#also first drawing with my pen display!!!!! still getting used to it but its fun

[mobuumobu]

he is just.... a litol babie. thatse it,,, he canot change this

#bungou stray dogs #bsd #bsd poe #bsd fanart #fanart #poe and karl #i love my son #will maybe do a drawing of ranpo to match this one we'll see #also first drawing with my pen display!!!!! still getting used to it but its fun

[jtrokujo]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐊

paring: Tobio Kageyama x fem!Reader

word count: 1.7k

warnings: none

genre: fluff (i think)

summary: Through their long and healthy friendship, Kageyama decided to meet with (Y/N). But what was the real reason he wanted to meet her or maybe there was no reason, but one thing is clear; (Y/N) is head over heels in love with him.

—

She stands nervously and unsuspectingly in front of her closet and is still thinking about which outfit she should display for her first date.

But not with anyone, no, but with Tobio Kageyama himself.

Hard to believe, but true.

Because since the earlier years, the now big stubborn head, had been her crush, but in the last few days she wondered whether it wasn't just a bad joke or something like that.

Or whether he would dump her and much more, even when her friends tried to give her courage or that it was not like him, the same thought kept coming up, 'What if ...'

Still with this ulterior motive, she took any outfit and slowly changed.

However, she did not know that her crush would be with her in a few minutes.

She was just fixing her hair, which looked a bit messed up when it was put on, until the doorbell paid her attention.

She quickly grabbed her cell phone and bag with everything necessary already inside and now made her way to the front door.

Just as the black-haired one wanted to press the blades again, the door opened.

The first thing he saw was not like in the typical films, the outfit, no more the hair, but instead of staring at her strangely, he looked at her lovingly and quickly fixed her hair.

The pounding of the heart of the person opposite could apparently not be overheard.

The silence among them is so pleasant, but she curses herself for the fact that her heart is beating quite loudly at the moment.

Is that still healthy at all?

"Let's go?" he asked her and held out his hand to her.

"Yes, in a moment. I just have to put my shoes on very quickly, then we could go." she said with an extremely normal tone and took out the shoes which she is now putting on.

While she is about to tie her shoelaces together, the thought of Kageyama came to mind when they first met.

A warm grin could be seen on his face and he didn't even try to hide it, because if he shouldn't feel well he just has to think about this one moment, where any bad emotions in him dissolve like in the elevator.

"... yama? Kageyama? Tobio Kageyama!"

"Huh?" he looked at her in amazement, while she looked at him in amazement.

"Are you all right?" she asked worriedly, touching his forehead as his cheeks made a pinkish tone.

He gently took her hands away from him. "Yeah, I'm fine. Shall we go?"

Nodding, she took his hand which was stretched out in front of her - so they made their way to the amusement park.

TIME SKIP

As soon as the teenagers had paid for the ticket, they entered the amusement park when suddenly something particular caught Kageyama's attention, and he immediately pulled his good friend with him.

"Kageyama?" she asked him in amazement, but looked at the other stands, from extraordinary sweets to the weirdest cuddly toys, but you are now standing in front of one of these stands. "Doesn't she duck look extraordinary?" he looked her in the eye.

Nodding, she agreed.

He paid for the balls to win them, but just before he could throw a ball she told him it wasn't necessary "A little reminder wouldn't hurt anyone." he answered with a small grin and already positioned himself.

But how unexpectedly - he only threw one ball and immediately all the empty cans fell down, the seller gave the volleyball player a compliment and immediately afterwards got the cuddly toy he wanted.

"Here." said the black-haired one and showed the cuddly toy under her nose.

Thankfully, she accepted this, after which the two would visit one or the other booth for a long time.

Until Kageyama's hand was pulled, he looked at his companion in amazement when she stopped and looked up.

Likewise, looking up, keep his jaw open.

A haunted house.

As reluctant as he would admit it, he's not a big fan of it, as long as that doesn't mean he's scared of it now.

He just doesn't like it.

"Kageyama, are you okay?" she told him which he only answered with a 'yes'.

She saw this as sufficient and thus paid for the tickets.

Still not enthusiastic they were allowed in and then Kageyama wondered why he was in such a bad mood all the time, it's not that bad, no, rather normal.

If only he only knew.

Because immediately after the sentence of his thought ended, two zombies came, who scared both of them and screamed so loud that the probability is that the other from the outside had heard it.

After what felt like an eternity they left the haunted house together, although they look more horrible than normal, but if you have to be honest they would say that it was a fun time which they will soon be able to laugh together.

Even then they were so different, but still so the same.

Sounds strange, maybe it is too, they will only understand.

ABOUT 6 YEARS BEFORE

While the boys are once again playing a sport together and the girls are playing with dolls while talking about the boys, there is one girl who is sitting alone on a bench and doing the process that she has been doing since she started school.

Every day at the same time and in the same place, she takes the coloring book from her backpack that her mother gave her and the pens that came with it and began to paint as always.

Of course she was alone, but what could she do now?

Do the activities that don't make you happy, no thanks.

In addition, the boys were conceited and the girls bitchy, is understandable but doing the same thing over and over again?

Certainly all the children have disappeared after all or have different interests, so why are they doing exactly what is probably not making them happy?

Or maybe it's better not to know everything, because you never know.

Scrawling on the coloring pad, she didn't hear the small footsteps coming at her until the person draws her attention.

"You are (Y / N) right?"

The little girl was astonished to see who she was talking to.

Unfortunately, she didn't know his name, reluctantly she nodded and painted the elephant with the next color she could grab.

"Do you have friends?" he asked puzzled and looked at her, she was still paying attention to the coloring book - still answered with a shake.

"Oh, well then, let me help you paint." the black-haired gave her the offer.

She thought for a long time so that she had forgotten the doorbell.

"Let's go inside." he said and helped her with packing, but instead of going with her he was jogging in while she was taking all the time.

Weird.

PRESENCE

At the moment you are now in front of a booth where you can buy the most delicious sweets in Japan, but the queue is not short for that it is so popular.

It's quite long, you could say there are 30 people waiting crazy for their turn just to be able to buy a candy.

The friends are in the middle of the long queue, but while Kageyama is talking to his good friend about the new film that is just before it, the little encounter occurred to her, whereupon she asked him, "Kageyama, you remember back in elementary school when you knew me asked if I had friends, why did you come up to me so suddenly. "

Immediately, in silence, he considered that day.

"Every day you were alone. Every day while the other kids had their friends, you were the only one who was alone. I didn't know what to say so I decided to ask if too really had friends. In the beginning it was only because of pity that I always kept you as a little company, but when we went to a new school you were so different.

You had friends, you could laugh, and you didn't have a coloring book with you. I'm happy to be friends with someone like you, I don't know myself what makes you so special, but one thing is clear. You are unique."

Is that real, Kageyama? "

Shocked by what he said keep her jaw open, said nothing but stared at the floor.

Immediately after Kageyama paid for the candy, he showed his girlfriend if she wanted to go to the Ferris wheel with him, she only agreed when she was allowed to pay for the tickets.

After a few minutes of discussion, he was dejected and so they set off.

When she had paid for the tickets, she ran up to Kageyama who was standing in line, but it didn't look like they'd have to wait forever, which made her sigh in relief.

In the middle of the conversation, a member of staff drew attention to the young people because they were apparently allowed to be on the Ferris wheel.

Like a gentleman, Kageyama stood by the side so that his girlfriend can enter this first.

From now on you are allowed to go on the Ferris wheel for 5 laps, but when you reached the top you saw the blue sky getting an orange tone, the sunset.

How she loved them, the atmosphere between them was so beautiful, because the silence was not at all uncomfortable, no.

"(Y / N)." he said.

She turned and saw that he had something in hand, possibly a small box.

"I would like to thank you for being such a great person, who always kept my back free. The person who made me laugh a lot. The person who gives me security. The person with whom I, to be myself However, in the meantime, the feelings also came.

My heart beat madly against my chest every time I only think of you, hear your name or even when I see you. But your touch takes me to another world, where there are no worries, where there is no one but us. So I asked you would you like to be my boyfriend? "

When he said his last sentence, he opened the box to see a chain.

The chain was engraved with its initial letter, "You over here, (Y / N)."

He pulled the chain out from under his sweater and you can see that he has the same chain, only that it is engraved with its first letter.

"I would love to be your friend." she said and so her lips touched his.

#haikyuu fluff #haikyuu!! #haikyū!! #hq #haikyu x reader #haikyuu x y/n #female reader #oneshot #fanfic #fanfiction #x reader #female #x you #kuroo testuro #kageyama #haikyuu hinata #haikyuu kenma #tsukishima x y/n #tsukishima x you #haikyuu x reader #love story #haikyuu oikawa

[blishwix]

❝ WE ARE ALL WEARING MASKS. THAT IS WHAT MAKES US INTERESTING ❞

huh, who’s LUKE MITCHELL? no, you’re mistaken, that’s actually JIMBO “WICK” BLISHWICK VI. he is a 35 year old PUREBLOOD wizard who is CEO OF A WIXEN TECH & MEDIA COMPANY. he is known for being CALCULATING, FRAUDULENT, HEDONISTIC, CONCEITED, and AMORAL but also CHARISMATIC, AMBITIOUS, INNOVATIVE, METICULOUS, and PERSONABLE, so that must be why he always reminds me of the song IT’S LONELY AT THE TOP BY BIG BAD VOODOO DADDY and STYLISHLY RIPPED JEANS AND SUEDE SHOES, PURELY AESTHETIC AND MISLEADING SOCIAL MEDIA FEED, NEATLY TRIMMED BEARD AND SANDALWOOD MUSK, HORN RIMMED GLASSES WITH SMUDGES ON THE LENS, MOLESKIN FULL OF ENDLESS CODE AND FUTURE TECH INNOVATIONS, EXTRAVAGANT PENTHOUSE OVERLOOKING THE CITY, WHISKEY STONES AND EMPTY DECANTERS, and CHARMING PERSONABLE SMILES WITH MALICIOUS INTENT HIDDEN UNDERNEATH THE SURFACE. i hear he is aligned with THE DEATH EATERS, so be sure to keep an eye on him.

GENERAL

FULL NAME: Jimbo Dashiel Bartholomew Blishwick VI NICKNAME(S): Wick, Jim, Dash, Bart (yes he legit will go by any of these) AGE/DATE OF BIRTH: 35, 02/16/1994 OCCUPATION: Tech & Media Mogul GENDER: Cis Man PRONOUNS: He/Him/His HOMETOWN: Dallas, Texas CURRENT RESIDENCE: London, I guess ALMA MATTER: Ilvermorny, Horned Serpent BLOOD STATUS: Pureblood

BIOGRAPHY

MEET JIMBO BLISHWICK: THE YOUNG AMERICAN CHANGING THE WIZARDING WORLD ONE STATUS UPDATE AT A TIME. 

I’m not sure exactly what to expect when the invitation comes in. It seems archaic to be communicating over owl. There was even a part of me that thought I should revert to the “email” form which my subject is so fond of. What if the wixen tech mogul’s fondness for typing meant he had poor penmanship? To my delight not only was Mr. Blishwick’s handwriting clear as day, but it came with a gleeful acceptance to be interviewed. So it was on that high note that I made my way to Blishwix HQ in London to meet with the illustrious CEO. What I had expected was some pristine corporate office with dark leather and wood accents, sterile and admittedly cold and disconnected from the world. What I was met with was surprising. Blishwix is anything but old school in its style. Much like the young hip branding that accompanies its many products and services, the corporate HQ of Blishwix is sleek, modern and very accessible. It’s a open space of mostly glass walls, the bull pen dotted with standing desks and stability balls replacing wheeling chairs. Towards the entrance to the main floor there is a food bar, one which changes weekly I’m told. This week it’s a cereal bar, last week it was a sushi bar, the next week it’s expected to be a pho bar. Employees are scattered around it with tablets and laptops, giddily conversing around mouthfuls of rainbow marshmallows and corn flakes. There’s also several corners tucked away with velvet cushions where some team members curl up with headphones and e-readers or handheld video game consoles. Designated comfort zones, the tour guide describes them as. It’s the Blishwix goal to make sure the employees are all comfortable, so whenever they get stressed out or overwhelmed, there’s always a little place they can escape to in order to calm their nerves. In truth, Blishwix looks less like a company and more like an urban hang out for pretty hipsters in crop tops and flannels. Surely the big man on top would have a more professional set up, right? 

Even the display in the bull pen did not prepare me for Jimbo Blishwick’s personal office. It’s one of a few closed off areas to the side of the floor, wide with tall glass walls over looking the bull pen, and predominately empty save for another bean sack, a slim desktop atop a standing desk, and a row of bookcases displaying dozens upon dozens of novels, all of which I can’t place and among the only print media to be found anywhere in Blishwix. “They’re muggle books,” says a voice from behind. When I turn and get a first glance at the figure leaning casually against the glass door to the office, my gut instinct is that this is just another one of those twenty something year olds squeezing stress balls on the work floor. He’s tall, wearing a handmade beanie in a burnt orange color -- One that is, frankly, not a good pair with his golden hair. His neatly trimmed beard and horned rimmed glasses speak of an elegance that doesn’t exactly match the acid wash tattered jeans or the faded t shirt worn under an oversized cream cardigan. The shirt is colorful and bears a phrase that doesn’t come easy to me. Woodstock. Perhaps this is another “muggle thing”. It isn’t until he draws close enough that I recognize the bare footed man. It’s Jimbo Blishwick himself. “Call me Wick,” he easily responds to my surprised expression, knowing full well he wasn’t what I expected. Instead of holding out a hand in a formal handshake and then pulling up a chair for the interview, he engulfs me in a hug and ushers me into the love sack. It’s awkward at first, but eventually I melt into it. It’s just as comfortable as it looks, and their use in the designated comfort zones make more sense to me now. Wick opts to sit crosslegged on the floor, a large coffee in one hand and a bowl of granola balanced on his thighs. He sips the coffee as my eyes wander the space, finding small and interesting little things to ask him about. 

The first thing that draws my attention is a set of crystals sitting on the top of his desk, and when I ask he lets out a howling laugh that echos throughout the office, surely drawing the attention of his hard playing -- and hardly working -- employees beyond the glass walls. “Oh, I had a bit of a headache,” he says with a somewhat amused grin. “My wife said they might help.” The wife in question isn’t some darling stay at home mom you might expect. In Wick’s own words: She’s the reason the “Boss Girl” phrase was invented. Selene Blishwick is as shrewd a business person as her husband is, and perhaps a bit more progressive. As I attempt to shift a bit in the cushion, Wick relays some confidential information about some of their upcoming branding collaborations. Each is more unconventional than the last, and they all have one vital thing in common: Selene Blishwick is the one that found them. I’d go into detail, but Wick swears it would become a marital problem if I spill the big secrets before they’re due to come out. Instead he offers a sly grin and taps a single finger to his lips. “Our little secret, then you can be the cool hip one among your friends who knew all about it before it came out.” An exciting proposition, though I realize that I do need something I can share with the public from this visit, and as Wick’s bowl of dry granola gets emptier I fear I’m running out of time. So I set out to do what I’d planned: a profile on the CEO of Wizarding London’s premiere tech company. 

When I ask Wick what was the event that kickstarted his long journey to bringing the wixen world into the 21st Century, he answers in one simple phrase: “A pen pal program.” I was surprised to say the least, but it all became more transparent as I urged him to elaborate. What ensues is a story about the overweight son of a MACUSA politician who was teased and bullied all his life and struggled to maintain platonic connections. “I had no friends,” he says, a sad truth but it comes out with a light and airy laugh. “But I didn’t make it quite easy for people to be my friend.” Despite his laid back and easy going charm, Wick reveals a disabling shyness and insecurity that kept him from engaging with the world. The only one privy to his thoughts and personality was the journal he carried with him wherever he went. “I always thought I sounded better on print than in person. I could be whoever I wanted to be on paper -- Handsome, smart, clever and fun. I just could never bring that outwards, you know?” I think we can all sympathize with the young Blishwick’s plight. It didn’t help that he had quite the shoes to fill. Sixth in his line, the Jimbos that came before the media mogul were all tied to American politics. They’re all charming and ambitious men, but Wick says he just didn’t have it in him to be a lawmaker. “Big Daddy” -- yes, that’s the moniker his father, Jimbo the fifth, goes by -- “He’s just built to be a Senator, I’m just the apple that fell a little too far from that tree.” Secluded and distant, educators began to worry that Wick’s development would be halted by the lack of socialization between him and his peers. So one Ilvermorny professor had suggested Wick be one of a handful of students elected to partake in a cross continental penpal program. “Fabricating friendship,” he called it. What they didn’t know is that the program would lead to a lot more. When I ask him who his first penpal is, if it’s someone he still has direct contact with, he lets another one of those amusing grins slip. “Oh yeah, very much so. I’m actually married to her.” 

A fifth year at Ilvermorny, Wick was matched with a Hogwarts student a handful of years younger than him by the name of Selene Rowle. According to Wick, their correspondence lasted throughout both of their schooling and beyond, until he had taken a chunk out of his trust fund in order to travel to the United Kingdom to meet in person. He says that’s the only time he used his family’s money to get where he is now -- literally using it to transport across the Atlantic. Leaving behind his family’s estate in Texas and the promising job at MACUSA his father had acquired for him, Wick came to London in order to meet his long distance friend for the first time. The only person “who really knew what he was about” he says. I ask if it was for romantic reasons. He thinks about it while he sips his drink. “I guess in hindsight it does seem a little romantic.” Whatever his reasons, Wick came and he never turned back. He said that one of the first times they interacted in person, he and his future bride had lamented on their past communication and the long waits between letters. “We felt like we’d left things off on cliff hangers so often, and you’d have to wait forever just to get some kind of answer to those burning questions the last letter gave you. It was one of the most frustrating things.” The pair wondered what it would have been like if there had been a more instantaneous way to talk with wizards across the globe. After all, Wick had concluded, the muggles did it just fine. During his teen years, the Texan said he had grown very interested in what nonmagical civilization was like. A “No-Maj Studies Class”, as they call the Muggle Studies program in the states, had a unit on the technological advances of the nonmagical community during much of the modern era. The professors tried to teach the students that this was all building towards a very dangerous threat to the magical community: exposure and the fast spreading of information over the internet. Wick saw something different. “As I thought about how I wished I had a better gateway to my penpal during my teen years, I just kept thinking about how muggles had that already figured out. They could instantly send letters to anyone anywhere in the world. No long wait times for traveling owls or anything like that. It was instantaneous.... And why shouldn’t we be like that?” 

It was this very thought that birthed the company the Blishwicks lead now. 

So how do you bring the magical world safely into the 21st Century as dictated by the nonmagical? That was no easy feat. For his part, Wick said he had to learn all about something that didn’t exist in their world, something that didn’t interact well with magic. And how do you study muggle tech without magic interfering? Simple: You “become a muggle”. That’s when I realized there was a book I recognized on his eclectic shelf of reading material. Daisy Hookum’s best seller My Life as a Muggle. It’s the first book on the shelf, in the most pristine condition. A first edition, and it’s even signed by the author herself, though Wick doesn’t remember the meeting. It has a simple message in it: I hope you enjoy the time you spend in the nonmagical world and make memories as fond as my own. “Oh yeah,” he laughs, “I did tell her I was also voluntarily giving up magic in order to help kickstart my company.” He says it with an air of unfamiliarity, like he only vaguely remembers the moment. Still, he presses on with the story. A controversial choice for the son of a self proclaimed “conservative-traditional” pureblood senator, Wick was shortly disowned by the American Blishwicks for his choice to give up his magic for two and a half years to live among the muggles. But it had purpose. “I may have lied my way into an internship with a tech company in Edingbrugh. I was trying to learn as much as I could about this muggle innovation. If I wanted to create something similar for our community, I needed to master their version.” He says it took more than the two years he gave himself to live among them, and he’s still studying it to this day, but after that amount of time he had the ground work he needed to then create his tech and media empire. The biggest obstacle wasn’t even in creating the highly secret magically encrypted network which allows smart phones to be used in the wizarding world. No, for Wick the biggest hurdle to pass over was the longstanding traditional values the community had. “I think there’s an innate fear in not just advancing the community, but in mirroring any sort of progress than the muggles have done. There’s nothing wrong with it, I mean we have adapted enough of their inventions into our own world already so why not take it a step further?” He refers to radio and electric hook ups that appeared in a lot of wixen homes in the past century. 

Blishwix started out small, creating and selling smart phones and desktops primarily with the idea in mind to change the way we communicate. Email was one of those first muggle digital contraptions that made its way into the wixen mainstream and has stayed, but within a short decade the company’s offerings expanded to mirror exactly what the digital world of the muggles looks like now. It’s becoming more and more rare to see wixen without a Loquix* in hand, or a Blishwix desktop at home. The Wixpix social media app, in which users post photos taken from the cameras on their cellular devices and add witty captions which can then be “liked” or “commented” on by users across the globe, continues to grow in popularity. And now the media and tech giant is rolling out a “streaming platform” -- a sort of home theater in the form of an app that catalogues film and television programs created by wixen for wixen. There’s Accio, an application that allows you to ask random questions and receive an answer instantly; Portky** which allows users to request forms of transportation when they desperately need it, including ministry-approved portkeys (or so it claims, we haven’t used it yet here at the Prophet). There’s even applications for those lonely wixen looking to find a love connection. Erised is one such app where user profiles are made with a handful of photos, a small ‘about me’ section, and a few small details that can be provided to prospective dates in order to help connect those with similar interests and hobbies. The married Wick does not have an Erised profile, but his assistant allows me to scroll through her’s and even swipe a few times on other profiles. I accidentally match her to someone she admits she can’t see herself interested in, but we all have a good laugh about it. These are only a few of many “experiences”, as Wick refers to them, offered by the company in order to branch the magical people from across the globe. “What is more beautiful than seeing people from different cultural backgrounds and walks of life coming together and sharing ideas and thoughts so quickly?” I realize as I’m sitting there in that bean cushion, scrolling through a prototype of the next Blishwix tablet that I know so little about the world beyond my little corner of it. I suddenly understand Wick’s enthusiasm about expanded communication. 

It’s all pretty exciting to see coming together, it’s almost impossible to understand what more could be done by Blishwix. So when I ask him what’s next, Wick gets a very eager look in his eyes. “There’s a lot of places we still don’t have our tech in that I think would be all the better for it,” he solemnly reveals, and I’m shocked to hear it. Since visiting Blishwix, I have seen their product seemingly in every corner of Wizarding London I explore daily. Who isn’t using connected to their expansive network at this point? “I would love to do a partnership with the Ministry. As the governing body, I feel like we can offer them so much that could continue to further develop the community and continue progressing us into the future. If we could get our desktops in every Ministry Department, we can further the sort of work that keeps our world moving. Just imagine how we could expand Law Enforcement, Education or Wellfare departments if we can make all the relevant information they need all the more accessible to their employees? Think about how much easier it would be for them to process information on our fast and reliable network.” 

On the topic of Education, Wick reveals his ambitions don’t stop with the Ministry. “I would love to see Blishwix in schools like Hogwarts,” he says, revealing what may be the biggest bombshell yet. “This whole dream started because of a chubby boy who had no friends in school and wanted a faster way to communicate with the one he made far away. I think a lot about that and how my life would have been different had I had this kind of technology available to me. If there are lonely kids like me who could have that, or even kids who are just struggling to get the information they need to be successful in school, and I could give them what they need to advance in life? Then I could say I’ve done what I initially set out to do. Until that day, I would say that Blishwix hasn’t been a success yet. Even teachers could benefit from the use of the internet and all the resources we have out there which we now have access to.” I begin to wonder if the technological genius is actually more of a philanthropist. “I don’t know, you tell me,” he quips when I muse out loud. Our interview comes to a halt by this point, and I’m left with so many more questions. What is Blishwix cooking up for the wizarding world next? What kind of innovations will define the company’s next decade? These, and so many more, questions are left unanswered as I walk out of Blishwix HQ, a takeaway bowl of fruity cereal in one hand and my previous generation Loquix in the other (scrolling through shopping apps in order to find that “love sack” I spent much of the afternoon lounging in).

The same day I begin writing this piece out, Blishwix has announced the Loquix VI, their most advance smartphone yet. They livestream details of their upgraded OS and hardware reveal on the company’s social media, an event I watch while typing this article up on my worn out typewriter. Halfway through and I’m out of ribbon, and I silently curse myself as I order a new set online. All the while the Blishbook Pro is being revealed on the stream, its sleek wireless keyboard and slim expandable monitor shimmering under the stage lights. I join in with the loud gasps from the shareholders crowding the conference room where the event is being held. The irony of this isn’t lost on me, and as I sit here writing out these last few paragraphs with a quill in my cramped hand I begin to realize exactly why I admire Jimbo Blishwick and his forward thinking. At least he’s not sitting here with ink blotches in obscene places, running to his editor’s office just barely before deadline with a mess of typed and handwritten article. I remember in that moment, drenched in the rain while rushing through the offices of the Prophet, the first line in his owl response to my inquiry for the interview: 

You should have just emailed. 

Touché, Blishwick, touché. 

*Portky app idea comes courtesy of Kim ( @strvngemagics​ ) **Loquix phone name comes courtesy of Vic ( @cfdiggorys​ / @moodyparis​ / @aarlingtons​ ) Both gave permission to use / mention these galaxy brained concepts in the intro and credit for their conception goes to them. Thank you guys so much!!

TL;DR: Wick is full of shit. What can I say? Here’s the ‘Murrican lad who claims to be some hip and cool CEO of a wizarding tech and media company. Okay he’s I guess apple meets zuckerberg. Idk I’m not galaxy brained enough for this afheiahfpea hence the very oddly written bio. Wick’s a pureblood from america who supposedly forsake his family’s purist ways and then decided to create a company modeled after muggle tech in order to “bring the wizarding world into the modern era”. In actuality? He’s a fucking bigot who created a network that he could use to spy on people who may be enemies of the cause. At least that’s how it’s being factored into the DEs. His theme song is “Somebody’s Watching Me” by Rockwell bc he’s always watching you. Gives off this very laid back and down to earth and charming persona just so he can gain your trust and meanwhile he’s leaking your information to the DE and helping them further their agenda. Some extra tidbits not seen above: 

He’s got some daddy issues which are leaking into his parenting. Aka he is not exactly excited to be a father but you wouldn’t know that from his Wixpix feed which feature so many “cute” dad photos with his baby boy. In order for him to become his best self, his dad had to make his life a living hell and he believes that’s how he’s gonna have to handle Zephyr as well. 

He is smart, yes, but he’s not some brilliant innovator like the world thinks he is. His empire is built on stolen material which he simply “adapted” to the magical world. He’s not original, but he is clever. 

He’s not a fighter, clumsy with a wand, had a severe stutter as a kid which made it very hard for him to cast spells etc, so he avoids battle often and instead offers up his company more for espionage for the DEs. He’s better suited to behind the scenes mayhem, and that’s kind of the way he likes it. 

He’s a coward. He’s hiding behind computer screens and tbh if things get really sticky he’s likely to try and sell out the DE in order to save his skin. Has an escape plan to the states if things get really sticky but the likelihood of him succeeding are slim to none. 

He acts very charitable and humble and kind but he’s conceited as hell and he’s a real shady bitch sometimes. Talks shit on everyone behind their backs

He’s had a few affairs here and there despite being married. Even with that, he is in love with his wife and feels a sort of fealty towards her. She’s a very important part to the company, she’s pretty much the brand of it and so he relies on her a lot to help manufacture their image even just as individuals to help the rouse. 

BODY IMAGE TW/EATING DISORDER TW. Wick has some body image issues due to his past tbh. He got bullied a lot as a kid for being overweight and quiet, his solace was in food and he was a binge eater. As he got a bit older, he made some desperate choices in order to lose weight to gain a slimmer figure. It wasn’t healthy, it landed him in hospital a few times, and eventually he had to meet with nutrition specialists and therapists in order to work out a more healthy mindset on food. He’s still harbors body imagine issues, but he’s learned to be better about it. Still, he maintains a very strict diet and work out regime because he feels his image is one of the most important things about him. He did meet Selene when he was slim and athletic and therefore thinks it’s best he maintain the figure even just out of fear she wouldn’t find him attractive otherwise. 

is any of the stuff he said in this interview true? Idk, idk

Idk, I hate this man and this bio afheuiahfpea I’ll end up rewriting it eventually. 

MISC

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Bisexual ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Biromantic LANGUAGES: English FAMILY: Jimbo Dashiel Bartholomew Blishwick V (but they call him “Big Daddy”; father), Cricket Blishwick née Berkeley (mother), Beaufort Harland Blishwick (younger brother), Cora-Lou Blishwick (younger sister), Selene Blishwick née Rowle (wife), Zephyr Blishwick (infant son), and by extension all the fucking Rowles I guess PETS: TBD FACE CLAIM: Luke Mitchell ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Aquarius MBTI: hm PINTEREST: (coming soon)

WANTED CONNECTIONS

interns - a couple new grunts at the blishwix HQ. they can be any affiliation, but if they are DE affiliated then they’ll know a little bit more about what is going on behind closed doors at the company. could be fun for future plotting purposes. 

co conspirators - other DEs who similarly to wick lead a double life in the public eye. philanthropists, media stars, all sorts of “do gooders” who are banning together in order to break “harmful stigmas and stereotypes and join the wixen community globally”. blishwix mission statement aims to create a platform for wixen of all types across the world to interact free of prejudice and judgement and to bring the magical community into a modern era free of harmful ideologies. of course that’s a fucking lie, so if you play a baddy bad who’s pretending to be goody good then this could be a fun collaboration. 

partnerships - alternatively, let’s see some honest to good people and groups get schemed by these fuckers. this would involve some potential screwing over but no worries, at the end of the day blishwix will tank and then your character can get their sweet revenge on this man and his corrupt business. 

idk hmu with ideas. 

