear the shouting of Endeavour and Rei from the another room.

"Enji, he is just seven! How can you do this to him?

"He is already seven! He is my eldest son, and I want him to become the no 1, no matter what. He will surpass All Might! I won't let my dream down!"

From the room where the boys were in, a quiet sobbing was heard after the argument.

- Tenko chan.. I .. I don't even know if I want to be a hero anymore! - the white haired boy cried silently

- It's okay.. I will always be here for you and support you, no matter what.

- Mum, why Tenko's mum is not answering to your calls?

"Breaking news! The no 1 hero Nana Shimura is dead!"

- Mum! It's... Tenko's grandma on the TV! What happened?

"The heroine kept her private life in secret, but unfortunately the tragedy happened there as well. His son's entire family was eliminated, the circumstances are still under an investigation, the suspect is unknown."

- Mum? Dad? - the white haired boy almost cried - Whats the report about? Why we can't reach Tenko? Is he safe?

His mum couldn't answer. All he got is his father's uncertain hug, with a sad gaze and his trying to calm him down.

- I'm sorry, son...

He was so young back then, but then he was able to feel some happiness. He had one fucking friend in this cursed life, yet he had to die.

He didn't remember to much from his childhood - he didn't want to - but the small black haired boy with those ruby eyes was his sweetest memory ever.

He is not the one he used to be. The white haired hero-to-be is now gone, the world thinks he is dead now. And maybe they know right .. Touya Todoroki is truly dead.

Dabi is the one who lives. Dabi, the villain, the bad guy, who kills people just for fun, and kills heroes to calm his broken soul a little bit.

What would Tenko think if he could see me now?"

But there is no Tenko anymore.

There is no one who would heal his injuries, who would make him smile, who would care for him.. there is no one in this world for him. He is alone.

The only thing what makes him happy is to kill those fucking heroes.

Those scumbags who never helped anyone for real, they weren't there for him when his father almost killed him, neither for Tenko when he... passed away. Somehow.

It has been so many years yet no one knows how this case happened. The investigators claimed it had something to do with All for One and Nana's war, and via that, they didnt really look into it.

Dabi wanted two things in his life.

Firstly , he wanted to kill the person who made him and his whole family suffer - his scumbag of a father.

Secondly, he wanted to find out the truth about Tenko's death.

And that's why he is exactly there where he is right now.

He joined the League of Villains.

He heard from some underground fellas that there is a guy named Giran who can find literally anything. Well, the information is the most expensive trading stuff of his, so Dabi knew he has to make some money first.

And what's a better option than making money from killing heroes? And besides that, if he ""sells" himself to Giran first, and the League would be pleased with him as a villain, than the man would owe him.. perfect plan.

Well, it somehow worked. He was in, the LoV took him and even they gave him the opportunity to make them proud.

Even the boss seemed to acknowledge his powers and determination.

Well, the boss.. he was really something. Dabi - nor the others - couldn't see his face,he had always covered it with a human hand. It was kinda creepy but the whole guy was, as well.

He learned that his quirk, the decay is extremely dangerous and that he didn't think a lot about killing. If someone pisses him off, he is willing to turn them to dust within a sec. He has to be cautious, Dabi noted himself.

Shigaraki didn't seem to care too much about his subordinates but in fact, he did. He couldn't even explain it for himself, he just didn't want them to die - maybe.

He didn't exactly know how to "care". He didn't interact with people too much before establishing the LoV. He had Sensei and Kurogiri, and sometimes he was in touch with Giran if he needed something from the black market.

But then Sensei wanted him to get some people, who are his "own". So that way, it was not necessary to ask Giran for some ragtag mobs if he wanted to make a bigger action.

Now, he had some really hardcore fellas, with real power and willingness. He was satisfied.

He was the leader. They listened to him, they obeyed him. That was the most important thing.

But ... since they lived together, he saw the connections between the members. How they get on with each other in their free time. How they talked, played, had fun, etc.

And for Tomura, it was all strange indeed. He has never done it - at least, not after Sensei found him.

Before -

"Hm, that's not relevant anymore, what happened before..."

Dabi was in a good mood recently. No one from the League knew the reason, but the scarred man teased them less than usual. He was even nice with them sometimes.

They were all in the bar, even Shigaraki sat there and drank some spirit when Toga just asked Dabi randomly about his sudden emotional changes.

- Well, if you really wanna know - the burnt man started to speak theatrically - I will finally receive the thing I always wanted to!

- And what's that thing? - Magne asked excitedly- you ordered some goth stuff from Wish?

- Lol nope, that's ..wait, why do you assume I have my stuff from Wish? I definitely don't! But that's not the matter! After the last mission I finally had the cash to buy something from Giran. And he promised me the stuff for todaay!

- What the hell did you buy from that crock? Do you need some guns or what? - finally Shigaraki spoke up too.

He wasn't fond of the fact that he has now some company but he was aware he needed to socialise.

He quite liked the League and that's why he didn't want them to think that he is some creepy loner - well, he is.

- What for? I have my own firepower, it's not the thing. I bought some information...

That was all he shared with the League. At least, for now. He have to see Girans files at first and maybe after he will reveal the truth about himself - and Tenko in front of the League.

When he almost died, and that way he became Dabi, he promised himself he won't share his past with anyone, but since he lived with the League, he wasn't that determined anymore. He felt like there is a bond between them, and if they could help him find Tenko.. it would be worthy.

Even if he - somewhere deep down - realised it is nearly impossible to find his soulmate being alive, the hope never left him.

Neither when Giran gave him the files - with a sorrowful storyline, about AFO's and Nana's fights, about how Nana tried to hide Kotaro's existence, and then after a time skip, there was Kotaro's own family. Birth dates, basics infos, some pictures and the date of their deaths.

So that was it. No trace of life, no chance of survival. The destruction may caused by Afo.

Who is currently in the jail, so Dabi can't even speak to him.

He knew he has to give up on his hopes. There is the fucking evidence his soulmate really died back then.

Dabi just put the files on his drawer, not really paying any attention to hide it. He will do it later - now, he just doesn't want to think about it.

That's why he volunteered for the Leagues next mission.

It was a dangerous one, he needed to a sneak in the Hero commission's building and steal their newest "top-secret" plans.

It was actually spying, and they needed to do it with the minimum amount of men.

Kurogiri would teleport him in and out when it's time, but it is still risky.

Mostly - for a spying- there was Toga or Twice because of their quirks were suitable enough, but now it was required a real fight as well. So the final version was him and Twice. Twice would copy the looks of a random official, and Dabi will hide and somehow steal the secret files.

Shigaraki was really good at making plans. He always calculated a lot of possibilities in, and nearly all the stuff what could happen.

He was aware the mission is not a child's play but a serious one.

He looked over it many times already before presenting it to the others, but the overthinking and insecurity were his habits and can't let him stay calm.

At the evening, he decided to talk with Dabi about it. He wanted to be sure that the flame villain is okay with the whole thing, he knows the details and stuff.

He headed to his subordinate's room. The door was halfway open so the young boss don't really mind to knock on it.

There was a semidarkness in the room, but Dabi was nowhere to seen. Shigaraki came from the bar, the burnt villain was not there either.

Tomura thought he may use the bathroom or whatever, so he decided to wait him in his room.

He was about to sit on his bed, when he accidentally noticed a file on his drawer.

On the top of the file, there was a picture. That particular picture, of his dad and Nana Shimura.

Tomura stood there for minutes like an ice statue. He couldn't imagine how the picture could remain - and mostly how it got into Dabi's room.

At the meantime Dabi finished his stuff in the bathroom or wherever he was, so he came back to his room, only to see his boss holding a picture from his file and staring on that somehow inscrutably.

If it wasn't for Tomura, Dabi would be pissed off, cuz he doesn't like at all when others just come in his room and start to rummage his stuff, but since the blue haired man was his boss, he tried to keep it cool.

- Hi boss, how can I help you?

Tomura turned up when he heard Dabi's voice. He still held the picture, and judging by the mess on the drawer he also took a look into the files.

He was so confused right now he had no clue what to say. His thoughts were so loud and they didn't subside. He wanted to ask Dabi why the hell he has this goddamn file with the picture, how did he get it, and mostly.. could is be possible that he knows his secret?

"No way" - Tomura thought - "he would hide this somewhere and he wouldn't act so normally with him" But he was certain he needs to figure it out.

However his thoughts were still so messy he couldn't ask the proper questions he wanted to - without being suspicious.

He somewhat calmed down when he read those files - and they all stated he.. not he, Tenko - is dead, all the family is dead. No sign of survival.

So Dabi - or the one who gave him this - cannot know about him.

- How did you get those? - he finally managed to ask. His eyes were more deadly than he wanted tho.

Dabi suddenly felt himself quite uncomfortable. What should he say? If his boss would be curious, how should he explain why he wanted these datas? And why is his boss'es suddenly so resentful?

- This is the stuff I bought from Giran - he started to explain - I needed it for.. personal stuff.

Tomuras eyes widened - what kind of personal stuff of his can he related to his family? He noticed how Dabi's mood changed before he met with Giran - he was almost happy and really excited. But after the meeting he got gloomier than usual. Even now - when he spoke up, his voice was somehow sad.

Tomura decided to not deal with this right now, they all need to focus for the next day's mission.

- Anyways - the bluenette said - I just wanted to say not to fuck it up tomorrow. That's all for now. And I will keep this picture. Good night!

And with that, Shigaraki quickly left his subordinates room.

Now Dabi was the more confused one. He just couldn't understand what exactly his boss wanted to do, and why he got so distracted by that fucking picture. And mostly, why did he keep it?

Not if Dabi would need it, there wasn't Tenko on the picture just his dad as a kid with Nana Shimura.

"Maybe Shigaraki recognised the heroine and that's why he was asking? Probably" - Dabi thought. He knew about All for One and the Shimuras were enemies, so maybe that's why Shigaraki acted so strange.

(Part two right here on my page, just couldn’t write here the whole stuff cuz it’s long)

#bnha #tomura shigaraki #bnha fanfiction #Dabi #dabi is touya #shigaraki x dabi #shigadabi #tenko shimura #touya todoroki #league of villains #my hero academia #nana shimura #shigadabi fluff

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waywardwrestlewritingwaif · 3 years

Text

Fortune’s Rule, Part 1

So I had a conundrum: wait until this fic was finished and nice and way too long for anyone to read in one sitting, or break it up into parts and hope that readers don’t mind that the “leading man” doesn’t actually appear in the first part. SIGH. So I’ve decided to go with the second one.

If anyone has some pointers for me on how to write stories that are short, concise and don’t require people to fight their way through my word jungle in order to get what they want out of the experience, that’d be swell.

Anyway, here’s the first part of this story. I promise that there will be subsequent parts coming soon.

Pairing: Damian Priest x OFC (I wasn’t joking, he literally doesn’t appear in this first section)

Word count: 2,386 (And it’s just a bloody intro???? Yes, I’m sorry)

Content advisory: violence, criminal behavior, drug use

“What the hell was that?” Cynthia whimpers, sinking into the backseat a little further.

You twist your neck from the passenger seat, although there’s nothing to see from the outside of the house, at least for now. You both heard it, a few sharp cracks that echoed in your brains, if not in reality, like those stupid cherry bomb fireworks people were always setting off when you were kids. The sort of thing boys were always into.

Cynthia clamps a hand over her mouth and shakes her head. This is not her scene. This is way beyond her scene. She’s here because the two of you were supposed to score some mushrooms out of the deal, but more importantly, she’s here because she’s your friend. You were the one who assured her that it was no problem for the two of you to accompany your boyfriend, Johnnie, to actually buy the drugs from his supplier. Yes, you’d known that he was picking up a lot more than mushrooms. And yes, you’d been aware that there was some kind of tension between him and the guys that he was going to buy from. But you’d told yourself that it was no big deal and, just to make yourself feel that much more confident, you’d told Cynthia that as well.

A few seconds later, you see Johnnie come tearing out of the house, a few more loud firecracker-sounds following him. He crashes into the car like a missile, jumping so forcefully into the driver’s seat that he almost ends up in your lap. He drops a worn canvas satchel onto the console between you and as it shifts closer to you, you can see what looks like a lot of bills inside.

“Keys!” he rasps.

You shove your spare set into his hand, not wanting to ask where his keys have gone. He fires up the engine and takes off so fast that the back of the car fishtails and the tires screech.

