#also for some reason it says the image could contain sensitive stuff

[bamdyalt]

Here is some of my art stuff I did

This is for the dave and bambi community what's around us, you guys are amazing, we dont want to start the dramatic/drama, bring back the nostalgia, old memories and some other stuff you know about❤

Its about caring, like life, love and other stuff

Like reading books, drawing, playing music, making videos and images you draw

With good friends like: @ana65356 @daveandbambifan0505 @berrywasherealways @friendsarecorrupted @franny-demon3 @greatpersontyphoon

We dont want this drama @berrywasherealways and @greatpersontyphoon, be brave, strong and healthy

Imma show you art

(Btw these are behind the scenes)😮😮

Bring back the memories and nostalgia you had back for a year, where were you born along time? Where was your birthday back in old years? Where was it? You know where you born in, you know everything back in,

I hope you remember all the things you had..

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LOVE YOU GUYS..

(FINISHED ONES🗣🗣🔥🔥🔥)

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(Read all that btw i copy and paste this on fandom)

in: Spoilers, Pages with copyrighted assets, Golden Throne, 

and 56 more

English

Vs. Dave and Bambi

52VIEW SOURCEVIEW HISTORY

This article is about the official Dave and Bambi mod. For the Halloween mod, see VS. Dave and Bambi: Dave's Late Halloween. For the Golden Apple Edition, see Vs. Dave and Bambi: Golden Apple Edition.MainCharactersMusicGallery

Warnings: Content/Trigger Warning, Spoilers, Copyrighted.

Notices: Golden Throne, Large Page, Upcoming Content, Unfinished Page.

This article contains potentially sensitive content that may be discomforting or upsetting to certain users. Viewer discretion is advised! Reason: Dave and Bambi's source games are Dave’s Fun Algebra Class, Marcello's Fun House and Dave's House, those are Baldi's Basics mods. The 3D models come from there, and Baldi's Basics is unsettling already. Also, Expunged's losing icon in Unfairness and poses may be slightly creepy to some, there is also a secret jumpscare with the Exorcist Girl. In the Furiosity Alpha 4 dialogue, Dave threatens to kill GF. Boyfriend says the N word, and Dave calls Boyfriend the R slur in the old alternate Insanity dialogue. Bambi's original voice sample has a lot of suggestive words. The dialogue for the Vs. Dave Thanksgiving song also is very suggestive.

This article contains content that may bring users with past trauma, to something that might cause a physical and/or mental reaction. Viewer discretion is advised! Reason: Furiosity, Polygonized and Glitch all have a feature that will change the hue of everything on screen, this will also cause the screen to shake. The screen also shakes when Expunged sings in Unfairness.

Oh please, you don’t even know the full story. - Abby

This page contains spoilers that may ruin the player's experience. View at your own risk or after playing the mod itself! Reason: Spoilers for the Secret songs, Daves Endings, and the Lore, mainlly from Terminal section.

Singing Vs. Dave and Bambi's favorite song might call out their attention and stuff. - Shaggy

This article contains copyrighted music, files, or other copyrighted assets that can claim copyright infringement. Reason: One of Dave's song: Five Nights, is based on the "Five Nights at Freddy's 1" Song by The Living Tombstone, which is a copyrighted song.

I'M NUMERO UNO!!! - Eduardo

This mod is on the golden throne! It has more than 1,000,000 views on its download page and it can considered one of the best and most remembered mods in the Friday Night Funkin' community! Reason: The mod has great reception among fans, reaching more than 720 likes on GameBanana, 1.0M views as of 11/3. This mod also has dedicated fanbase creating fan-mods and "questionable" fantracks.

I don't know shraggy, Vs. Dave and Bambi is really big! - Scooby-Doo

The article currently has 87,503 bytes, and could take a long time to load. Please proceed with caution and wait for it to load patiently.

The game isn't over. - MX

This mod has upcoming content that is confirmed to be in development, either confirmed on a livestream, a tweet, or any other verified source of information. Upcoming: A 3.5 is on the way, and it's very likely for the Cheating remake to make its way to the update.[1]

I’m surprised someone as small as you didn’t break anything! - A.G.O.T.I.