#potterintro #sorry fam no fun doodle this time #bad men don't deserve it #ahfieafea i'm sorry this is kinda lame but i wanted to get something out there to help with plotting

[mattjabbar]

Writing or doing nothing.

After finishing my second book called "Tokyo at Night" which consisted of mostly big and highly detailed watercolor paintings, I decided that I needed a break from this kind of work. I felt a similar sort of weariness as I did while painting animation backgrounds for months without a break. I was itching to get back to the thing that made me consider going to Japan in the first place - storytelling through comics, illustrations, or animation. Therefore, I  immediately spent three months doing another book of detailed illustrations (this time, ink drawings of Hokkaido).

It was harder for me than I expected to focus on a storytelling project because it would require me to do work that did not bear any fruit right away. I was used to making art that was almost instantly finished and shareable. Here, I would have to write, sketch, and think (!) for days, months maybe with no instant gratification. I had to think about some tricks to keep me on track.

As making a story would require writing (even if it's just a script or bunch of memos for myself), I had a look at some tips from my favorite literary creators. That's when I stumbled upon a rule that Neil Gaiman applies when he writes: "write or do nothing." According to him, it's alright to do nothing instead of working because one soon gets bored and goes back to typing. It may be a good solution for someone who writes longhand sitting alone in a forest gazebo, but I was trying to type using my laptop or my iPad, which can offer distractions aplenty! As much as I would love to write with a fountain pen in a neat notebook, I'm not a linear thinker (I mix, swap and move things a lot) so I would have to type the text to edit it anyway.

What's more, as English is not my native tongue (but I would like to write in English for its accessibility) I always have to look up words and their uses, which leads to more internet and social media distractions.

Thus, I started looking for ways to write without distractions, but in a way that would be fun too.

Software.

As I already have a Mac laptop and an iPad, I invested in an app that would allow me for comfortable editing and managing my all-over-the-place, non-linear writing projects. I ended up with Scrivener, which does all I need (and more), can also be used by Kana (our accounts are family-linked), and does not require a subscription.

I like how this app allows me to split, reorder and join files effortlessly, that I can add notes and memos in the text, and that it works perfectly with the novel-like style of writing dialogues that I like to use. No problems here.

Casio

For writing without distractions, I started by looking at these stand-alone devices that allow for writing without using a computer or a tablet. In theory, this should allow for a more focused, offline work environment, but they also look so cool! First, though, I decided to try if I can use something unconventional for this purpose - ideally something that no one needs anymore - a type of digital upcycling.

I heard Neil Gaiman (again) talking in one of his interviews that he typed parts of one of his books on an ancient portable Atari palmtop (something like this probably), so I started wondering if I cannot do something similar. Looking through listings on the popular Japanese second-hand website, I found this beauty for just 24$. A Casio Cassiopeia A-51 made in 1997 (I was eleven at that time)!

This small computer has a lot of upsides - it runs a pocket version of Word (enough for just writing simple text), uses standard AA batteries (no worries about old rechargeable batteries going kaput in 15 minutes) and accepts CF memory cards (which allow me to copy data to and from my main laptop).

I cleaned it up, tightened some screws on a loose hinge, replaced the backup battery (it prevents memory loss when changing the primary batteries), added some cool stickers, and the thing looks almost brand new. I'm excited to use if for some shorter posts and articles - the keyboard is as awkward to type on as it looks, but I love the old school feel and the form factor, so I will keep using it for sure!

Pomera

Next on my list of possible solutions was a Pomera - this is a simple, stand-alone writing device made by a Japanese company. I wanted one of these for some time now, but the price was a bit steep. Just recently, though, the DM30 model I wanted was discontinued, and I was suddenly able to buy one for about a quarter of the original price.

This device is geared best towards writing in Japanese, but it can be used in English too. It has an e-ink display, which is great in terms of visibility and allows for long battery life too (about 24 hours of use on two AA batteries). As with the Casio, I can store my texts on a memory card, but this device also has 8GB of built-in storage. For the footprint it has - the keyboard is great. After folding it out, it's stable, and I can write almost as comfortably as on my MacBook. No distractions and no superficial functionality. I can display an outline of the document I'm working on, insert timestamps, search, replace text, and that's it.

After writing a few short texts with the Pomera, I can say that I like it. Especially the hardware part - the keyboard and the screen are great! The software, on the other hand, is somewhat limited in functionality and has its quirks. No font options, no markdown support, no text format encoding choice - just some small things that would make the device more pleasurable in everyday use, not deal-breakers, though.

One thing is certain - if it comes to the "write or do nothing" rule, Pomera wins. It's really boring! You cannot do anything on it except write, so of course, you end up writing.

Reference.

Lastly, to enhance my English language skills, I have to use a dictionary. And doing it on my smartphone defeats the whole thing, so I decided to look for an electronic dictionary. I had a used Casio dictionary when I came to Japan, but this time I searched for one with Oxford English-English dictionary and thesaurus. It's fast and offers more comprehensive and noise-free content than looking up things online.

Future

My current solution is not perfect, but I'm enjoying this process, and the result is that I'm writing. What's more, because I started to think about writing (with thinking and researching) as a part of my work, it recently became easier for me to spend a day or two without having drawn anything but still feeling like I had accomplished something. As for the tools - I would LOVE to try and use a Psion 5mx, but sadly these were not popular in Japan, and it's hard to justify buying one from abroad.

#blog #writing #writing tools #distraction-free #casio #pomera

[tsumtsum-into-omiomi]

CHAPTER TWO: HISTORY 101

warning(s): cursing

word count: 1.4k

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"What if... I told you all that practitioners like us used to be able to roam the earth as we wished?" Atsumu starts, a smug look on his face as if he is about to reveal a huge secret. Osamu, who is sitting behind the class computer to control their slide show, rolls his eyes. He hates it when Atsumu presents because he tends to act overly dramatic.

 "They're able to be found anywhere in Japan, and even though they're a minority, practitioners and non-practitioners lived in harmony together. They're accepted and even trusted to govern states alongside non-practitioners; taking on important roles as ministers and such. Sounds pretty sweet, right?"

 Atsumu then pauses for a second to cue Osamu to move on to the next slide. The screen flickers, now projecting six pictures of professional looking men and women in suits with their names underneath, "these people are examples of distinguished figures who made sure our law and order were in place so that the peace between practitioners and non-practitioners was kept in check when they lived together. They drafted the constitution that we are still using to this day."

 "This woman," Atsumu points to one of the pictures on his slide, "Ota Shiori, was the person who campaigned for the famous safety law to be sanctioned. It was designed to protect non-practitioners from unlawful usage of magic on them. She truly believed that, in no circumstances should they feel threatened by the power that they were not blessed with. And the practitioners were cautious about this matter. They made sure not to hurt anyone with their magic."

 "However, circa 1850s, non-practitioners began a purging movement, fueled by a rising political party, called Chōwa, who wanted to be in power," Atsumu gestures to Osamu. He taps on the keyboard and the slide changes. There are pictures of protests and violent acts on the screen, assumed to be inflicted on practitioners. Low murmurs and soft gasps can be heard filling the lecture hall. There is tension in the air.

 "To them," Atsumu continues, riding on the mood of the class and using a serious tone, "for as long as practitioners were living among non-practitioners, they would not be able to hold absolute administration because they thought we could topple them down with our magic anytime. That scared them a lot."

 Osamu then stands up to continue where Atsumu left off, "the purge had forced magic practitioners to move and live in isolation, away from others, just to ensure their safety," but unlike Atsumu, his voice is indifferent. He has a mind map displayed and it shows a list of town names. "They began to find new lands to start fresh and due to their small numbers, the community was scattered all over the country. They built small towns where they could live amongst their own people and keep to themselves to stay out of trouble.”

 Osamu points to the screen, “these are the magic towns established over the years that we know of, including ours; Taishi. It is the only town in Hyōgo which houses magic practitioners since the year 1957, a settlement where we can exercise spells freely and a place called home for us to live in peace. Fun fact; Tokyo is the only prefecture that has more than one magic town," Osamu appears dead panned, making it very hard for the audience to be convinced that it is, indeed, a fun fact.

 He taps on the keyboard again. This time, the Hyōgo prefecture's map is presented beside a picture of three men in suits standing side by side.

 "However, it is also important to note that there are people out there who do not share Chōwa's sentiment towards the magic community and are accepting of us," he informs, "our small town has its secret hold hidden by the cities of Tatsuno and Himeji. They envelop and give us the protection that we need from being exposed to the rest of the world. It's an agreement they made decades ago with us, even before the name Taishi came to exist, to repay the practitioners for helping them during the age of wars. These three men, Mori Daigo, Abe Genta and Ikeda Hide, were the leaders back then who came up with the peace treaty that is still in effect up until today."

 "Here are some interesting facts on Taishi," Osamu skips to the following slide, "we have a population of around thirty thousand. Our school, Inarizaki, was founded by Abe Genta. The famous Kudo Street was named after Kudo Kazuki, the first practitioner who built our town. Kudo Street gains its popularity as a place to get magical supplies in the 70s..."

 "Gosh, interesting facts?" you whisper to your friend beside you. The two of you are sitting at the far back of the hall, "his face doesn't reflect it at all. Appear a bit more enthusiastic, man."

 Suna yawns, "as if he gives a shit."

 "I'm hungry," you huff.

 "If we hadn't joined this class for fun, we would already be eating right now," Suna side-eyes you.

 "Hey, you also thought it's a fun idea to see the twins present!" you jeer back. "And in case you forgot, we can leave anytime. We're literally sitting beside the door."

 "Nah, let's ask the presenters some mind-boggling questions while we're already here," Suna waves his hand lazily.

 "See, isn't this a better way to spend our free period?" you smirk.

 Suna grins back at you, "go do your work, Satan."

 "Any questions?" Atsumu implores to the class. The two of you sit straight and draw your attention back to the front after realising that the presentation is over.

 You see no hands raised. Nice, an impassive class; the perfect audience. You put your hand up, catching Atsumu's eyes. He points at you with a smile, "yes, at the back there?"

 However, his smile vanishes instantly when you stand up, finally taking notice of you and Suna, who are intruding the class. He glares at you as a warning.

 "I have some questions," you announce, ignoring the invisible daggers he's throwing at you, "aren't you two fifth year students? Why did you choose basic history to present on? Weren't there any other challenging topics that you could've tackled on?"

 Atsumu seems like he's about to break the pen he's holding into half while Osamu scratches his temple with his middle finger, a quiet "fuck you" for you. You and Suna stifle some giggles at their reactions as you plop back into your seat.

 The History teacher clears his throat, "answer the question, Miya. I was wondering the same thing too. I know I said you're free to choose what to present on, but isn't yours very... elementary? Even though this is an entry level History class, I expected more since you're seniors."

 "Aw man," Suna chortles, "if they fail this class again... you're a part of the reason."

 "Nah, Morita-sensei will let them pass this time," you respond, "I don't think he wants to see them again next year for the third time."

 "Lol, imagine having to take an entry level History course  three times in the span of six years at this school."

 "Hm, maybe it's something only the twins can achieve."

 "Look at him spewing bullshit," Suna snickers at Atsumu, who is trying to justify his and Osamu's presentation topic to his best ability.

 "His expertise anyway," you scoff, not even paying attention to what Atsumu is saying.

 Suna nods in agreement, “I feel bad but I’m really enjoying this.”

 “They’re gonna be so pissed off,” you cackle.

 "Any more questions?" Atsumu addresses the whole class.

 "Oh shit, my turn," Suna raises a hand up.

 "Don't let Morita-sensei see you or we'll get kicked out," you remind him in a low voice. Suna only stands up half of his height, hiding from Morita's view behind the rows of students sitting in front of him.

 Once Atsumu catches his raised hand and makes eye contact with Suna, he mouthes a "fuck you" at him. Unfortunately, he doesn't really have a choice other than answering, "yes?"

 "Do you know if the samurai practised magic?"

 A snort escapes from you upon hearing Suna’s question. You then see a text come in from Osamu, who must’ve sent it from behind the computer while everyone was paying attention to Suna just now. It says "I'm gonna feed you two shit tomorrow". You almost lose it seeing how pressed Osamu is right now— it’s a rare sight. You reply with “sounds good 😋” to him and he sends a middle finger emoji back.

 Ah, what better way to enjoy the trivial life as a student other than being a pain in your brothers’ asses?

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Thank you for reading till the end!! World building is my passion LMAO jk it's super hard I love creating it but writing it?? Phew... Anyway, this is just to give context of the AU they're in!! Hope it gave you a good idea!

#Miya Atsumu #Miya Osamu #atsumu x reader #osamu x reader #suna x reader #haikyuu x reader #Inarizaki

[wwounu]

love talk | lee jihoon

—every thoughtful curve of each letter on the ivory paper, it’s rose pink envelope standing out from the rest of the simple, white envelopes, your heart can only yearn more from the warm, loving words. you yearn, yet, you don’t seem to realise the answer is a miracle waiting to happen

“because of you, each day is beautiful. sometimes, i’m afraid it’ll all vanish, but each time i think that, you look at me and smile. you’re my miracle, it’s you.”

pairing: jihoon x reader + love letter!au

word count: 15k

warning: tiny tiny angst

note: 15.1k words?!?! this may have been the longest piece i have written ever, and i’m still late for woozi day... ah, i’m so annoyed with myself, i stayed up until 1am twice just to finish this, but never did get to finish it! but here we are! if i had more time, then i would’ve been able to write the ending much better, i think the only reason why it became an adlib to me was because i wanna watch vagabond... i’m also officially back — hooray! it’ll take me some time to adjust, i guess, a lot has happened since i’ve been gone, but i still followed svt because it’s me. in regards to opposites attract i’ll make a separate post about that, but for now, i hope you all enjoy this long fanfic! it really challenged me as a writer and, little fun fact, this was supposed to be a minghao fic originally. happy belated birthday, jihoon, i hope you remain happy and healthy for eternity. i admire you so much. (i promise you this is a jihoon fanfic haha — this isn’t proofread either... also iida best boy mwah)

An ivory paper sits securely inside your palm; its fluffy, blunt edge from where it’s been ripped apart multiple other pages, contrasting with neat and straight folds, care put into them. The envelope that originally held the note was rose pink — different from the simplicity of white envelopes — the change unusual but comforting as you read each handwritten curve of your name, a small heart at the end, possibly drawn hesitantly, probably not.

A wave of familiarity hits upon unfolding the contents, simple yet pretty handwriting filling the page, its ink radiating all the warmth from the words.

I thought about you today.

A strange thought to confess to you, but I just felt like saying it, so please hear me out.

You look like you’ve been busy these days, which is why I haven’t been writing as much to you. I didn’t want to be such a disturbance to your studies. Though — as I realised — it’s also important to support you and give the positive reminders you deserve. I know I’m quite late to it all, so I hope I can make it up to you next time… Not sure how I’ll do that yet, it’s still in the works.

I’m getting off track — just remember to take it easy on yourself and that you’re doing well so far. Good luck on your remaining essays! Things will get better afterwards, so hang in there for me, promise?

Oh! Do you know the strawberry milk on the table? That’s for you too. I promise I didn’t drug it or anything, in case you’re wondering. It’s a lame present, but I hope it energises you through the day… Ah I’m so lame haha. One day I’ll give to you in person.

I missed your smile, I hope I can see it again. You shine the brightest when you do.

(Did you also like the change in envelope? I think I’ll be using coloured envelopes more these days~)

Miracle.

You fold the letter and place in back into the envelope, eyes attracted to the carton of strawberry milk, a baby pink post-it note taped onto it saying drink well~ in the same writing. Your hand immediately reaches to the drink, punching the straw and taking a long, refreshed sip.

While you enjoy your drink, your eyes fly back to the letter, mind lingering on a particular thought.

“Something on your mind?” Someone’s voice registers near you, breaking the train of thought. You see the pout form on his lips, face innocent as he removes his bag.

“Nothing, Jihoon. Blanked out a little,” you awkwardly stammer, smiling with the straw in your mouth.

Lee Jihoon — one of your closest friends. Before the term friends, you knew about each other through friends until he found out you were going to the same university as him, giving perfect reason to start a friendship there and then. Despite having contrasting courses (in fact you weren’t in any classes together), you were easily each other’s go-to.

Jihoon’s eyes acknowledge the open envelope with the letter hanging out, soon turning back to you. “Where did the milk come from?” He points to the cute-sized carton.

Do you tell him?

No one knew about your secret, it didn’t seem important to mention really, but it stuck in your mind whether you’d tell it someday.

The letters began at the start of the year, in the middle of a cold, cold January, the wintery hex making you go as far as to forget your backpack in the library. Fortunately, your bag was still at the same spot where you left it, saving you from the panic and fear that would’ve came if it wasn’t the case.

But as you inspect the inside, that’s when you see it. When you see the snowy white sleeve of the envelope, no name addressed, except for simple letters spelling an ode to you on the outside. Curious, you pick it up assuming it’s for you, fingers working to slide across the envelope’s tongue, revealing the note that held your first ever love letter.

Miracle was his name. Or what he called himself, really. Even though you were curious about the name’s origin, it was all explained in the second letter, where he wrote the name as a last-minute thing (that letter was written a week after the first, found inside your textbook).

Seemed fitting for him in your case.

It was strange — having multiple love letters, let alone just one — but through time it made you more excited as you received them frequently, each day being less of please don’t be a serial killer and more of I hope he writes today, ending with a small smile that you don’t admit to having whenever you say so.

The thought alone triggered your finger to hover over the letter, a sudden burst of eagerness spreading inside you.

Time to reveal yourself Miracle, you think, I’m going to do everything it takes to find you.

“Long story short,” easily, you begin, “the milk and this letter are from Miracle.”

“Miracle?” Jihoon repeats, his expression wanting more coverage.

“Miracle has been sending me letters for a while now. I know the point of secret admirers is to be anonymous, but he seems like a cool guy, I wanna be friends with him.”

“And you’re telling me you aren’t convinced this is some prank or...”

“This is my first admirer, be more happy for me!” You frown instantly, fingertips gently brushing the envelope flap. “Problem is, I have no clue who Miracle could be. He could be anyone!”

Jihoon hums, his hand held out. “Pass me the letter,”

“Don’t rip it.”

“What makes you think I’ll do that?”

“Just a hunch.”

Busy finishing the strawberry milk, Jihoon opens the letter, eyes concentrated on the page for a strong five seconds before nicely handing it back in your possession.

All of a sudden, he leaves his seat.

“Hoon?” Eyes appearing childlike, Jihoon only hums in the midst of lifting his bag. “Are you going somewhere?”

Once his bag is lazily hung on one shoulder, he says, “We’re going to Seventeen. We’ll talk about Miracle there.”

Naturally, a smile spreads across your lips. Jihoon never fails to make you float with words — always trailed with gentleness.

By Seventeen, he means the campus coffee shop. Everyone in the university has visited the cafe one way or another, whether it be the Valentines day special offer (which its ridiculous slogan was ‘All orders half price if you bring someone you like a latte!’) or to daydream over the baristas.

Its exterior and interior was as equally impressive. Walls splashed in snowy white and accented with raven black, the sign outlining 7-TEEN in a muted sapphire blue, the dangling chalkboard displaying the specials in chalky rose writing. The inside held a same, homely feeling, following the palette of desaturated pink, blues and whites, completed with the dark floorboards and tables for comfort.

You seat yourself by the window — specially requested by Jihoon — able to see most of the coffee shop and Jihoon’s place in line from the corner.

He comes back with a black mug steaming with heat, a mountain of sugar packets at its side, and a cake for you and him to share (even though you both knew that you were finishing it).

“The love letter please,” Jihoon requests after bringing out one of his many journals, pages taken out and deflating the fullness of the book. You react unpleasantly to the term, handing the item nonetheless.

He sets up the letter beside his journal, fingers holding his pen as he produces rushed, messy scribbles — it was almost unreadable. The words at the top of the page read Miracle Suspect List, a tiny giggle earned from reading it.

“Now... Any ideas?”

Even Jihoon doesn’t need words to understand the utter panic frozen your face as he asks. He huffs a sigh.

“Let’s read what Miracle says, maybe that’ll help.” Jihoon leans to the note, eyes drawing strange patterns as they move across the note. “Hm, Miracle noticed you’ve been struggling these past few days, does that ring any bells?”

“I’ve been so busy I didn’t even notice...”

“It’s okay, you had other things to focus on. Totally valid.” Rhythmically, he taps the pen on his chin, lips pouted like a baby duck. “If Miracle was aware about this, maybe he’s someone in your major. Anyone from your lectures that you can think of?”

Rather than answering a simple no, you think very hard this time. Jihoon does a really good job in trying to narrow the perspective for you, so its your role to meet in the middle. This secret admirer business was harder than you thought.

You think through everyone in your class, filtering them one by one until it comes into your head, radiant as ever.

“There’s Junhui. We chat when we’re in the lecture hall and sit next to each other sometimes, I probably told him about my worries. We don’t talk outside much... Unless!” You exclaim, “Unless I meet him whilst he’s on shift here, then he doesn’t shy away from me.”

Right after saying that, Junhui enters the shop, greeting the cashier at the counter, his goofy smile plastered as he disappears into the staff room with a laugh.

“Okay. Junhui...” Jihoon says, stretching Junhui’s name as he scribbles, classmate and works at Seventeen jotted underneath.

Another person comes to mind, your hand tapping repetitively on Jihoon’s arm as you tried to recall. “Oh, oh!”

“Ow, ow — what?!” Mimics Jihoon.

“There’s Soonyoung!”

“Kwon? Dance leader Kwon?”

“I heard some rumours that he liked me when I helped out with the department spring showcase—“

“You won’t like him.” Deadpans Jihoon, the interruption slightly out of place.

“What?”

Jihoon shrugs. “I don’t like him,”

The statement further confuses you, given that the dance and music departments fit hand in hand, not to mention the student’s between both departments were the most stable (in this case, the drama majors were scarily the lone wolf of the three).

And other than you, Jihoon — being the music department’s campus prodigy and following the cliché — stuck like superglue to dancer Kwon Soonyoung.

“Aren’t you friends?” Your face paints a fusion of disgust and confusion.

“We’re friends,” he confirms, nodding firmly, “he just doesn’t seem like your type. He’s... Gullible sometimes. His energy will refresh you, but it’ll eventually drain.”

“You never know.” Replies you, only focusing at the statement about being your type.

Jihoon continues to write down Soonyoung’s name even after voicing his opinion, small devil horns and a pointy tail doodled at the around his name.

“Better than nothing. Anyone else on your mind?”

“Jeon Wonwoo?” You raise your tone at the end. “I don’t think he’s that interested in me though,” you lips pull into a frown at the thought of the university’s famous librarian slash well-rounded student. He was also your tutor, but he tutored many people, so it wasn’t something out of a k-drama.

Jihoon’s hand moved right away as he notices your look. Unlike the past two, Wonwoo’s name only had a question mark underneath. “We’ll add him. There — three potential Miracles — who shall we investigate first?”

“I’ll hang around them and report back to you—“

Unexpectedly, your phone rings. The caller ID makes it clear to you that you had to take the call. You excuse yourself from Jihoon, taking one more bite of the cake before you head outside, getting lost in your conversation.

When the lengthy chat ended, you walk back inside to find your friend gone. Before you broke into a cold sweat, a light ding comes out of your phone, the screen reading a short text from Jihoon.

A classmate ran into me and they asked me to do a favour, sorry I left all of a sudden. Text me when you get to your dorm. Get there safely.

The gesture touches you, lips concealing a smile. The text also signalled to you that you should get going too, the sky outside slowly blooming into darkness.

Yet as the chair is pulled back for you to access your bag, an envelope appears.

Heart racing, your fingers scoop the item in one motion, rushing to take out the contents inside.

Two letters in one day... It doesn’t suit my style haha. I hope you’re secretly happy about it though.

I saw you in Seventeen earlier, and correct me if I’m wrong, but did I hear you talk about me? The wonderful, most-handsome Miracle?

First of all, I’m flattered, who wouldn’t talk about me? And second, I heard a little more that I should’ve. You want me to reveal myself?

If you think I’m going to give myself away, I’m not. Just because I like you doesn’t mean I’m going to tell you~

It’s your turn to do the chasing now, I can’t wait to watch. This is going to be so fun — I’ll be super hurt if you mistake me as someone else...

Joking! All I’ll say is I’m supporting you from here, I’ll be watching closely! Please don’t be disappointed when you find out who I am. Hehe.

(Before I go! I recommend Seventeen’s Poet Latte, it’s a million times better than the Hope Macchiato. Ask for hazelnut syrup too, that thing is like sweet magic)

Miracle.

Now determined, your eyes scan over the lines again and again, each word being critical yet painfully ambiguous.

That’s when it crosses your mind. His words craft you into the right direction, even though Miracle has the power to do the complete opposite depending on how he wants to play his cards.

For now, you’ll take his words as gospel, aware that he was present at the time you were in Seventeen. All the signs pointed to Junhui, majorly assuming that he was the only one that who entered the cafe, and that Miracle recommended the Poet Latte.

It settled your first target quite quickly: Wen Junhui.

Stashing the letter in your bag, you head outside, eyes following Junhui practicing latte art until you can’t see him anymore, thoughts already planning on certain strategies.

If Miracle wants this to be entertaining, you’ll make it entertaining.

It’s been a week.

And nothing has happened.

“It’s been a week.” Jihoon voices, “And you‘ve gained zero progress.”

Panic stricken, you blurt, “I’m still working on it...”

“We’re gonna get nowhere if you carry on stalling.”

“I know, but I don’t know when to do it—“ Which was partially true. You were just too shy around Junhui.

“Just do it today!”

“Ugh, okay!” As equally as loud, you shout like Jihoon. Geez. Why did he get so hot-headed? “I’ll head to my lecture and see if he’s there.”

A smile shows on Jihoon’s lips. “Great. You can do it, good luck!” He balls his fists in attempt to encourage you, passing the motivation on.

When you arrive you instantly want to go back to Jihoon. By the notice board — other than confused, tired students — stood Junhui, his face standing out almost the others as he points his fingers to one direction while talking to other students of your major.

The students walk in the direction Junhui pointed to instead of the hall, prompting a perfect chance to talk to him.

“Jun?” You add the slight confusion to neutralise things, heart racing. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, hi Y/N,” Junhui naturally grins when he sees you, finger pointing to the board. “The lecture hall is being used, so our professor changed it to the other side of campus.”

“What?!” You groan, the act washed away once hearing about the announcement. “Ah — I’m so exhausted already, we don’t get paid enough to do this.”

“We don’t get paid at all,” muses Junhui. “Should we walk together? Saves you being bored and me being lonely.”

Right, Junhui’s a potential Miracle, act along, you tell yourself.

“Sounds great.” Gladly accepting, you and the male walk together, chatting amongst one another.

Nothing special happens from there. You chat with Junhui — who has a strange calmness when it comes to talking to him — until you get to your class, sitting next to him. The both of you intently listen to your lecturer, taking notes and sharing them, but halfway through the two hour session Junhui opens a new tab on his laptop to play chess, obviously being bad at the game.

You join in, too, helping the clueless man on how to win. It leads to you and him doodling on a sheet of paper he tore out, zoning out of the lecture from what was time to time to completely not listening.

The lecture comes to a close, making you and Junhui realise how much trouble you’re in as your essay was due for the weekend after.

“Come to Seventeen tomorrow,” tells Junhui, “I’ll ask a friend to recap the lecture today and we can go through it together while I work. Does that sound okay?”

Perfect — this was perfect!

A little too enthusiastic, you blurt, “Yeah!” Before coughing loudly, realising the awkwardness. “I mean, yeah. Sorry for distracting you today Junhui,”

“It’s okay. I like studying with you, it’s fun.”

His words, along with the soft smile he has, makes you want to swoon with glee inside. It was hard to tell if he was a smooth flirt or if he was usually like this.

Either way, you said your goodbyes and hoped for the next day to come as soon as possible.

“Y/N, welcome!” Is what Junhui greets to you as you walk into the cafe, the morning atmosphere ruined as Junhui shouts, waking up half the people in there. He didn’t seem to mind though, so you made your way to him.

“It’s ten in the morning Junhui,”

“It wakes people up. They’ll thank me for it when they don’t sleep in their classes later on.”

He tells you to seat yourself while he finishes the next few orders. Once you do, you stare out of the window whilst waiting for your laptop to load, the day transitioning from gloom to a morning sunshine, more people coming onto the campus site.

You even see Jihoon walking with Soonyoung (even though it was hard to identify him under the hat, but judging by Jihoon’s mannerisms it definitely pointed to Soonyoung).

Chair sliding, the male taking a seat as he hands you a warm, rose mug. “A Poet Latte ordered by the lovely Y/N.”

“Thank you,” you warmly answer, grinning at the latte art of a panda with hearts swirled around. “This is amazing Junhui.”