“Johnnie, what the fuck just happened?” you growl, your heart pumping as you see the sweat pouring from him and a trickle of blood from a cut on his brow.

“Don’t fucking start,” he snaps. “Don’t start with me now. We’re going to go back home and I’ll explain then but until we’re home I don’t want to hear a fucking word, you got that?”

His voice rises threateningly for the last three words and you hear Cynthia sob behind you. You know that there’s a problem, a big problem. You just want to know that those sounds you heard weren’t shots. That’s all you want to know.

“It’s just that we heard… there was something that sounded…” You don’t want to anger him. His eyes are so intently focused on the road ahead that you feel like distracting him will cause some sort of meltdown.

“I said shut the hell up!” he bellows, grabbing something from his pocket and tossing it into your lap.

The weight hits you and you almost scream in shock before you even know what it is. Then, when you see what it is, you want to scream even more. Sitting in your lap is a handgun. You’ve seen them, even held them before when your father used to take you to shoot handmade targets in the field near the trailer park where you’d grown up. But this is different. The metal is warm and the damn thing is much bigger than anything your father used to use. It’s something that would intimidate other people when you whipped it out. It’s the sort of thing that should end a dispute through intimidation alone. But in this case, you’re pretty sure it didn’t.

You’d love to punch Johnnie right in the fucking ear. You want to demand to know what’s going on, but he’s the one who’s managing the vehicle that’s rocketing through the back roads to get to the highway and it feels like anything you say is going to freak him out.

From the backseat, Cynthia whispers your name, wanting to know what’s going on.

“Don’t worry, Cyn,” you reassure her. “It’s no big deal.”

“Shut up,” Johnnie spits, almost under his breath.

You can’t miss the look on Cynthia’s face as she pushes her cherry red hair out of her eyes. She knows that something has gone very wrong as surely as you do.

“Just take it easy, “ you grunt in Johnnie’s direction. “You don’t want to get pulled over for speeding.”

He looks like he’s about to turn and punch you in the face but almost immediately, a wave of calmness passes over him. He takes his foot off the gas just a little and seems to focus on the road and not whatever he’s just seen.

The three of you ride in silence until you hit the offramp to the freeway, at which point it seems like there’s enough distance between you and the place you’ve left for you to speak.

“You need to tell me what the hell happened back there,” you snap.

“I didn’t have anything to do with it,” he mutters, pulling out to pass the car in front of him like the guy owes him money.

“Dude, something went all the fuckin way wrong and you need to tell us because we need to know what to say in case anyone comes asking questions.” You let the emphasis fall on the final word so that he catches your full meaning. The three of you need to get your stories in line.

“It was nothing,” he insists. “I went there to conduct a little business, some other guys showed up and started an argument. I didn’t feel good about the whole situation so I left.”

“Johnnie, no one else came up to the house while you were in there. And it seemed like whatever argument happened involved guns.”

“Why the fuck are you contradicting me? You wanna know what to tell the cops? Tell them exactly what I just said!”

“Oh yeah? And what if there are traffic cameras or neighbourhood watch cameras? What happens if there’s a nosy fucking neighbour? No other car pulled up. No other people walked into that house after you did. So get your shit together and tell us enough of what happened that we can come up with a story that the cops will actually buy.”

“What the hell is going on?” Cynthia groans, staring at you with her almost perfectly round eyes.

You want to grab her hand and reassure her. After all, the two of you have been friends since junior high school. You skipped school together and hitchhiked to the city to go see so many shows. Almost all of your first drug experiences have been together. You’d lost your virginity to the same sleazy guy who always showed up at high school parties even though he was clearly too old to be there.

But for all the time and experience you’ve had together, you feel like you can’t help her right now. Things had been a bit weird since you’d hooked up with Johnnie and since she’d gotten a scholarship to art school. She hadn’t even applied on her own, hadn’t ever considered education beyond high school, but some of her paintings got picked up by a local gallery and a big shot from a nearby college had been awestruck. He’d pushed her until she applied and when she’d gotten accepted, he’d made sure that she was able to get a full scholarship. In a couple of months, she was heading away.

You hadn’t ever considered education beyond high school either but all it meant for you was that you’d spent the last few years working at whatever minimum wage shit job you could find and doing as much as you could to distract yourself when you weren’t on the clock.

She’d found a lifeline. You hadn’t. You tried not to be jealous of that. You liked to think you were keeping her open-minded by doing psychedelics together.

Johnnie is gripping the steering wheel like he’s trying to choke it to death. Although he’s eased off on the speed a little, he’s still going way faster than he should, well over the speed limit, and you don’t know what’s going to happen if you get pulled over. As a precaution, you take the gun off your lap and slide it under the passenger seat. Cynthia notices and gasps when she sees what you’re doing.

You keep your eyes on him as he stares furiously at the freeway ahead, his concentration unbroken until he sees two police cars, sirens blaring, headed in the other direction.

“Fuck,” he gasps, jerking the wheel to the right.

The car swerves violently and both you and Cynthia scream.

“Shut up! They’re headed to the house. I just need to take the next exit and stay off the highways for a while.”

You’re about to ask him how he knows where the police are headed when he slams the car to the right again, lining up to take the next exit.

Another police car, this one followed by an ambulance, rockets by on the far side of the freeway, siren howling and lights flashing.

“Fuck!” Johnnie gasps.

You’re hardly able to process the sound before you hear yourself screaming. The exit is just ahead but he swings the wheel wildly, propelling you off the road entirely and into the thick foliage on your right. The car bounces violently enough that your head slams off the side, the dashboard, and the roof, the howls and yelps of your two companions echoing like something in the distance. You hit a series of hard bumps, like you’re going down a very steep staircase and it feels like every part of your upper body gets banged up in the descent before you finally hit bottom and your skull slams hard into the dashboard.

It’s a long few minutes before you recover enough to realize where you are and realize that the car is quickly filling with murky water. . Instinctively, you unfasten your seatbelt and try to force the car door open, to no avail. It’s then that you become aware that the car has taken a nosedive into the swampy river and that it’s sinking quickly. Your window is down enough that you can, somewhat painfully, pull yourself through it, although being sucked down into the mud and water doesn’t feel much safer on the outside of the car.

You keep a grip on the door and look inside. Johnnie is unconscious over the steering wheel, his neck bent at an ugly angle and a stream of blood slowly falling from his mouth. You hesitate a moment before reaching through the window again and grabbing the satchel from the front seat. At first, Cynthia looks like she’s unconscious and face down in the water but as you’re about to move away, she raises her head and wriggles her body towards the door.

She hisses your name as she pulls herself up to the window, extending her hand for you to pull her out. “Shit,” she moans, “this fucking hurts. Let’s just get out of here.”

You can see her legs, which you hope she can’t. They’re mangled, the bone of one shin ripping through the skin, both obviously fractured in multiple places, trailing after her like strange, jointed snakes.

You back up a step or two. “I’m going to go get help,” you croak. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

She shakes her head violently, a long stream of blood and saliva escaping her bottom lip.

“No way. Come on, get me out of here. We’ll make up some story for the hospital.”

You don’t know what the hell you could tell a hospital, particularly if the police are on the lookout for some people who fled the scene of a crime along the exact same route you’d been taking before you crashed. You need to get away from here. You’re dazed but you’re not broken. No one needs to know that you were ever here.

“I’ll be right back,” you assure Cynthia, backing away from the car and into the river.

“Godammit, don’t you dare leave me here Leeanne!” she screams.

“I’ll be right back,” you repeat.

She’s injured. She’s too injured for you to help. The police will find the car. The police will rescue her. Whatever she tells them, they’re not going to prosecute her because she’s just an innocent bystander. She just went to get some mushrooms with her deadbeat best friend and her wannabe drug kingpin boyfriend. She’ll be fine.

“Don’t worry,” you yell at her as you step back into the river, the current pulling at your legs.

Her screams resonate for what seems like a long time as you let yourself be carried a bit by the current. If the police come with their dogs, they’ll lose your scent in the river. For some reason, this is something that you remember even as you’re fighting to keep your head above water. Finally, feeling that you might be reaching the end of your strength, you grab hold of a low-hanging branch near the far side of the water. You just cling to it for a while, trying to catch your breath and summon the strength to rescue yourself. As you listen to the sound of your laboured breathing, you swear you can still hear Cynthia’s screams.

Finally, you haul yourself up the river bank and crawl onto dry ground. You pull yourself over the forest floor, not trusting your legs, until your lungs simply refuse to give you the oxygen to move any farther. Looking out over the river, you can see the back end of the car, slowly sinking beneath the surface in the distance. There are sirens again and noises, voices, people closing in on the wreckage. You want to watch, to know if Johnnie and Cynthia are alright. But you also need to sleep. Your head is pulsing from the point where it hit the dashboard, so painful it feels like your skull is cracked. You try to keep your eyes open, wanting to know, but the world is growing darker and colder and you’re too exhausted to fight it off any longer.

#Wrestling Fanfic #wrestling imagine #damian priest fanfic #damian priest imagine #nxt imagine #nxt fanfiction #WWE Fanfic #wwe imagine #wayward wrestle writing

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daraanna · 4 years

Text

Baby steps

He was standing over a crib made of a basket and a pillow. It's been 3 days since his daughter appeared in the world. A little human being no bigger than his forearm, with black hair and eyes, and a broad forehead. After more than twenty years of life, Sasuke thought that he knew everything about love. He remembered the love that he have for his parents and how, through pain, it turned into hate. At that time, he thought that there was no escape from this state. After Itachi's death, he completely lost himself in the darkest depths of his soul. However, he was saved by his new family. He found a new bond, similar to a parental relationship with his sensei, a brotherly relationship with Naruto, but while travelling with Sakura, he discovered a completely new kind of love, combining trust, respect and friendship with passions that he had never paid attention to before. This love was built on a deep mutual understanding, after spending a year together they understood each other without words, both in combat and in their daily journeys. Despite this, standing over his daughter's crib, he knew that, if at all possible, he loved her even more. He was beginning to understand why Itachi had sacrificed everything to protect him. He knew he would do the same for her. Sarada was completely defenceless dependent on the care of her parents. He was sure that Sakura would be able to provide her with everything she needed. But as for himself ... For the first time in his life, he didn't know what to do. Being a genius and a stubborn person, he easily found solutions to problems. If something required more work from him, using the method of trial and error, he always made his way to achieve the goal. However, this was not the method he could apply in this case. There is no place for experiments. In the end he was even afraid to touch her without the supervision of his wife. He was afraid that he would hurt her as he did his new family-team 7.

So all he did, was stand and watch her tiny chest rise and fall with each breath she take. This calm rhythm was disturbed as the infant made a quick motion with its tiny limbs, then opened its eyes and let out a loud scream. Before he had time to react, Sakura had already picked up the little one and soon she started to feed her. Sasuke stood still in place watching his family. He felt useless. Pink-haired, despite the fact that she still did not regain her full strength after giving birth, was able to look after their baby. Even Karin changed Sarada’s diaper several times when his wife was not around.

It wasn't long before the green irises caught his gaze.

"Anata?" She asked, looking at him knowing that something is bothering him. He knew from experience that there was little point in denial.

He was silent for a moment, and then he let out a sigh.

“I don't have it ...” he replied, but seeing Sakura's confused face he added ”Parental instinct ... Father instinct? I don't know what to do, I can't take care of her like you do...”

He admitted embarrassed, and his wife's reaction definitely not helped, she start laughing. It was the last thing he expected, and he felt annoyed.

“Sasuke-kun” pink-haired started as soon as she managed to calm down ”You really think that my behaviour is due to the maternal instinct?”

He didn’t say a thing.

“Anata, I'm a medical ninja. I was literally trained to take care of infants, so did Karin...” she replied looking him straight in the eyes. Even though he saw the sincerity in her gaze, her words did not completely convince him.

"To be honest, I also panicked at the beginning," she sighed seeing his reaction. It's natural, most parents don't know how to care for a newborn baby at first, theory and practice are two different things, she finished smiling and pointing to him on the place on the bed next to her. When he sat down she put Sarada between them.

“Babies are not as delicate as they look ... Believe me, you won't hurt her if you are careful and remember a few rules. It may be harder with one hand but it is not impossible ...”

Hearing that, Sasuka felt relieved. Even though he wasn't sure of his own abilities, he definitely trusted his wife. By listening carefully and observing (also with the Sharingan), he learned to care for their child.

.................................................. ....