“Doing it is harder than it looks,” confesses Junhui, “and in the end people will just consume it. Imagine that, eating all of my hard work... Literally.”

“Aren’t you going to drink something?”

Junhui shakes his head. “I don’t like coffee.”

Oh?

“Oh? That’s a shame.” You counter, trying to stay composed. “It isn’t for everyone — um — random question but, if you had to recommend a drink from here, what would it be? I’m up for taking some new drinks.”

The excuse made things sound more natural and by the look on Junhui’s face, the verdicts in your head point to not Miracle right now.

He taps a finger on his chin, “Out of all the orders... The Truth Iced Mocha, mainly because I don’t like warm drinks either.”

Uncertainty shows on your face, not knowing whether Junhui was telling a lie or not. There was a high chance he wasn’t, but he could most likely be lying. If he was, he was a great liar.

Studying your face, Junhui speaks. “I’m a bit picky,” he admits, laughing, “my friends hate me for it, but I’m a simple man with simple needs.”

His statement causes you to laugh, the tension in the room quickly gone. Junhui sure knows how to tone things down.

So Junhui doesn’t like coffee. Huh.

You come by Seventeen for the next two days, chatting with Junhui more often as he works. However, you walk into the male while he’s off-shift, a bouquet of pink daisies and a cinnamon-coloured teddy bear sat on the table.

Staring intensely at it, Junhui doesn’t even notice you sit across him.

“Is something on your mind?”

Breaking out of the odd staring contest, Junhui sits up, shrugging. “Which present would you like more?”

He turns the teddy’s head and the flowers to face you. The question shifts the atmosphere slightly, your mind nervous of what to answer.

“Can I have the context?” Instead, you ask that question, hoping the answer would give more indication where this was going.

“I wanna give something to my friend for support,”

Junhui doesn’t hesitate in his answer, but there’s no denying over the pinkness in his cheeks. Although he was still being vague, you point at the flowers.

“Flowers are the best go-to. Maybe the teddy can be for another time?” Nodding, Junhui relaxes in his chair, patting the bear’s head as he exhales a sigh. “Isn’t this something you’d give to a girlfriend or boyfriend?”

The question catches the other off guard, his ears burning with red as he slowly sinks his head into his arms, his face hidden.

“You caught me.” Muffled, Junhui admits.

Caught what? We’re definitely getting somewhere now, you think.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m still showing support to my friend — she’s having her first art exhibit today and she’s been working on it a lot — I just... Wanna be subtle but I need to man up,”

One hundred percent what you didn’t expect. Kinda, since you had suspicions here and there.

“Man up? You’re, like, the most easiest person to talk to! I’m sure if you acted like yourself then you’d be able to confess easily to her.”

“You think so?”

“I know so. What’s there to worry about? People fall for you like a snap,” you snap your fingers simultaneously, a laugh from Junhui followed.

“Thanks for the heart to heart Y/N. I really needed it. The exhibit opens in an hour, I should get going.”

“You can do it Junhui!” Cheers you, Junhui getting up from his chair. Out of the blue, your mind mentally clicks. “Junhui—“

Junhui hums. You hold the bear out for him.

“Bring it with you, it’ll create a bigger memory for the both of you.”

Smiling, Junhui takes the bear from your hands. “Thanks for everything... Again.” He carries the bouquet and bear in one arm, his free hand reaching to pick out a daisy. “Take it as my thank you,”

“How corny,” you say, happily taking the pretty flower, “you’ll do great!”

“I’ll see you later! I’ll tell you how it goes.”

Like that, Junhui exits out of the cafe, jogging to the entrance of the campus. You sit back once he disappears.

So Junhui has a crush on someone else.

Your hands search to find your phone, scrolling through your contacts before you lift it to your ear, waiting for the other line to pick up.

“Hoon? Let’s meet.”

“Rather than liking you, he likes a student from the art department?” Jihoon asks, strolling around the town with you half an hour after you called.

You nod, confirming it. “It was hard to tell though, every second felt like he was flirting with me. Guess he was just really good at smooth talk.”

“Not surprised about that.” Jihoon pulls a face, but his arm moves to pat your hair as you twirl the pink daisy. “Don’t act so blue, you still have two more guys!”

“But Hoon—”

“No buts, it’ll work out. I promise you. If it doesn’t, I’ll look for Miracle myself and teach him a lesson.”

You snort, “Jihoon—“

“Oh yeah, you still wanna be friends with him. Got it.” Jihoon grins when he sees your smile, pinching your cheek all of a sudden. “Now c’mon, I know what’ll cheer you up,”

“Do you?”

“Unless you don’t want food, we can just go back to campus—“

“No, wait!” You panic. Great, you’ve fallen for Jihoon’s offer. “Fine, I’m starving anyway!”

With a big grin, Jihoon takes you by the hand and walks to your favourite restaurant.

Days pass and the memories with Junhui go along with it. It was a weekend and Jihoon wanted to meet in the recording booth to talk, additionally asking if you could bring some coffee.

He stops replying after you send multiple texts — capitalised and angry emoticons — giving you no choice but to get him something.

Heading into Seventeen, your appearance catches one of the workers immediately.

That worker, being Junhui.

“What a coincidence!” He exclaims once he heads out of the break room for the second time, a flimsy item in his hand.

“Coincidence?” You repeat in return.

“I found this in the lecture hall yesterday, I thought you left it,”

“But I didn’t go to the lecture yesterday—“

All of your words dissolve as soon as your eyes hit the pastel blue envelope, slowly taking it out of Junhui’s hand, your expression indescribable.

“How did you get this?” It wasn’t the words you wanted to say, but they were clearly in your mind.

“I saw it sitting on one of the rows before I left. I would’ve given it to you straight away, but I didn’t see you on campus… And I don’t know where your dorm is so…”

You analyse Junhui’s face for a moment. Gaining all the evidence you’ve gotten, it was confirmed that Junhui wasn’t Miracle. He was telling the truth about everything.

“That’s okay! Thanks for looking after it for me!” In gratitude, you let your lips spread wide — mainly towards the fact that Miracle is writing after a week (seriously, what took him so long?), but also because of Junhui’s massive help.

Forgetting about the coffee, you exit the cafe, finding a safe spot to read the letter alone. Your fingers were trembling in anticipation as you lifted the flap.

I’m guessing you’ve been waiting for me… If not, I feel really embarrassed because I had to hold myself back from writing to you.

(God, that was so cheesy)

You figured out that I’m not Junhui. Congrats!

When I first saw him walk with you, I thought — ‘Ah, you are taking it seriously!’ — and I’ve been watching here and there, but not all the time because that would be creepy. I also had classes so there were a few clashes.

After a while I began wondering why you thought of Junhui as me. It shouldn’t be a thought I should ponder on too much, but I find myself going there sometimes.

Junhui is really admirable. He has that ability to make anyone feel at ease with him, and overall he’s very bold with his actions — so bold that I even thought he was going to make an actual move on you (totally wasn’t gonna be heartbroken…) — I get why people like to be around him so much.

He’s someone that you easily get envious over. The personality, the social skill, the confidence. He makes it look so easy. Talking to so many people, adjusting to them…

I wish I was like that; I wish I had that confidence. Maybe, if I had that same level of confidence like Junhui, then maybe I’d boldly confess my feelings without the doubts or worries orbiting my mind.

At first I was going to scribble that part out and start from scratch again, but I thought I’d share my thoughts with you. This isn’t Junhui’s level of confidence, but I think starting like this will help me build on it. My heart can feel heavy on some days and I feel like you’re the only person I can go to.

Even if you don’t write to me back, I hope you’ll always stand there on the other side.

Miracle.

“Come with me.” Out of nowhere Jihoon gets his things and starts walking away.

Fazed, you hastily gather your things and begin trailing behind him. He’s always like this — announcing he’s going somewhere at the same time he leaves — and you get the other end of the stick by rushing after the male.

“You’re seriously so annoying,” you grumble without context, “at least tell me what we’re — what you’re — doing...”

“I forgot something... And I’m doing you a favour.”

The last part wasn’t picked up by you, but Jihoon’s footsteps accelerated as he rushes into one of the department buildings.

The building appeared unfamiliar to you, it clearly wasn’t the music department, so you wondered why Jihoon knew which corridor to turn and what level he was looking for.

He doesn’t bother knocking before heading into one of the dance studios, dancers unfazed by his appearance. Worried, you harshly break out a whispered Jihoon before he stops walking and you walk into his back.

“Ow, jerk!” Complains you.

An unknown voice replies, but it isn’t directed to you. “Jihoon?” The male voice gasps. “You okay?”

Suddenly, the owner of the voice gets up from the floor, a black cap covering the front of his face, dressed in loose clothes.

Soonyoung?

“My journal’s here right? I think I left it somewhere…”

“Journal?” Soonyoung juts a lip, completely focused on Jihoon, he hasn’t even said hi to you yet. Unless he doesn’t like you. You hoped it wasn’t the latter. Like a hit to the head, Soonyoung’s eyes nearly sparkle, “Ah, let me get it!”

Soonyoung turns around and crouches down, giving you perfect time to ask what the heck Jihoon was doing.

“A favour,” is all Jihoon says, Soonyoung cheerily handing the ripped-paged book and Jihoon snatching it off him. He glares. “You didn’t look inside, did you?”

Fingers moving the cross his heart, Soonyoung simultaneously shakes his head. “Not a peep—“ his eyes acknowledge you and he immediately chokes on air, releasing an ugly cough. “Y/N! Have you been here all this time?”

Jihoon holds back an amused chuckle. Ignoring your friend, you put on your best smile and shyly nod.

“Sorry I didn’t see you there!” He’s yelling now, and it’s getting the whole room’s attention. “How… How are you?”

“I’ve been good, and you?”

“Me? I’m good too! I’m glad to hear that—“

Jihoon’s voice overlaps out Soonyoung’s, “Picking up my book just turned into a damn reunion,” a puppy-like sulk comes out of Soonyoung, but Jihoon continues to speak, “also, I’ll give you your USB back tomorrow, I’ve done all the improvements you asked.”

Soonyoung brings the other into a sweaty hug, sighing loudly. “Wow, my hero—“

Pushing Soonyoung off, Jihoon clears his throat. “But I’m leaving town for this music course tomorrow, so I’ll lend the USB to Y/N and you’ll get your USB back, then we’re all happy.”

“I’m not—“ you harshly whisper next to the male, pulling him closer by the arm, surprised at Jihoon’s proposal, “what are you doing?!”

“A latte would be okay, but you can surprise me. I’d also like extra whipped cream,” Jihoon whispers back at the same volume. He looks back at Soonyoung. “Is that alright with you?”

The apples of Soonyoung’s cheeks paint red, lips scrunched as he forces a nod. “Sure — sure! Tomorrow, yeah?”

“Mhmm. We better get going now.” Turning to you, Jihoon tilts his head to the exit, promptly looking at Soonyoung. “See you man,”

“Bye Soonyoung!” You greet energetically, causing Soonyoung to snap out of his gaze, waving his hand as you two walk out. It seemed like he wanted to say something, but, it never got off of his tongue in the end.

Once you were away from the building, you stop Jihoon by grabbing his arm, a deathly expression upon you. “What was that all about?”

Although you were mad, Jihoon’s face didn’t flinch one bit at it. He digs through his pocket, pulling out a silicone tiger figurine smaller than his palm. Removing the tiger’s head, the USB is revealed.

Without a word, Jihoon hands it to you. “I finished the thing he asked ages ago.”

“Then why didn’t you give it to him earlier—“

“Because now you have an excuse to hang around him. Use it wisely.”

“Oh. Smart.”

Turns out, Jihoon actually did have to go to that course for the day, so you wished him a text of motivation before mentally preparing yourself to meet Soonyoung.

You hastily make your way to the dance department (that’s what Jihoon said Soonyoung would normally be), but because you were so overwhelmed over what you were going to say to Soonyoung, you forgot the directions Jihoon went to the dance studio.

Dumbass, you curse inside. Now you had to ask people if one, they were a dance major (which was such a stupid question, but you couldn’t help asking) and two, if they knew Soonyoung.

Onto asking the third student, you see a figure stepping out of a room, a bag lazily hung around his arm.

“Oh — never mind — thank you anyway,”

You semi-run towards this figure, watching the surprise spread through his face as you welcome him with a grin.

“Y/N?” Soonyoung stammers, shaking in his place a little. He had a black shirt hugged his torso and jeans to complement the look — it definitely gave a different tone to the exhausted, sweaty boy you met yesterday.

“Hey.” You dangle the small tiger in between his eyes. “Special delivery for Kwon Soonyoung?”

Sparkles appear inside Soonyoung’s eyes, gladly taking the item from you. “Thank you Y/N! Tell Jihoon I said thank you — actually, I’ll tell him that later—“

“It’s no problem,” you can’t help but giggle at his gratitude over the tiger USB, it make you curious on why it was so important, but right now that wasn’t your priority.

Operation Soonyoung is a go.

“Are you doing anything right now?”

“Um… Not really, why?”

“I’m craving some food, I was wondering if you’d like to eat with me… Since you just finished practicing I’m guessing—”

For the second time Soonyoung chokes on the air, hitting his chest as he lets out harsh coughs. When he’s somewhat calmed down, he looks straight at you — a slight pinkness in his cheeks — bluntly answering, “I don’t mind going!”

The answer was leaning towards an exclamation, but a yes was a yes, and the two of you agreed to get street food and eat in the park.

Watching Soonyoung munch on a burger with great interest, you feel like he’s still acting awkward with you. You had no reason why, but the showcase pops into your head. Maybe the rumours were true, but you can’t jump so easily; this Miracle business had to be very subtle.

So much for loud, muses you, Jihoon must be out of his mind, he’s so quiet with me…

To lighten up the mood, you show your interest to the USB stick once more. “So, the stick. What’s it for? If it’s okay asking,”

Soonyoung wipes the corners of his lips cutely, pointing to a bench and asking a can we sit here with half stuffed cheeks. Sat down, he brings out the USB, watching it dangle on his finger.

“They’re music samples for dances I put together. I don’t just work for myself but for my juniors too — they rely on me when they need music for their piece. I can do the basics, but when I or my classmates need something extra to make the piece stand out more, I go to Jihoon to help me. Without him, I wouldn’t have so many students joining the dance club at all.”

“Can I listen to some?”

“Huh?” Soonyoung’s eyes expand, lips parted the slightest. “Oh — oh! Okay. Just give me a sec…”

“Soon, you don’t need to if it’s a hassle—“

“Ah! I owe you one, so, this is nothing to what you’ve done!”

“All I did was give your things back…”

Soonyoung pulls out his laptop, connecting the USB to the device, his fingers tapping against the touchpad whilst waiting. The files appear, some names sensibly and with their correct name (those were probably for his juniors), while some files were called ten-ten, hoshi, rawr, for the ultimate gemini ONLY, NOT THIS ONE.

Those were definitely Soonyoung’s.

“The ones Jihoon has fixed are the unnamed ones. He’s never creative with names,”

“Of course.” You and Soonyoung laugh over the thought, the latter pressing his finger on the play button as the music begins and the volume rises. Listening for a while, you say, “This is super good, I can’t believe Jihoon can produce something like this.”

“Well he isn’t called the music prodigy for nothing. Now check this out.”

He sets his laptop aside, the music continuing to play, and he stands in front of you, breaking into a small dance like it was second nature to him. Such fluidity, well-crafted even though Soonyoung kept a smile the whole way through, rushes of excitement inside him.

You cheer him on, laughing at the sight. He laughs with you too, brightly.

The barrier of shyness between Soonyoung and you begins to break as you meet frequently, Jihoon mainly being the reason why you three met.

More of Jihoon’s colours shone, like the grumpy, cold-shouldered character when he was Soonyoung, but he would still laugh the hardest if Soonyoung told a stupid story that happened over the weekend, or small snippets into his life.

The thought about Miracle becomes less important to you as you slowly value Soonyoung as a true friend. Don’t get yourself wrong — Miracle was still heavily important — but Operation Soonyoung was diverting down another path.

But the one time you spend the day with him without Jihoon (who knows what he was doing, he just left without any word), you accidentally slip into the topic of the rumour again.

Actually, you had no idea why you transitioned into it, Soonyoung was showing you a video of himself doing dumb things during dance practice last night, and after a long laugh with him, it came out.

“To be honest, when I first met you, people kept telling me you had a crush on me,” is what you say along with your laughter, taking a bite out of your cake.

“… Is that so?”

No laugh, no burst of giggling — and when you face Soonyoung, his face is stoic. Despite that observation, his cheeks were dusted in a faint red.

You nod. “Yeah, I didn’t believe them.”

“Oh.”

“Wait — so you’re saying — you liked me?”

Soonyoung grunts in surprise, eyes widened. He shakes his head but as he directs his vision onto the floor, he sighs and hesitantly nods.

Operation Soonyoung was suddenly back on the radar. That means the chances of being Miracle were high.

“Soonyoung—“

“Listen to what I say first! And then if you’re uncomfortable, I’ll understand…” He, again, says with hesitation, eyes concentrated on the table or your hands. “Yeah, I did like you a few years ago, during the spring showcase… But we didn’t talk to each other, so what chances did I have?”

He inhales a sharp sigh, clenching his eyes shut and nose forming crinkles, sucking in a small this is going to be so embarrassing.

Fortunately, you pick those words up. “Embarrassing? What’s embarrassing.”

“There’s another reason.”

Is he going to confess he’s Miracle?

“I…”

Oh my god, he is—

“I thought you and Jihoon were dating.”

What?

“What?” You mumble softly.

“God, that’s the dumbest reason out of the book, and I fell for it.” Soonyoung covers his face with his hands, shielding himself from the weirded out looks he thinks you have on your face. “And Jihoon didn’t wanna say anything about it either, so I sucked it up and tried to get over it. Then, he tells me you were just good friends a year after.”

“Soonyoung… I’m so sorry, I didn’t know—“

“Nothing you can do,” shrugs he, “truthfully, I didn’t get over you until the winter break the year after. But I got over it in the end.”

“Still, you went though all of the emotional gain because of me,”

“It’s not like I regret it.” He smiles a bit, trying to reassure you. The smile fades as he faces the reality after explaining his side. “I bet you’re like Soonyoung, you creep, now that you’ve heard me say all of this, so feel free to laugh at me all you want… Not too much though, I have a weak heart.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not thinking that at all.”

“Yeah, I— what?”

Confused at your words, you continue to smile to let him know you’re being genuine. “We’ve become really close in a little more than a week, and you’re an amazing friend on top of that. It makes me regret not being friends with you sooner.”

“Man, if the Soonyoung years ago was hearing this, he would either feel so touched or badly friend-zoned just now.”

Alarmed, you react as if Soonyoung was still attached onto his feelings, ready to apologise.

“It’s okay, I’m not affected,” he beats you to it, which was the most reassuring thing of them all.

“Friends?”

“Friends.” Soonyoung links a pinkie with you, hoping the promise would last a lifetime. He was a precious friend after all.

After the chat, you highlight one topic Soonyoung mentioned. “You thought Jihoon had a thing with me? Why?”

“Probably because I saw you two together a lot. Before he became friends with me and the rest of the department, you were all he’d go to. He cares about you a lot, if you didn’t know.”

“Hoon? Caring about me?”

“You sound surprised — it’s pretty obvious. Didn’t he make you a cake for your birthday last year?”

“Yeah… What does that have to do with anything?”

“We both know he’s a terrible cook — I mean, he microwaved ice cream one time because it was too hard to scoop out — but he wanted to make you something like that for your birthday.”

“The cake was nice though…”

“It took him a month to get the recipe right. He didn’t want my help, he even used the culinary department’s kitchen just for that and didn’t want their help either. And you know why he did that?”

“Becuase it was my birthday?”

“Wrong!” Soonyoung lightly taps your head as an incorrect gesture. “It was because you were going through a hard time during that time. He just wanted you to cast your worries aside and see you celebrate because you deserved it. He told me everything about it.”

Your heart skips slightly, thinking over the fact Jihoon did something like that to make you happy. It was a strange feeling to experience.

“He’s going to hate me for saying all of this to you, but he looks out for you a lot. He notices things, he’s smart.”

Agreeing, you hum, deeply thinking over his words.

Later that day, a stray envelope is sticking out from the front pocket of your bag as you left it unattended. The sweet, lilac hue  instantly telling you who the sender is.

You do not hesitate to open it.

Turns out, I’m not Kwon Soonyoung either. Are you disappointed? I can sense your frown right now... Don’t frown dear, I’m sorry for letting you down...

But the game still goes on, and although I don’t know who’s left on your mind, I might reveal myself. Not for now, but I feel a little daring, kinda unusual for me, isn’t it?

Now.

Kwon Soonyoung.

Believe it or not, I’m truly the opposite to him. I’m sometimes glad that I’m not like him, but over time I sometimes dislike it. The things he can do, I don’t think I’m fit to do them. Like Junhui, he’s confident, and he always has his mind set on something. Me? My mind changes so much. I’m a big coward ha...

Soonyoung’s loud too. I could say it’s what I don’t like about him the most, though I’d be completely wrong. It’s simple enough. He stands out. I blend in. A harsh truth I have to come to terms in, but I’m guessing that’s why you chose Soonyoung too, because he stands out. He shines.

Yet among that, you shine the brightest. I know it’s hard finding me, but I know you’ll be able to find my identity and when you do, I’ll be ready to confess my feelings to you to the world. No backing out, no shying away.

I’ll find a way to make something happen, as if my life depends on it.

Miracle.

The letter felt... Sadder in terms of Miracle’s usual way of writing — light and thoughtful — as words become raw. Once you find him, you’ll definitely tell him how much he means to you, even if it was a silly love letter at the end of the day.

He sure doesn’t know Soonyoung either. The dancer, surprisingly, is insanely shy underneath the loudness he has. It makes you think whether Miracle doesn’t think highly of himself.

When you walk out to the campus, you spot Jihoon exiting a nearby building, busy looking at texts.

Soonyoung’s words form in your head again, realising the care Jihoon had for you. And without a thought, you run to the male and surprise him with a sudden hug.

Jihoon grunts quietly, but it only makes you hold onto him more.

“Huh, Y/N? Is everything okay?” You nod into his chest. “Are... Are you sure? We can talk about it—”

“Just shut up and hug me,”

With no more complaints, Jihoon gladly keeps you in his arms.

Six.

You’ve been say in the library for six hours, your paper due at midnight. Although you had eight hours left, you still didn’t fee like it was in top shape. Words felt messy; sentences didn’t flow the way you wanted to; it was just so confusing.

Your head meets the desk the nth time today, remaining at that mental block ever since you had your lunch that consisted of peach juice and a half-assed sandwich that you didn’t even finish. Sure, you came at the library at six, but you were also up until two in the morning to do the minimum of what you were aiming to do.

That didn’t happen, hence, you’re still stuck in this damn library.

The only thing in your mind right now is sleep. If no one noticed, you could get away with sleeping in the library, but not sleeping in the library is better than getting kicked out for a month because of sleeping in the library.

A headache kicks in in the midst of working, deforming your face as you wince in pain, hoping to go home soon. It’s unlikely you will, but you wanted to sleep.

At some point, all you do is stare at the screen. Stare at every blank word on the screen, done rushed or half-tiredly.

“Everything alright?”

Registering the voice, you rapidly blink and sit up, trying to be as awake as you can. Your eyes move to the person, vision slightly altered due to the fuzziness in your eyes, but you could make out the silver framed glasses and hair the fell gently on top.

“Wonwoo?” He responds to his name through the tone of his hum. “Oh, uh, yeah... Not really,”

The librarian takes a seat next to you, a strong, fresh scent radiating from him. It was almost like a magical spell, luring you to sleep. Wonwoo scans the laptop, frowning after knowing what you were doing.

“Due in tonight?” Crap, he caught you out. You nod in shame.

“I was trying to get it done last night but my body gave in... And I haven’t left this library since—“

“Since ten.” Wonwoo noticed too? “My partial job is to sit here all day, but you’ll get muscle cramps the more you stay in one position, you should’ve taken a little break... But that’s a little late to tell you that.”

“I know...” You see the textbooks in his hand. “Oh, you’re probably busy putting back books, I shouldn’t disturb you—”

“These are just to text mark for my next class. You’re fine.” Wonwoo proceeds to stay seated, in fact, he readjusts his seat to sit more comfortably, picking up a book and setting the rest aside. “You must be tired. Take a rest, I’ll cover for you.”

“Wonwoo—“

“Just face me while you sleep, alright?”

You give into his words, smoothly resting your head on your arms as you close your eyes, falling asleep within seconds.

It was a nice nap which you awoke after an hour. An hour wasn’t what you intended, but damn, you really needed that.

Blinking, your vision comes into focus with a book marked with colourful sticky notes. If the book is still there, that means...

“Good afternoon, did you rest well?”

Your eyes direct themselves to Wonwoo, smiling down at you as he breaks away from what he was doing. After a short hum from you, Wonwoo goes back to finishing something he wrote.

The action initiates you to sit up, the reality of your paper flooding your head once more. Though, when you look at Wonwoo’s notes — neatly sorted in colourful rows — you sit and stare at the notes, mind pondering.

His handwriting is pretty.

“Oh.” Quiet, Wonwoo lets out. He begins flipping pages in his book, all decorated with some form of colourful note until he stops at a particular page and brings out a long note with minimal bullet points in.

He gently peels it off the page and locates it on top of your book.

“While you were sleeping I skimmed through your paper and highlighted a few things you could work on...”

Wait, what?

Wonwoo continues, “I don’t mean to sound critical or anything! It’s just — you looked like you were having a hard time — I don’t know much about your topic but I wrote what I thought sounded relevant.”

You read through the list, the points showcasing good arguments and research topics to mention. “These are great points, I couldn’t think of these...” You pout, “You’re so book-smart Wonwoo, I’m so jealous.”

Wonwoo lets out a earthy laugh, his expression a playfully saddened. “Don’t say that, you’re intelligent too,”

“Everyone knows you though — Jeon Wonwoo, the campus’ treasure.”

“I wouldn’t call myself that...”

“Why not? It fits you.”

He looks directly at you, face tinted with some sadness. “I blend in.”

A flashback crosses your mind whilst saying the words and it doesn’t appear into your head until—

“Sorry, I’m distracting you now. You should get your work done, and I need finish this too.” He awkwardly apologises, turning back to his textbook.

Did Wonwoo just... No, don’t dive straight in yet, you warn beforehand, it was like a heated argument between your heart and mind.

As for now, you only hum and work on your laptop, more prepared thanks to Wonwoo’s involvement.

It turns to seven in the evening and you’re almost finished.

But you were starving.

Primarily, you were going to text Jihoon, asking if he could come over and bring food, but when you met him in the morning he seemed busy.

Embarrassingly, your tummy rumbles and it breaks Wonwoo’s concentration at that second, watching you clench your arms around your waist.

“I should’ve brought something else to eat...” You murmur, eyes squeezed shut. Although you thought Wonwoo didn’t hear that, it was slightly the opposite.

The male sets his pen down, patting his pockets before speaking. “I’m gonna go out for a bit. Look after my things?”

Reluctant, you answer him with bob of your head. Wonwoo exits swiftly.

Your phone chimes and you receive a from Jihoon alongside an attachment of his cap covering his full face.

His text reads I’m so tired followed by a crying emoticon.

The image is what cheers you up, catching up with Jihoon for a bit.

You talk about the majority of your day, but you somehow leave Wonwoo out of it all. You don’t even tell Jihoon your suspicions that Wonwoo may be Miracle.

The problem was that Wonwoo wasn’t an open book, so you had to play it safe.

Breaking away from the conversation, you excuse yourself by telling Jihoon you had to finish your stupid essay and Jihoon sends a bunch of hahaha and a gif of a kitten saying good luck!

Eventually Wonwoo comes back ten minutes later, a white plastic bag in hand as he sits back down, commenting something like it’s cold under his breath.

“Where’d you go?” You inquire.

“Convenience store, it was only around the corner outside campus.”

“I see...” Wonwoo brings out the items one by one, finally tying the bag and putting into his bag. Your finger points at a specific item. “Pepero? I didn’t know you liked those.”

Wonwoo sees the box of pepero, and his fingers slide it nearer to you. “I don’t eat them a lot, but I figured it would help you fill your stomach.”

“Seriously? Oh, sorry for making you go out your way to do that—“

“Rather than apologising all the time, can you just thank me for the food?”

Speechless, he knows that you know he’s right. “Thanks Wonwoo... A lot.”

“Anything for you.” Wonwoo flashes a smile, twisting the bottle cap of his drink before taking a long drink.

You pick up the pepero box, looking at its contents.

It hits you for a second time — the pepero was strawberry flavoured.

“Say, Wonwoo...”

“That’s me,”

“Why are you being so nice to me?”

“Because,” Wonwoo takes a while to gaze at you, your features softening at the sight when a gentle grin lifts Wonwoo’s cheeks, “because I care about you.”

It’s you, Jeon?

Days and nights pass and you find yourself spending more time with Wonwoo these days — staying at the library to chat, frequently passing advice to each other, each moment getting longer every time you stay with him.

Jihoon notices your change in behaviour, commenting on your recent rejection with wanting to meet up. You dismiss that idea quickly, saying that you just had to check for any suspicions. The ambiguity in itself confuses Jihoon — mainly due to the fact you hadn’t told him about Wonwoo — but he doesn’t ask any further, quietly going back to his laptop.

These chats with Wonwoo upgrade to meeting outside campus: trips to the cinema, visiting cafes or the newest KBBQ restaurant opening down the street, all memories posted on your social medias with some silly caption.

Waking up one morning, your roommate, in an obvious rush, briefly mentions about a letter addressed to you from the mailbox. Your ears throb at the information, dashing to the foot of your bed when your roommate leaves, a pretty pink letter distinct against the white covers.

Clumsy, you manage to open the letter.

I’ve come to a decision.

Meet me at the east garden. One o’clock?

I’ll be waiting~

(Gosh, I’m regretting what I’m gonna do now, apologies in advanced)

Miracle.

You practically let out a squeal, falling to the floor from the shock igniting through you. It wasn’t just that, but the fact the letter ended with a kiss in coloured chapstick — which was probably mentioning apologising at the end. Miracle certainly had a way of driving you crazy these days; now he’s finally revealing himself.

Right at that moment, you phone rings in the same chime again. It’s from Jihoon again, wanting to spend time with you. You feel bitter knowing Jihoon has been asking this question for a while, met with rejection every time, but you end up texting back a not today, something important came up, finished with, I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.

Checking the time, it already hit half eleven. “Perfect!” You cheer, getting up to dress yourself, full of bubbling excitement.

Because of your energetic nerves, you arrive at the garden ten minutes before  the allocated time, the green hues standing out next to the bright sky, students enjoying their day either by laying on the grass studying or strolling with friends.

You analyse the place to see if anyone looked like they were waiting for you, but after two minutes, no one fitted the criteria. It turned twelve soon after and you decided to explore around to see if you can catch Miracle anywhere.

Turning to a small path leading to a less frequently visited area of the garden, you spot someone sat by the stone bench. Turns out, you recognise that person.

“Jihoon!” You exclaim, Jihoon flinching at the exclamation. He turns, his frame revealing a pen in between his fingers and a journal on his lap. WIthout any hesitation, he closes his journal.

Hand on his chest after a long sigh, his relaxed state smiles at you fondly. “Oh, it’s you,”

His tone is soft, standing up from the bench and heading your way, an embarrassed, shy curl on his lips — his dimples peeking through — shimmering eyes trained to the floor.

He stops in front of you, taking a gulp before nervously staring at you. He’s in the middle of opening his mouth, but you beat him to it.

You beat him to it, and it’s all the difference.

“Guess what, I think Wonwoo’s Miracle.”

In a blink of a eye, the shimmer in Jihoon’s eyes dull. Nonetheless, you don’t notice it, babbling on.

“It’s why I haven’t been hanging around you much,” you confess to him, frowning, “Wonwoo’s just — really hard to figure out — but after a while there are things that he and Miracle do. I’m pretty sure it’s Wonwoo, I don’t know who else it would be. I think I’m getting butterflies, I—“

“That’s… Nice,” Jihoon breaks out, not staring at you anymore. The journal held on his chest is now at his side, gripped with strength.

It took you a while, but you noticed Jihoon’s tone. “Jihoon…? Hoon, are you okay?”

“Yeah!” He replies with fake energy, but he isn’t looking up. He isn’t looking at you. “It’s great to hear that. I should go before he comes, right?”

“Wait,” you hold him by the arm, “you sound angry — are you angry at me? — did I do something wrong—“

“It’s nothing.”

“Why can’t you tell me? You know you can talk to me Hoon, I don’t like seeing you like this…” Hurt, you try to take a glimpse at Jihoon but he isn’t allowing it. “Is it because Miracle is Wonwoo? I thought you didn’t mind him. I thought you wanted to know too.

“I just said I don’t wanna—“

“No! There’s something wrong and you aren’t telling me about it!”

With enough strength to remove your arm, but not enough to hurt you, Jihoon gets out of your grip, staring at you again, though not with what you intended. He’s glaring at you, fusions of frustration and pain being hinted, but why?

“Everything’s fine. Just leave me alone.”

Before you stop him, he leaves much quicker than you expect, vanishing from the garden; besides, if you follow him, he’d only avoid you more. So all you could do was wait for Miracle to come, in hope that whoever he is will cheer you up.

Miracle never came, nor any love letter from that point.

It’s been a quiet month. Life became static, classes felt like a drag, and Jihoon certainly had no intention to contact you after everything.

You wake up at ten, knowing your roommate went out because of the bed across you done well. Although you were against it, you figured that you should do the same — at least it helps you start the day.

Feet settling on the rough floor, you blink at the stray piece of paper in front of your door. It looks like someone slid it in. Groggily, you walk towards it, complaining as you bend down to pick it up, sitting back down on your messy bed.

It was a simple, white letter. It’s sides were slightly blunt, the page looking like it was ripped out of somewhere.

“Letter?” You question, heart dropping to your stomach. You open the letter with anticipation.

Y/N.

I… I’m really sorry about that last letter. You must’ve waited a long time for me, but I never got to reach you because of my fear that you won’t look at me the same once revealing myself.

I’ve liked you for so long, I care about you so much it pains me to think you have to go through hard thoughts. I remember liking you because of your smile. It was pretty; it was contagious. Then, through watching from my safe distance, I fell for you more and more. Your kindness, your sweet nature and overall comfort seemed to make my fondness grow, it just couldn’t be helped. I was in a stage of hopelessness, but I had to make sure I wasn’t too weird or anything.

From your posts on social media… It came to my realisation you and Wonwoo became much closer.

Is it okay for me to say that I’m jealous?

‘Hurt’ is a better way to call it, but, Wonwoo’s something else. You and him connected without difficulty, and it didn’t take you long for the both of you to watch movies together or have lunch. During that time, you seemed to smile a lot more with him, I almost felt upset that it was all because of Wonwoo, meanwhile I couldn’t do any of that. I can’t make you smile like that. I’m guessing you thought I was Wonwoo — that Wonwoo was Miracle — but no, I’m not. Sorry to disappoint you…

Maybe I’m so jealous because… Because Wonwoo is everything I’m not.

My heart is being poured onto these pages and I’m sorry for my flow, but I just needed to let this out. You need to know before I finish this. I can’t even show my face, let alone confess to you… It’s pathetic. But if I can’t express my feelings the way I do internally, I’ll keep these emotions guarded if you truly like Wonwoo. In the end, I want you to be happy. I’ve never devoted myself to someone before, is that why my chest hurts so much?

So this is a letter — an ode — for you. To thank you for everything. It’s a lot to take in, and a lot for me to declare, but you’re my first love. And before you begin to think negatively through this letter, don’t. That’s the last thing I want you to do. I just think its time to come to terms with myself and my place in your eyes.

You’re still the most wonderful person I know and I want you to always remember that. Writing these cliche letters have grown as a part of my routine, each with memories that’ll remain in my mind for a lifetime and until the next. They’ll remain in my heart forever.

This letter will be last. I’m sad it had to end this way, but let’s think of it for the best. Let’s remember this beautifully rather than in pain.

I love you, Y/N.

Miracle.

You grip onto the paper, holding back the tear that want to seep through.

After a month of silence, you’re given this?

No, no, it can’t be like this. It didn’t feel right at all. It felt like all your fears creeping from behind, pushing you down into a hopeless hole that runs for an eternity.

Like an instant reaction, you do the first thing that comes into your mind: searching for your phone and tapping away on the screen, the cold screen pressed against your ear.

“Wonwoo? Can we talk?”

You and Wonwoo meet half an hour later in Seventeen, yourself ordering a sweet treat to unhealthily energise you. Wonwoo, on the other hand, ordered himself the Real Cocoa, a new order that was added just last week (which was basically their branded hot chocolate).

You do admit that you truly did think that Wonwoo was Miracle, but after the situation, it didn’t just confirm that Wonwoo wasn’t him, but that it was better off being friends with him. Towards him, your feelings never escalated because in the end, Wonwoo was just a really good friend.

“Care to tell me what’s up? You made me worried after that call…”

“Sorry… Just, let me explain all of this to you.”

“I’m all ears.”

And you tell him everything. You tell him about Miracle, the love letters, the strawberry milk, about your desire to find Miracle, Jihoon helping you along the way, even admitting that you thought Wonwoo was Miracle because his actions fit into the actions of Miracle, the so-called reveal, the month of silence after that, and finally the present day: the ode.

Wonwoo props up a paper crane made from his tissue next to him, humming as he takes in all of the information with a calmness to him.

“Do you have it on you?” Wonwoo asks, “The ode — that goodbye letter.”

You search through your bag for the item, handing it to Wonwoo, his fingers unfolding the paper’s contents and exposing their woods, letting his eyes scan paper systematically. His lips move along to the words, whispering a few phrases. In such a short time, you manage to remember most words of that letter.

The male gestures that he’s finished reading by placing the letter back on the table. First, he sighs, head jerking itself slightly. “Wow. I’m flattered that someone thinks of me as if I’m perfect—“

You whack him on the arm, a little angry he had to joke in such a scenario, but it lost some of the tension inside yourself.

“Kidding, but, I do feel slightly responsible. I never intended for my actions to affect him. So this was the last letter he sent? No hints to who he his, not even a name?”

Shaking your head, Wonwoo tuts at the response. “I can only tell you that his handwriting is pretty. It’s also why I thought you could’ve been Miracle too, but guess not, so…”

“True, it is nicely written. Lets just read through the letter again until we come up with something.”

So you look through the letter over and over until every word is memorised, nothing relevant coming into mind.

“Whatcha’ guys looking at?” The unintended scare makes Wonwoo and you jump, Junhui reacting along with the both of you despite being the one who scared you. He’s in his uniform, so he must be working right now.

“Love letter.” Wonwoo states, but you glare at him.

He isn’t wrong per se, but to say something like that out loud was awkward.

Correcting him, you add, “We’re finding out who wrote this letter.” To be honest, you didn’t want to add Junhui — the first suspect on the potential Miracles list — into this, but it was too late to tell him something else. Wonwoo ruined that chance anyway. “Wanna help? We kinda need all the help we can get.”

Junhui’s eyes widen. “Woah, you have an admirer Y/N?!”

Brokenly nodding, you also think it’s better to confess to Junhui as well. Keeping it in will only feel heavier on your load. “Actually, at first, I thought it was you…”

“It wasn’t just me?” Wonwoo asks, surprised.

“Mhmm. It’s just three of you, though.”

“And who’s the third?”

“Um… Soonyoung,”

Junhui points at the letter, “You really think Soonyoung has handwriting this nice? We should get you to an opticians after this—“

“Jun!” Wonwoo nudges him, Junhui laughing.

“Hey, I’m not wrong!”

Shrugging, Wonwoo bends his elbow over the chair, turning to Junhui. “Any ideas then? Anything is helpful.”

Junhui bends over, head moving left and right like a metronome as he reads through the letter, face concentrated like when he was picking between the teddy and flower. You should ask him how that story went.

In the end, Junhui shakes his head. You and Wonwoo grunt.

“Unless,” He comes closer to the paper again, “Miracle wrote this letter in here.”

“Here? How the heck can you confirm that?” You ask, taking glimpses of the paper.

“The coffee ring.”

Wonwoo argues, “But that could’ve been from any other coffee shop.”

Junhui moves back and presents the paper for the both of you to see. “If you feel it, it still feels damp and you can see some of the coffee imprinted to the other side where the note is folded. What time did you get this letter Y/N?”

“Almost an hour ago? It was slid through my dorm door.”

Triumphant, Junhui snaps his fingers. “Exactly! If this note was still fresh with these coffee stains, Seventeen is the only one that fits the criteria because your dorm wouldn’t be too far away from here.”

“Holy shit. He’s onto something.” Wonwoo gasps.

“Did you see who wrote this Jun?”

“Nope. I was restocking items then, sorry Y/N — but I probably guess it was the guy sitting near the entrance by the corner wearing a cap and mustard shirt. A gasp came from that corner and I got a glimpse of coffee being spilt there. I never got to see his face though.”

“Progress.” Inhaling a sharp sigh, Wonwoo relaxes in his chair, noticing your sullen star at the paper.

“We need a little bit more than that though… I swear, Miracle will forever be a mystery— AH!” You yell when you look at the window, Soonyoung’s face pressed against the glass, producing an ugly face. Gaining a reaction from you three, Soonyoung laughs evilly as he walks into the cafe, slinging an arm around Junhui.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere Wonwoo! I thought we were going to that new PC bang you’ve been talking about non-stop! I even ended dance practice early for it… Oh, hey Y/N!”

Wonwoo scrunches his face. “About that, well…”

“Anywho!” Soonyoung interrupts. “I saw you all crowded here, so, let me join in on the fun!”

Junhui picks up the light item for Soonyoung to see. “Can you guess who wrote this?”

Soonyoung takes it from Junhui’s hands, his reading combination of squinting his eyes and jutting out a lip. Furrowing his eyebrows, his head cocks back.

“Oh, it’s Jihoon’s hadnwriting.”

Jihoon?

“Him? Why bring him up all of a sudden—” You stammer, unable to keep the nervousness inside. “Besides, he doesn’t write like that.”

“He does! This is totally Jihoon’s! I see it inside the books he carries.”

“His handwriting his messy. Like really, really messy.”

“I know his handwriting when I see it,” you go mute over Soonyoung’s argument, Wonwoo noticing the argument progressing somewhere else.

Wonwoo takes it into his own hands. “Okay, we trust you Soon, but is there anything else you can connect to Jihoon other than that?”

Soonyoung shows the neatly torn side of the paper. “You can tell it’s been ripped from a book. He does this a lot when we’re together, but normally crumples them and throws it on the ground or something like that when it doesn’t ‘sound right’ to him…” Soonyoung faces you. “You also notice he rips a lot of paper out of his journals too, right?”

You nod, further improved by the addition of Junhui, stating, “Jihoon isn’t great with words either — he must’ve had to write what he would wanna say multiple times before writing the final thing—“

“Which explains why so many pages are ripped out from his book!” Soonyoung finishes for him, baffled.

Wonwoo leans into the table a bit more, propping himself with his arm. “Have you met him today? Jihoon?” Soonyoung nods. “What did he wear?”

“Let’s see. He wore a yellow shirt—“ Junhui’s eyes open in panic, Soonyoung rambling on, “I don’t understand how he wasn’t cold, it’s freezing.”

You look at Junhui and Wonwoo. “He didn’t say anything about a cap, anyone could’ve worn a yellow shirt…” Why were you arguing against this? Half of you didn’t want to believe it, the other half…

“Cap? I let Jihoon borrow mine because he left midway during dance practice. Guess he got bored. Was it white?”

For confirmation, Wonwoo looks at Junhui — Soonyoung mirroring Wonwoo to make it look like he knows what’s happening — who slowly nods in somewhat horror.

After the reaction passes on to the other two, they hurry to the note and reread it together, all the faint murmurs about Jihoon turning into exaggerated exclamations as they get to the end of the letter.

Drowning into deep thought, ignoring all of the others’ reactions, you piece together the truth. “No way — the garden — it was him. He was waiting for me. Jihoon is Miracle. Holy shit, what have I done?”

“Garden?” Junhui questions. Because of your late realisation to how oblivious you were, you thoroughly rub your eyes, letting this sink in. Wonwoo’s lips thin, hand tapping your arm to comfort you.

“At least we revealed Miracle’s identity,”

“It took you this long to figure out it was the person you’ve been around this whole time?”

“It didn’t seem like it was him Soonyoung! And I still dragged him into it… I flat out rejected him that day, he must hate me—“

“Hey, that isn’t true.” Reasons Wonwoo. “You two need to talk it out and apologise. Sure, you took a while to come to your senses, but he shouldn’t have led you on and decide to call it quits last second.”

Junhui puts a finger against the window. “Jihoon’s right over there — exiting campus.” All of you swivel your heads to watch the male walk out of the grounds, expressionless. “You should talk to him!”

“I can get him—“

“Wait, Soonyoung, stay. I think I have a plan. But all of you need to help me.”

It’s a nice day, Jihoon thinks, walking across the hallway, his eyes concentrated on the window and the students in groups enjoying their day. Other than that, he isn’t paying too much attention to anything, music coming through his headphones.

But his phone vibrates, causing him to tap the screen and see what the text is.

Is it okay if we talk?

Jihoon hitches a breath as he rereads the six words over and over, his heart slightly throbbing too fast, the rush of feelings flooding in. He doesn’t like this feeling — or the reason that they came back so quickly — it was like an uninvited guest.

As much as his feelings were at the tip of the iceberg, he didn’t want to give into you. He promised himself to let things go; to have time to himself before acting as if everything was fine.

So, he sets his phone away and continues walking, turning up the sound even though he’s fully aware it’s not going to distract him. He’ll reply to you in a few hours, maybe say his phone died on him, or something.

He glances at his hand, it’s shaking — what the heck?

There’s a prodding around his shoulder blade and a muffled noise behind him, but it takes him a while to finally reacts to the student who stops him in his tracks by standing in front of him. Hanging his headphones around his neck, Jihoon looks at the other with widened eyes, shifting them from time to time as he has never seen this person in his life.

“Jihoon, is it?” They say. Careful, Jihoon nods. “Someone wants to meet you at the lecture hall. He’s… This high?” The student raises their hand to estimate their height. “You won’t miss him.”

“Okay… Do you know what it’s for?” After saying that, he realises he should’ve asked who this person was, but Jihoon went against changing his question. The student shrugs and Jihoon can’t blame them — he doesn’t even know why someone would want to see him anyway, unless it’s Soonyoung asking to eat for the millionth time — “It’s alright. Thanks for tell me anyway. Um, have a nice day.”

Walking away, Jihoon’s mind lingers on what he could be asked, an odd feeling in his stomach the more he tries to push down his emotions.

Arriving to the lecture hall, he takes glimpses inside to see if there was one vacant or had someone that remotely looked like they were waiting for Jihoon.

Luckily, he finds one that fits the first criteria, and also revealed someone packing up their things near the front rows. Jihoon isn’t too sure if that’s who wants to see him, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask anyway.

He steps down the stairs until he’s level with the person, shocked to see it was Junhui. “Jun?”

Nonchalant, Junhui faces Jihoon and forms a kind face when he sees the male. “Jihoon? I haven’t seen you in a while, you doing fine?”

“Oh — I’ve been well,”

“Nice,” Junhui nods in appreciation, midway packing his things, “my lecture just ended. Did you want something?”

Junhui didn’t want to see me? Did he just forget? Jihoon puffs his cheeks. “Ah — no, it’s okay—“ he’s about to leave, but something inside him stops him from doing so. “By any chance, did you wanna talk to me?”

“Right!” Junhui gasps, digging back into his bag as he brings out an item. “Can you give this to Soonyoung? I forgot to this morning since I was in a hurry and my shift is soon.”

Doing such a simple favour can make Jihoon just say no, can you do it when you see Soonyoung again? to Junhui, but he doesn’t want to look rude so he complies to the request, being lent the white cap into his hands.

“I’ll see if he’s in the dance studio.”

“You’re a lifesaver Jihoon, I owe you one. You like food don’t you? Let’s eat next time. Okay?” A grin widens on Junhui’s face naturally and Jihoon, like he’s under a spell, nods the slightest, Junhui finally packing up and slinging a bag over him, walking away whilst humming.

Jihoon gets to relax when he finally leaves, expressing a whole sigh. Junhui’s so relaxed, isn’t he? Not to mention friendly too. Who could say no to him?

Now heading to the dance studio, Jihoon twirls the cap around his finger, his mind still going back to your text. Then he remembers he’s going to Soonyoung, and a funny memory comes into his head.

It’s the time when Soonyoung asked him about you — if you were seeing someone. In Jihoon’s mind, it wasn’t his place to say if you were dating, but at the same time, he didn’t like to think about you with someone else. From what began as platonic blossomed into something more, a slight desire to treasure you for himself, but it sounded crazy in Jihoon’s head.

Therefore in the end, he didn’t answer Soonyoung’s question. Jihoon was also aware of the feelings Soonyoung had for you, despite Soonyoung’s bad attempts of trying to disapprove of it. Jihoon was tagged to not express his feelings, so Jihoon kept it that way. Nevertheless, he didn’t want to break up his friendship with Soonyoung by admitting he liked you too — he wanted Soonyoung to keep his puppy love for you.

“Hey man, what’s up Hoon?”

Jihoon flinches a little. He didn’t even register that he was in the dance studio already. He greets Soonyoung with a wobbly smile. “Jun wanted to give this back.”

“Oh, I’ve been searching for this everywhere!” Soonyoung throws his current cap away and wears the white one. “While you’re here, I need to give you something.”

“Am I being a messenger owl today?” Scoffs Jihoon.

“What?”

“Nothing,”

An item is placed into Jihoon’s hand — a laptop that was familiar to him — and he looks at Soonyoung’s face, smiling as if it was nothing. He couldn’t blame Soonyoung, but it was like a stab to a fresh wound.

“Can you give this to Y/N? I used it to transport some files to my phone. I pretty sure she’s in the library with Wonwoo. They’re familiar with each other aren’t they?”

Yes Soonyoung, I know that, Jihoon grits his teeth. Jihoon shouldn’t be like this; he has no right to be. Why, out of all people, does he have to see Y/N and Wonwoo face to face? Fate was probably laughing at him today.

How sad.

“Whatever.” Jihoon eventually comments, walking out. Soonyoung shouts love you Jihoon! as he walks out, Jihoon scowling secretly. But he can’t get mad at Soonyoung — it was a harmless act in the end.

Soonyoung exhales loudly once Jihoon leaves. There’s a reason why Soonyoung isn’t a drama major, thank god he played it off decently. He finds his phone, lifting it to his ear. “You’re up.”

It’s quite a walk, but Jihoon makes it to the library, holding in a breath. Is it normal for is heart to beat this fast? Maybe not, but it was.

Jihoon slaps himself lightly on the cheek, wanting to come back to the reality of this all. It’s over. The simple words keeps Jihoon motivated to enter the library, quiet and unbothered.

Yet to his surprise, you couldn’t be seen anywhere. Like an idiot, he walks up and down and around the library three times before concluding one, everyone was certainly beginning to think he’s insane, and two, you aren’t in the library.

“Fantastic.” Jihoon clicks his tongue, preparing himself for what’s about to happen. Right now, he wants to kick a chair, yet he suppresses that as he walks to the desk, paper cranes of different sizes and colours filling the sides.

Jihoon stares at Wonwoo, who’s in his own world, silently folding more cranes one by one, multitasking as he reads through a textbook.

Slowly arriving in front of the desk, Jihoon clears his throat. Awkwardly.

“Wonwoo?”

“Hm — Jihoon?” Wonwoo puts down his in-progress crane, tilting his head. “How may I help?”

His chill tone makes Jihoon bubble with envy inside. Insecurity hits. Manifests. Jihoon presents the laptop to Wonwoo, hand running along one of your stickers in the corner.

He either had two options: ask where you were, or ask Wonwoo to give the laptop to you.

Jihoon comes to a decision.

“Give this to Y/N please,”

“Ah, Y/N just left, what bad timing,” Wonwoo pouts, now holding the laptop and storing it behind the desk, “I’ll return it as soon as possible. Y/N will be really happy.”

“Okay.” Forcing a smile, Jihoon thinks he can’t hold this up any longer. It feels like the world is closing on him. “Now I, uh, better go—“

“Before you do,” Wonwoo disrupts, “Y/N left this.” He shows a closed letter, sliding it along the desk to Jihoon. “I think it’s for you.”

Me? “I don’t think so…” Jihoon shakes his head, rejecting the letter. “Its probably for you.”

“Pretty sure it isn’t,” the other holds up a smile, “we’re just friends. Whatever it is, I don’t think Y/N would tell me something through letter.” Wonwoo pushes the letter just slightly, enough to tip over the edge and for Jihoon to clumsily catch it. “I have no idea what it’s about, but the name says what it says.”

Jihoon checks the letters on the flap. Lee Jihoon.

“Oh.” Jihoon says intelligently. He moves his lips to add something, but recognises the person waiting behind him, giving no option but to quickly say goodbye and walk out.

Sitting after much exhaustion, Jihoon unfolds the black letter and takes out the tiny-sized paper.

Dear Jihoon,

This is long overdue on my behalf, so here it is.

You had me fooled.

Fooled you were helping me all this time; fooled that you were just tagging along with this; fooled I was going the wrong way all this time. But you know what? You fooled yourself too.

Fooled yourself by watching me go through each person, one by one. Fooled through pointing out the good things about everyone. Fooled because when it came to you, you looked at yourself negatively. I could be mad — I’d have a right to be — but it’s not what I’m here for.

I’m here to tell you the truth.

The truth that you don’t have to be Junhui to be loved by everyone, or be Soonyoung to catch my attention, even Wonwoo to make me smile ‘brightly’. I want you to be you.

Jihoon who’s always hardworking, the person who brings a smile to my face every day without fail, who I hold precious to my heart, who’s amazing in every single way but stays grounded. You — with a loving heart even though he doesn’t want to admit, that through the stubbornness, you cherish those close to you; admire them, even.

You admire them to the point that you think you can’t get to their level, and it hurts me to see you can’t recognise your glow. Because of you, each day is beautiful to me. Persona or true self, you are held dear to me, because in the end, it’s you.

Out of all possibilities, I wouldn’t have thought you’d admire someone like me. ‘Why me?’ Is what I thought the first time I recieved that letter during that cold January. Though, I slowly loved myself more and more with your words, and I was always on the receiving end.

What I’m trying to say is… I wanna return the favour. Show you how special you are, make you love yourself the same way you did to me.

So please, meet me in the garden? I miss you so much.

I miss your face, smile, voice, the stupid texts you send at 2AM — I miss it all. I hope you do, too.

It’s fine if you don’t come. I just wanted to let you know all of this.

My miracle; that’s who you are in my eyes.

Love, Y/N.

Jihoon begins to run to the garden, heart beating faster than ever. Inside the library, Wonwoo smiles, soon texting you.

Out of the endless possibilities.

Jihoon stumbles into the garden, turning around and round, searching with every fibre of energy in him. He stops, thinking deeply before his eyes lighten — shimmering — when he goes into the direction of the hidden area, hidden behind vivid green leaves and small, white flowers growing.

He sees you standing there, a fresh breeze coming to him. He feels unworthy of being dressed so casually like this but it doesn’t matter because you’re there.

Your hand gripped onto your arm as you’re seated on the stone bench, gently swinging your legs and face sullen yet calm, eyes moving from your shoes to the stone path.

Only one miracle has happened before our eyes

Quietly, he calls out your name.

Your ears pick it up, the quiet call feeling like the loudest thing in your mind, all the messy thoughts fading away. The two of you meet face to face, taking in every curve and expression forming on your face.

Jihoon’s smooth skin kissed with faint beauty marks, deep irises shaking as they gaze at you, eyelashes moving beautifully when he closes his eyes, the hue of his cheeks warming to a cherry blossom pink, being bridged over his nose, lips agape, no words escaping out of him.

He’s just like you remembered him: beautiful.

Even if we miss each other, it’s alright, I’ll find you.

He approaches you first, walking with a little sigh while his eyes concentrate on you. You couldn’t just break away, you were enchanted too.

When Jihoon stands in front of you, he takes you by the hand, pulling you up and not letting go afterwards.

“Hi,” dumbly, you say.

“Hi.” He says with the same tone.

It makes the both of you laugh, breaking away in shy giggles as Jihoon’s lips wobble once more, and his hands begin to shake. You hold onto his hands tight, running a thumb over his skin. “Look at me,” you whisper.

Jihoon looks at you. After all the feelings he kept inside, the insecurities he hid away, the admiration he has for everyone else but himself, he looks at you and it goes away.

He finds it dazzling how you have so much impact on him. You, standing there, and letting every single thing in his head dissolve. Just like that, it’s done all because of you.

You smile, moving your hand to his cheek. Naturally, Jihoon nuzzles into your palm. Just watching it, you knew that you didn’t mind this.

So let’s be in love even more, so we won’t lose this miracle.

Jihoon breaks away from your touch, his hand reaching into his back pocket, revealing a crumpled piece of paper. His hands, still shaky, takes it out, flatting the deep creases made in them.

You remember that piece of paper; it was from his notebook the day you met in this exact same spot.

“Y/N,” Jihoon reads off the paper, and it’s apparent that you can hear his heartbeats from all the way here, “I’m aware I’m the last person who you would’ve thought to be,” you laugh in between his words, Jihoon relaxing along with you, “but I hope you aren’t disappointed. After all, I did warn you.”

He looks away from the paper, putting it by his side.

“So enough with this persona, and time to formally reveal myself. I’m Jihoon and I like you so, so much Y/N. I can’t think of anyone else but you. It’s always been you. Finally, I can say this — no worries, nothing. Will you be mine?”

Happiness rockets inside you, pulling Jihoon into a hug without any warning, nodding speechlessly. Jihoon melts into the hug too, hands wrapped securely around you.

“Say it again,” you softly ask.

Jihoon’s chuckle vibrates from his chest, sending a warm feeling to you. “I like you,”

You smile so much that it hurts, hands playing with Jihoon’s hair. “I like you too, my miracle.”

All the beautiful words from the countless letters sent to you finally come to a reality, its beautifulness more apparent inside Jihoon’s eyes, not able to comprehend such a sight that he’ll cherish for an eternity. He hums questionably, causing you to look at him with shy eyes.