Within two weeks, the moment came when he was left alone to take care of their child. Sakura and Karin travelled to the nearest city to buy vaccines for Sarada. This journey with a child would take too long. He also couldn’t go, because there was the necessary knowledge and medic licence to buy them. The first 3 hours passed calmly. The milk bottles his wife left for them should be enough if he didn't, they have formula as well. Sarada cooperated by sleeping most of the time. The problem started as usual, with a scream. Sasuke quickly found himself at the crib, it took a little longer to find the reason for her crying. Her diaper had to be changed. It was an activity that the head of the Uchiha family had never done before. At least not alone. The lack of one hand effectively prevented him from mastering this art so far, and he did not want to use a susano, whose bony hands were definitely not suitable for caring for a child. The baby's crying continued, and he couldn’t wait for Sakura's return. As carefully as he could, he put her on the changing table and unbuttoned the diaper. The contents were frighteningly large, it was hard to imagine that such a small creature could produce so much of... The mission of changing a diaper was not easy. It took over 20 minutes, cost him three packets of wipes, two clean diaper and a litter of water. Nevertheless, he was proud of the end result. Sarada on the other hand was not impressed, she already fell asleep.

.....................................................

Three months passed before they made the decision to return to Konoha. Travelling with an infant turned out to be even more difficult than travelling with a pregnant woman. They both agreed that sleeping outside should be kept to a minimum. However, it was not easy to determine the route home so that you could find accommodation at the inn every day. In addition, it extended their path almost three times. When they got here looking for help, he had not expected that they would be able to stay here for so long. However, Karin convinced them that she did not mind their presence. They occupied only one room in the huge empty facility which she had to take care of. In addition, Uzumaki had a clear weakness for their daughter. Sarada took his place as an object of her adoration. Not that he complained about it. The little one also liked to play with Karin. Especially she liked her glasses and hair. However, as Uchiha she did not like excessive affection.

Now he was sitting and watching the former Taka member walk down the corridor, cradling baby to her cheek.

"You're so cute, you have such a clear and tiny chakra, uhhhh you're so sweet I could eat you!" But despite the fact that his daughter had a much greater tolerance to cuddles than he did. It was her patience that had its limits as well. Which have now been exceeded. The baby moved its limbs vigorously before a loud roar came out of her small lungs.

Karin was devastated.

Sasuke just sighed before he went to save his firstborn. As soon as he took her in his arm, the crying ceased. Sarada looked at him with those large black eyes curiously. Her little body, still agitated by the hiccups after crying, slowly relaxed as one of her fists clung to his shirt.

“Hn. She doesn't like being squishing” he replied.

Uzumaki blushed slightly ashamed.

At this point, Sakura ran into the room.

"What happened?" She asked, looking at their daughter.

"She get little irritated" he replied. Hearing her mother's voice, little Uchiha smiled, only to burst out laughing moments later when the pink-haired kissed her forehead. However, as soon as he tried to hand Sarada over to her, the little one made a dissatisfied sound, clenching even tighter the fist she was holding on to him. Her attention turned to him once again. Despite the fact that she undoubtedly inherited her facial features from Sakura, the face with which she looked at him was a pout typical of the Uchiha. He couldn't help but smile. Seeing this, baby giggled again.

“Uh, the three of you are disgustingly cute, “Uzumaki sighed, reminding me of her presence.

Sakura only replied with a laugh “I just finished packing tomorrow we can go ...”

..........................................

The farewell turned out to be much longer than he expected. During the three mouths they spent together, Sakura and Karin became friends and exchanged thousands of studies related to medical ninjutsu, as well as managed to grow a new plant with a combination of two popular species used in the production of chakra tablets. Of course, they left the exchange of contact data for the last moment. At some point they became too emotional when Uzumaki burst into tears and then his wife joined her. He was starting to lose patience. He looked at Sarada who was sleeping in the sling that acted as her baby carrier, didn’t care at all about what was happening around.

He sighed looking at the red glass frames held by the infant. As soon as they reach the city, they have to buy her some real toys... Although of all the things that were in the hideout, the glasses seemed the least harmless. Not to mention the fact that taking them from an infant was almost impossible. He could only be grateful that Karin decided to give up her spare pair of glasses. As well as everything else she had done for his family in those three months.

“You also take care of yourself and, most of all, look after them” she added at the end, when she finished saying goodbye to his wife.

“Hn” replied correcting the position of the child in his arms ”Thank you ... For everything you have done for us” he added, making Uzumaki temporarily stunned.

“Uh, I owe my life to Sakura-chan after all. It's nothing special that I helped you ... Well, it doesn't matter, you have to go, otherwise you won't reach the inn before dark. Bye” she replied, returning to the hideout.

"Bye” replied pink-haired waved goodbye “Ready to go?" she asked smiling at him and the sleeping baby.

“Hn.”

........................................................................................................

Oops, I did it again I made Sasuke too OOC, got lost in the fanfic Oh baby, baby Oops, you think that I can write Maybe It will be better next time I'm not that talented XD

#sasusakusara #sarada uchiha #PAPASUKE #Sasuke Uchiha #sasusaku #Sakura Haruno #mamakura #karin uzumaki #blank period

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theexleynatureblog · 3 years

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Sorry, but letting your cat outside is a sign of a lazy owner.

Scientists estimate there is between 60million to 160million feral cats in the US. July, 2018.

“Bring in the dog and put out the cat!” - Yakety Yak. Letting our cats outside is almost a part of Western culture, since the days of Fred and Wilma. But we should all no by now that a cultural norm doesn’t make something automatically right.

At the end of every episode, Fred Flintstone let’s the family saber-toothed cat outside, only for the cat to jump back inside through the window and lock Fred out of the house.

Unfortunely, real-life cats aren’t as responsible. If you let your cat outside, and they are comfortable, they will take advantage of the opportunity. I know from experience living in a house with five outdoor-cats.

An article from Battersea.org gives instructions on how to safety introduce your cat to the outdoors, stating ‘your cat may want to explore.’

Well, of course they do! They’re a cat! It’s like telling a human they may want to walk. Here’s the thing: animals are high-wired to do what they want, not what they should. Because in the wild, the things they want is to find food and hunt, which helps them to survive. A captive cat doesn’t need to do that, but they’ll still have that interest in the outdoors and the high-energy associated with it.

The biggest arguments I hear for letting cats outside it ‘it’s their nature’, ‘they deserve freedom’, ‘they need the exercise/stimulation’. This is true. Cat’s are living animals who are designed to expend energy, just like us. Exercise is essential to a pet’s health, and as a pet owner, it’s your job to make sure they’re getting what they need.

The problem is, if you’re doing this by letting your cat roam the neighborhood unsupervised, you’re doing it very wrong.

A cat wheel, recommended for owners of high-energy cats, like Bengals.

First, I’m before I list the many reasons to not let your cat outside, I’m going to list alternatives.

Number one - play

Did you buy a box of cat-toys for your new kitten? Did your new cat play with them a little bit and then loose interest playing by themselves? Purina recommends two 20minutes play sessions for your kitten every day. This time can change depending on your cat’s energy level. Obviously, a really active cat will need more, and an older cat may need less. You cant just dump a box of toys on the living room floor an expect your cat to keep itself busy all day like a toddler would, you have to engage with them!

Cat’s ‘play’ as an extension of their hunting instincts. They’re not doing it to pass the time, they’re doing it to learn and practice how to kill things. The key to productive play is thinking like prey. That long rope? Pretend it’s a snake. Grab that mouse toy and bounce it around in front of your cat like you think an actual mouse would move. Don’t poke or bonk your cats with they’re toys - its not encouraging their hunting instincts and may just make them annoyed and not want to play.

Aside from keeping them stimulated, playing with your cats every day can strengthen their bond to you. A happy and tired cat will have no interest in going outside. The amount of time you’d expect to play with/walk your dog is the same amount, maybe a little less, you should expect to spend on your cat. If you don’t have the time of day to take care of a dog, don’t get a cat.

Also, FYI, don’t use your hands as a toy, especially with kittens. A bad cat bite can put you in the hospital with a serious infection - even if your cat has lived indoors all it’s life. Using your hand to play instead of toys will teach kittens that your hand is in fact a toy. Good luck trying to pet them later.

Number Two - Cat furniture

Ever heard of puppy-proofing? Well, cat proofing is also a thing! If you want to take on the responsibility of owning a pet, be prepared to rearrange your entire house - and buy some new stuff. Cat’s are designed to climb and travel, so they may try to jump to to the tallest places in your house. Don’t want them up there? Consider getting a dog. Spray bottles and scolding may work, but unless you’re giving them an alternative to flex their muscles, it’ll only lead to behavioral problems down the road.

Cat walks are a fun and safe way to let your cat have the run of the house. Not only will it be fun for them, but it’ll make them feel safer. If you cat feels trapped, it may hide a lot of the time. This is especially important if you bring another cat into the house. One cat acting scared may invite the other cat to attack. Cat-walks give your cat the advantage to ‘oversee their kingdom’, and escape a situation that makes them uncomfortable.

But, I wouldn’t expect everyone to have this. If you rent your home, can’t afford this, or can’t build it yourself, it’s not an option. But you can be aware of how you arrange your furniture and shelves. If the cat’s gonna jump up on stuff, you might as well make sure it’s safe.

The bare minimum cat furniture you need (besides a litter box) are scratching posts. Even a declawed cat will want one, because they’re not just shedding nails - they’re marking their territory.

Most predators have a way of marking territory to keep invaders away. Cats do too, with a host of special glands. One of those is called an interdigital (inter-digital) gland located - you guessed it - between their toes, or digits. In the wild, when cats scratch on trees, they are rubbing that scent gland on the bark, to warn other cats this is their territory.

Your indoor cat probably won’t have to worry about invaders, but they will still want to use that gland. In their minds, your house is their territory that they must defend. This is why litter boxes are also important.

You may have seen pictures or videos of cats being trained to use and even flush toilets. It may be cute, but its actually not that great from a cat behavior standpoint. This article from The Dodo does a good job of explaining why NOT to potty-train your cat.

Don’t wanna deal with litter boxes? Get a dog! Because with cats, litter boxes are essential. Not only does it give your cat a place to do its business, but it allows them to exercise more of their natural behaviors. After all, ‘natural behaviors’ are the reason owners let their cats outside, right?

For every cat, there should be one litter box plus one extra. Two cats should have a total of 3 litter boxes, and so on. The boxes should be scooped once a day, with their litter changed about once a week - depending on specific needs. Sounds like a lot of work? Yeah - it is! Plus the smell of ammonia isn’t pleasant. If you don’t want to deal with this - Don’t. Get. A. Cat.

Naturally, people look for short cuts, like training their cat to use the toilet, or letting them outside to do its business. Hey, it works for dogs, don’t it? Well - cats aren’t dogs. They have different behavior. While you can count on that fence keeping your dog in your yard, your cat is going to parkour over that like nothing. While dogs will go anywhere they feel comfortable, cats have an instinct to bury their feces. According to Live Science, this helps them hide from other predators. Cats can be eaten by anything bigger than them, and they know it. It’s a behavior that gives them security. Think about it like having a lock on the bathroom door - in a public place. Would you be brave enough to go without it? Personally, I’d hold it until I got home. Cats probably feel the same way, so they’re going to want to find substrate that’s easy to bury stuff in - fresh soil in a flower bed, or little Jimmy’s sandbox.

This is also why toilet-training is a bad idea. It’s not a natural behavior for cats, and it denies their instincts to bury their waste and mark their territory. Also, what happens when your cat gets elderly or injured, and they can’t jump onto the seat for a few days?

Your Cat can still enjoy the outdoors.

Did you know they make cat leashes? That’s right, you can allow your cat to transverse the yard and neighborhood in safety! The downside of this is cat’s don’t tend to be as excited about walks as dogs do. When I bought a harness and leash for my cat, they plopped on their side and refused to move. I never got to take him on a walk.

If your cat is similarly lazy, that doesn’t mean its impossible, it just means training will be required. With the right balance of motivation and knowledge, a pet can be trained to do anything physically possible. Yes, it’s consistent work and slow progress, but exactly the thing a good pet owner should be willing to do. If your cat is staring out the window and practically running out the door, then they might not even need training. With a lease, you can prevent your cat from killing small animals, keep them from climbing too high in a tree, and keep them out of the street and away from possibly dangerous animals.

On that note, now may be a good time to list the reasons why NOT to let your cat outside! (Warning, this next section may contain intense images of blood, violence, and dead animals. Reader discretion is advised).