Forever, this was wanted for forever.

“It’s you; you’re my miracle.”

Thank the heavens Jihoon reciprocated that feeling too.

#jihoon #lee jihoon #seventeen #seventeen imagines #seventeen scenarios #jihoon imagines #jihoon scenarios #woozi #kpop #kpop imagines #kpop scenarios

[nurseofren]

Keeping Your Promise - Chapter 14 (NSFW)

Read on AO3

Read chapter thirteen

Title: Down for the Count

Words: 7400

Summary: The Jaws theme is playing throughout this chapter, it just wasn't relevant enough to the plot to mention it.

ST rambles: Hope you all enjoyed this chapter. I had a lot of fun writing all the different interactions. As I mentioned last week, this chapter was supposed to be completely different. I will not be releasing the alternative as I have plans to use some aspects at another point.

I cannot promise a chapter for the next week or two as I have a paper due this Saturday and will need to focus my writing and time on that. I like to stay at least a chapter ahead, so I say two weeks to be on the side of caution.

[masterlist]

“Let’s not waste any time, shall we, officer?” Hux said, eyes concentrated on the tablet in his hands, storming past you into his office.

The night had not been restful; your back was recovering from the unforgiving exam table, its intended use not one of comfort, but necessity. Along with the incessant pang radiating at your tailbone, the lack of sleep had outfitted you with reddened eyes and an overwhelming headache, every too-loud sound and overbearing light a throb at your temple. Even as you stood to enter into Hux’s lair of career-ending lecturing, you found comfort in the fact that you wouldn’t have to return to your sleepless confines before the day was over.

With one last steeling breath, you pulled your shoulders back and followed in after Hux, taking in the familiar space, unchanged since your last time being here. Hux had already sat down before you’d entered, still focused on his datapad. Whatever he was looking at was no doubt aimed towards the severing of either your ties with the First Order, or the ties between your head and body – either of which he was excited to take part in.

“General,” you said, taking a cautious seat across from him. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this early encounter?” The words were mostly civil, only dipped in mockery.

“And it is a pleasure, officer,” he said with one final aggressive tap to the screen, staring at you in malevolent glee. “Now, I should first inform you that you are still contractually bound to Commander Ren until your official denouncement by the Board of Physicians. Other than that, this is the beginning of the end, I am disheartened to say.”

“I’m sure of it.” The goal was to make it through this meeting without digging a deeper hole for yourself, and that meant taking Hux’s snide comments in stride and withholding your own snark.

“Although I thought it was counterintuitive, I am legally bound to tell you that you will be under heavy surveillance. Not only in your practice as a physician – which will be extremely limited while the investigation goes on, by the way – but in your day to day life as well.”

“What? Why?” The words were quick and emotional, coming before you could stop them. He raised an eyebrow, the outburst only offering him more reasons to expedite your dismissal. Clicking your tongue, you regathered yourself. “I’m sorry, general. Why am I being watched?”

Keeping your stare, he slid the datapad across the desk. “The Board of Physicians has deemed it necessary to not only question your competency as a provider, but also your character as an individual.”

Finding a vague familiarity in the event, you half-hoped for the door to rush open and Kylo Ren to come take you away. To your dismay, however delusional and misplaced, the room stayed quiet of the hydraulic hiss, the only sound inhabiting the room being that of the cyclic boots of patrolling stormtroopers beyond the office. With a swallow, you took the tablet into your own hands and scanned over the screen, finding another legal document. This time, though, not displaying the pointed script of Kylo Ren, but that of another familiar face; within your hold was Talia’s incident report, scanned into its electronic existence from her original penmanship.

“I trust you’re aware of what that is, yes?” Hux asked.

His voice was muffled, background noise to your focus on the document. Not reading a single word, too nervous to know how she told the story, you mindlessly scrolled through the pages, regarding its length even in her small script. Nearing the bottom, there was an occasional edit, a typed word among her handwriting. Looking closer, you realized the necessity of the print, noting the original penning had been defaced with interruptions, splotches of dried tears contorting her testimony.

“Oh, Talia,” you whispered to yourself, reaching for the stitching on your chest, fidgeting your sorrow along those three letters just as you had hours earlier.

“Didn’t she do a wonderful job at recounting the occurrence?” Hux’s voice pierced through your pain-laced reverie. “Truly a professional if I’ve ever seen one. Her dutiful reporting of the event proved her allegiance to the First Order, allowing her to receive a warning instead of a sentence.”

“What is your purpose in showing this to me?”

“You’ll eventually get your own copy,” he said. “I figured you’d need a refresh of the events that led you here.”

“I… will never forget that day, General Hux,” you said, peeling away from the tablet.

“Good. You’ll need that ability of recall when you go in front of the Board of Physicians to state you case.”

Unrelated to the environment, a chill fled over your skin. You wanted to believe that he’d misspoke, but he would never mess up relaying anything so pertinent. The Board of Physicians had called for your presence. It made sense, your actions – a crime in their eyes – had directly involved them, their existence being what funded your position, though you never thought they would think it necessary to summon you for a trial. Yes, ethically you had messed up, but you had thought this would be a quick loss, not one that incited you ever coming face to face with the heads of your profession.

Although you’d worked hard at staving off the endless dread since leaving the assessment room, it now slowly crept into your stomach, tightening your chest in its clutch. In the throes of budding panic, your leg sprang up, bouncing silently, a conscious effort to not let your heel hit the floor. “Why do I need to present my case? They should know what happened by now.”

He cleared his throat. “And they do, which is precisely why they called for your audience. Since you were selected for this new endeavor of provider assignments, they are concerned that their investment in the First Order isn’t paying off as they had intended, and by your formal appearance they seek to revise the program for the future.”

A huff of air flared your nostrils. “They’re making an example out of me. How nice of them to choose public humiliation instead of execution.”

His brow creased. “I don’t think you quite understand,” he said. “You have been accused of first-degree larceny. You will lose your license after appearing before them, but the basis for your execution is subject to their judgement.”

“What have I done that would justify the end of my life?”

“You stole from the First Order, byway stealing from the Board of Physicians. Contrary to what you may want to believe, your actions do have consequences, miss,” he bit your last name off.

“I stole? I saved a man’s life by taking blood that would have expired had I not thought of it. How can they not see that?”

“It doesn’t matter what you did with the blood, although you will be questioned on the ethics of transfusing a blood product that had not been properly crossmatched. What matters is the principle. The First Order does not take any crime lightly, but with your being a beta-tester for this brand-new program, compliance among providers is a priority that is to be enforced.”

Everything the Elite does is unfair. Talia’s voice rang loud as you fought back the need to scream, to flip his desk over, to run to the nearest escape pod and shoot off to some far away planet where nobody could find you. It no longer mattered if their actions were unfair, now only caring that they were wholly unjustified, using you as an example, invalidly exploiting you to incite fear amongst your peers, to set a precedent. It was wrong, lawfully and morally, and you’d had your fill.

“I don’t deserve to die. It is sick knowing the backwards logic you’ve twisted just to rid yourself of me,” your voice was husky with restrained rage.

“This has nothing to do with me, officer. This is completely on you. You made your bed, now lie in it.”

“I did nothing wrong!” You cried out. “I’m a convenient way of pushing some agenda that the First Order takes no prisoners. I’m not even getting punished for what I did, I’m getting exploited to make a point, to act as some warning for years to come.” You were on the edge of your seat, ready to shoot into the ceiling.

Hux sat back and crossed his arms over his chest, watching you draw nearer to spilling over. He tsked, narrowing his eyes, confusion pinching his face. “What’s changed, officer?”

“What are you talking about?”

“In our meeting on the Finalizer, you seemed unphased by the prospect of losing your career. Now, it seems you’re fighting to stay here. Why is that?”

It was something you hadn’t considered. His question begged a truth you hadn’t yet confronted: you did want to keep your assignment. It was as much a revelation to you as it was to him, sending you back in your chair, replacing your rage with quiet shock. What had changed? A week ago you were actively trying to convince yourself you were okay with dying, but now it was all you could do to fathom the thought of merely losing your license. There had been so much anger residing within you; where had it gone? And why was Hux right?

”Oh,” you breathed, eyes fading into your memory.

You deserve to be here. Kylo Ren’s voice, soft in the night, echoed in remembrance; the figment of his past face cast is the celestial shadows remained vivid, a living memory, nearly tangible in its clarity. The admission had floored you when he’d first spoken it, and nothing had changed, still losing your ability to think straight as the words reverberated around your thoughts and stole your breath. You’d run from the bond in his words, too scared of their truth. But, that was just it; they were true. There was no ill intent hidden behind them, the only thing residing in them an unadulterated sense of reciprocated trust.

His words should have lost all meaning when he pulled away that night, although you’d pulled away first; but, here, before Hux, you knew that Kylo Ren was what had sparked the paradigm shift. He had pulverized your heart that night, and you still hadn’t fully recovered, but it was undeniable, even now: the reason you wanted to stay was because you’d realized your purpose – the worth you now felt in your position had been solely provided by Kylo Ren.

“What happened to not wasting t-,”

“I deserve to be here,” you said, echoing your master. “No, I want to be here. I have just as much a place in the Elite as Talia Harper does.” An incredulous laugh left you. “I deserve this.”

Hux, alarmed by your newfound fire, sat forward, leaning on his elbows and tenting his fingers. “Those are powerful words. But I suspect you’ll need a stronger defense when convincing your superiors to spare you.”

“I’m good at my job. I saved that man; I’m not wasting time trying to convince you of that fact,” you said, no longer affected by his attempts at intimidation. “They can watch me all they want. They won’t find anything but the fact that I am a damn good nurse who has effectively kept the Commander of the First Order alive and well with no assistance.”

Hux’s scowl had returned in all its glory. “We’ll find out soon enough, won’t we?” His eye twitched. “Later today you will receive an email informing you of all the expectations surrounding the trial. The dates have yet to be determined, but they are adamant in their desire to get this off their docket as soon as possible – for safety’s sake, of course.”

Unblinking, you stared back in silence, not giving him the satisfaction of a reaction. He continued. “You will need to arrange for travel, as the trial will be conducted on Canto Bight over the course of one to two weeks, depending on the judgement you receive.”

“Canto Bight? Why wouldn’t it be held here on Starkiller?”

“The Board of Physicians’ headquarters is located there. You should know this, although I shouldn’t be surprised you don’t at this point.”

Cracking inwardly, you needed to leave before you spewed hell fire down on him. Clearing your throat and squaring your shoulders, you steadied yourself before speaking. “I’ll keep an eye out for that email. Now, is that all? Am I free to go?”

His lips pursed. “For now,” he said. You got up and walked to the door. “But, remember officer, you are barely free from this moment on.” His eyes pointed to the upper corner of the room.

Sucking your teeth, you entertained him, tracking your eyes with his, finding a security camera angled down to you. Such an ass. “Have a nice day, General,” you said, slipping out of his view before he could get the last word.

The wide-open communal area of the Elite floor was even busier than last night, nearly double the amount of stormtroopers marching around. There also seemed to be an increase in employee population in general, the expanse buzzing with a constant influx of engineers, pilots and technicians. Maybe it was the fact you’d only been here during normal human hours once, only ever seeing the graveyard crowd when you’d reported for your shift, but every new encounter with the main functioning centers of the First Order painted a clearer image of the ever-rising tensions with the Resistance. There had been a few emails you scanned through mentioning an effort to destroy the Republic, but it never seemed pertinent to pay attention to them, feeling they didn’t have a direct effect on your life.

With your head tucked into your shoulders and your arms wound tightly across your chest, you walked into the thick of patrolmen, having no particular destination in mind. Halfway through your trek across the floor, your phone buzzed. Figuring your watch would have dinged if it was anything important, you kept your focus on making your way through the room. But it buzzed again, and again – urgent vibrations sounding through your uniform. Without breaking your stride, and keeping your head down, you pulled it from your pocket, seeing it was Mason.

Before getting a chance to read his messages, the screen lit up with his caller ID. You were in the dead center of the floor, everyone could see you, and though you wanted to be far away from the circling soldiers, it seemed safer to be visible than skulking in a corner; if Robbie were lurking around, he wouldn’t try anything so public. At least you hoped he wouldn’t.

On its last ring, you accepted the call. “Hey, Mason,” you said, peering around.

“Hey! Why did you call me last night? And sorry, Soto has me running forty-eights right now so I’m never around my phone,” Mason explained, grog in his voice, either just waking up or in the process of getting rest.

Last night flashed through your memory, recounting the damaged door, the scratch marks, the dents, the blaring red caution tape tying the terrorizing scene together; it quickened your heart, that feeling of all-consuming dread threatening to return in its entirety. The stiffness at your back pulled you back to reality, reminding you why you had called him. “Actually, I was wondering if I could stay with you for a while.”

The line stayed quiet for a moment, the bustling noises blockading you from hearing his tired breathing. “I mean, of course you can. You know that. But is there any particular reason? Is there something going on,” he attached your name to the end of the question, genuine concern rasping through his exhaustion.

“No, everything is fine, I’m…” The words came too fast, a defense mechanism you’d adapted to keep people from worrying about you. But this was Mason. He knew your tics.

“Spill. Now.” It was a demand, no hint of request in his tone, suddenly less tired than a second ago.

“I know, I do,” you said, pressing your hand against your forehead, scanning the room. “Do you remember that guy I told you about before leaving for the Finalizer?”

“I’ll kill him. What did he do to you? I swear, I - just give me a name and-,”

“Mason.” You chided him, feeling like his words would somehow attract attention. “You’re not killing anyone. Just – I went out with him the night I departed, and it… didn’t go as planned. Okay?”

“Sure, but what does that have to do with you not being able to go home?”

This was it. Telling Mason would only solidify your reality. “So, maybe it went a lot worse than planned. Like. A lot worse. And I think he may have broken into my place while I was gone, and I’m really worried that if I go home that he’ll come and, and…” Your throat thickened, anxiety stealing your words.

“Oh my God!” Your admission had infused his voice with alarm. “Yes, yes. Come here tonight. I’ll call out and we can talk. Okay?”

“Mason, you don’t have to call out. I know how important your residency is. I’ll be fine on my own.”

“You are important to me. And I don’t want you to be alone, not with some psycho out to get you.”

His words warmed you, feeling something other than stress or fear or anguish for the first time in months. But, before you could respond, he spoke with an urgency, realization overtaking him. “Wait. Where did you sleep last night? Oh my – I’m so sorry, I-,”

“Hey, no. It’s okay. You were working. You didn’t know, Mason,” you said. “I slept in the assessment room. It’s private and locked. I was safe. Please do not blame yourself for something you couldn’t control”

A long breath left him, audible even with the synchronized marching swirling around you. “You’re okay now, though, right?”

“I am… trying my hardest. I just really need a break from everything.”

“Well I’ll be all ears tonight. I can pick something up for dinner if you want?”

“Mason, you’re already being too kind by letting me crash. Thank you, again.”

“You never have to ask. My door is always open,” he said, grogginess creeping back into his voice. “Hey, before you go, could you tell me what this bastard is called? I need to assign a name to the violent things I’m imagining right now.”

It was the first true laugh, however short or quiet, you’d had in a while. “Oh, Mason,” you said. “His name is Robbie. Technically. I’ll get into it later.”

“What does that mean?” His last word was a yawn.

“Go to sleep. I’ll see you tonight, okay?”

Another yawn resonated through the phone. “Fine. See you tonight. Love you.” He hung up, potentially falling asleep before he could put his own phone down.

“Good to see you haven’t forgotten about me.”

As if you’d gone back in time, that same unease tore into you, robbing you of breath and stealing your equilibrium. It was him. This was what you’d been dreading since before leaving. Behind you stood the most uprooting factor in your life – Robbie was within feet of you, the familiar modulation of his voice immobilizing.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” he said, sauntering into your line of sight. “You’ve been gone so long,” he rolled your name off, violating as the syllables left his tongue, “I’ve missed you.”

The absence of food in your stomach was a blessing, knowing the adrenaline contracting your body would have ejected it from your system by now. The thoughts swirling around your head were an amass of chaos; echoes and amplifications of fear and impulses, conflicting in their commands – run! Don’t run! Punch! No, kick! Scream! Stay silent! It was all you could do not to fall forward, your knees trembling, readying to give out any second.

“Speak to me with that beautiful voice. I’ve been imagining it for months now, telling me how sorry you are for leaving me.”

What did you have to be sorry for? To him? Snapping your face to his, you snarled, chin trembling. “Excuse me? Sorry? I have nothing to apologize for.”

He hummed, the sound nauseating. “You’re so cute when you’re angry. Is this our first fight?” He circled your wrist in his armored hand. “Let me make up for it, baby.”

“Get the fuck away from me, you freak!” You growled, struggling against his grip, flinging your trapped wrist until it broke free. There was a lasting ache where his fingers had been anchored.

“Hey, hey. No need for hostility,” he said. “I’m just so happy you’re back.”

Your heart threatened to burst your carotids, pulsing angrily over your entire body. “Oh, you are? Why? So you can break into my apartment again? Maybe finish the job you’d had in mind before you realized I was gone? Hm?”

This got to him, his hands wringing at his sides as his posture hardened. “I hadn’t seen you, and you left without saying goodbye.”

“How would you know if I didn’t say goodbye? In my memory – which, by the way, is exceptionally clearer than yours of that night – you passed out drunk before I got the chance. Or do you not remember that?”

“You little bitch,” he barked, drawing the attention of the passing stormtroopers. “Who’d you tell, huh? How’d you get me fired from Ren’s detail?”

Defensively, you took a step back, distancing yourself from his reach. “You did this to yourself, Robbie.” Wanting to hurt him back, you pulled your claws out. “Oh, wait, please forgive me. I meant RB-6745. Forgot for a sec-,”

“My name is Robbie.” The words tore through his throat as he lunged forward, reaching out to you.

“RB-6745,” a voice called from behind him. It was Captain Phasma. “Why have you abandoned your station?”

She walked militantly towards you, her chrome armor glinting with flashes of white as she passed by coupled soldiers. Robbie’s hands clutched below his waist, her presence bringing reluctant resolution to his outburst. When he turned, your face fell from its tight contortion of fear, not having realized you’d flinched away from his incoming assault.

“I apologize, captain,” he said, irritated at her interruption. “I thought it was my break.”

Phasma stopped about three paces from you, staring between you and your masked mistake. “Commander Ren’s ex-charge has had trouble adjusting to maintenance duty,” she said, your reflection bouncing off of her chrome helmet as she addressed you, turning to Robbie before she continued. “Come. I’ll show you back to the engine sector, as you seem to have forgotten the route. Again.”

Phasma motioned Robbie to lead the way. He turned back to you, leaning down and bumping your side against his shoulder in his passing. “This isn’t over,” your name a curse on his lips once more.

Phasma stopped in front of you before following after him. “I didn’t come here with the intention of rounding up one of my men, but it seems I can kill two birds with one stone.”

Clearing your throat, you pulled your shoulders back, her presence commanding the respect that Hux’s never could. “Captain?”

“Commander Ren instructed me to inform you to meet him in his assessment room. He says it’s a pressing matter.” She marched past you, not waiting for a response.

You stood there motionless, still standing at attention, listening as she led Robbie away. It was easier to stay here, to forget what she’d told you and pretend that there was nothing waiting for you beyond the assessment room hatch. But there was. In your nervous rush this morning, more focused on being extra early for Hux’s meeting, you hadn’t thought to tidy up your temporary dwellings; the room was still made up with a loose cape draping over the exam table, two stray socks strewn about the room, and an open bottle of hydrogen peroxide – a makeshift mouthwash in leu of a toothbrush. And now a new addition – clothed in black, hands undoubtedly balled into fists – awaited you. There was a pressing matter, but it had nothing to do with Kylo Ren’s wellbeing and everything to do with your soon-to-be lack of.

Considering it was like wading through mud to break past the shrouds of stormtroopers, your nerves had already worn thin since stepping into the docking bay, but acknowledging how you’d left Kylo Ren last night – his flaming sword of rage swinging destruction around you – the journey back towards the med bay was not one of a casual stride. With a quickened pace the hatch came into view sooner than you’d hoped, simultaneously wanting to get there to explain yourself while also wishing the floor would swallow you whole so you wouldn’t have to deal with Kylo Ren’s theatrics. Within a couple strides, the door slid open, revealing the undeniable presence of your master.

“This’ll be fun,” you said under your breath, smoothing over your uniform with nervous hands.

Passing through the threshold, it whirred shut behind you, its motion sending a rush of chilled air over your legs, whipping the back of your skirt to the side. Kylo was on one side of the exam table, clutching the cape, one of his socks hanging loosely from his other hand. Hidden in his helmet, you could only assume the eyes boring into you matched the fury of his fist.

“There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this,” you said, tone hesitant and low, guarding against a reappearance of his lightsaber.

His hand stayed rooted in the cape; his warped voice venomously low. “Then explain.”

Staying close to the wall, you circled around him, leaning against the metal counter behind you, grasping onto the edges. “I had to sleep here last night.”

“That is evident, officer.”

“Okay. I couldn’t go home last night.”

“I can make you talk. You know this.” His hand lifted the cape, clutching it up to his chest.

Swallowing, the metal ridges of the countertop bit into your grip. It felt like admitting why you couldn’t go home was accepting a defeat, like he’d won the argument pertaining to your need for protection. You chewed your cheek, looking down at your feet and closing your eyes. “I did actually go home last night. I didn’t just stay here out of preference.”

“Then why?”

“When I got home,” you sighed, looking back over to him, “I found my place had been broken into. And I’m pretty sure I know who did it, and I didn’t feel safe sleeping there.”

“The stormtrooper,” he said, dropping the sock to the ground. “That’s who you think did it.”

“Uh, yeah. There was a maintenance report that said-,”

“A maintenance report?”

His interest surprised you. “Yeah, the lock had been tampered with and the door had been… defaced. Scratch marks, dents. And it had been reported a couple days after our departure for the Finalizer.”

“A couple days after seeing him,” his voice was eerily calm, like he was only trying to understand you.

You paused to look at him, analyzing the intent that remained hidden with his eyes. “And before I came here, before Phasma told me to meet you, I ran into him. Well, I don’t know if I’d describe it so casually, but nonetheless.”

His hand came back down, freeing the cape from his grip, letting it pile up on the table. “How would you describe it?” He began circling towards you.

It was too much to verbalize the fear Robbie had incited, wanting to pretend he didn’t exist. “I… don’t know.”

“You’re afraid,” he said, drawing closer with each careful step. “You think he’s watching you, stalking you like prey – that’s it, right?”

Swallowing, you wished he didn’t possess the ability to feel everything you did, pinpointing your emotions better than you could. You nodded, looking up to his visor, his frame working to consume yours as the distance closed between you.

His hands came down next to yours, brushing the sides of your pinkies with his gloved grip. He leaned down to you, his gaze centered on your eyes. “You can’t stay here again.” It wasn’t darkness in his voice, or even command; he was only stating what you knew as truth.

The sound of his muffled breathing flourished over your arms, your own breathing newly audible. “I know,” you swallowed. “I’m not. I figured something out.”

“Did you?” His hands dropped from the counter to wander over the fronts of your thighs, skimming his thumbs just under the hem of your uniform. “Tell me, where are you staying tonight?” He leaned into the crook of your neck, the brush of metal eliciting the heat of your cheeks.

You breathed out, his teasing touch evaporating your train of thought. “With a, with a friend.”

His leather-covered fingers rooted just below the curve of your ass, his thumbs sliding up and down, streaking sparks in their repetitive paths. “Mm, wrong answer.” Kylo dug into your thighs, tearing your feet from the ground, propping you up onto the chilled counter.

The metal bit at your skin, making you seethe at the contrast. He parted your knees so he could stand between them, tracing his hands over the excited skin; the warmth of his gloves washed over you, stealing your focus as they slipped under your skirt once more, his thumbnails dipping just under the seams of your panties. With a steadying effort, you gathered your thoughts. “What? How am I wrong?”

His breath was getting thicker at your ear, his unaltered voice trickling through the modulation at his proximity. “You’re staying with me.”

In the throes of his distraction, you distantly regarded your meeting with Hux, remembering the surveillance order hanging over you. “I can’t,” you said, reveling in the feel of his thumbs inching ever closer to the apex of your thighs.

“I’m not asking.” Your core throbbed at the nonchalance of his voice, so sure and casual.

At the stitching of your panties, he hooked two fingers below the thin fabric, dragging them perpendicular down your slit; his gentle petting caught your breath, pulling you from your defense. “I’m being watched,” you said, the words falling as your lungs did. “I have to at least appear professional.”

He hummed, the modulation vibrating down your neck. “Your trial. I thought you were fine with whatever consequences your actions presented.”

The tips of his fingers slid between your folds, pressing around your entrance, forcing a small moan from your lips. “I was,” you breathed.

The pressure at your entrance slid up your slit; his fingers rolled your clit between them, the seams of his gloves offering an additional friction over the sensitive bundle. His other hand pressed into the pliant flesh of your inner thigh, mindlessly kneading it while your lungs chorused for his touch. “Past tense. Why is that?”

The sensation of the rough leather slick with your want robbed you of words, feeling his other digits stroke over the outside of your folds as they tortured you with their leisure. “I realized,” you said, tone shaky, “I may deserve to be here after all.”

Just as you were when he’d said them, he was immobilized; both his hands stopped moving, relaxing and resting in place as his head pulled away from your neck, your core pleading for his action to resume. But he only stood there, staring at you beyond the mask, the indecisive path of his eyes evident over your skin.

“Where do you deserve to be?” His voice was low, the modulation cutting out subtly.

Grinding against his hand, begging him to commence his earlier advances, you gaped in front of him, gaze pointedly aimed into his visor. “You know where.”

His hand left your slit, forcing a snuffed whine at the absence of his touch. “Tell me, officer. Where is ‘here’?”

There was something irresistible about his teasing, sitting here, legs splayed to receive him; your chest rose, absorbing his hidden stare. When he lifted his hands to either side of his helmet, your heart picked up in anticipation, your blood rushing at the prospect of his enamoring face. The locks hissed and he ducked out of his confines, shaking his head to clear his face of any stray strands. Not taking his eyes from yours, he placed the helmet beside you.

He pulled at the fingers of his gloves, separating them from the tips of his digits. “I won’t ask you again,” his jaw wasn’t set, lips slightly lifted at the corners, twisted in the subtlest of smirks.

“Here…” You looked over his features, silently praising his freckles, in awe of how such a sweet feature could be present under eyes so haunted.

“Yes,” the tail end of your name rose in pitch, a question, lascivious and redundant.

“Here is,” your focus shifted down to his lips, heart fluttering faster imagining them against yours. “Here is with you, as your provider. Appointed by you,” your breath shuddered, his lips fluid before you, “under the First Order.”

He hummed, face sly as his brow raised and his chin pointed towards you, placing his gloves with his helmet and returning his touch. With his hands on either of your thighs, your body buzzed as your pulse took prominent residence between your legs. His head advanced so the tips of your noses nearly touched, his breath mingling with yours. Flitting between your eyes and your lips, his eyes held the same appreciation for you as yours did him. “It only took you a couple months.”

“What are you talking about?”

His thumbs pinched into the crease of your thighs, his fingers splayed over the curve of your hips. With his lips whispering against yours, short shocks lighting at each accidental meet, he closed his eyes, prompting yours shut immediately after. “To listen to me.”

He pressed his mouth to yours, lips soft as his need reigned unmatched; it was a collision, a bludgeoning, a massacre of every atom separating you in an attempt to brand his mouth to yours. The intensity residing in his fervor fluttered your heartbeat, your core surging with chaos to find his touch again. Without leaving your lips, he slid you away from the counter, your extremities binding yourself to him as he carried you to the exam table.

Your head fell back over the piled cape, smelling the leather below, admiring its owner above. With your knees framing him, his hands slid down your thighs as his lips fell to your jaw. “Are you going to keep listening to me?” He said, the words divided as his lips traced to your neck.

As he knelt forward on his knees, his arms clutched into the edges of the table at either side of your head, you reveled in the heated shelter of his body. Without prompt, your knees locked around him, wanting him closer, needing him against you. It was in vain, though, his strength too much to overpower. One of his hands reached between his legs, mussing with his belt and layered uniform.

“Tell your friend,” he said, seething as his cock sprang away from its constriction, “you found other plans.”

Peering down over your chest, you caught view of his length, bobbing as he moved over you. You swallowed, your hands gripped around the flexing muscles of his upper arms. “I can’t.”

At your ear, Kylo grunted, tearing away from you and sitting back on his knees. He looked over you, palming his erection, face blank while he gathered precum at his tip and smoothed it over himself. “Roll over, then.”

There was no emotion to his voice, flat as his face was. You pulled back your elbows and rested on them. When you opened your mouth to contest, his eyes flared in warning, a brow lifting to question if you really wanted to challenge him. Pulling your bottom lip into your mouth, you gathered your legs and turned over so your chest was against the exam table, face flat against the now warmed leather, hands at either side of your face.

“Better,” he said.

Behind you, his hands came down over yours, his nose tracing over the helix of your raised ear. “I’m going to make you cum on my cock, and then tonight, in my quarters, you’re going to have another lesson in obedience.”

He pulled away, quickly lifting your hips so your knees and forearms bore your weight, the leather slippery beneath your warmed skin. He stood on his knees behind you, flipping your skirt up and pulling your panties down to your knees. Your name was a praise from his lips, a stark contrast from when it had come from Robbie. “Always so wet for me,” he said, pushing a finger from your entrance and down to your raised clit.

You bucked into his hand, moaning, needing more. “Kylo, you have to understand, I ca-,”

His touch left you, but quickly came back with full force, smacking against your exposed entrance, a wet echo filling the room. Every muscle below your abdomen clenched, your fists balling at the sides of your head. “I do understand, officer,” he said, smoothing his hands over your ass, digging his fingers into your hips. “But you need to understand something yourself,” the pleasant presence of a familiar pressure grazed your entrance, stretching you in its tease. “I don’t care.”

He pulled back on your hips, sheathing himself against the tight, drumming walls of your core. A long, drawn out groan tied itself to an awe-inspired cry, garbling out into nonsense as he shattered your pelvis, splitting you open to receive his merciless length all at once. With your hips high and his hands locking them to his, your walls sparked around him, feeling him throb inside of you.

“It’s been too long since this pussy broke for me,” he seethed, even out of sight you could hear the strain of his jaw. “Fuck, I forgot how good you feel.”

He pushed your hips forward, sliding out of you, absorbing the feel of your walls’ compliance as he took nearly every inch from you. As he pulled out, your breath stuttered out in short pants, the hollowness tormenting as he’d just cracked you open. You whined into the table, sweat beading at your forehead, the palms of your hands sliding against the slickened leather. The head of his cock pulsed at the base of your core, stopping a moment before he rammed back into you, your knees sliding back with his force.

He bent at his hips, his chest molding to your back, the whispers of loose tendrils tickling your spine. A hand dipped down over your slit, two fingers running against your folds as he hummed behind you. “Where are you staying tonight, officer? Tell me.”

His voice was thick with breath, his words leaking onto your nape. A shiver bloomed goosebumps under his heat, the friction of his rough robes almost painful against your sensitized skin. No matter how he would try to convince you, there was nothing he could say or do that would change your mind. “Kylo, I can’t-,”

“Another wrong answer.” His other hand snaked over your throat, trapping any words that tried to leave. “You’re down for the count with no hope of winning. Give up, it’ll be a lot easier if you do.”

His hips began a rigorous tempo, slamming into you while his hand tied around your throat and his fingers slid into your slit, his frame completely devouring you, swallowing your body into nothingness below him. He used your throat for leverage, pulling back to meet his thrusts, grunts panting from his lips in beat with his hips. Every slam of his pelvis and swirl of his fingers catalyzed your release.

“You’re getting close,” he stuttered out between thrusts. “So fucking tight, coming undone – shit – breaking for me. Such a slut, and only for your master.”

Beneath his hand, you wanted to moan, to hiccup into the room how good it felt to have him rocking against you. Even though his effort was aimed towards your defeat, you basked in how full he made you, the dull sound of your skin slapping with robes, the squeaks of voice escaping in spite of his grip; you knew you couldn’t stay with him, but that didn’t keep you from wanting to.

“And you deny it, but you know it’s what you want – to meet me tonight, to have our lesson, to please me – don’t you?”

He lifted some pressure from your throat, a go-ahead for words. “Yes, I want that,” you panted. “I want to.”

“Yes,” he grunted, his thrusts becoming crazed, coming without a pattern. “Be a good girl, give into in.”

“I want to, Kylo,” you swallowed, sweat spilling from your brow. “But I can’t.”

“You can.” The hand maintaining your clit wound tighter circles, eliciting a searing need for release just beneath your skin.

“I, I – fuck – Kylo, I-,” you could only whine, your body pummeled with his rampant push towards your climax.

“Where are you staying tonight,” he hiccuped your name. “Say it. Scream it.”

Your walls were quaking, spiraling towards the abyss he’d opened inside of you. All of your senses were trembling, buzzing as you resisted his effort to send you flying over the edge. A pained whimper, filtered through tight teeth, left you, building into a more prevalent cry.

“Tell me!” He yelled, thrusting into you, hitting your cervix in time with his swipe over your clit.

“Fuck! With you, I- Kylo, with you!”

With his body wrapped around you, the simultaneous strike of your cervix and clit, and the pressure clouding your vision – you let go, falling into a riotous, convulsive, all enthralling pit of pleasure. The growl that had resided in your throat, the one that had evoked from your attempt at resistance, had evolved into an endless string of astonished praise; it was a song you’d never sung, yet as he lost himself behind you – his hands bracing on top of yours when he fell forward, crushing you underneath him – he sounded as you did, creating a chorus of cries, a melody only known to each other.

He breathed at your ear, panting rampantly, off-beat with yours as they came between his. The weight of his body consuming yours only aided in the afterglow, your breathing obvious as his chest tided on top of your own. Every now and then he would swallow, the hiccuped sound popping next to your ear as his chin bobbed against your back. The peripheral image of his hands covering yours an added prize to the already hazed satiety which had enveloped you. He laid on top of you as he softened inside of you, staying there for an immeasurable amount of time.

To your disappointment, you couldn’t stay there forever; he sat up, a wince leaving you as he slipped out. Behind you came the shuffle of clothing and the clamber of boots as he met the floor. You were still recuperating when he came into view, his hand – gloved, yet again – smoothing over your sweat-stuck strands. As you turned to your side, he flipped your skirt back down, covering you as his cum leaked out from your core and onto leather that lied beneath.

He pinched your chin up, prompting you to crawl up on your elbows, looking up at him with half-lidded eyes. “Twenty-two hundred. You know how I feel about tardiness.” There was a regard of fondness as he looked over your sated body.

You could only respond with the nod of your head, peering up at him, admiring him for all that he was in this moment – a beautiful man who wanted you to stay with him. With one last swipe of his thumb over your bottom lip, he gathered his helmet, ducked into it, and left you sprawled about in your own company.

After a few minutes, watching the radar on your watch to ensure his distance, you allowed your guilt to swallow you whole; you had all but promised Kylo Ren that you would come to him tonight, and although you wanted to appease him, to be with him in such an intimate way as to lie next to him, you couldn’t risk your life for something as temporary as an afterglow or a rush. Tonight you would go to Mason, a welcome break from all life had thrown at you in the past twenty-four hours.

#kylo ren smut #kylo ren x reader #kylo ren x you #kylo ren imagine #kylo ren fanfic #kylo ren #st kyp

[dasilvaartii]

Personal Evaluation - House Of Cards Brief - Remediated

For this brief we had to firstly create our own interpretation and timeline for the project. My timeline i made an extended way rather than a day to day basis as for me that is more realistic in terms of progress, gives me the freedom to go back and forward exploring my work, while still giving me the deadlines for each step.

One of my mood boards I went with a topic I've worked on in the past and I enjoy exploring as it can bring you to different directions, exploring dark imagery, macabre, apocalyptic, death, some items of steampunk, etc. While researching, I found some information about origins and meaning of the cards and their suits, that shown how they’ve evolved along the centuries, This was quite interesting as i wasn't aware of it.

One of the artists that most inspired me was Emil Melmoth. If i recall correctly i found his work on instagram, and it's just amazing! His sculptures are absolutely stunning! (in some dark macabre way) But the composition of them and the ideas he merges I find it so attractive, even though they will definitely shock a lot of the audience, but that's something I appreciate in art! Also one of my favorites, HR Giger, but for this project I focused more on some mechanical imagery of his.

Started by making some quick thumbnails to generate ideas. This was a good way to start because I got some different and interesting things to explore. So from here I designed each suit.

Being a printmaking course, even though this year we didn't get much access to the college facilities, i didn't want to make my work only in digital format, i wanted to have still the image of a printing technique integrated in my designs, so i decided to go for Lino Printing, as its accessible from home and i enjoy this method a lot.

So, as you can see from the record posts on my tumblr, i design each suit, firstly as a drawing, and then proceed to create the lino cuts, which for the purpose of details i made in A5, as any smaller (normal deck of cards size) in my opinion would love quality in the design. 

My other moodboard was focused on colours, contrasts, and a more abstract concept. I did some research on it and found some interesting artists like Sonia Delaunay, who has created her own deck of cards designs, which was quite fun to see. She explores the interactions between depth and movements with colour contrasts, and even though it is not my “cup of tea” i found it very interesting how it works together. Using some of these artists' ideas and inspirations we did a workshop with colours and painting with sponges. Personally this wasn't something very exciting for me, but i ended up using some of it as background and development work further ahead.

After having my Linocuts set up and ready, I made some initial prints, from which I created digitally a first idea towards the finals. I think it worked well but for me it wasn't quite there yet...they needed something more!

Sometimes it is good to step away from something to give you a better view, to look back at it with clearer eyes, so i decided to focus for a while in creating my box design. 

For this i played with some mark making, collage, drawings, as i had the idea already in my head to give it a mechanical look for the cover, which i would also use on the back of the cards. After I manipulated that imagery on Photoshop, playing with layers, contrast, twisting the images, stretching them to their potential. I am very pleased as to how these turn out. 

Coming back to my suits designs...

i decided to work more with mix media on the prints, see where i could take them, and if I could get closer to the idea i had in my head as to how i wanted them to look. In order to create a frame, I used masking tape before using materials like watercolours, pens, posca pens and textures to add some mask making. I am really happy with how these turned out, felt as they have potential and it was getting closer to a final result.

For my finals, I decided to clean my prints digitally using photoshop, and created some displays of the cards as if they were on a table, and the game being played. I used the suits I designed into the usual format of the deck of cards to make it simple and understandable to the viewer to recognize, while still leaving my own trade on the cards. The font I use resembles as if it was a print itself so I feel it works with the designs. Each of the face cards I used was a different design of the actual suit (On my tumblr i show that with the suit of hearts) all designed by me.

Overall i felt this project was challenging as i never did anything like this, at some point a bit frustrating not sure on where it was heading and due to the current circumstances and working a full time job. But once I got my gears right, I picked up the rhythm and I found my way back to what I was making and I really enjoyed and am pleased and excited with the result! In terms of time management i feel i did and handled quite well. Kept updating my page as i went by also to keep myself straight in covering all the necessary topics of the brief. I’m happy with the topic i choose, as i mention before, it kept me interested and wanting to create a more professional looking prints for my finals. I feel they connect with each other in the concept i choose to take forward with developing.

If I was to develop further, I would probably experiment with different backgrounds on the face of the cards. I would love to actually physically create them to make them possible to play because i really like how they turned out. Possibly would make some changes to the box design. Not so much changes but to make it look less digital, i guess i would try the design with screen printing layers! I think that could turn out to be very interesting.

#hnd2 #HOC_HNDCPM2 #hoc hndcpm2 #print #printmaking #creativeprintmaking #creative #cogc #evaluation #development #deck of cards #card suits

[timeagainreviews]

“The Faceless Ones” gets a facelift

Back in 2011 when I was first getting into Doctor Who, I managed to track down the Loose Cannon Reconstructions of the missing Doctor Who episodes. For those, like myself, who did not grow up on Doctor Who, classic Doctor Who can be a bit of an adjustment. The editing is slower. The dialogue is closer to theatre than television, and there is so much padding. That being said, over time I grew to love classic Doctor Who and rewatch it more than I do the new series. Regardless, the reconstructions have always been a bit of a slog to get through.

Watching a reconstruction is tedious, even with good writing. The fleeting moments where some fan shot a four-second clip pointed at the television are like small oases of movement in the desert of static imagery. Despite the valiant efforts of some truly talented fans, nothing will ever beat the real thing. So whenever a new animated remake of a missing Doctor Who episode is announced, I get excited. The opportunity to see these static images once more brought to life with movement is always good news. Except maybe when that announcement is "Fury From the Deep," when clearly "The Evil of the Daleks," is next in line, but that’s a gripe for another review.

For my review of "The Macra Terror," I watched the colour version of the story. However, this time around, I decided to stick with the classic black and white, which I found I much prefer as it feels appropriate to the storyline. I almost feel like the colour versions are an attempt to rope a younger audience into watching something old. As these animated reconstructions go, I feel as though the animation has gotten increasingly better. However, I can’t exactly say that this time. I will go into it further but suffice it to say, I feel as though some corners were cut. That isn’t to say that there aren’t moments of brilliance. For instance, the inclusion of the mugshots of both the Roger Delgado and Sacha Dhawan Masters into the background was a clever little easter egg.

"The Faceless Ones," is a bit of an odd story from beginning to end. Frankly, it’s overly long and a bit clunky, but at its heart is a mystery that keeps you wrapt with anticipation. It starts with the Doctor and his three companions- Jamie, Polly, and Ben landing the TARDIS at Gatwick airport. It’s a strange bit of storytelling from the outset as the primary source of conflict comes from the fact that the Doctor and his friends are trespassing where they shouldn’t be. The Doctor basically says "Cheese it, the fuzz!" and they scatter, running away from the police. The true point of this sequence is to split the group up. While running from the police, a strange group of mystrerious men load the TARDIS onto a flatbed and drive it away. Polly wanders into a building with a chameleon logo, where she witnesses the ray gun murder of a nosy inspector. Now the story has focus, we now have a mystery.

The Doctor and his pals go in and out of states of capture at the hands of airport security with such regularity that it begins to become laughable. Having no passports, the Commandant wants to keep the Doctor and Jamie for questioning, but the Doctor insists they look for the body of the man Polly saw murdered. The airport’s Commandant fills the role of the insufferable prick trope just long enough to draw the proceedings out into a proper six-episode runtime. I understand the need for a character’s refusal to believe in aliens as a reasonable reaction, but it becomes repetitive after three or so episodes. Luckily, the man actually proves to be rather useful further down the line, which is a nice break from the usual trajectory of such characters in Doctor Who which is usually one that leads to their and/or others’ demise. He does eventually acquiesce and go looking for the body, but they find nothing.

We learn that the man murdered was an inspector by the name of "Gascoigne." The men responsible for his death, Spencer and Blade, believe he may have been sent by the parents of one or more missing people. There are a few pieces to the puzzle early on. We’re shown a collection of postcards, over which Gascoigne was murdered. There also is the case of this strange organisation- Chameleon Tours and their collection of unused foreign stamps. We know the two things play in together, but how exactly is unknown. All the while, Ben seems to bumble from scene to scene with not a lot to do other than save people at the last moment, which seems to be all he’s ever really good for. As final stories for companions go, "The Faceless Ones," does a great job making a case for the departure of both Ben and Polly. As opposed to going out on a high, Ben and Polly’s own uselessness is highlighted here as they almost seem like an afterthought.

This is made even more painfully obvious when the brand new character of Samantha Briggs is given more prominence and agency within her first scene than Ben or Polly get in the entire serial. We learn that Chameleon Tours is some sort of front for a shady bunch of aliens that replace people by taking over their identities. Polly, having been kidnapped is replaced by a body double, pitting her against the Doctor and Jamie. Acting as though she’s never seen the two, she goes off to work at her new job as a receptionist for Chameleon Tours. This is where we meet Samantha, a young girl from Liverpool searching for her lost brother. All she had to go on was a postcard from her brother sent from Rome. Polly’s double benefits in no way by helping her learn the truth, so Samantha’s enquiries are deflected.

Around this time, Inspector Gascoigne’s partner, Inspector Crossland, has gone looking for him which leads him to the Commandant. He informs him that he’s there investigating his missing partner and looking into the activities of Chameleon Tours. Throughout this bit of the story, I honestly couldn’t tell you what Ben is up to. He’s a fart in the wind as far as the story is concerned. Other than being sent off to investigate, there is very little for him to do. The fact is, this is the Doctor and Jamie show at this point. The Doctor once again tries to plead with the Commandant, and once again runs away feigning a bomb with a bouncy ball. Jamie goes off to eavesdrop in the waiting area outside Chameleon Tours, which is where he overhears Samantha talking to fake Polly.

All the while, the baddies have a mole in the air traffic control room in the form of Meadows, a man replaced by a chameleon body double early on in the story. Because of this, they know the Doctor is a threat. While Jamie and Samantha flirt and compare notes, the Doctor heads back to the Chameleon Tours hangar to seek out Ben and further answers. There he discovers a penlike device which was used earlier to kidnap Polly. The Doctor pockets the device and continues his investigation. It is at this moment when the Doctor discovers the original Meadows in a crate, unresponsive, but seemingly alive. Spencer watches the Doctors activities over CCTV and draws him into a room which he proceeds to fill with cold gas. After a struggle, the Doctor plugs the gas nozzles with rags and covers the camera with his oversized coat. Upon arriving, Spencer finds the Doctor, seemingly unconscious, that is, until the Doctor springs awake and sprays Spencer in the face with the pen device and makes a break for it.

Jamie and Samantha have pieced together by now that Chameleon Tours give their young passengers pre-stamped postcards ahead of their flights. Their claim is to save the travellers time by posting the postcards for them, but in actuality, this is to dupe their families into believing they made it to their destinations. It’s a rather sinister plot which still leaves quite a few unanswered questions. Namely- if the passengers don’t arrive at their destinations, where do they end up? It’s enough for Crossland to consider a lead which he brings to the Commandant’s attention, but they’re afraid to tip their hand too much. If they halt the Chameleon Tours flight to Zurich, they may never find the answers or evidence they’re looking for.

The Doctor finally wins the Commandant over to his side by showing him the pen device can freeze fake Meadows’ tea instantly. At first, I thought the Doctor was antagonising Meadows, but it turns out, he simply didn’t recognise his face from the catatonic man in the crate earlier. It’s funny to imagine this, as modern Doctor Who would never allow such a lapse in the Doctor’s memory, but it’s part of why I love the Second Doctor so much. You can buy that this man is simultaneously the smartest man in the room, while also believing he would forget such an important face. There’s a sort of effortless absent-minded brilliance to Troughton’s performance that I just find utterly charming. The point is driven home by a small little one-off line where the Doctor asks Meadows if they have met before. Villains are left to wonder just how much the Doctor knows, up until he’s standing over their smouldering corpse muttering "Oh crumbs."

After the Doctor’s display, and Crossland’s encouragement, the Commandant gives the Doctor free reign of the airport for twelve hours to investigate. At this point, Jamie and Samantha arrive with the envelope of postcards giving Crossland enough cause to go question Blade. The Doctor, Jamie, and Samantha head off to look into the room where the Doctor was gassed. However, as the Doctor is leaving, Meadows plants a device on his back. Crossland finds Blade aboard a flight but discovers the plane is not a normal plane at all. After serving the passengers food and drinks, the stewardess seals them behind a giant vault door. I got a kick out of this bit as the animators were clearly having fun designing hip '60s inspired passengers on the plane. In fact, some of the background character designs throughout most of this serial range from inspired to questionable. Either way, it was nice to seem them at least trying, for the most part. The plane disembarks with Crossland aboard. Blade encourages Crossland to watch on a screen as the passengers vanish into thin air.

Meanwhile, the Doctor, Jamie, and Samantha go back to the hangar to try and find the command centre of the Chameleons. While searching, they discover a monitor showing a live feed from the room where Meadows was copied into fake Meadows. However, before they can go search for the room, the device on the Doctor’s back is activated, knocking him to the ground. Spencer emerges and renders them unconscious with another pen device. Upon waking up, our three heroes have discovered themselves unable to move, and in the path of a laser, very slowly creeping toward them, or at least Jamie or maybe Samantha. Either way, someone is going to die if they don’t work fast enough. This is such a cute moment in the episode as it’s like something from a bad James Bond film or Austin Powers. The villain leaves the heroes unattended while a laser slowly inches toward them. Classic.

It’s moments like these that really make me sad the episode is missing as I would have loved to see the faces Patrick Troughton pulled while struggling to move. Jamie and Samantha are able to move just enough for Jamie to use Samantha’s compact mirror to deflect the laser back at itself. Having destroyed the machine, the trio is suddenly very much not paralysed as they all stand up, good as new. Adorable. It’s a great little slice of campy goodness that is pure genre inspired fun. I’m all about it. All the while, Blade informs his director that he has an "original," in the form of Crossland for him to possess.

The Doctor and his friends find the conversion room where the airport medic, Nurse Pinto, is helping convert another Chameleon. The conversion involves attaching what looks like a Wiimote to each subjects’ forearm and transferring the biological information of the human victim to the Chameleon. After some adjusting, they’re able to talk like a human and even recall the memories of their original. In this case, it’s Jenkins, one of the immigration officers at the airport. I rather liked a small detail here that Jenkins still lived with his parents. Call me crazy, but it was a bit of character building that made you feel for a guy. Classic Doctor Who is full of those moments if you know where to look for them.

The Doctor and Jamie pretend to be a doctor and patient as to throw Pinto off their scent. But even if she believes their story, she’s still not going to allow them into the X-ray room where she performs her vile conversions. Jenkins and Spencer watch from a monitor, angry that their enemy has once again escaped his fate. But they let the Doctor leave as they have bigger plans and will let him come to them in his own time. Upon returning to the control tower, the Doctor learns that Crossland has been unheard from in quite some time.

At about this time, the crew of the control tower really begins to take shape. The secretary, a woman named Jean just kind of comes out of leftfield as MVP. First, she drops the bomb that not a single airport has reported ever receiving passengers from a Chameleon Tours flight. And then even further, allows herself to act as a decoy long enough for the Doctor to go root around in the X-ray room. Jamie goes off to find Samantha who has bought a ticket on the next Chameleon Tours flight in an attempt to take the investigation of her missing brother into her own hands. It seemed a bit weird to me that she would do this, seeing as they were already uncovering a huge chunk of the mystery at this point, but I guess the writers needed a reason to thrust Jamie into the action as he pockets Samantha’s ticket and goes in her place. That is, before stealing a rather saucy kiss from the precocious lass. Seriously, why was she never a companion? Samantha was awesome. Samantha 2020.

The Doctor finds two of the Wiimotes and completely misses the original Nurse Pinto propped up in a closet behind him. Once again, the brilliant imbecile misses the biggest clue right under his nose. Hoping to call Meadows out, the Doctor returns to the control tower again. But he’s not there. This is one of the most frustrating elements of this story- the constant back and forth between locations is enough to give you whiplash. On top of that, there is the constant cycle of capture and escape, capture and escape, capture and escape, that really bogs this story down. I wish it could have been more streamlined because as you may guess, they end up back in the X-ray room shortly after. Agh! Pick a fucking location and stick with it! Honestly, it’s writing like this that loses me the most and is why I couldn’t tell you where Ben is at this point in the story. Seriously, where is Ben? I don’t even care anymore.

Jamie gets taken onto Samantha’s flight in her stead. Only when the food and beverages are served, Jamie is off to be sick in the loo. He was referring to aeroplanes as giant metal beasties in the first episode, and now he’s flying in one. The dude may be made of sterner stuff, but even the best of us get airsick. Due to this, Jamie doesn’t disappear like the other passengers. Must be something to do with the food and drink, huh?  Having realised Jamie took her ticket, Samantha becomes irate, but the receptionist guides her to Jenkins who of course pulls a ray gun on her. Another ray gun. Another capture. Woof.

The control tower tails the Rome flight with Jamie aboard with a small fighter jet, which honestly is a little weird. Did they just happen to have this fighter jet and pilot on hand? Is this a thing airports usually have? I honestly don’t know. Either way, the sequence doesn’t make much sense other than maybe they had some stock footage of a jet they kind of thought was cool. It’s funny then that the footage should now be missing and thus needs to be recreated by a computer years later. What was probably ten minutes of film splicing back in the '60s is now hours of rendering. These CGI plane shots are honestly one of the few times where the animation is more impressive than live action. So kudos to the animation department as those shots are genuinely cool.

Despite their cool rendering, the fighter jet is no match for Blade’s lasers as it is quickly shot out of the sky. It is just around this point that the Chameleon flight must have also crashed as it too disappeared off the radar. However, the Doctor believes that as opposed to going down, the plane actually went up- into space.  Of course, the Commandant gives this theory zero credence. But the Doctor is absolutely correct as we see the plane’s wings fold back like a rocket ship and thrust higher and higher into the sky until it approaches a large black satellite orbiting Earth. This is once again one of those moments where I am cursing the lack of footage as I would relish the ability to see the models built for this sequence. I will say however, this is, once again, a crowning moment for the animation department.

Now aboard the satellite and unaffected by the plane’s vanishing trick, Jamie discovers drawers full of what appear to be small people lying unconscious. At this point, the plot still hasn’t really come fully together, so seeing tiny people in drawers is just mind-boggling. You think you have some idea as to how or why these bodysnatchers are doing what they’re doing and the story throws us this brain bender. Hats off to the writers because I challenge anyone to say they saw this bit coming ahead of time. As it turns out the passengers didn’t vanish, so much as they were shrunk down into tiny people. The reason why? Because the satellite wasn’t big enough. Which actually makes a lot of sense in some ways. Terry Pratchett once wrote that a gnome character of his was the richest man in Ankh-Morpork, by ratio. If his resources stretch further, then a dollar buys him more than it would a full-sized man. Brilliant.

After discovering the jet pilot was electrocuted (by lasers somehow), the Commandant is beginning to soften to the idea that the Doctor is onto something with his spacemen theory. After confronting Meadows with the Wiimotes, our MVP Jean stops his ass with a rolling chair. Seriously, I love Jean. Jean 2020. At this point, Meadows just kind of becomes their bitch and totally spills the beans about their plans. How their planet faced a catastrophe and how they needed new bodies, new faces. He even gives up the satellite position and the fact that they have some 50,000 young people on board, ready for conversion. He even leads them to where the real Nurse Pinto is being held. I think if they’d have broken out the thumbscrews he would have copped to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby. What a chump.

Around this time in the story, the animation begins to take a serious nosedive. Nurse Pinto kills a policeman with a ray gun, and I swear to God that the policeman has a partner that looks exactly like him. Now, I know this is a story about body doubles, but reusing the same character design on two separate human characters in the same scene is just lazy. I thought at first that perhaps the actors in the original version were twins. But then, later on, you see two of the same faced cops in a scene together again! So it’s not just twins, it’s triplets, evidently. And they all grew up to be coppers on the same beat. Sorry animators, but you’re nicked!

Shortly after, the link between Nurse Pinto and her original is broken and fake Nurse Pinto turns into a pile of clothing and some sort of amniotic fluid. Her water just broke in the worst way possible. I’ve said it before, but part of me wishes they would improve upon some of the foley in moments like these. Mark Ayres does a great job mixing and remastering what was already there, but would some sound effects be completely out of line? Some squidgy squashy mess would have gone a long way to sell this moment. I figure a seasoned Doctor Who pro like Ayres would really be able to deliver such a thing. Also, if you ever get curious to know what Mark Ayres looks like, I’ll save you a google search and just say- he looks exactly how you picture a guy named Mark Ayres to look. Just a little fun fact there.

The real Nurse Pinto and the Doctor decide to pretend to be chameleons at this point so they can infiltrate the satellite. However, Spencer’s not having it as he’s onto them, but he allows it because he has plans to take turn the Doctor into an original for yet another Chameleon. Upon arriving on the satellite, the Doctor discovers Jamie has been turned into a Chameleon as well, which is rather funny as the Doctor laments the loss of Jamie’s charming Scottish accent. Those two, I swear. It’s as Frank Rossitano from 30 Rock once said "I’m not gay gay. I’m just gay for Jamie." Before they can turn the Doctor into one of their ilk, the Doctor destroys their machine buying the Commandant down on the ground some time to find the originals the Chameleons were linked to.

All the while, the Doctor is sowing seeds of doubt among the Chameleons that their director, in the form of Crossland, only cares for himself. That he wouldn’t care if he endangered them into becoming puddles themselves. He drives the point home by bluffing that they have found the locations of the originals. It’s a gambit that actually seems to work as Spencer and his men begin to question their director. The Commandant, on the ground level, is still plugging away, trying to save the day from his end. I kind of love the Commandant for following through with the Doctor’s bluff, and with such gusto. As I said, he really comes into his own by the end of the story. It’s kind of a shame that the guy never got a name. In the same vein as Counter Measures, I could see him, Jean, and maybe even Crossland in their own spin off adventures. They’re really a great group of one-off characters. Nurse Pinto and Samantha can come too.

It’s rather weird to me that the Chameleons opted to hide the originals as opposed to just taking them with them in the first place. After Samantha and Jean discover 25 cars registered to Chameleon Tours, they set off to search the car park. We find out that the catatonic originals have been stowed away in the cars to slowly die while the conversions complete. This may seem like a really dumb place to stash a body, but it’s not exactly unheard of. The airport of the city I’m from actually missed a truck containing the body of a man for eight months. Either way, it’s an odd little plot hole that exists mainly to give the Doctor something to hold onto and create dissent within the ranks. There is literally no reason not to take the bodies until the process is done. But ok.

Seemingly out of nowhere, the great stool pigeon that is Meadows, grows a pair and escapes from his guards. This is where the animation gets really ropey. I don’t know if it’s because the black and white versions are a 4:3 aspect ratio as compared to the 16:9 ratio of the colour versions, but as Meadows wrestles free, his body proportions are comically incorrect. His arms look about several inches too short, and they are positioned in such a way that the shoulders are set far too high. My guess is that the animators originally made this scene for the widescreen ratio, and merely squashed the image, thus shortening the arms for the black and white version. As opposed to, you know, bending the elbows. He tries to subdue Samantha but eats pavement. Slow clap for Meadows. Meadows 2016.