Parasites.

Hold onto your stomachs, everyone! We are not taking the gentle road.

When I say parasites, I’m not just talking about fleas and ticks - very common and very overlooked. There are worse things out there. Toxoplasma, for one. This parasite that causes flu-like symptoms sheds from cat feces, and it can be much worse for pregnant mothers (this is why your doctor recommends not cleaning a litter-box while pregnant). To make matters worse, its one of the most common parasites in the world, spreading by - don’t throw up on me - fecal-oral contact, which is exactly what it sounds like. A cat can host the parasite without any symptoms and spread to humans, and that’s not the only one.

Outdoor cats are much more likely to get parasites and harmful bacterial. This is because they consume wild animals harboring parasites, and they can pick up stuff from the environment. A squirrel could defecate somewhere that a cat walks, and later licks themselves to clean. Boom! Infected. Now, your outdoor cat could spread stuff like toxoplasma to your neighbors! There’s your neighbor, working in their flower garden, unaware your cat used it for the bathroom (and buried it). Ope, now she’s whipping her nose with her unwashed hand! Boom! Infected.

Want to learn something really crazy? Cat parasites have made their way to aquatic mammals!

This National Geographic Article gives more information on how the ‘Kitty Litter’ parasite has made it to marine whales and dolphins. This is due to feral and stray cats defecating near waterways that eventually wash out to the ocean. While cats and some terrestrial mammals can host the parasites with out any major symptoms, marine mammals are very different. They are the incorrect hosts for these parasites, and anyone who’s studies parasites (like me) knows, parasites in the wrong host is a recipe for disaster. AKA, death. And like many other species, our marine mammals are going through enough troubles right now.

If you keep your cat inside and use a litter box, there is still a risk of infection, but you’ve significally lowered the potential spread. I say, anyone you takes the responsibility of cleaning a cat box is a hero. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. You are doing your cat and your neighborhood a huge favor. I sincerely thank you. So, when you’re scooping or changing litter, wear gloves, wear a mask, don’t touch your face, and wash your hands thoroughly afterword's. Also, take note of the condition of your cats dropping. Sometimes, to can clearly see worms, or something may just not look right. Remember - as an owner, it’s your responsibility to monitor your pets health. If you see something that doesn’t look right, you can take them to the vet. You can’t do this if you let your cat outside to do there business in the garden a few houses down.

High Death Rate

For feral cats, lifespan is typically two years. 50% of kittens don’t survive their first couple of days. Cats are killed by anything from car collisions, poison, coyotes, raccoons, raptor birds, and other cats. Male cats constantly fight each other for territory and access to females.

This brings up an interesting question. If cat’s death rate is so high, how are there so many in every town? A couple reasons.

Cats have a lot of kittens - multiple litters within a year. Even if only 50% of those kittens survive, that’s a lot of cats that are ready to breed themselves not long after.

Another reason is artificial healthcare. What this means is people will feed, spay/neuter, or rescue injured animals, and then release them. Because of their cuteness, cat’s have a charisma advantage over native predators in a neighborhood like coyotes and raccoons. No one’s going to trap a coyote with a broken leg to take it to the vet. I know that if I hit a cat with my car, and it was still alive, I would definitely rush it to emergency care. Supplemental feeding goes hand-in-hand with this. When people see a large cat colony outside, they may want to leave food out for them to help them out. Cats will eat the food, but it won’t end there. You may end up attracting more cats to an area, increasing the population. But if you were to suddenly stop feeding them, the extra cats are going to starve. You have only provided the animals with limited extra resources. Also, more cats in an area may lead to more fighting amongst them.

Because cats have a high death rate, the population’s method of survival is putting out high numbers. Feral and stray cats are constantly competing for food and running from dangers, and the ones who can put up with the suffering the most survive. This is the reality of nature. Nature is not a garden of Eden with fairies dancing with deer. This is the brutality you are exposing your pet cat to when you let them wonder alone outside.

Cats Kill Stuff

Cats are one of the few animals that kill for fun. Its not that they’re sadistic - they’re instincts tell them to bat that thing that moves, and they’ll do it until the thing escapes or stops moving. People automatically think about birds and small mammals, but cats will also eat insects, amphibians, and reptiles.

Some people swear by this argument, and some people counter the argument by saying stuff like ‘yeah, but windows and windmills kill more birds!’. Really? That’s your argument? Can you imagine if we said that about serial killers? Oh, its not a big deal if Freddy killed a few woman, James over there has killed a lot more!

Like... okay, that’s not as bad, but... we should still do something about it.

Cats, windows, and windmills. Instead of looking at these as three separate problems that we can only solve one at a time, step back and look at the big picture. “Human-caused fatality.” An article from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services talks about migratory bird fatality numbers and causes. You’ll see a handful of different causes, each with different solutions needed.

You can’t solve a problem by pointing your finger at someone and say “They’re doing it worse”. EVERYONE involved in the problem has to do their part and correct it. For example, window collisions with birds can be decreased by window stickers and ecologically-mindful building planning (not building tall things in high-traffic bird routes).

These small, decorative stickers can help prevent bird-strike deaths.

Another angle to combat the problem is reducing industrial-caused mortality. Open oil pits are a hazard to migratory birds, who land in and ingest the oily water as they migrate. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act hold companies who do not cover their ponds accountable for ‘preventable fatalities’. However, the Trump Administration recently attempted to roll back regulations like these, in order to increase profit of oil and gas companies. Contacting politicians and being a thoughtful voter can prevent policies like these, and save birds and wildlife.

Of course, cat owners can put their foot forwards to help save wildlife life by keeping their pets inside or on a leash. People argue ‘cat’s are natural hunters. So what if they kill a few birds?’. Okay, well, first of all, if you look carefully at the stats, its clearly not just ‘a few birds’. Second, do you know what kinds of birds? No? I don’t either. In fact, we have no control what kind of bird/reptile/mammal your cat will kill. They kill whatever they can catch. This includes endangered species.

This website lists North America’s Endangered Animals. Notice that some of these animals are large mammals, like cougars. But most of the species are small animals that cats are capable of catching and killing. And cats don’t care if a species is endangered. Now, I’m confident that NONE of these species are threatened by cats alone. That’s not how nature works, it takes more than one factor to wipe out a species. Species like the Yellow-legged Mountain Frog are threatened by predation, disease, habitat fragmentation, and climate change (which can make diseases and parasite spread worse). A road through a wetland may not look like a big deal, but that may as well be a ocean for small amphibians and reptiles to cross.

Not only do these animals risk getting crushed by pedestrians and vehicles, but they have no cover from predators - and predators WILL exploit these places. Keep in mind, these animals can’t always just pack up and go - they need specific resources for food, shelter, and reproduction. Some turtles will nest in the gravel of a road because it provides the best substrate for digging a nest. This includes suburban areas - where your cats are waiting. When you add exotic animal predation pressure to a species already suffering from diseases and habitat loss, well - that’s how we lost the passenger pigeon.

In conclusion, please find ways to keep your cat healthy and happy without allowing them to roam unsupervised outside. There are programs that help remove feral colonies using live animal traps, but there are others, like places in Australia, that use lethal means. I don’t like the idea of killing cats. After all - they are adorable, and it’s not they’re fault they are there. That’s purely our fault for releasing out domestic cats into delicate ecosystems. As much as I love cats, I prioritize the health of our ecosystems and environment more, and that calls for removing large feral cat colonies. A few random barn cats of course is no problem, but the thousands of cats living in suburb yards needs to be reigned in. Whether it is done with live traps or kill traps is dependent on the people. One thing is for sure - if we don’t take responsibility for our exotic invasives, we will be paying for it for a long time in the future.

Sources

nola.com

American humane society

Caticles

US Fish and Wildlife Services

#biology #cats #feral cats #exotic animals #pets #pet owners #ecology #enviroment #parasites #endangered species

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waeziverse · 4 years

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Royal Punch (chapter 9)

“OUCH! ARGH, damn it all to hell!”

Dimi had just finished her morning jog and had entered the house as he heard Aura yell and curse. The sphinx sat in the living-room, sucking her bleeding finger. On her lap, she had some green fabric.

“What are you doing?” The thirteen-year-old human girl asked.

Aura sighed. “I’m trying to make a dress for the wedding.”

“But you have ten thumbs when it comes to sewing.” Dimi picked up the fabric that was suppose to have the shape of a dress suited for a bride. It had… a shape. “It’s a little late to make a dress, ain’t it? Also, I thought you already ordered one.”

A dark shadow came upon Aura’s face. “I did. But when I came to collect it in the store in Onyxville, they told me I had to pay extra for unforeseen difficulties.”

“What’s that suppose to mean?”

Aura made a lifeless laugh. “I think it means that they noticed that my husband-to-be is a minotaur.”

Dimi had spent the first ten years of her life in the castle. Then, she had spent almost four in Jadedale. Both places had shielded her so much that she had not noticed bigotry the way others had. Jadedale was a wonderful little village and it was so weird how different it was in the slightly bigger town Onyxville that was only about seven miles away.

Maybe that was the reason why it made her so devastatingly angry. Because it was relatively new to her.

“Does Ivan know?” Dimi’s whole body stirred in anger.

“No, and you are not gonna tell him. It is enough that I’m upset this close to the happiest day of my life. So here I am, trying to make this dang thing so he won’t notice.”

“Should I have a word with that dress maker hack?” Dimi cracked her knuckles.

“No! Absolutely not.” Aura sucked her bleeding finger again.

Dimi sighed. Then, she smiled. “You should have told me. I know the best dress makers in the area.” Dimi opened up a window and placed her fingers in her mouth as she whistled. About less than a minute later, a couple of bluebirds flew in. One of them landed on Dimi’s fingers as the undercover princess gently stroke it. “I call this little guy Perla. She made my bridesmaid dress.”

Aura was baffled as the birds flew dangerously close to her and looked like they were studying her.

“They are taking your measurement by eye. Perla says a dress will be ready for you by tomorrow.”

Aura laughed. “Is this a princess magic thing?”

Dimi kissed Perla on the head before it flew out of the window with her friends. “Nora calls it zoopathy. I can talk with animals with my brain or something, I don’t get the details. I just know that me and animals get each other.” Dimi grinned. “You are gonna have to get used to certain perks you get as a result of marrying my godfather.”

Aura embraced Dimi.

***

Ruby narrowed her eyes as the head chef of the Captain Duck eatery slammed the door after throwing her bag and hat on the ground first.

“Fine! FIRE ME!” Ruby grabbed her hat and bag. “Your loss, you bigot prick! Your food stinks without me!” Ruby adjusted her hat so it would hide her... hair and made sure her dark glasses were on straight as she glared at the closed door one more time and walked away... only to pause and turn around to yell: “WHAT SORT OF SCHMUCK SERVES CURRY WITHOUT YOGURT?!”

Ruby stomped through the streets of Onyxville. Being a creature like her made people worried when she was around them, but her clearly being pissed made them downright scared of her as satyrs, minotaurs and others made sure to not get in her way.

“Alright...” Ruby mumbled to herself. “I need a new job. Perhaps Maltus will rehire me as kitchen-help if I suck up to him. With minimum pay, I should be able to afford my own place in Jadedale in... ah...” Ruby stopped up as she did the math in her head. “Eh... less than a year, I think. And then I’m out of this stinking town!”

The reptiles hidden under Ruby’s hat hissed.

***

Ikki the Faun was a waiter on the ferry Tanngrisnir. And he was a first-class suckup. His good looks and his ability to make people buy his cheap flattery made him successful in hunting a fairly big tip. He always made sure to spot the big tippers so he could serve them first and make them like him and would say yes when he offered to do all sorts of little favors.

The creature in cabin 7 however was one Ikki wished didn’t like him. He gulped as he was about to knock on the door while holding a tray with sushi and matches.

“The door is not locked. But wait a few seconds, I’m not decent.”

Ikki took in a deep breath as he placed a hand on the handle. He opened the door but began to feel chills down his spine as he realized that the wealthy creature had not quite finished putting on her dark glasses.

She sat on a very comfortable chair that was placed against the wall at the other side of the room so she would be the first thing you would notice when you entered the cabin. The expensive cheongsam she was wearing made it clear that she came from the kingdom of Rijita. The female creature had a lit cigar firmly cued between her first two fingers. The scent of expensive tobacco and her jewelry made it clear that she had money enough. She would normally be Ikki’s favorite type of passenger… if it hadn’t been for the snakes she had for hair.