To prove they aren’t bluffing, the Commandant removes the link on Jenkins arm which turns him into a puddle aboard the satellite. This sends the Chameleons into a frenzy and they shoot their director, killing fake Jamie in the process. The Doctor negotiates with the remaining Chameleons to return all of the missing people and even agrees to help them find a cure for the catastrophe that set them on this path in the first place. After finding Crossland stuffed in a locker like a high schooler, he and Jamie go back home.

Down on the ground level, Jamie parts ways with Samantha, which is really kind of sad considering what a great character she turned out to be. What's even worse is that with Ben and Polly up and deciding to stay in 1966 London for basically the most boring of reasons, there was definitely a vacant spot for her to fill in the TARDIS. I would have really liked to see her as I instantly identified with her plight to find her brother. My family has experienced the disappearance of a loved one, and I know exactly how that feels to not know whether someone you love is alive or dead. They absolutely nailed that part of her character, and it was great to see it portrayed accurately. She could have been great. Instead, she stays behind and Jamie continues onward with the Doctor. However, the episode ends on a note of mystery- the TARDIS appears to be missing! Hopefully one day I’ll be able to follow up on that mystery with yet another animation to review, but until then, you’ll just have to wait! That is unless you already know.

All in all, the Faceless Ones is a pretty cool story with some rather lousy execution. There are quite a lot of moments that work to its benefit, but it’s marred by it’s bloated runtime. This story could have easily been told in four parts, and I feel as though it was a perfect candidate to be edited down into a single movie à la "Planet of Fire," or "Terror of the Vervoids." The strongest elements are the characters. And another bit of praise is that it was a slight departure from the base in peril episodes that dominated the Second Doctor Era. I do rather like Brian Hodgson’s score as it was genuinely creepy at parts. It evokes memories in me of the Woodsmen in Twin Peaks dancing to the impossibly slowed sounds of Beethoven’s "Moonlight Sonata."  

Regardless of any ropey bits of animation, I absolutely admire the work and craft of the animators involved. The character likenesses were an improvement upon "The Macra Terror," (especially Polly). There are points where you know the production team had to invent shots from thin air to fill the gaps that existing tele-snaps and sound simply weren’t illustrating. There’s a lot of creativity involved that evokes a lot of the same spirit of the original series. There’s also those really fun opportunities to retroactively tie the old series to the new. Such as the Dhawan Master, or yet another Magpie Electricals reference. Although they are far from my favourite companions, it’s also nice to finally see Ben and Polly’s send off in proper motion. As always, it’s the next best thing to the original.

#Doctor Who #the faceless ones #second doctor #Jamie McCrimmon #Polly Wright #Ben Jackson #Patrick Troughton #frazer hines #Anneke Wills #Michael Craze #animation #TARDIS #BBC #chameleons #chameleon tours #Time and Time Again #sorry this was late #seriously it's been a busy day

[whichstiel]

I made this art for the 2019 Dean/Cas Tropefest. (HUGE thanks to the mods, Jojo and Muse, for being amazing!) As soon as I read through the summaries, I knew I needed to try to grab the DRAGON STORY right away. I just...really love dragons, okay? This story is delightful and unexpected, with lovely world-building, rich side characters, and a beautiful romance between Dean and Cas. I really enjoyed reading it and working with zaphodsgirl! You can read Shadow & Storm by zaphodsgirl now! You’ll love it. <3

Here’s the summary:

One night, a mysterious visitor appears in young Prince Dean's bedroom, and he suddenly finds himself transported to an abandoned replica of his home in an unknown land. He learns quickly that the borders are finite, and none may leave without incurring the wrath of the guardian: a dragon the people call Storm.

Left with no choice, Dean adapts to life as the others have, tending to the animals and working the land to survive. As he grows up, the life he knew as a prince seems more and more distant, until a new person arrives that he remembers from his childhood. Shaken by this arrival, Dean’s desire to escape returns anew, and he discovers more than he wanted to know about the Shadowlands and its occupants -- especially about the mysterious guardian of the castle, Castiel.

Continue reading for some insight into the process and drafts behind the art.

Reading this story, I was struck by its lovely fairy tale vibe, which inspired me to make some kind of story-book art. I’ve always enjoyed pop-up books, so that seemed like a fun thing to try. My first step was to learn more about pop-ups. I turned to the internet for ideas, and found recommendations for: Pop-up design and paper mechanics, by Duncan Birmingham. This was a really useful book (I got it from the library - and you can too!) It gave me some basic structures and some general rules of thumb for how things fold and work when opened. I stuck with the simpler forms, given the short time period before posting.

Tools & supplies:

Cardstock paper

Watercolor paper (for the folding pages/backdrops and some stand-ups)

Watercolors, colored pencil, sharpie markers

Glue (I really like this scrapbooker’s glue pen for paperwork. Dries FAST and mostly doesn’t warp.)

Scissors, precision knife, ruler, protractor

Bone folder for pressing seams

Once I had some broad ideas of some of the rules of pop-up creation, I started to sketch out some quick ideas. I always like to start with the cover image, since that’s the main image people see when they’re browsing a story list. I did a few basic sketches on paper, but I decided the easiest way to develop these pop-up pieces would be to do what Birmingham called “paper sketching.” With paper sketching, you just...eyeball the pieces, attach it to a folded piece of paper, and cut away whatever paper you don’t want. It’s sort of like working with negative space in that way. Paper sketching was invaluable for helping me figure out things like: how tall should the mountains be? How high are the wings? What can fold together to lay flat? (Because I wanted this to be a functional book.) How long can I make that flame spout? (Not long, as it turned out.)

Here are some paper sketches I made of the cover image. A few of these were before I re-read the story and realized that the castle was built INTO the mountain. Oops. Building drafts helped me to realize that the concept was possible. Once I had some general structures under my belt, I could start to do the finer work of cutting out the final pieces. Draft work was typically done with sketchbook paper or cheap cardstock from Walgreens.

(Left: first draft; Right: Oh my god maybe this will actually work)

I wanted the cover to convey the full expanse of the lands surrounding the castle. I made my author draw me an actual map and diagram of all the agricultural lands. Thanks, zaphodsgirl! I chose black paper for the cover for REASONS you will discover when you read the story.

(Left: background watercolor progress with marker details; Right: taping in a quick test sketch to see if it will fit with the dragon and to test the angle)

Behind the scenes

For each design, I started by painting a watercolor backdrop, making note of the center where I’d need to fold the page. Watercolor paper was a pretty good choice because it’s thick and you can really crease the hell out of that middle joint - and the page stays strong. The cover is the most detailed. For the others, I went with more imprecise watercolor washes - mostly in the interest of time.

Finding a good backdrop is always a challenge when photographing art, and was a big issue for the cover since that dragon really gets lost if there’s too much in the background. I decided to go “Maria from Sound of Music” and pull down one of my curtains as a backdrop. That, plus desk lamps for light made a pretty good set.

This piece features Castiel fading into the dragon. I suffered from proportion control for this project but chose to forge on ahead, anyway. Sometimes the dragon is huge, sometimes it’s small. Oooooh well, it’s a dragon, anyway. :D The little Dean torso is intended to be a manually-opened inset, more to show his reaction than anything else. The dragon is 5 pieces - tail, head and forepaw, wings, and body. Castiel is a single piece; his fold is attached to the dragon and there’s a little paper accordion behind his head to keep him upright.

(Top left: I hate concept sketches; Top right: Cas coming together. I made him too tall! Oh well, I’m gonna roll with it)

Behind the scenes

This next piece was actually the second one I did, because it was the most complex and I wanted to get it finished so I wouldn’t fret over it. The red light is from a bicycle tail-light that I’m holding in the air with one hand while taking a photo with the other. I just really liked that little shadow claw on the ground!

This dragon was somewhat inspired by a Game of Thrones popup my author shared with me. My dragon isn’t as complex, but it still opens wide and closes flat, so I’m happy. It’s basically built as an upside down triangle, cut into a folded piece of paper. The fold is on the bottom. You can draw a line from the fold in its snout to a fold on its torso. The spines were cut out and glued on after the fact because I completely forgot to add them!!!

I was having some trouble with the wings attaching properly, so my test models had the dragon at various stages of height or angles from the ground. Too high and it would pop beyond the book pages. Too low and it might as well be sitting on the page completely. The dragon body has built-in tabs to which the wings are glued and the forest cutouts have this as well, for max strength. This is one of those cards where I went through enough drafts that I resorted to tape as a quick-hold option to figure out things like height and angle and how much dragon could fit in the folded pages. I ended up using an actual tool with (gasp) measurements to finally get the angle of the forest inserts right. Folding the test dragon into the card, I actually just sliced off the excess wing and tail that peeked out from the edges, then used that space when I was cutting out my final dragon.

For each of these, it’s best to get your pattern pieces as close as possible and then use that to cut your final pieces. The angles and length of everything needs to be fairly precise or what worked in your draft won’t fold well in the final version.

(Top left: So many draft pieces, so little time; Top right: Use math, kids!; Bottom: Dragon open and closed)

Behind the scenes

The last piece is modeled after a simple folding animal style. Its feet are glued symmetrically over the fold.

It’s essentially a folded piece of cardstock with an animal cut out of it. The head is attached separately, as are the wings and Amara. I had a star hole punch, which made it easy to add some stars to Amara’s gown as well as on the page. I’d wanted to do a big fold-out window arch here, but realized that it wouldn’t fit over the dragon or the Dean/Cas fold. Ah well. Please imagine it, instead.

(Top left: concept sketch; Top right: Paper sketching is a great reality check; Bottom: Amara astride Storm)

Behind the scenes

The final step was to turn this into some kind of book. At first, I planned to stitch the pages together. I’d never bound a book before, and I was cursing myself for putting down all those layers of pop-up inserts if I was going to have to stitch through each page. Then I looked at some pop-up books and realized that often just the edges of the pages are glued, leaving the middle to float as necessary. This was good, because it was a way easier option! (Also the dragon in the forest came out a little tight, so the float was very helpful there.)

I glued the page edges and, since they were a little curly from the watercolor and popup designs pulling at them, I weighted them with books to dry for a while.

I found an old book cover that would work (from a very outdated technology textbook). I sliced out the original pages, recovered the book with black paper, and glued in my new book pages on the front and back. It was a perfect fit!

I finished with time to spare, so I added a little watercolor and paper cut-out picture and frame to the front and back to add some flair. Please enjoy my terrible glue job. (I forgot to smooth the paper.)

I used a hair tie cut in half to hold the pages down for photographs (or display). I clipped two wedge-shaped bag clips to the underside of each tie to weigh down each side, and hold the book open at a slight angle.

This was a fun and challenging project to work on, and I’m so grateful to zaphodsgirl for all her effusive words and gifs of encouragement. You’re going to love this sweet story. Go read it now! Shadow & Storm on AO3.

(And if you feeling like tossing a comment my way, I’d love to hear from you here on Tumblr or on my art post on AO3.) 

#deancas tropefest #my art #dragons #popup book #papercutting art

[let-me-be-your-comet]

Happy birthday, Wonderful Wonderful!

Ohhh Wonderful Wonderful, the most appropriately named Killers album, my most favorite...how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

This album just has such a ridiculous level of care and love put into it, it practically bleeds for you, and it really lays Brandon's soul out there for all to see as the lyric writer. It was written as a means of processing something that Brandon had kept secret for years - his wife's struggles with post-traumatic stress and depression, which had just culminated in suicidal ideation before the band reconvened to write this album. Every single song is so cohesive, lyrically and thematically - it is truly an absolute masterpiece of cohesion, a real work of art. Wonderful Wonderful tells a story from start to finish in a way that no other Killers album to date has achieved so successfully, and it's just absolutely gorgeous.

The order of the tracklisting is so very critical in Wonderful Wonderful. It begins with the title track, which sets the stage for the album and discloses its inspiration. It seems to be written from twin perspectives - that of Brandon, as a husband trying to guide and support his wife through struggles, and that of God doing the same.

It's perhaps the most overtly religiously evocative of their songs, which is quite interesting and perhaps indicative of how much they've both leaned on their faith in the last several years as they have struggled with mental health. There is a lot of clever word play couched between the purposeful, biblical language: "Stay on the path that leads to the well - there are many, take the one that leads to the well." Brandon used a drought to symbolize his wife's life throughout the album, continuing into the album art and the stage production. Water symbolizes hope, as it comes to wash out the bad and begin anew. This line, on the surface, calls back to that theme - you're in the midst of a drought, but there is water if you head to the well.

But it has a dual meaning and is also meant to speak to illness vs. health - she is ill, and there are many ways that her story could go, but he is asking her to take the one that leads to wellness. Towards the end, Brandon gets a little more assertive about it - "my arm is reached out, I am here. I'll crush every doubt and every fear, clothesline the shame and you will answer to the rain." He'll be there to support her, if she will confide in him and trust him - he'll help her through the shame and stigma of mental illness, crush the negative feelings and make room for hope instead. This song references that drought/water theme for the first time and tells his wife not to give up hope that things will get better ("Don't you listen to the never; keep praying for rain").

The second track is The Man, which Brandon has said is a kind of last hurrah with his younger, more naïve self. It pokes fun at his perception of what it meant to be a man when he was young and dumb - "Nothing can break me down, don't need no advice - I got a plan." He has said that in the process of writing the album, he realized that his idea of 'being a man' has changed, from a sort of macho, arrogant bread winner to realizing that it's really all about empathy and compassion and trying to be a good person - and the rest of the album puts his new perception of 'manliness' on full display.

Rut and Life to Come are the gatekeepers of this new, empathetic outlook - such a beautiful exercise in the empathy and compassion that he is so proud of cultivating. He wrote Rut from his wife's perspective, trying to get inside her head and understand what she was feeling - without knowing the problem, there can be no solution. He does a beautiful job of portraying the struggle of mental illness, and writes in a way that is not necessarily specific to PTSD - it is versatile enough for the listener to apply the message to any range of struggles or mental illnesses.

"Don't give up on me, 'cause I'm just in a rut - I'm climbing but the walls keep stacking up." The opening lines set the stage so perfectly for the concept of the song, which climaxes in a long, hopeful bridge of "I'll climb and I'll climb" - one that almost goes on too long and in doing so exemplifies the difficult, lengthy battle of recovery from illness.

Life to Come is the sibling of Rut; the very next track is a direct response to its predecessor and this time, we hear Brandon's immediate response to Tana's confession in Rut: "I didn't see this coming, I admit it, but if you think I'll buckle, forget it. I told you that I'd be the one, I'll be there in the life to come." It is a little more raw, less polished than the other tracks on the album. There are moments where his voice is shaky or slightly off-key, perhaps left in on purpose to show the depth of the emotion and conviction that went into this song. The entire track professes his support for her and his belief that she shouldn't feel ashamed of her illness; that he's going to help her get through it, because that's what marriage is for: "I know sometimes you think that I regret it, but I don't remember stumblin' when I said it: I told you that I'd be the one. I was talkin' 'bout the life to come."

The fourth track, Run For Cover, flips the script and tells the story of a man who does not believe that empathy and compassion are important, a politician who does not treat his wife as he should. Brandon speaks to the man's wife and tells her to leave him: "Run while you can, baby - don't look back. You gotta run for cover. Don't be afraid of the fear, that's a played out trap, man - you know you're not the only one." He then writes a verse from her perspective, once again putting his empathetic voice into practice: "It's hard to pack the car when all you do is shame us - it's even harder when the dirtbag's famous." Brandon returns once more as a third party narrator ("There was nothing she wouldn't give just to trust him with her nightmares and her dreams - she's running just to trust him. He's got a big smile, he's fake news, just run for cover - you've got nothing left to lose," and again pleading for the wife to leave her 'dirtbag' of a husband who lacks empathy and compassion.

The next track, Tyson vs. Douglas, is yet another exploration of empathy. This time, Brandon puts himself in the shoes of Mike Tyson as he gets knocked out by Buster Douglas during an iconic fight in 1990. "You're used to winning, how did it feel? Did you hear the screaming? It was unreal...you can hit the shower, fill the place up with steam, close the curtains - but when you woke up, man, it wasn't no dream." He then turns the pen on himself and reflects on his children, who view him as an invincible hero, and the inevitability that he himself will eventually 'go down' like his own hero, Mike Tyson, did.

Some Kind of Love was written in the depths of Brandon's writer's block, borne of his attempts to break through to his wife and connect with her. They were both in dark places: she in the midst of a depressive episode, and he was questioning his own ability to write, as his attempts to suppress his marital struggles in his work had resulted in the inability to create anything worth pursuing.

He did something he's never done before here: he wrote over an instrumental track by Brian Eno, desperate to create something and needing a fully realized musical landscape to work with. "You got the will of a wild bird, you got the faith of a child before the world gets in - you've got some kind of love." Here he pleads with his wife to recognize how strong she is - how he sees her, rather than how she saw herself at that time. It ends with a heartfelt call to her, trying to reach her through her depression and push away the suicidal ideation in the way he feels he communicates best - through music: "Can't do this alone, we need you at home. There's so much to see, we know that you're strong - can't do this alone."

The next song, Out of My Mind, is a sort of monument to his marriage and an ode to his wife, acknowledging their struggles but also celebrating their relationship: "We're building up a kingdom, we pray it never falls...but I can't get you out of my mind." He then lists all of his accomplishments trying to impress her, and reiterates how smitten he is with her throughout the song. It's his attempt to move on, past their struggles - it doesn't matter, her fears were unfounded and he still loves her.

The Calling is yet another piece of his quest to be a better person and inspire others to do the same. It's told through the story of a son, a clergyman, trying to lead his father to a better life: "Follow the son out of the night, brother, just lean into the light." Interestingly, Brandon draws on his own father's experience with gambling when representing the father's troubles: "His hands still shake when the ponies break out onto the track, his feet still quake when they say they want their money back."

The final song, Have All the Songs Been Written?, brings the whole album full circle. It brings back the macho figure from The Man, but now his bravado has been lost: The Man is on top of the world and brags about how he's got "gas in the tank, money in the bank," while this man has been brought low and laments "Has all the gas been siphoned? Do the banks still carry gold?"

It tells of Brandon's mindset at the beginning of the creation of this album, while he struggled with writer's block for the first time in his life: "Have all the songs been written? Has all the truth been told? Have all these years been worth it, or am I the great regret?" This song reiterates his desire to connect with his wife in the midst of her depression and his own struggles with communication, and calls back to his journey while writing Some Kind of Love: "Have all the songs been written? I just need one to get through to you...when the ship is back in the harbor, I will make you happy again - I can see it, I believe it."

From top to bottom, Wonderful Wonderful is just such an absolutely stunning piece of work, a real masterpiece of songwriting and a truly wonderful exercise in cohesive writing. Every song is connected and their meanings are subtly interwoven, creating a true album, not only a collection of songs.

Happy birthday to my very favorite Killers album.

#haters to the left please #the killers #brandon flowers #wonderful wonderful

[thefreshfinds]

UNDERSTAND M.E: Irate Specialist

By: Natalee Gilbert

These days, New Jersey based rapper Irate Specialist is all-smiles. The science behind his happy-go-lucky attitude stems from being positive and speaking his truth. On average most rappers speak on material goods and degrade women. Specialist, however, puts the pen to pad so he can gain traction from crowds worldwide. Because of this, Specialist overexceeds in creating relatable content. He's simply connecting people by telling his story. His album Understand M.E vouches for this. Describing his genre as positive turn up shit, the 12-tracked project Understand M.E is just that. The project comes with different vibes that caters to different people while still showing others who he is and whats made or broke him. His first album on SoundCloud is titled Don’t Sleep on M.E. For this new project, Specialist wanted it to be personal so people could actually understand him and know who he is. Specialist describes the process for creating Understand M.E like assembling a puzzle. A super fun and loud puzzle. Technicality wise, Specialist wavers in flows but keeps his rhymes enunciated. Aside from this, he throws in incredible punchlines. One being his favorite off one song, "I’m the best if you ask me/ Asshole go rest ‘tween two ass cheeks/ We’re as a whole connected through our energy." Referencing back to Understand M.E, he says "When listening you should expect to get to know me. How see/saw myself, how I see others and how I believe people should see themselves. I believe the best music is honest and vulnerable and I know many people agree. That’s why I love music."

1. The first track, "97" lets Specialist become a narrator and he uses this role to unveil his backstory. With a daunting piano progression striking fear in the speakers, Specialist begins "97" by saying this: "Birthday on a blizzard/The cold world will work with him/Producing patience and wisdom.Through growing pains and learned lessons/Mental breakdown, deep depression." As the track progresses, the piano chords demand to be heard. This one-liner solely represents why, "A quiet mind, a vibrant mind in society, it silenced him." Afterwards, a short-lived break makes way so the prophetic artist can continue his story. However, everything comes together at the minute mark. As a repetitive blare joins forces with live instuments, "97" transitions to "Hooligans"

2. "Hooligans" comes through the speakers with a knock. After glass shatters, "Hooligans" soundscape sounds more playful. Some can even say it draws from video games. In high school, Specialist was one of the cool kids, but still questioned who he was. He says, "depression on my mind was restin' while I was at school." Deeper in tune, Specialist displays different flows that come with enunciated rhymes. Ultimately, one can tell he had fun with "Hooligans" and they wonder if they're one too. Specialist adds that "Hooligan" is just nostalgia and him reminiscing on high school shenanigans

3. "W.O(ah)" is an ode to West Orange. Starting off, Specialist even says "The oranges gave me that zest, so that I can be the fucking best." Moving forward, Specialist continues to make references towards West Orange. For instance, he raps "The juiciest, stay well-dressed/ And when I'm pressed, stay positive." Likewise, Specialist takes the W after mentioning New Jersey native Samad Savage's event, Best Of Essex. At a certain time, Specialist got well-accquainted with instrumentals. Moving forward, he reminsces on those high-school days where his mind was elsewhere. After a long day, he'd go home and put on Kanye West. In turn, he'd get in his zone. Production-wise, "W.O(ah)" is boom-bap ridden and meshes spacey synths with muffled 808's.

4. On the other hand, "Paradigm" speaks about the importance of energy. Aside from this, "Paradigm" speaks on racism and how, despite our skin color, we are all the same. "Paradigm" also says that not everyone has good intentions over a spacey soundscape.

5. "B.F.G" which stands for black friendly guy, advises listeners to pick up on every word. Specialist says that it's best to be aware and optimistic. In a world of naysayers, be the one who changes their way of thinking. Society says black man equals crime, but B.F.G's are meant to break this stigma. Eventually, Specialist says they'll do their part and be accepted. His saying "why be normal?" is thrown into the mix as well.

6. Afterwards, Specialist's alternative R&B classic, “Goddesses” embraces those with black girl magic. He'd be lying if he said that he wasn't coo-coo for cocoa puffs. His main preference, however is authenticity. Regardless of his love interest's hair type, Specialist is sprung. To send positive affirmations, Specialist calls on Dianne Johnson who sings the chorus in a sweet, airy vocal range "you got it, you got it sis." He's come to learn ultimately that every woman is a goddess and it's shown in how they glow. Time and time again, he's dealt with a severed heart, but music always mended the wounds.

7. In the name of Punjabi, "Glad :D ft. Blind Eyez" begins with a snippet of a woman singing in this style. Then, the base has at it, banging through speakers with aggression. "Glad :D" comes with an intention to call out "these little rappers" that are comfortable doing the bare minimum. Rather than invest, they'd spend it on artificial nonsense like new hats or jewelry. In turn, Specialist concludes what this truly means, "So I guess they're happy that they're trash like the Glad bag." Blind Eyez matches Specialist's energy, stating hand-outs in the Garden State is frowned upon. He even goes so far as to say, "I know some artist that moved away to get more support and help themselves. You can't blame them, classic crabs in a barrel." As the track moves forward, "Glad :D" intensifies its baseline and the hi-hats become sporadic. "Glad :D" just so happens to be Specialist's favorite track. "Blind Eyez and I always are able to catch a vibe when we’re in the studio together." he says "Plus hanging out and recording with DJ Denz gives us the freedom to really let loose and have a fun time."  

8. "A Positive" draws from a melodic trap beat and Specialist applauds his positive outlook towards life. Because of this, Specialist has manifested destiny everyday. It's also safe to say his futures looking promising. "A Positive" also speaks on how positivity has gotten him far. He even advises others to do the same in this line, "Push your negative thoughts away, it's the first step you must take. It took me a while to get this way. See the work is worth the wait."

9. Last but not least, "Stop" comes with the intent to motivate others. Over a eerie trap beat, Specialist speaks on how he'll grind until he reaches the top. "Golden thoughts, Midas touch. So you know I'll never stop." His energy, to say the least is transferrable and we, too begin to feel hyped. Besides this Specialist goes in-depth about what hard work can do for you. At this point of time, Specialist says it's gained him only but the finest greenery, acclamations, and melanin goddesses. Yet Specialist gives credit to his positive mindset as well. Once the 2 minute mark hits, his voice gets deeper as he speaks about what else success can do for him. Technicality wise, Specialist uses an oscillating flow with clear-cut rhymes. He says "Stop" is just a hard ass track that he loves. "Honestly its one of my favorite tracks that I’ve made so far." 

Understand M.E also comes with comes with short interludes, “Past,” “Present,” and “Future.”

Listen to Understand M.E below and follow Irate Specialist:

1. Understand M.E:

2. Instagram: @irate_specialist

#spotify #rappers #writers #listen #djs #beats #artwork #hip hop #musicians #irate specialist #newjerseyhiphop #listennow #undergroundmusic #undergroundhiphop #hiphopflow #hiphopwired #hiphopblog #rnbsingers #rnb type beat #xxlmagazine #power1051 #hypealot #hypebeast #rapperswithmeaning

[ecoamerica]

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

#ACLA24 #ACLA24Leaders #youtube #youtube video #climate leaders #climate solutions #climate action #climate and environment #climate #climate change #climate and health #climate blog #climate justice #climate news #weather and climate #environmental news #environment #environmental awareness #environment and health #environmental #environmental issues #environmental justice #environment protection #environmental health #Youtube

[leswansong]

Marichat May - Kitty Cats & Ballet Shoes

Day Five: Cooking/Baking

[ A03 ]

  Birthday… It had been his birthday. Marinette felt like shit for not pushing him further to tell her why he wanted to see her, granted telling him her dress was her best idea in the world and she hadn’t been paying attention when she sent it but the fact he hadn’t said anything about it until he was leaving hurt her. Now she felt like she owed him and that wasn’t a good thing, she hated owing people so here she was walking home with several bags full of the cheapest being supplies she could buy. The bags were heavy but she had no other option but walk the twelve blocks home, she was disappointed that her wallet wouldn’t allow her to but the ingredients she actually wanted, she could have saved her wallet by sneaking over to her childhood home and borrowing them but she wanted to be an adult and pay for everything herself.

  Every few blocks a clink of metal hitting roof-tiles reached her ears, she tried to find the source each and every time she heard it, swearing she was imagining it when she couldn’t find it. She couldn’t pause long to actively search because her arms were starting to give her hell for carrying such heavy bags and the closer she got to home the more they ached, she barely had the strength to open her own front door. She placed down the bags in her right hand to feel around in her purse for her keys and grounded when she couldn’t feel them or hear them in her bag, of course, she had left them on her kitchen counter. Defeatedly she placed her forehead against her old wooden front door trying to ignore the aching pain in her left hand.

  “Need some help ma petite ballerina?”

  Marinette jumped in surprise not expecting to hear his voice behind her, she spun on her heel to face him.

  “Chat?”

  “Who else would it be? You seem… Defeated…”

  “I left my keys inside… again…” she grumbled still angry with herself.

  “Cheer up Princess because I just happen to be a world-class thief and a door shouldn’t be any trouble.”

  “I… I don’t know how I feel about you breaking into my apartment.”

  “You wound me, it’ll only take me a minute,” he replied.

  He reached up into her hair and pulled the bobby pin that was holding a strand of hair in place from her head, her free hand went flying up to where it once sat, he held it up for her to see, reluctantly she backed away from the door.

  “Just… Don’t break the lock.”

  “Really Princess you’re trying to wound my ego even more,” he joked.

  She shook her head in response to his playful attitude.

  Chat quickly got to work on opening her front door and with a flick of his wrist, he turned the heavy doorknob and pushed open the door.

  She smiled at him and reached down for the bags she had put down.

  “I’ve got them,” he told her and he reached down for it, “you head inside.”

  Shrugging her shoulders she headed inside and placed the bags down on her small laminate countertop. Her keys were just where she left them, beside the stove, she frowned and got straight into putting her shopping away in their rightful places. Chat put the rest of the bags down on her small round dining table as well as a manila folder on her countertop, she tilted her head at it but didn’t voice her quires to him. He pulled out items from the bags and looked around confused at her cupboards, giggling she took the bag of sugar from him and pulled down a plastic container from a higher shelf of a cupboard.

  “Pour,” she commanded.

  “Yes, Boss.”

  Slowly she put the rest of the items away apart from the ingredients she needed to cook her own dinner and make a medium size cake. She set about making the cake first tossing aside her original plan of giving it to him as a surprise. She lit her oven to heat it up, she cracked a few eggs and beat them into flour and cocoa powder as well as melted butter. Chat kept his confused gaze on her the entire time she whisked the ingredients together, she smirked at him but didn’t let him in on what she was making.

  “What are you doing?” he finally asked.

  “A cake,” she replied, “wanna help?”

  He enthusiastically nodded his head.

  She moved aside and handed him the wooden spoon so he could continue mixing the ingredients together while she prepared the pan for it.

  “I’ve… I haven’t baked a cake since I was like 5.”

  “Its something I do every other weekend.”

  “Sounds like fun but I… I need your help with something,” he gestured over to the folder, “I need you to label the rooms for me. It doesn’t have to be exact but enough so  I know what rooms are what.”

  She walked around to the opposite side of the counter to where the folder sat, she opened it and pulled out the largest file, unfolding it revealed blueprints of the opera house, she stared at it in amazement it had to be well over two hundred years old.

  “Is… Is this an original?”

  “No photocopied so you could draw on it, the original I have at home.”

  “How did you get your paws on an original?”

  “Rich friends,” he shrugged.

  “You can pour that into the pan,” she instructed and he did as she asked.

  Her eyes went back to the blueprints, so many hidden passageways were displayed on it, she knew of a few but seeing them all was enlightening.

  “My pen… it's near the microwave,” she said not looking up from the paper, Chat reached over the counter to hand it to her, “thank you.”

  “What do you want me to do with…”

  “Oven, be careful it's pretty hot.”

  “Ouch!”

  “Told you,” she called over back over her shoulder.

  She returned to the map and started to write down what each room was for him, some were pretty hard to remember but eventually, they came back to her.

  “Anything else you want me to do?”

  “Label what room the safe is in,” he quipped.

  Marinette pondered his joke question. She had only ever known of one safe and that one had been turned to a nice pile of black ash, she scanned the rooms on the map trying to pin down where she would hide a safe to keep something of great importance out of a would-be thief's hands.

  The easiest way was to find where all the cameras were in the building and narrow it down that way, they would want cameras to cover the entry and exit into the room but there were well over one hundred cameras in the backstage areas. The door would also be locked, you wouldn’t want some lost guest wondering into the room and Marinette knew only of a few doors that had more than just one lock on them. Her eyes tracked down the halls of the opera house to its lower levels where the kept the old props, there were locks on them, why? she didn’t know why but now she had a rough idea why.

  She argued with herself on whether she should tell him. Not telling him would help ensure the necklace would stay safe and out of his hands until he went looking for it down in the basement but telling him… Telling him would grant her more of his trust. Marinette hadn’t known Chat for long but he struck her as the kind of person to not budge from something he had set his mind on, she didn’t doubt that Chat would search all four hundred plus rooms just for the necklace.

  “Marinette?”

  “Hmm?” her eyes met his cat-like ones.

  “You… You okay? You’ve been staring at that map for quite a while.”

  “I’m fine,” she replied trying to assure him.

  “Why are you making a cake?” He asked quickly changing the subject.

  “Well… I- you… the other day, I-“

  “You’re… making this for me?”

  She sighed and reluctantly nodded her head, “yeah…”

  “Marinette… that sweet of you but you didn’t have to.”

  “I felt like I did,” she mumbled.

  “Marinette playing Mecha with you was enough for me.”

  “Okay I get it I’m over thinking it just eat the cake when it's done,” she snapped back bitterly. She hated how he was being so nice why couldn’t he be that threatening figure that had haunted her a few weeks ago and that all the trouble she had gone through to make something for him had been literally for nothing.

  “Hey calm down I’m sorry. Thank you for making a cake for me, I really appreciate it,” he apologised, “hey did you want to play Mecha again.”

  She smiled at him but shook her head, she looked around the room for where she had set down her purse, pushing herself off the countertop and snatched it off the dining table. She pulled out her small sketchbook opening it to a blank page, slowly she started to outline a design for a cake.

  “Wow…”

  She smirked at his reaction, “My parents are bakers,” she explained. He nodded his head along, “I used to design the cakes for them in my spare time, it was a lot of fun and I haven’t done it in a while but you don’t want to hear about that I’m guessing you came over for more than a map being labelled.”

  “Yeah… I- You’re not going to like it but I have a favour I need you to do Ma Ballerine. I don’t know how to put this… the production you’re in, I… Uhh- I need you to sabotage it…”

  “No,” it was a straight answer, there was no way in hell she was going to do as he asked.

  She had grown very close with all of her cast members and doing what he had just asked her would ruin her friendship with them, they were like family to her.

  “I need the focus off of the Christmas production for-“

  He tried to explain his plan to her but she angrily shook her head, “No,” her voice was calm, “I’m not doing that, If someone finds out it's me it’ll ruin my career.”

  “Marinette please listen-“

  “No.”

  “Marin-“

  Marinette couldn’t stop her fiery temper, “Get. Out,” she commanded, articulating each word, he took a step away from her but didn’t listen, “Get Out Chat,” she yelled.

  The thief backed his way to the door and left in silence, she stared daggers into her now shut front door. Yelling at him wasn’t the best idea but the aftermath wouldn’t have been pretty for him. She huffed and started to clean up the mess that came with making a cake in anger, cleaning always calmed her mind. Her anger caved and the wave of regret washed her way, she really felt bad for yelling at him how was he supposed to know what a production meant for her but asking her to sabotage it was… well stupid.

  The smell of burning cake ultimately snapped her away from her death stare at her front door and into action, she pulled the cake out to inspect the damage. the exterior was burnt but she could easily cover that up with icing, which reminded her that she better get started with it. She put the cake on a cooling rack and placed it on an empty shelf in her fridge, ripped the design from her sketchbook, then started mixing the ingredients to a chocolate recipe long ingrained into her head. Her phone rang and buzzed behind her, she ignored it to focus on mixing her ingredients. It rang again and she groaned wishing that the person would stop but they didn’t, the phone kept on ringing.

  She dumped the wooden spoon into the bowel and picked up her phone, Chat’s contact info stared back at her, she rolled her eyes and swallowed her pride and answered it. A wall of apologises came her way, she couldn’t get a word in to stop him, patiently she waited for him to stop. He took a deep breath and the other end fell silent.

  “Chat? Are you okay?” she asked him.

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he apologised.

  “Don’t be, I- I overreacted, come back and I’ll explain… Please?”

  “I- I left my folder… I- I’d be honoured if you let me come back.”

  “An honour? This place? Really Chat, I live here and can see that this place is a dump.”

  “Fine, can I still-“

  “Yes…” She replied dragging out the word out, “You can come back.”

  “Thank you,” he replied just before ending the call.

  She smiled and returned back to the mixing bowl but she couldn’t stop her self from looking over to the manila folder still on her countertop. Her fingers inched towards it and eventually, she gave in and opened it pulling out the thick pile of paperwork from within, her eyes felt over the words not trying to commit any of them to memory until one word caught her attention. She pulled it from the middle of the stack and read the page even more carefully. Names of guards, pictures of them, their schedules and routes they took patrolling the building, there was a lot of sensitive information on the page. Another page held details of camera positions and what type they were, how Chat found this out was curious, she really wanted to know who his sources were. He was meticulous in his researching, the page about the security camera’s even told her what voltage they worked at.

  The knocking at her door made her jump, “Marinette?”

  “Oh no no no,” she mumbled under her breath.

  Frantically she picked up the pages and stuffed them carefully back into the folder, she didn’t want Chat to know she had been snooping, it was only after she had put them all into the folder did she realise her sketch wasn’t on the counter anymore, wide-eyed she stared at the folder.

  More knocking came from her front door.

  “Just a minute!” she called back.

  “I can’t wait Marinette!” his voice was urgent on the other side.

  Marinette groaned and ran open to the front door, Chat smiled back at her but the only thing she could think of was how screwed she was.

Made For @marichatmay

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#marichat may #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug fanfiction #miraculous ladybug fanfic #miraculous #chat noir #marinette dupain cheng #Kitty Cats & Ballet Shoes #SwanSongWrites #I keep drabbling on

[lastoneout]

so, quick question... how did you know you had adhd? i've been relating a lot to the stuff you've been reblogging about it, and i honestly can't tell if that's coincidental or if i should look into it more... but like, i'm an adult and female so like, i hesitate to say i might have it. could i hear some of your thoughts?

Yeah of course!

So first of all, its a very common misconception that ADHD is just a thing that little boys get and then grow out of. It affects all kinds of people, and female/afab adults are hardly ever actually diagnosed because their symptoms present very differently due to societal treatment and other factors. 

ADHD is divided into three types, the Inattentive Type, the Hyperactive-Impulsive Type, and Combination. Women and afab people are more likely to have the ‘inattentive type’ of ADHD, which means stuff like:

Loosing track of time

Forgetfulness

Being very easily bored

Zoning out even in the middle of something important

Having trouble following directions

Hyper-focusing on things you find interesting to the point of not doing anything else

Jump from task to task without ever finishing one

Finding it almost impossible to focus on things that you find ‘boring’

Missing important details and making seemingly obvious mistakes

Executive dysfunction(Not being able to start or complete tasks for seeming no reason even when you really want/need to)

Having a hard time organizing and keeping things clean

Just stuff that would get you pegged by others as a daydreamer or ditsy. Most people do display both kinds of symptoms, it’s just about which ones are more prevalent. So you might also do things like:

Constantly fidget with pens, clothing, basically anything you can get your hands on, bounce/jiggle your legs, or even do self-destructive fidgets like picking at your face or chewing on your nails. Essentially you constantly need to be doing something, sitting still is hard or impossible

Have extremely poor impulse control, interrupt people or finish their sentences, just do things without thinking

Have no patience, and get very annoyed or upset when things take too long

Talk a lot

Need at least two sources of stimulation, such as watching Netflix up also being on your phone, or not being able to concentrate on something like reading or chores without music in the background

I don’t know which I am, but I do display a lot more of the inattentive symptoms than the hyperactive ones, as do most adult women and afab people.

Looking back now it seems kinda obvious that I had it as a kid, I was always drawing in class or fidgeting. I found it easier to focus when there was music playing since the quiet was too distracting. I always forgot stuff even if I made a note so I would write important things all over my arms because then I couldn’t forget. I had fantastic in class participation but could never bring myself to do my homework even when I wanted to or it was easy. Coffee and other things high in caffeine would make me tired and calm instead of hyper. I would hyper-fixate on whatever book I was reading to the point of completely ignoring everything around me and would get unreasonably upset when people would interrupt me. 

And while I don’t have to worry about school work anymore since I’m 23 when I started living alone I began noticing other issues I had, and the more I read about ADHD and people with it I began to suspect that I had it, since I displayed so many of the symptoms, especially the ones more common in adult women and those afab.

I noticed how coffee still didn’t really wake me up, just kinda centered everything, and found out that stimulants work differently on the brains of people with ADHD, usually having the opposite affect, and that most adults with diagnosed ADHD self-medicate with coffee. I realized that even today I had a lot of trouble focusing on stuff I found ‘boring’, and would constantly miss tiny details or completely forget to do really, really important things even though I knew they were important like pay rent or call a repairman. I would hyper-fixate on drawing or video games and not get up to eat or use the restroom for like 5-6 hours. Being bored was excruciating. I had severe executive dysfunction, and it could take me hours to just get out of bed and take a shower and eat. 

I also have what is called Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, which is common in almost all people who have ADHD. Essentially, it causes you to be hyper-sensitive to any kind of rejection, to the point of a full nervous breakdown. For me, the best example is once my boss needed to talk to me because I had done something wrong, and while he was right that I had messed up, I ended up spending the next hour crying nonstop and had to go home. When people say I did something wrong or make fun of me or even just point out a small mistake I made it can ruin my mood for days and cause me to fall into depressive episodes or cry or start thinking about how worthless I am. The worst part of RSD is that most people who suffer from it develop a fear of trying anything new becuase what if they mess up. They also tend to turn into people-pleasers because if even one person around them is upset they view it as their fault and fall into that cycle. Something like that is a big red flag for ADHD. 

I also read how that un-diagnosed ADHD in adult women/afab people can lead to depression and anxiety because they constantly perceive themselves as failing at simple things that other people find so easy, and end up never getting treatment because it doesn’t even occur to them that they could have ADHD. 

As for how I got diagnosed, I had recently started getting help for my depression and anxiety and so I asked my doctor about it and she had me explain everything and answer questions and she eventually agreed that I did have it and gave me adderall to help. It still isn’t perfect, the meds do a lot of good but sometimes they are too much and I end up jittery and start disassociating because the balance of sugar/caffeine/stimulants can get too much especially if you have anxiety, and you may have to try different dosages and types of meds before you find the ones that really work. And meds aren’t the be-all-end-all of treatment. You still need to find ways to manage and work with your symptoms, just like with any other mental problem. 

So, this got really long but essentially if you think you might have ADHD you should look into it and try talking to a doctor. For me, finding out I had it and getting help was so liberating. I almost cried because I finally knew that I wasn’t just stupid or broken or useless, I just had a disorder and there was something I could do to get better.

If you want to read more about all this you should check out ADDitude Magazine  because they have tons of free articles and resources for learning about ADHD and ADD written by and for people with those disorders. and its a really good place to go for info. 

I hope this helped. Sorry it got so long T_T 

#adhd #adhd help #Anon #Asked And Answered

[dragonshost]

Now Leasing: New Beginnings

Chapter 4: Pyramid

Rating: T

Pairing: Cobra x Lucy

Genre: Humor/Romance

Summary:  Lucy has finally achieved her dream, and finalized the purchase of her family’s former home. When she goes to inspect the Heartfilia mansion, however, she finds some very familiar people already occupying it. For CoLu Week 2018.

Word Count: 2,146

On FFN

On AO3

Sorry for the lateness and bulkiness of this chapter.  There’s a lot of exposition, but it’s necessary setup for a joke.  I portray the guild setup here much the same as real estate agencies (with minor differences), and it’s the setup I use as background for pretty much all of my fics.

The main joke in here is one that I have been seriously contemplating devoting an entire fic to.  It’s a fun rabbit hole to consider.

I hope you enjoy.

Lucy contemplated the plans spread out on the kitchen table before her.  It had somehow become their default spot for negotiation and planning, though in part that was mostly due to it being one of the only large, flat elevated surfaces left in the mansion.  Three pieces of glassware held the corners of the drawing secure and still as she inspected it, the fourth weighed down by Macbeth’s slumbering form.

There was a lot that needed to be done, it turned out, to turn a building into a functioning guild hall.

It also took a lot to turn Crime Sorciere’s present organization into a properly functioning guild model, for that matter.

Groaning, Lucy sank into her seat, plunking her head into the table in imitation of Macbeth.  “Why is this so difficult?” she wailed into the paper.

“Because everything in life is,” Cobra responded behind her.

Lucy raised her head, and turned slightly in order to level her fiercest glare at the dragon slayer.

He scoffed at her. “Is that the best you got?”

“No,” she grumbled as he sat down in the chair next to her.  “I’m just too exhausted to deal with you right now.”

“So what’s the problem today?” he inquired, peering over the plans.  “None of this makes much sense to me, but I’ll give it a shot.”

“How generous of you,” Lucy replied sarcastically.  Despite her words, she straightened up in her seat, and pointed at the upper floor of the mansion.  “We need to decide how many rooms we want to keep as bedrooms, and how many we want to convert to other purposes.  Which means figuring out whether you all wish to live here full time as the founding guild members, or do a kind of live-in plan for new members.  I think Jellal is working out the particulars with the Council, but I think he wants to turn this place into a kind of halfway house for rehabilitating mages like yourselves that have run afoul of the law.  It’s a good idea, and I’m not against the property being used for that.”

That last part was a little bit of a white lie, and one that Cobra surely picked up on, but in a rare display of kindness, chose to ignore.  “So what’s the problem, then?” he asked.

“Money.”  Lucy sighed heavily.  “I’ve already got a huge mortgage on this place, as I’m sure you’re aware.  There’s no way I can secure a construction loan on top of it.  Jellal was able to pony up a security deposit and first month’s rent when we signed the rental contract, but unless I go on a well-paid job soon, we won’t be able to afford even the smallest change to this place.”  She shrugged helplessly.  “And you know what my team is like, so saving money is a little difficult for me as it is, even without me dividing my time up between them and this place.”

Cobra hummed in thought, his eye darting over the plans and taking in the proposed alterations. “Wouldn’t it be up to us to pay for it? Since we’re the ones that need the place changed.”

“Eh.”  Lucy held up her hand and made a wobbly gesture with it. “Yes and no.  It’s my property, so capital expenditures are mine to deal with, and fixtures required for business are yours.  Which is which is where things get a little nebulous.”  She heaved another side and rubbed her temple with her fingers.  “Neither Jellal nor I really want to hire a lawyer to sort it out on our behalf, but it’s beginning to look like that will be necessary in the long run.  Though it’ll all be moot anyway if I can’t drum up enough money to hire one in the first place.”

“Sounds tough,” Cobra stated.  “How does a traditional guild make money, by the way?  Brain’s flow of income was never exactly obvious to the rest of us, and we weren’t interested besides, so I don’t really have a frame of reference.”

His interest in the matter perked Lucy’s spirits up slightly.  “It’s kind of like a pyramid structure,” she told him.  Reaching down to the pile of supplies by her feet, she placed a blank sheet of paper onto a clipboard and drew a triangle on it.

“I thought those were bad things,” Cobra muttered as he watched her draw.

“Pyramid schemes are a pretty common way of scamming people, it’s true,” agreed Lucy.  “But they’re also pretty useful for displaying money flow.” She drew two horizontal lines near the top of the triangle, sectioning off two small sections.  In the bottom, largest section, she wrote Guild Members.

She tapped that section with her pen.  “As you’re probably aware, in a typical guild structure a job is posted with a set reward, which the guild members take and earn upon completion.  What most people don’t realize, is that the monetary amount posted on the job is not actually the full amount being paid out.”  To the side of the pyramid, she scribbled Clients and wrote 1,200 Jewel under it, and then circled both.  “Say a client is willing to pay 1,200 Jewel for a job.  Of that amount, 1,000 will be posted as the reward on a job flyer, while 200 will be retained by the guild as payment for coordination services.  In addition, clients will also pay a small posting fee.”  Lucy wrote a plus sign and 50 under the 1,200 Jewel she inscribed earlier. Then she labeled the middle section Guild and wrote in 250 Jewel below it, and then added 1000 Jewel to the Guild Members section.

Glancing up, she asked, “Following me so far?”

“Sure,” Cobra said, his gaze still intent on her makeshift diagram.  “But what’s the upper section of the pyramid for?”

Lucy drew a vertical line down the middle of the final section, labeling one half Era and the other Gov.  “Guilds have to pay fees and taxes to both the country they’re located in, and to Era for services provided.  These fees and taxes go towards services for mages, and they form a large part of Era’s operating budget from what Levy and Mest have told me.”

Cobra thought about it for a moment.  “I guess that makes sense.”          

“There’s more,” Lucy warned him, and restrained a giggle at his resulting sigh. “For simplicity’s sake, let’s say that the amounts due the government and Era are fixed at 5,000 Jewel each.” Outside of the pyramid, Lucy wrote in 5,000 Jewel on each side since she hadn’t left enough room in the diagram itself.  “So basically, the Guild has to make enough money to pay off those obligations, and make enough to fund repairs to guild halls, or providing other things for mages.   Fairy Tail has a souvenir shop and a bar with a kitchen to help supplement the income from the jobs, but the margin of profit on both is actually very small if I understood Max correctly when he explained all of this to me.”

Holding up a finger, Lucy waggled it at Cobra.  “But there’s actually a second structure that some guilds use instead of this one.”

“Seriously?” Cobra muttered.  “Isn’t just having one confusing enough?”

“Apparently some guilds combine the two methods as well,” Lucy informed him. “Which I imagine makes the guild accountants cry.”

“I don’t blame them.  So what’s the other method?”

“The guild members pay a monthly fee to the guild, and keep all of the job reward.  I think there’s still a posting fee that the guilds retain, but yeah the members get to keep everything.  If they don’t go on jobs, though, they run the risk of incurring a large debt to their guild, however, so I’m not particularly fond of this method.”

“Wouldn’t you run much the same risk the other way, though?” Cobra pointed out. “If you don’t go on jobs, you won’t have money for your bills anyway.”

“I guess you have a point,” Lucy acknowledged.  “I guess it kind of depends on personal preference.”  She smiled at him.  “So… how does Crime Sorciere handle its finances?”

Cobra shrugged.  “Communal fund, maybe?  I’m not sure. Jellal keeps track of it all in his head, so I try to tune him out when he starts thinking too much on it. Usually when one of us needs something, we just ask Jellal to fork over the Jewels for it.”

Lucy blinked at him, a little gob smacked.  “And that… works for everyone…?” she ventured.

“Pretty much, yeah.”  When her stunned silence continued for longer than he liked, Cobra added, “Listen, it’s not like we’ve ever had proper spending money of our own with how we grew up. I doubt we’d know how to manage it, honestly.”

Pursing her lips, Lucy frowned.  “Call me strange, but even if you do make mistakes with your income, it’s still yours to make the mistakes with.  Financial autonomy is a pretty important thing to have, you know?”

Cobra shrugged.  “If you say so.”

Seeing that she wasn’t going to be able to press issue further with Cobra, Lucy decided to let it go for now.  “Alright, it’s your decision to make.  But maybe we should look into hiring a guild accountant before anything else, yeah? That way Jellal doesn’t have to… to keep it all in his head.”

“You’re surprised by that,” Cobra observed with delight, a cruel smile spreading across his face.  “What, is that something the great Heartfilia Heiress can’t manage herself?”

“Hell no.”  Lucy laughed at Cobra’s taken aback expression over her blunt, honest answer. “It’s a lot to keep track of.  I hire an accountant to go over my personal taxes every year.”

“Do you make them cry?” Cobra asked, his smile returning.

Lucy hesitated a second too long without responding, resulting in Cobra letting out a great laugh that filled the kitchen.  “You do, don’t you?!” he howled with laughter.

Giggles filled Lucy as she, reluctantly, admitted that Cobra had her pegged.  “Okay, you’ve got me there.  In my defense, my life is an utter mess.  So the accountant really should have realized that my finances would be, too.”

“However you wanna justify it to yourself.”

A groan emanated from the third occupant of the kitchen, the fourth paperweight on Lucy’s plans of the mansion.  “You two are too noisy,” Macbeth complained.

“Sorry,” Lucy apologized to her former enemy.  “If you prefer, I can return to talking about finances.  Maybe that will put you back to sleep?”

Her suggestion only sent Cobra into a greater fit of laughter than before and set her to grinning in wicked delight as well.  Macbeth sent Lucy a disgusted look before standing up and stalking out of the kitchen.

Privately, Lucy had to admit that Cobra had a nice laugh.

Suddenly, Cobra’s laughter ceased entirely.  “Wait a minute,” he said.  “So how is it that Fairy Tail makes any money?”  He waved her off when she opened her mouth to repeat her earlier lecture. “No, no.  I get the basic system.  But with Fairy Tail having to pay all sorts of damages and fines, how are they able to make enough money to keep the guild going?”

Lucy hesitated.  Her first instinct was to propose the bar and souvenir shop’s proceeds to make up the deficit, but then she remembered how little profit those endeavors actually made. In fact, the bar’s proceeds largely came from the members of Fairy Tail themselves.  Some of whom had racked up a significant unpaid tab.  Then, with all of the furniture that the members regularly destroyed…  Lucy had never heard of the guild members being forced to pay back the guild for any damages to guild property.  Somehow, Makarov had pulled together enough funds to completely redo the place as well back when she first joined.

“For that matter,” Cobra continued, either oblivious to the gears turning in Lucy head, or uninterested, “how is it that Fairy Tail can get away with destroying so many towns and such with pretty much no repercussions?  You’d think somebody would be pissed about their home being gone.”

Although she wished she could deny it, the fact of Fairy Tail’s destructive leanings was extremely common knowledge.  It was hard to reconcile how much Fairy Tail obliterated with the height of the guild’s popularity.

“It… it creates construction jobs…?” Lucy offered tentatively.  “Puts that back into the economy…?”

Cobra stared at her dead-on, his single violet eye unblinking.  “Is Fairy Tail getting…”

It was Lucy’s turn to cut him off.  “Let’s not finish that thought.”

He considered it for a moment, but eventually nodded.  “That sounds safer, yeah.”  Briefly shaking himself, he then shrugged and changed the subject.  “You hungry?”

“Starving.”

With that, the two tried their hardest to put their lingering suspicions out of their minds.

#colu week 2018 #colu #cobra/erik #lucy heartfilia #fairy tail #fanfiction

[ambunny]

If it isnt too much trouble can I ask you to go in depth about the Yiynova tablet you have? I've been looking at display tablets for a while and you're the first artist I've followed using this brand, and im curious about the what you like and dislike about it

Hey there! I’m no master reviewer, but I can share my thoughts and experiences using this tablet. I hope it’s of some help to you!

Firstly, the model I have is the early model Yiynova MSP19U, which I got back in July 2013, making it around 5 years that I’ve had this tablet. I believe they don’t make this exact model anymore, they seem to have upgraded it to an MSP19U+. The one I have does not have the side buttons, the face of the tablet is completely blank (this is preferable to me though, as I’m left handed and having shortcut buttons on the left side would not be useful to me anyways!).

Here’s an old image of what it looked like on its sale page:

I’ll now mention some of my opinions in pros and cons that I’ve seen while using this product. Keep in mind this was my first monitor tablet, and it’s still the one I currently use! I have never used a Cintiq or seen another brand in use other than a Huion of similar size that my housemate owns, so I don’t have enough experience with other brands to compare them to this one.

PROS-

-cost, does its job well for much cheaper than many other competitive tablet brands

-viewing angles are great, I use this tablet both for art and also as my main viewing monitor for watching videos and browsing websites

-monitor settings/programming are very nice and have many options for customizing

-pen pressure is responsive, minimal lag, feels very natural to draw on

-size is large, can easily display art programs + open reference images and has lots of workspace to utilize

-colour quality is excellent. May require some adjustment through monitor settings to get to what you want. It also had no dead pixels on arrival, and 5 years later I only have one or two dead pixels on the entire thing that are barely noticeable.

CONS-

-pen it came with has a few annoying quirks: the buttons on it are easy to accidentally press (which causes it to interrupt lines) but are programmable and can be disabled, which I did. The pen also is not rechargeable and uses 1 AAA battery, which gives it a weight some people may dislike (I prefer it though, & I use rechargeable AAAs anyway). It has a screw-on cap which unfortunately can be easily over-tightened by accident, this has caused my pen’s cap plastic to split a bit, making it easy for the cap to fall off while drawing. Taping it shut has helped, although it’s annoying. Lastly, the pen’s thin rubber grip cover can slip off super easily, it can be annoying while drawing (I’ve since just removed it entirely). I have heard that they’ve updated the design of the pen to no longer be the one I have, and fix the many issues mine had. But I have not been able to try out the new pen design yet. Here’s what my pen looks like:

The new pen design shown in all of their pages now is this:

From the pictures I can see that this new pen is reinforced so it shouldn’t be able to be overtightened, and it seems to have a texture throughout instead of a removeable grip that slips. It still runs on battery, and the buttons are placed in a way it still looks like they might be easy to accidentally click during drawing, though.

-vesa stand plastic quality is a bit poor, mine recently had the hinge holding it together shatter, which made the tablet no longer able to be adjusted in height/angle. I had to do a DIY fix haha, so far it’s holding up okay but not as well as when it was in original working order. Here’s a small picture of my broken vesa stand hinge, pointing to the part on the tablet that I’m referring to:

-VGA cable is a bit outdated and also a very delicate, susceptible to bending. VGA is an old input that many newer computer graphics cards don’t support, so I had to purchase a VGA to DVI converter. Minor issue, as it works fine with the converter. The second problem is a bit more serious. The cables on the yiynova are very seemingly delicate. They worked fine for the first few years of use, but now if I so much as bump the cable, it distorts the display and makes it flash in RGB colours. This is due to my computer setup requiring me to bend the cable slightly in order to fit in the VGA converter + tablet cable between the wall my computer is against. Right now I’m at a point where I have to manually bend/straighten some parts of the cord using zip ties, for the display to show proper colours. Here’s a short video showing what I’m talking about, in it I am bumping the VGA cable to show how the screen goes to magenta by a simple touch (warning for people with epilepsy, flashing colours):

https://www.youtube.com/embed/3_B6Vsv6deA

-screen resolution is a bit weird to work with at times, 1440 is fine but 900 is on the lower side. Other reviewers have complained about fuzzy resolution, but it doesn’t bother me so much and/or I don’t notice it as much, but I would definitely prefer an HD version. However, for the cost this serves its job well.

-size is great workspace wise, but this tablet is far too big and heavy to easily take with during travel. For those who travel, this is definitely a home model not intended for that.

Ultimately, I truly believe this tablet is worth it. It is easy and fun to work with. You get what you pay for, as there are some mild quality issues BUT these may have been fixed or improved upon in the updated versions. I don’t have much money and can’t afford to replace higher-end purchases like this, so I tend to use things I have for as long as possible until they are entirely dead and irreparable, hence the DIY things I’ve done to repair the pen, vesa stand, and VGA cable. I’m not sure how long a tablet like this is supposed to last, but this one has survived 5 years of heavy use, including moving house multiple times as well as across country, and cats that like to play with cables and loose pens.

This is all I can think of for now, I hope it helped! Feel free to ask me if you have any specific questions :D

#tablet #yiynova #yiynova msp19u #review #text #ask #uwu-tang-clan