Ikki was at a loss for words as the gorgon with white skin stood up from her chair. Ikki was a faun, he was shorter than most. But it really bothered him how tall this lady was compared to him. All of her snakes looked at him while they flicked their tongues. Ikki looked up at Veronica the Gorgon who looked down at him while smiling as she took a drag on her cigar. Despite her sunglasses, Ikki felt vulnerable when she looked at him.

“Pardon me, madam Veronica.” Ikki tried to use his silk-like suckup voice without much success. “I came with your meal as well as… as matches.

“Thanks, Ikki.” Veronica spoke with a soft voice as she exhaled thick gray smoke from her nose. “Just place it on the table.” She smiled as she placed a small bag of coins in his delicate little hand.

“Anything else I can do to make your stay on our lovely ship any more… any more… ah.” Ikki felt extremely uncomfortable about the situation, but he didn’t want to seem unhelpful to this sort of lady. “But you might wanna be left alone, apologi-”

“Oh no, don’t leave.” The gorgon smiled as she took another drag on her cigar. “Would you at the very least be a dear and tell me if we are far from Nesredna?“

Ikki took half a backward step toward the door while not losing eye contact with the snake-woman. "We should… arrive there tomorrow, madam.”

Veronica’s smile grew wider as she took a long, slow drag on her cigar. She exhaled, and a long gray plume of pungent smoke escaped her lips that took the shape of a cobra. She mumbled something Ikki couldn’t hear.

“You on holiday, madam?” Ikki felt like he had to say something.

“Not at all.” The gorgon smiled again. “I’m actually going home. Been traveling because of business, but decided that it is time to return home and set up shop once more.”

“What sort of-” Ikki stopped talking as he felt the touch of a hand with scales grabbing his chin. The gorgon had gotten down on her knees and now held the poor goat dwarf’s head as she studied his face.

“You are a very pretty boy. And you know that, don’t you?”

Ikki didn’t say a word. He stared into the shades as he thought about the eyes he had been told about. Eyes that could kill. He was frightened by the thought, yet he kept staring at the glasses of the shades, wondering what these eyes looked like.

There was a moment of silence.

Then, the gorgon laughed. She let go of the faun’s chin, got back in her chair and then sucked in a couple of puffs before she extinguished the cigar on a silver ashtray. “Relax, kid. I don’t bite.” She gave Ikki another big coin that he instinctively took. “Tell the cook that I want the usual for dinner.”

Ikki left in haste, leaving the gorgon alone once again.

***

Everyone was dressed in green and clapped and stomped their feet along to the beat of the music as Ivan and Aura danced the ceremonial dance required for them to get wed.

Dimi as well as everyone else smiled and clapped as Ivan and Aura looked so happy that they could burst. Sure, they sang horribly, but they were so happy and in love that no one cared. Dimi had been told how weddings worked. You had to be at least ten creatures attending for it to be official, and said creatures had to sign a document. Everyone were dressed in green to celebrate life. And everyone watched as the bride and groom declared their union by dancing and singing the old song Without Defense. Once the song was over, they were officially husband and wife.

… To begin with.

The creatures around who had gathered to watch the union between minotaur and sphinx began to get tired in their hands and feet from stepping and clapping to the beat.

“Psst. Nora.” Dimi stood next to the short elf who looked like she also had had enough of the poor singing. “You told me that the wedding song is about three minutes long, right?”

“Yes.” Nora had a stiff smile on her lips as her hands began to feel a bit sore from all the clapping. “Well, Without Defense is actually fifteen minutes long, but everyone just sings the abridged version that only last three, no one is nuts enough to actually-”

Dimi and Nora realized the same thing at the same time. But their reaction differed since Nora was a bit of a cynic as well as tired of being single, while Dimi was young and sentimental. But their statement was the same, even though Dimi said it with great joy while Nora rolled her eyes in annoyance:

“THEY ARE SINGING THE WHOLE THING!”

***

The very bearded and long-haired human who had once been quite a handsome man was wearing shackles with chains. These chains were attached to a moldy stonewall, very much limiting his movement. He could stand up, sit down, and take two steps forward.

Pater knew that others were pinned to walls and was grateful for being allowed to stretch a little.

And he smiled as his little guest arrived. She was wearing a cloak to disguise herself. Once the guard had closed the door to the dungeon, the thirteen-year-old girl took off her hood to reveal her green skin and pointy ears. She had come despite her father forbidding it.

“I brought the Conquest boardgame today.” The girl said. “And some fruit.”

The former human king was very grateful. “It’s a pleasure to see you once again, princess Mayari.”

The heir to the throne smiled awkwardly as she sat on the cold stone floor and placed the boardgame between them as well as the bowl of fruit.

END OF PART ONE…

#Royal Punch #RP #Dimi #Princess Dimi #Dimicatio #Aurauaakarusaank #Aura the Sphinx #Ivan the Minotaur #Ivan #Veronica the Gorgon #Veronica #Pater #King Pater #Mayari #Princess Mayari #Mayari the Orc #OC #waeziverse

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iggity · 5 years

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OPERATION: TEET YEET

Hi all, I’m gonna be asking for money with this post so feel free to scroll past this if you’re not interested, not able to help out, or even don’t really care. Take care of yourself first please and thank you <3

SO I had my top surgery consultation today (September 19, 2019), and it went SUPER WELL! My team is really great, I feel super comfortable with everyone involved, and they’re booking for as early as winter. I was also offered to participate in a research study so that they can put together a post-op booklet for people going through “gender confirming surgery” (they’ll be contacting me afterwards about how I felt through the procedure, healing, treatments, etc so that they’re able to have accurate information and have it help other people, which I immediately agreed to be a part of).

The thing is, while a GIANT chunk of this is covered by my province’s health care (OHIP), there is still a fee of $1500+HST ($1695 after), and a specialty binder that I have to buy that will stop any fluid build up in the chest cavity while it heals ($80+HST so around $90). I’m not worried so much about the cost of the binder, but the surgery? Yikes.

So, what I’m doing is just asking, if you are able to (and only if you are able to), please donate whatever can. I am not trying to guilt anyone into it, since I know there are countless others who are in similar straits that I am. If you’re not able to, would you please consider reblogging this to boost? I would greatly appreciate it.

My paypal is paypal.me/iggity and below are some questions that you may be wondering about that I’ll try and answer as best as I can. When I hit milestones, I’ll reblog with screencaps of my paypal balance.

I don’t have a date yet, but I’ve been told that my doctor’s secretary will be emailing me for booking in the next little bit and I’ve been led to believe that I’ll need to pay the entire amount in full at time of booking.

Thank you very much!

QUESTIONS:

Why isn’t the whole thing covered under your health care?

A very good question and I was a little confused by it as well until it was broken down for me. What happens with OHIP is that it will cover the health portion, but because the surgery would require what they call ‘masculinization’ or ‘chest sculpting’ in order to look like a naturally flat chest, they have to use liposuction. Liposuction, under OHIP’s perspective, is considered more of an aesthetic practice than a health one, and is therefore not covered.

Why do you need to ask for money?

I’m poor, basically. I work a basic minimum wage job that covers the bills but doesn’t leave wiggle room to save $1700 in a short period of time.

Why is it a short period of time?

The sooner I get this surgery, the sooner I can feel better about myself as an individual, as a person, and as a man. I’ll break it down:

The Emotional/Mental: the absolute toll that it takes on me to have people misgender me every. single. day. is exhausting. It’s not their fault, really; I know that most (if not all) of them aren’t doing it maliciously, but rather out of ignorance. My breasts are large; so large that when I walked into my family doctor’s office for the first time and started talking to him about top surgery, he was stunned when I told him that I was currently wearing a binder. He then proceeded to say something to the effect of, ‘yeah I absolutely see why you want this done’.

(If you’re curious, last time I was measured, my bra size was 42H. You can feel free to look up just how big those can be, and be sure to make note of how much they weigh, too, because I’m about to talk about that.)

People seeing that I still have breasts and gendering me based on that is exhausting and would happen a lot less if I just. got. rid of them.

The Physical: I cannot remember a day when my back did not hurt. I’ve had breasts since I was 12 and they just kept getting bigger and more difficult to deal with. While binding has helped with the back pain, it has really only isolated the pain from the entirety of my spine to the small of my back and the area between my shoulder blades. Initially, I was going to get a reduction to make binding easier and then do a full top surgery at a later date, but either way I had to pay for the liposuction, and the reduction was twice the amount of the top surgery since more sculpting would be needed. Plus, this way, my body doesn’t have to experience similar trauma more than once.

I am asthmatic, and it’s difficult for me to breathe properly on a good day. With these still attached, it makes it even harder, and I can’t do any super strenuous exercise to lose the weight that I want to lose, I can’t sleep properly because if I sleep on my back, I can’t breathe, and if I sleep on my stomach, my back is out of wack. I’ve tried any number of things to ease everything, but ultimately, lobbing these bastards off is gonna be the best way to do this for me.

#donation post #boost #trans stuff #sam's trans stuff #operation teet yeet

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violetsmoak · 4 years

Text

Pieces of April [14/?]

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21099044/chapters/50202530

Summary: On the anniversary of his death, Jason’s second life takes an abrupt new turn and he’s faced with a challenge that neither Batman nor the All-Caste prepared him for.

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

First Chapter

________________________________________________________________

After a chillingly silent drive back to the apartment, they find Tam waiting for them. Tim finds himself making a mental note to give her a raise for just knowing when he’s going to need her.

“I came bearing Chinese food,” she announces as they clamber through the secret door. “I wasn’t sure you’d be hungry after this or not. So, take as much or as little as you want. I bought a lot because I figure you guys are going to be hella busy the next few days, and food runs aren’t going to be a priority and—” She pauses as they draw near, and Jason places the carrier square in the center of the island in the kitchen. “Is this her?”

“No, it’s the other illegitimate child I found out about this week,” Jason mutters tiredly.

“How the heck am I supposed to know what’s normal for you?” Tam shakes her head, eyes riveted on the baby. She reaches out lightly to stroke the edge of the baby’s cap. “What’s her name?”

“Luisa.”

“She’s beautiful.”

“How can you tell?” Tim asks, considering the ruddy, squished face.

Tam smacks him in the shoulder. “Don’t be mean.”

“I’m not being mean! I seriously can’t see it. Is this a woman thing?”

That earns him another smack.

The baby, who has been silent the whole ride from the hospital, suddenly begins to cry. The sound starts as a mild bleating but quickly grows louder.

“See? You offended her,” Tam says.

“You’re so funny,” Tim grumbles.

“Is that the ‘I’m hungry cry’, or the ‘I’m wet’ cry?” Jason wonders.

The prospect of either is unpleasant in different ways.

“Could be either. One of us should change her while the other gets something to eat—you did buy formula, right?”

“Of course I did,” Tam rolls her eyes. “I didn’t think either of you was going to start spontaneously lactating.”

“Thank you for that imagery,” Tim says, having to pitch his voice a little louder over the crying. “So, who’s doing what?”

“Do either of you even know how to change a diaper?”

“Yes,” both men reply and then eye each other in surprise.

“There were a lot of families with kids in my building growin’ up,” Jason defends himself. “Babysittin’ was one of the few jobs a kid like me could get paid for under the table.” He eyes the infant. “They were all way bigger than this, though.”

“I’m sure the concept’s the same,” Tim replies. “Remind me to tell you about the time B was stuck carrying a baby around with him all night.”

“He took a baby on patrol?” Jason demands, indignant.

“There was nowhere safe to leave it. Among others, Ra’s al Ghul was looking for it.”

“Oh, him,” Tam contempts, earning a bemused glance from Jason.

“One of the most dangerous men in the world, and that’s your reaction?”

“I’ve filled my quota of gibbering panic for a lifetime,” she answers.

Jason shrugs, acknowledging the point, and then glances at Tim. Hesitant, he holds out a fist. “Loser gets diapers?”

It takes a minute.

“Best two out of three,” Tim agrees.

“Are you kidding right now,” Tam groans, like she’s considering pulling at her hair.

Two throws later and Jason is muttering darkly as he goes digging for the box of diapers, while Tim juggles a container of formula and the package of new bottles that he needs to clean first. Tam is holding Luisa (“I’m playing nursemaid exactly once,” she warns with a dangerous look in her eye. “Now get your sh—stuff together.”), gravitating back and forth between the two men and wincing as Isa’s decibel level increases impressively.

While Tim cleans unpacks and starts cleaning the bottles, following directions from an online guide, Jason sets up his supplies on the living room coffee table. After Tam carefully transfers the tiny, squalling creature into his arms, Jason takes a minute or so to study her.

“I don’t smell anything,” he says, uncertain. “She could just be wet.”

“Still means you have to change her,” Tam reminds him.

“I’m getting’ there!”

“What’s that stuff all over her? Are you supposed to bathe her?”

“No, you’re not supposed to bathe them for at least 24 hours,” Tim calls from the kitchen. “That stuff’s apparently good for the skin or something. Even then, I think we’re going to stick to sponge baths for the foreseeable future.”

“Wet baby means slippery baby,” Jason agrees. “So no.”

“Good call,” Tam says.

By the time Tim has boiled the new bottles and plastic nipples long enough to make sure they’re sterilized and prepared the formula, Jason’s managed to change the baby and get her into one of the impossibly small onesies from the baby things.

“Since she’s still crying, I’m guessing it wasn’t a diaper issue,” Tim remarks, testing to ensure neither the nipple or the formula inside is too hot, before handing over the bottle. “Make sure you keep her head higher than her stomach—”

“I have done this before, you know. Yesterday, even.”

“Well, you looked unsure.”

“I’ll remind you what you look like next time you hold her.”

But there’s less bite in Jason’s tone than might be normal, his attention clearly on keeping the infant well-positioned in the crook of his arm and trying to tempt her to latch on to the nipple. Not for the first time does Tim think Jason looks too big to be allowed to hold something so tiny—even if he knows that those hands are capable of some pretty delicate handling.

He’s seen the bombs the Red Hood has made; the skill it takes for such delicate work is nothing short of art, whatever Batman might think about it.

For some reason, everyone is quiet throughout the ordeal to feed her; it almost feels like everyone is holding their breath.

It’s a bit of a chore getting her to take the nipple, and even when she does, she keeps stopping every so often and turning away. Her eyes remain unfocused and drowsy, and despite her earlier complaints, she doesn’t seem interested in eating. In fact, she seems to nod off before she takes eve the minimum amount recommended.

“Why is she fallin’ asleep? She’s hungry, she should be eatin’,” Jason complains—frets, actually.

“Maybe she’s more tired than she is hungry,” Tim suggests.

“She did just go through birth,” Tam agrees.

“Yeah, she’ll probably be out of it for another day or two.” Tim carries the unfinished bottle over to the sink; he’ll wash it out later. “Anyway, all the forums say we need to feed her every two or three hours, so we can try again later. Maybe she’ll be hungrier.”

“Speaking of later,” Tam says, glancing at her watch. “We have a meeting at eight o’clock tomorrow. I need to go over your presentation once more and make sure all the numbers add up.”

“My numbers always add up.”

“Uh, yeah. Because I check them.” She’s wandered over to the hall closet to grab her coat by the time Tim gets up to walk her out.

“Thanks for all of this,” he says quietly. “Not just the presentation. The food, and the picking up supplies and everything.”

“Hawaii,” she replies.

“…What?”

“It’s where you’re sending me after this fiscal quarter,” she replies. “Two weeks, all-inclusive, presidential suite.”

“I’ll make the call personally,” he promises, opening the door. “See you tomorrow.”

“Take care of the baby. And Luisa too.”

Tim chokes back a laugh and just hopes Jason didn’t hear that. He watches for a few seconds as Tam gets into the back of an Uber, and then goes back into the apartment.

It sort of feels like losing an ally once she’s gone.

Jason is sitting back on the couch now, not for comfort but seemingly to prop himself up while he holds Isa, staring down at her as if she might suddenly rear up and bite him. Which is unlikely, since she’s conked out again.

Unlikely, considering she’s down for the count again.

“So what are the odds you set up somewhere for her to sleep while you were here this morning?”

“Slim to none,” Jason replies darkly.

Something passes across his face—like grief—and Tim remembers where he picked Jason up. It occurs to him he hasn’t even asked yet what he was doing there.

He’ll tell me when he’s ready. Or he won’t. It’s not really my business how he says goodbye to the mother of his child…

“Alright. Well.” Tim considers the boxes. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not in the mood to build a crib tonight. “Either she sleeps in the carrier all night, or…I don’t know, we could make something temporary for her in your room.”

“Right, because I’m not worried enough about crushin’ her just in my hands, you think I’m putting’ her in the same bed as me?” Jason huffs.

“Well, you’d think with enough pillows on all sides of her—”

“Just get me some blankets and a laundry basket—assumin’ you own a laundry basket.”

“Of course I own a laundry basket,” Tim rolls his eyes. “Contrary to popular belief, I do know how to wash my own clothes myself.”

“But foldin’ them’s still a stretch I take it.”

“Why are you complaining? No folded clothes frees up valuable basket space for accidental baby acquisition,” Tim says. “Though I never would have thought to make a crib from a laundry basket.”

“Yeah, because you grew up rich. You think workin’ moms in the Alley can spend a hundred bucks on a crib when they’ve got mouths to feed?”

“Guess not,” Tim allows, and goes to get the required supplies.

Once in the guestroom, he considers for a while where to place the makeshift crib, before shifting one of the night tables out of the way. By the time he finishes padding and folding blankets to ensure adequate padding, Jason has appeared in the room.

As he places the infant in the soft space and begins to tuck her in, Tim says, “Don’t put the blankets around her too tight.”

“I know.”

“And you should take off that cap, so she doesn’t overheat—”

“I know!” Jason hisses, although Tim doubts very much that he does. Still, he carefully removes the snug little hat the baby has worn since the hospital.

They both pause, staring.

“Why does her head look like that?” Jason asks after a beat, wary. “Did something happen? Did someone drop her, or…?” He might not be on board with this whole impromptu-parent thing, but clearly the idea of someone dropping a baby and walking away doesn’t sit well with him.

“That’s normal,” Tim tells him, trying to sound like he’s always known this and didn’t just read it on the internet yesterday. “It will go away.”

“Conehead baby is normal?”

“Exactly how do you expect a baby to fit through the birth canal? The plates in her skull will shift back into place as her brain grows, and they’ll eventually harden. But for now, they’re still not fused.”

Jason makes a face. “That’s a messed up system.”

“Well, so far in billions of years of mammals giving birth evolution hasn’t been able to come up with anything better, so…”

Jason shakes his head, looking faintly disturbed.

“I’m going to go open up the baby monitors I saw downstairs,” Tim says. “Be right back.”

Jason doesn’t reply.

As Tim leaves the room, he spies the older man hesitantly running a finger across Isa’s cheek like he’s not sure what to do. The baby turns in the direction of his finger in her sleep.

When he returns, though, Jason is sitting at the edge of his bed, several feet away from the baby, and staring off into the distance. Tim tries not to interrupt him as he sets up one monitor on the table beside the basket.

“She was going to tell me.”

Tim blinks. “What?”

“Isabel,” Jason replies, still not entirely focused. “She was planning to tell me about the baby. She wanted me in her life. If she hadn’t…”

He trails off, shaking his head.

If she hadn’t died.

Tim knows better than to offer sympathy. Instead, he asks, “How do you know?”

“She left a note. More an email. She was going to send it but…” he trails off and shrugs. “Plans change, I guess.”

“Do they?” Tim keeps a careful tone. “For you, I mean. About what you’re going to do?”

Jason doesn’t answer right away, to the point that Tim wonders if he even heard them. Then,

“I don’t know,” he says at last. “No. Maybe if she lived, it might be different.” He meets Tim’s eyes, like he’s expecting judgment, and asks, “What would you do?”

“No idea,” Tim replies in total honesty. “I’ve never even considered being a parent.”

“Really? Not once?”

“No.”

“Even when Blondie got knocked up?” Off Tim’s surprised look, he adds, “Yeah, I heard about that. Never thought about doing the ‘right’ thing? Getting married, settling down, playing dad?”

“No. Our lives were too complicated—are too complicated.”

“They weren’t always.”

Tim snorts a mirthless laugh. “My life was always complicated. My parents weren’t exactly the gold standard for raising kids, and then after—well, I never figured any of us would live long enough to have children.”

This time it’s Jason that gives a huff of almost laughter.

“There I go again,” he drawls, “breaking the mold.”

“Setting impossible standards,” Tim agrees. “Spontaneous resurrection, improbable baby—next thing you’ll singlehandedly bring about world peace.”

“Whoa, now, let’s not get crazy,” Jason says, pretending concern. “Gotta leave something for the Justice League to do in their abundant spare time.”

“Fair point.” Tim glances out the window; the sky is clear tonight, no sign of the bat signal, but he knows better than to think Gotham is quiet. He checks the time on his phone and nods to himself. “Speaking of spare time, I’m going to head out for a few hours.”

“Patrol?”

“Actually, I think I’ll see what my friend Ives is up to.” He gives Jason a quick summary of his conversation with Damian. “Plausible deniability and all. I doubt demon brat will be interested enough to check, but you never know when that Wayne paranoid will set in.”

“Right,” Jason says, a distracted note in his voice.

Tim hesitates, watching Jason fiddle awkwardly with the baby monitor. “I don’t have to, though. If you need me to, I can just stick around here. There’s still preliminary research to do for that mob case, or I can start checking into potential families…”

“No. I’m fine. Just do whatever it is you normally do.”

“Try to sound a little more convincing there, Todd.”

“Screw you.”

Tim rolls his eyes and heads for the door. “I’m off then. Probably still won’t be a late night, though, I got barely more sleep than you.”

“Even an hour is more…”

“Still. If you want, I can feed and check on her when I get back, so you don’t have to get up with her. Just promise you won’t, like, shoot me or something if I come into your room while you’re asleep.”

Jason looks almost disgusted. “You think I’m actually keeping a gun anywhere near me while there’s a baby in the room?”

The indignation on his face is almost endearing, and Tim can’t fight the temptation to tease. “Aw, look, your Bruce is showing.”

Jason brandishes the monitor. “So help me, I’ll stuff this down your throat.”

“But then you can’t hear my pearls of wisdom,” Tim shoots back, though he’s quickly backing out of the room. “And you know you’re dying to.”

“About as much as I’d like to move to Antarctica.”

“I’m sure Clark has enough space in the Fortress of Solitude.”

“Get out of here before I kill you and it wakes up the baby.”

⁂⁂⁂

Just a reminder that in this time of the pandemic, a lot of people are being laid off or facing dire health circumstances. Writing, drawing, creating podfics, etc., is a major outlet for a lot of creative people to deal with the stress of what's going on when we feel there's not much else we can contribute. Likewise, fandom content is keeping a lot of people entertained and helping them check out when stuff gets to be too much.

Your feedback goes a LONG way to help content creators feel like they're having some small impact on the world when it often feels like we're unable to do anything. So please, take thirty seconds out of your day, and leave a comment or a question, or reblog/forward our work to your friends and family to read. Whether it's me or some other author/artist in whatever fandoms you follow, spread the love.

XOXO ~ Violet

❤️️ = I love this story! 😳 = this was hot! 💐 = thank you for sharing this 🍵 = tea spilled 🍬 = so sweet and fluffy! 🚔 = you’re under arrest! the writing’s too good! 😲 = I NEED THE NEXT CHAPTER 😢 = you got me right in the feels 🤯mind blown 🤬god damn cliffhanger 😫 whyyyyyyy?!?!?

PS: For Goddess' sake, STAY HOME! It's not even about you keeping yourself safe, but not passing on a virus that could kill someone who is immunocompromised. The longer people insist on ignoring social-distancing and quarantine, the longer this whole crisis is going to last. So do the responsible thing--stay home and read fanfiction!

Next Chapter

#jaytim #timjay #babyfic #kidfic #slow build #slow burn #Jason Todd #tim drake #tamara fox #accidental baby acquisition #original character: luisa ardila #baby isa #adulting

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horvathkristy · 5 years

Text

I feel more and more miserable and depressed and terrified every single day.

My fiancé and I talk a lot about our future. Getting a car next, a house eventually. He constantly talks about how it’s gonna be when we have a kid and the things we’re gonna do. He really does want to have a kid and he gets so excited every time. Just the other day we had to have a serious discussion and I asked him if he really wanted to dedicate the next 5 years of his life to studying, because by the time he graduates and can actually start a proper job, we’ll be 30 and should already be at the point where we have a house and are ready for having a kid.

But then I read the news every day about how our world is collapsing right in front of our eyes and that we’re pretty much fucked. (Call me negative, I don’t have a lot of faith in humanity that it will do anything it can or should to save itself.) And it’s just slowly sinking in how much my future is completely fucked too. We’re probably never gonna have our own kid. If we do, we have to live with the guilt that we brought them into this shit world. Even if we adopt, we’ll have to watch them suffer through it all. And yes, adopting is a good option and I guess that’s what we’re gonna do if we’re gonna do anything, but I just warmed up to the idea of having a child and it breaks my heart thinking about not being able to ever experience you know, pregnancy and all that comes with it. Just yesterday I got some stupid letter about my retirement savings, and (besides its actual contents pissing me off) all I could think of was, let’s be honest, I will probably never be able to retire. That whole thing is pointless. I’m at a point where I’m questioning whether it’s worth having any short-term plans, even for the next 2-3 years.

And everywhere I look, I’m told it’s my fault. It’s my fault for eating meat and driving a car, and flying home to visit my family once a fucking year. But then I spend hours researching into what alternatives I have and found out this and that are problematic for their own reasons too. What fucking choice do I have then? Nothing I ever do or consume will be completely environmentally friendly and ethical and all that? Unless of course I have the money to buy stuff that is all of those things but fucking expensive at the same time. No way I (and majority of people) can ever afford when I work a part-time, just over the minimum wage job. And for the record, I don’t have a car. Which is why I have to do a lot of my shopping online because I can’t just walk anywhere or afford to hop on a train and travel to one of the bigger cities so I can buy myself a new pair of shoes for work. It’s impossible for me to shop for clothes and shoes in local shops as a fat, short person with an annoyingly picky taste and also children’s size feet. I can’t help that I have such fucked up requirements, believe me, it’s been a pain in the ass my entire life and I’ve cried a million times because of it. Anyway, which one is better? Driving that car or having shitloads of non-recyclable plastic packaging from orders? And we do recycle shitloads, btw. Firstly, because it’s an enforced thing by the council here. The general waste bin they provide is barely enough, so it encourages you to be selective, but you can also get fined if you don’t do it properly. Now we’re doing it also because we want to. By doing this we’re already doing more than a lot of people.

I’m sick of being told it’s my fault. I didn’t ask to be born in this world. It’s not my fault that I was brought and forced into a fucked-up world with a fucked-up system that is impossible to get out of. Hell, I can’t even blame my parents, after all, they were just like me and my fiancé, simple people just trying to do their best and live normal lives and make plans and whatever.

I honestly feel like giving up most days. Nothing I ever do will be right or enough. My life is already really difficult but any hope of it getting better and easier is disappearing. I know I can’t and won’t give up though. I know I wouldn’t be able to just take my own life or something. But I can’t enjoy the little things life is worth living for when I live in constant fear.

I know this is very negative and sorry if you’ve come across this and it made you feel shit. I just really needed to get it out, and I didn’t know where else to do that. But maybe somebody will get a tiny little comfort from knowing that they are not the only ones carrying this weight.

Also, sorry that this is my first post in like a hundred years. Oh, good news though, I’m engaged.

#personal #negative

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prorevenge · 5 years

Text

Manager from hell gets what she deserved!

TL;DR at the bottom. Story is from 11 years ago. So if I get a few details mixed up, please pardon that. English is my second language, so might make grammatical/structural errors. Please do forgive that as well.

It was late 2007 and I had just gotten a part time job offer in your neighborhood electronic (and now defunct) store named RS (Shortcut for something that had Radio in the beginning and Shack in the end). I was a college kid and about a few months before, I had a knee surgery which forced me to quite my previous part-time job. So when I joined RS, I was told that aside from extremely rare circumstances of when I may have to fetch a thing or two from the back room or basement, my Job was to "Sell". I was a Sells Associate/Customer Assistance. And we had one or two Stock person(s) whose sole job was to stock the shelf, fetch the merchandise, etc. Then the store management; those are salaried employees.

For us, the sells associates, we would get paid by the hour and it was ABSOLUTELY the minimum wage. But if you sell RS branded accessories, then we would get something like maybe 5 percent of the selling price ( do not recall exact amount; been more than 11 years now). And when we sold brand new cellphones, we would get 20 or 25 Dollars per NEW account. 10 Dollars for additional line on that. And if we upgraded (re-locked the contract for another 2 years), we would get 10 dollars for that account (can be one line or can be more than one). This extra parentage was called "Spiff". The Stock person is supposed to be paid little bit more than the minimum salaries and that's about it. All of us were trained weekly to sell "Addons". And the better Seller you are, the more money you can make.

Since when I joined the store, I was required to spend my own money to buy the color combination clothes that the corporate office decided for the season. One time it was Red Shirt and Black pants. Another time it was Black Shirt and gray pants. etc. And since your clothes has to be presentable, that means buy two of each at least! With your own money!!

Few days after I joined, I get to know that the Stock person is friend/relative of the manager. So, he gets to seat down in the back room "For Training" while we have to Fetch the merchandise that we sell! As I mentioned earlier, I had a knee surgery not even two months earlier. And this Stores' back room had a cage that only contained Cellphones and GPS, while TV, stereo, speakers and other accessories were in the basement. If we sell TV or any big ticket item, we get nothing! But if we sell batteries for that Remote, Power Strip, Antenna etc. we get about 5 percent! So since our Stock person was "Occupied", we had to get those items from the Basement. As you can imagine, was not the most pleasant thing to do with a still bandaged leg. Not to mention, that was not in the Sells Associates' job description.

Our manager, let's call her B!tchelle, made a new rule, since we are clearly making lot more money as a Sells associates than a Stock person, now we have to share our Spiff equally with the stock person on duty! While we are selling and ask this Stock person to get us the item, he would tell us to get it ourselves. We had to do so, to be able to complete the transaction and not fight in front of the customer. And all while we are giving him the equal share of our spiff! Nice!

Now, whenever new stock deliveries are made, it was generally the Management team (salaried person) and the Stock persons' job to stock them up or place them in the basement or in the cage. But B!tchelle had better ideas! Told us, "If you are going to work here, then you will have to replenish the entire store at the end of the day! If the delivery trucks comes, you HAVE to sort them and place them in the stockroom yourself! Or else, you will be fired!"

Now, keep in mind that I am still a full time college student and also have family responsibilities to attend to. And my part time job was supposed to be no more than 20 hours! She made me come at 4 PM and sign out at 8 PM, for 5 days. Signing out does not mean you are done! It means you will only get paid for the time of 4 PM to 8 PM. And then, you MUST tidy up the place, restock the shelf, vacuum, throw the trash, and if the deliveries are coming (it was 2 days a week AT LEAST), boy it's your lucky day! Because if the truck comes AFTER 10 PM, you get all the joy and happiness of taking care of it sometimes beyond 1 AM in the morning! When it was during Black Fridays.. I remember leaving the place at 5:30AM (Came in at 4 PM the day before, "WORKED" until 8 PM, and then stock up for Black Friday Sale) only to come back 2 and half hours later at 8 AM and work UNTIL 1 AM the next day! That day she instituted a new rule only for that Black Friday, ONLY sell Big ticket item to boost the stores' numbers! A contest was going on from the corporate office, Store Manager with highest sell per district would get a huge bonus and some other perks. She expressly told us not to sell any accessories (although that was what we made our money on). Now, even on a Black Friday Sale, if you sell a TV, someone would want batteries or antennas for it, right? I ended up accumulating lots of money that are supposed to be my Spiff! And besides, I was extremely good at Sell (and there were times when someone came in for just 2 AA batteries only and I ended up selling him about 4K worth of merchandise). But she ended up denying all of us that spiff "since she told us not to sell that and only sell big ticket items". She only paid us for 8 hours worth of work per person.

This kept on going for a while, when B!tchelle would go have extended lunch, had to maintain a padi/manicure, hair appointments, clothes shopping, etc for professional outlook and betterment of the business; while in business hours. From time to time, phones from the cage (which she and ONLY the shift manager would have keys to) would go missing.

Right before my first MidTerm exam, my uncle had a heart attack and I had to fly to Montreal for 72 hours to see him. Of course I let B!tchelle know. the whole time I was in Montreal, I could not sleep for a second and the day I come back, Our flight lands at 10 AM, my exam was at 1 PM to 3 PM. I had told B!tchelle that I won't work that day since I would have exams right after I land. I run to my college to take my exam, while I get calls after calls from B!tchelle that I need to show up to work that day since the Stock person is sick and I had to help with the delivery truck! Or else I am fired! I finish my exam at 3 PM, run to the store before 4 PM, get dressed and "WORK" till 8 PM. That day I work until 12:30AM, midnight! At this point, I have not slept for more than 80 hours (Ok maybe slept an hour or two in between, but you can understand when you are visiting a relative who is having an emergency surgery, how much sleep you can get) and I was dying to sleep! (That job is the reason I got a Redbull and 5Hour energy drink addiction). All while I had a vicious and painful popped ear from flight that lasted for more than 3 days.

That was the last straw! The next day, I slept for more than 12 hours. Go to work. And the following day, "Someone (AHEM AHEM)" called in State Labor department with all these allegations of forced labor, no pay, stolen items, etc. Department of Labor then contacts RS corporate office and two days later, I see B!tchelle crying hysterically and packing her stuff. Apparently the Corporate office instead of confronting the situation, they chose to fire her. And B!tchelle is asking us to make calls and write letters on her behalf to say that those allegations are not true! Her friend (the Stock person) told her on her face, "Told you to tone it down with your employees! But you wouldn't listen!"

She leaves!

Month or two later, a guy walks in, says he is a Manager of some bigger electronic store and someone ( B!tchelle of course!) just joined in his store as a assistant manager. He is just curious and took it upon himself to find out how good was B!tchelle as a manager.

I buy him coffee that day and spend about half an hour with him in the nearest Dunkin Donuts! After that, I hear she was trying to get unemployment!

After that we had a chilled up manager who was an awesome person! Loved him! But month or two later, I found a job (While still in college) in my field and ran to it!

TL;DR: Manager from Hell gets what she deserves!! Overwork, underpay, steal from the store and makes our lives miserable.

(source) (story by bebgaltiger18)

#prorevenge #by bebgaltiger18 #pro revenge stories #revenge stories #pro #revenge #revenge story #last10

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its-marounda · 5 years

Note

With the recent p5 arts, do you have any pudgesona headcanons? Or specific scenarios you enjoy? Love to hear em all :3c

okay there’s a lot here so let’s get cracking, gonna focus on the boys for now since I’m guessing that’s what got people interested all of a sudden. I’ll probably make another post for them. (And scenarios are just a whole other can of worms so they’ll be their own posts too lmao)

Okay first up, body type headcanons:

Ryuji is probably the least likely to gain a huge amount of weight, but when he does he’s got something of an apple shape - it mainly goes to his stomach.

Mishima is somewhat of an hourglass shape, with an equal level of fat shared between lower and upper body. But he’s also less likely to get large.

Akechi (yes I have to include him or people will kill me) is bell shaped.

Yusuke, if he can afford, gains all his weight in his lower body. He’s a very pear shaped boy. (this usually means he gets stuck in vents while in the metaverse and as such the phantom thieves have a “Yusuke goes last” policy)

Akira/Ren is bell shaped - he’s bottom heavy for sure, but it definitely goes to his belly as much as his butt. And he tends to get the biggest when he does gain weight, so he has a generous layer of fat over most of his body regardless of body type.

Next is food and appetite headcanons:

Akechi loves sweet stuff, even when it very clearly has an effect on his body; he will gladly devour pastries and pancakes (especially crepes, he loves going to crepe houses). Much like Ann he can devour a cake with no issue. However unlike Ann he has more control over himself and will tend to gain nowhere near as much as some of the other Phantom Thieves.

Once he manages to become more confident in himself, Mishima will eat just fine; he has what other people would probably consider a “normal” appetite and tastes. (Because of this he tends to gravitate towards being a feeder over being a feedee, if a submissive one.)

Ryuji eats like an athlete even though he’s not really able to compete like he used to - he loves his beef bowls and meaty festival foods. If it has a high protein content and is tasty, he’ll eat it. And he can eat a lot, without even needing much of a push from the others to do so. While he doesn’t gain weight, he’s the most likely to get stuffed to the brim on a regular basis.

Yusuke requires some gentle prodding to eat more than a few mouthfuls. He tends to just eat whatever is put in from of him as long as it looks aesthetically pleasing. This means that he tends to prefer home-cooked or restaurant food over fast food or microwave stuff. However he does eat a lot of instant ramen due to his lack of money to spend on things other than art supplies.

Akira/Ren is definitely a glutton, and just loves food in general. It really doesn’t take much to get him to chow down, as seen when he manages to destroy every single challenge Big Bang Burger puts in front of him. This also makes him the easiest to feed, as you can just keep putting food into his mouth and he will eat. He also has an inhuman capacity, as nobody can seem to actually fill him completely.

Feederism Role Headcanons;

Akechi: Tends to be a dominant feeder - he likes having a level of control over the size of his partners.

Mishima: A submissive feeder - he likes his partner to be full and happy, and if that means an extra layer of pudge who is he to complain.

Ryuji: sometimes a feeder, sometimes a feedee, but only casually. He likes being stuffed himself, but he doesn’t really have any desire to gain weight nor does he seem to be able to. He’s great at getting other people to eat though. (Evidence: his egging on of Akira when they have ramen after their first day of School)

Yusuke: a feedee/feeder switch, leaning on the side of feeder - he appreciates the aesthetics of fat, and desires to explore it. When on his own and with enough money for food he’d explore it himself, but when he’s in a feederism relationship he’d prefer to see how it develops on the body of his partner. Loves to use said partners as practice for drawing/painting larger figures.

Akira/Ren: feedee/feeder switch, but often forced into the role of feedee. He’s just... so easy to feed that his partner just goes to town. However, his large appetite (that only grows the bigger he gets) tends to rub off on his partners, who soon find themselves also getting fed and growing (so in actuality Akira is a mutual gainer).

Size Headcanons; (in order of smallest to largest)

Akechi is the least likely to get fat, purely because he’s aware enough to know when he’s getting too fat for his liking. Once he’s found his ideal weight he tends to stay there.

Mishima only tends to get slightly pudgy, and he’s good at keeping on top of it by buying better fitting clothing.

Yusuke can get chubby, but nowhere near as big as some of his peers. His lack of appetite and preference for his partners to be bigger tends to be the reasoning behind it.

If Ryuji gets fat, he gets decently big. He ends up looking like the typical ex-jock; stocky, but with a noticeable gut.

Akira... hoo boy. He’s not only the most likely to get fat, he usually ends up enormous. At minimum he gets to 200lbs, but most often manages to get much, much bigger than that thanks to his partners and wildcard stomach capacity.

if there’s anything you guys think I’ve left out please let me know.

#pudgesona #headcanons #Anonymous

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croatian-magician · 5 years

Text

Coming Home

Pairing: Rakessi

Summary: Ivan feels bad when he comes back to Barcelona after the world cup. Leo helps.

Word count: 2120

Coming back to the Camp Nou felt strangely odd, but that didn’t surprise Ivan that much. Since the end of the world cup, everything felt off to him. There was always some kind of bitterness stuck in his throat, keeping him from enjoying the little things in life. The celebration in Croatia chased that feeling away for a while, or rather, the alcohol did. But now, he was back in Barcelona, sober and forced to face reality.

The beginning of the new season meant going to training, and training meant spending time with people who played in the world cup. All his teammates congratulated Umtiti for his world cup title and at the sight, Ivan felt bile rise up in his throat. It wasn’t against his friend. Sam was a great guy and Ivan appreciated him, but it brought back too many bad memories for him to ignore it.

He tried his best to focus on training and on his moves, only doing the minimum required talking with the rest of the team. Tomorrow he would find the strength to joke with them and to put the past behind, but no today. Today, all he wished for was to rush home once this was over so he could be alone, and maybe cry his heart out. He hoped he wouldn’t, but the occurrence had become too common these last few days for him to ignore that possibility.

He was relieved when the end of the training finally arrived and he ran to the locker room, making sure he wouldn’t have to make any more small talk. Ivan undressed in a hurry before locking himself up in a shower stall. He chose to wash himself with hot, too hot water. It was burning his shoulder blades, but Ivan forced himself to stay right underneath it, gritting his teeth. The pain helped to make his mind a bit clearer, to disperse the fog that muffled his feelings all day long.

He quickly heard his teammates voices filling the locker room and Ivan closed his eyes, trying his best to ignore them and to stay in his bubble. The training had already been too much, now he needed some time alone before being able to talk to them again. In the end, he decided to sit on the floor, the water slowly reducing in heat. The position wasn’t the most comfortable, but Ivan still deemed it better than having to interact with the rest of the team.

The midfielder waited a long time, until he stopped hearing voices and footsteps. Then he slowly got out of the shower, like a scared animal afraid to be caught by a bigger predator. His steps were light and he let out a sigh of relief when he finally got to his own locker. He put his clothes on quickly, starting with his boxers and socks. He was only missing a shirt when suddenly, a firm but gentle hand fell on his shoulder.

Ivan jumped out in surprise and his first reaction was to panic. However, he calmed down a little when he met Leo’s tender eyes. Despite how bad he felt, it wasn’t enough to erase the trust and love he put in his boyfriend, even it they hadn’t been able to see each other since the world cup. A part of him, the most scarred by the final against France, stayed on its guard though.

Leo opened his mouth, hesitant to say something, but then he decided against it and pulled Ivan into a tight hug. The taller man let out a huff of surprise at the familiar sensation of Leo’s beard scratching against his neck. He wasn’t surprised by all the strength held in his small arms though. He had learned a long time ago how strong his lover was, despite his frail appearance.

Ivan didn’t know what to do of the feelings this warm, reassuring embrace awakened in his heart. The hurt and the pain were still there, nestled in his chest, but Leo’s presence soothed it a little. The Croatian hid his face in Leo’s dark hair, inhaling his lover familiar scent. It smelled like safety, like home and Ivan started wondering why he just didn’t rush to his captain’s place the moment he arrived in Barcelona.

“I know you’re feeling bad, Ivan. It’s because of the world cup, right?”

His lover’s insight impressed and terrified Ivan’s at the same time. He didn’t want to talk about this, didn’t feel ready for it, but Leo took a step back, staring into his eyes as his hand caressed Ivan’s cheek, leaving him nowhere to run to. He couldn’t get away from that loving, worried stare and he hated it.

“Leo… It’s… It’s so hard, I don’t think I can talk about it right now… You wouldn’t understand anyway… No one would…”

“Querido, do you only realize who you’re talking to?”

Ivan almost replied without thinking. There were lots of obvious answers to that question: Leo, his lover, Barcelona’s captain, the best football player in the world… However, the one that mattered appeared to him clearly before any words could get past his lips.

Apart from all that, Leo was also the man who had lost the world cup final in 2014. Of course, Ivan remembered it all too well. He remembered how his friend had come back to Barcelona looking like a ghost and avoiding everyone at first. Just like he reminded driving to his friend’s house almost everyday, each time with a new excuse, just to make sure that Leo was alright.

He could still see Leo on the brink of tears, muttering excuses about how he was sorry for being a bother to him and the team. It had been a long process, to comfort him back to confidence, to see a spark of joy blossom in his eyes again. A path that had ended with Leo crashing his lips against Ivan’s and pushing him into his bed while the Croatian gladly let him do so.

But now, their roles were reversed by a cruel twist of fate. Ivan was the one one step away from breaking while Leo was studying him with worried eyes.

“How did you do it? How did you manage to go back to your life after the world cup, how could you be strong enough not to have your mind clouded with regret every single second of the day?”

“I wasn’t at first. I thought it would swallow me whole and spit me back feeling empty and worthless.” Leo recognized. “But I had you, Ivan. You were always there when I needed someone to comfort me. So please, let me be there for you now. Don’t run away. We can work this through together.”

Ivan couldn’t take it anymore. He lowered his head and started sobbing against Leo’s shoulder, holding tight onto him. His lover caressed his back gently, not saying a word, simply allowing him to let it all out.

“I’m… I’m sorry… I’m ruining your clothes…” Ivan cried, but his captain refused to let him go.

“Do you really think that matters to me? I can buy a thousand more shirts if needed, but you, Ivan, you are unique and I don’t want to lose you. Not when you mean so much to me. I know you won’t stop feeling bad all of a sudden, but remember you’re not alone in this. You’ll never be.”

“Fuck, you must think I’m acting like a spoiled child. I mean, during your world cup, you had all that pressure on your shoulders, all those expectations put on you and you had to deal with your country disappointment afterward. I had none of that, I was even praised and acclaimed when I came back home, and I’m still complaining… I’m sorry, Leo, I’ll do my best to stop bothering you…”

“No, you won’t do that. Of course, I was hurt by everything you just mentioned, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to feel hurt too. I want you to talk to me, Ivan. Don’t force yourself to keep it all inside. I tried that already, and trusts me, it doesn’t work.”

“It’s just… We were so close, Leo, so fucking close! It was the first time we managed to get that far and I know it won’t happen again, not for me. I’m too old, I’m pretty sure I’ll never get such a chance again. Victory was almost there, I only had to reach for it, but I failed, I failed my teammates, I failed our coach, I failed my whole country…”

“Oh Ivan, don’t blame yourself like that. I know you gave everything you had during this world cup. Don’t you remember calling me before your game against England, when your voice was so hoarse because of sickness that I barely understood you? Because I do, I remember being worried sick when I watched you play knowing about your health issues. I was expecting you to faint at any moment, but you didn’t, you even played through half time and I was so, so proud of you Ivan. I know how your whole team had to take painkillers to go on. I saw you fight your way to that final Ivan. You can still be proud of yourself. I promise.”

Ivan already knew all that deep down, but having these words pronounced by the best player in the world, by his captain, by Leo, suddenly made it all the more real. Another sobbed ran through him, but it was filled with relief. He needed to hear these words, even though he didn’t know that beforehand.

“Still, I wish… I wish this didn’t have to end in defeat…”

“I know, Ivan, I know.”

The Croatian took a deep breath, sighing as Leo ran a gentle hand through his blonde hair. This was what he needed right now and nothing else. Just Leo, holding him close, letting him be sad, letting him mourn his defeat, not saying that he should just be happy he got that far, not blaming him for wanting more.

“Thank you, Leo, thank you for being here.”

“I wish I could offer you so much more, Ivan. I wish I could turn back time to offer you that damn cup. I would surrender all I have just to give you that happiness, but it’s beyond my reach.”

“You don’t have to explain that to me, Leo. That was exactly how I felt four years ago. I would have given everything to bring a smile back on your lips.”

“And you did just that.” Leo whispered, leaving a butterfly kiss on his cheek. “I won’t promise you everything will be alright tomorrow. It will take time and the scar will never really leave. But it gets better, you’ll realize that soon.”

“You’re wrong.” Ivan replied, a calm smile on his lips. “I’m already better. Sure, I’ve been happier, but being with you, having you say those words to me… You already helped more than you can imagine, Leo.”

Before his captain could say anything, Ivan captured his lips with his, putting all his love and passion in it. His lover smiled against his lips and pulled him closer, his hands moving to Ivan cheeks to wipe away the trails left by his tears.

“Can you take me home? Please?” Ivan whispered once their lips parted.

“Of course, but let’s get you a shirt first.”

Ivan blinked, slowly realizing that he was still naked from the waist up. He gave Leo an apologetic smile when his lover handed him the clothes he needed.

“Sorry, I’m still a bit out of it.”

“I noticed, that’s why I’m here to take care of you, cariño. I baked some strawberry cake before leaving for training, I’m sure you’ll like that.”

“You did that for me, didn’t you? You knew I would feel bad so you made my favorite dessert for me?”

“Well, can you blame me for wanting to spoil my boyfriend?” Leo murmured, his eyes full of love.

In that moment, Ivan felt like the luckiest man in the world for having him, his worries tamed by Leo’s presence alone.

“I’ll make it up to you once I feel better, don’t worry.” Ivan whispered back.

“You don’t have to. For now, just take care of yourself.”

“I will, don’t worry. Now let’s just go home, love.”

He gently joined their foreheads together then put his lips on Leo’s one last time before taking his hand, eager to get alone with his lover in his house and to cuddle with him for the rest of the day.

Just being pressed against Leo already felt like home, though

Taglist: @puolendollarinonni @arduango @smolmandzo @synne-sol @kettie09@pachua @tinymodric @winters-chiid @ante-ray-bitch @fussballstuff @lukita-chan

#rakessi #Lionel Messi #Ivan Rakitic #FC Barcelona #fic #my writing

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