This article lacks content, whether it be lacking Assets, Trivia, Music, or something else. You can help Funkipedia Mods Wiki by expanding it with more info! Thank you! Reason: 01/02/2022: Tristan's animated death, retry, hit and attack poses are needed. Also, his old and golden versions are missing animations. We also need Dave's poses for Splitathon but animated. Some old and playable Bambi idles are missing too. There's also some extra characters hidden in the charting menu that need to be added. 11/02/2022: Mr. Bambis info, static Animations. Marcello Dave, animated poses for Davefriend, and a early 3.0 build was found in the description of this video

Vs. Dave and Bambi

Logo (3.5, Upcoming)

Logo (3.0, Current)

Logo (Exploitation)

GB Banner (Dave & Bambi)

GB Banner (Dave)

GB Banner (Bambi)

Logo (1.0 - 2.5d)

Logo (Beta 1 - Beta 2)

Basic information

Release

April 6th, 2021

Version

3.0 3.5 (upcoming 2023)

Engine

Dave Engine (Modified Kade Engine 1.2)

Credits

Owner(s)

MoldyGH

Director(s)

MoldyGH

Creator(s)

MoldyGH

Charter(s)

MoldyGH

pointy

Composer(s)

MoldyGH Alexander Cooper 19 ArchWK The Boneyard Top 10 Awesome

Artist(s)

rapparep LOL (Main Artist) TheBuilderXD (Secondary Artist/Tristan Creator) evdial (3.0 Bambi Artist)

Programmer(s)

MissingTextureMan101 (Secondary Developer) Erizur (Asset Maker/Programmer) T5mpler (Programmer/Assistor) (former) Stats45 (Moral Support + Some Programming)

Misc

Marcello_TIMEnice30 (Mr Bambi) Alexander Cooper 19 (Mealie Fan Song) ArchWk (Supernovae) The Boneyard (Glitch) OBVIOUS_NINJA (Boyfriend Harmor Preset)

Vs. Dave and Bambi, formerly Vs. Dave, is a mod created by MoldyGH based on the Baldi's Basic mods, Dave’s Fun Algebra Class, Marcello's Fun House and Dave's House. It currently has 6 weeks, 7 playable characters, 32 songs, and more than 25 different versions/updates

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Who is dave??

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SON YOU CALLED THE COPS!?”― Dave, Post-Splitathon (3.0)

Dave Algebra Class[2], or simply Dave, is the first opponent of the mod.

Appearance

1.0 - Current

Dave has the appearance of a very young adult, in his 20s with a round head (and skull). He has almost shaved brown hair, with round bangs on the sides and also round eyes with black pupils, black lines near his forehead and hair that serves as eyebrows, along with a simple but wide grin. He wears a blue set of long-sleeved clothing, consisting of a medium-colored shirt and dark-colored pants. Due to an scientific experiment, Dave lost the rest of his legs that come just after his shins, having dark metal lozenge-shaped plates as replacements, in addition to always sitting in a black and light gray wheelchair. He keeps his left hand closed on his waist, while his right hand is bent forward and holding a microphone. Dave's icons show his head with a smile and a blue color. In the defeat, he is shown with his eyebrows having an X shape in place of pupils, and showing his teeth clenched.

In Insanity, Dave is slighty bothered with a cocky smile. His poses also show the same cockiness.

In Polygonized and certain parts of Insanity, Dave becomes three-dimensional, but his overall appearance remains identical, only his expression changing to one of panic, anguish, anger or fear. His icons show him terrified, with a clear reddish color.

In Splitathon, Dave is extremely confident, with an even bigger and open smile, showing his teeth. Both of his hands are now clenched on his hips, no microphone. Instead, his chair opens a compartment similar to a cup holder, but freeing up a microphone with a cable long enough to get close to Dave's face. In newer versions, the microphone tip is bluish. His icons (in Insanity and Splitathon) show him confident, and surprised in defeat, even sweating.

In the Corn Festival, Dave wears a farmer outfit similar to Bambi's, with a dark green short-sleeved shirt, matching hat, and a dark gray farmhouse jumpsuit with a pocket and a corn design above the pocket. His icons are identic, except the color is now dark green instead of blue. In Interdimensional, his icon is light blue-green.

In Vs. Dave Rap, Dave is facing the player's screen with a serious look. He wears sunglasses, a blue sweatshirt with a cap and pockets, in which Dave keeps his hands, and dark gray bluish pants. He wears sunglasses in the icon.

In Five Nights, Dave is wearing a security suit similar to the other FNaF night guards, in addition to his chair being slightly more modern, having only one wheel. The attire consists of a dark blue cap with a 'Security' tab in the middle of the cap, a baby blue dress shirt, a regular tie and pants of the same color as the cap, along with a gold badge on the left side of the chest. Dave also holds a beige mug in his left hand, written 'I Love Pizza', with a heart and pizza design representing the last two words.

In Overdrive, Dave is drawn in very poor quality, and looks much smaller. His eyes, arms, and head sometimes don't go along with his body, leaving them out of their sockets. His metal plates are square instead. of lozenges. His icon is replaced with the ones used by Top 10 Awesome.

In Recursed, when the colors change to the opponent's palette, Dave has his shirt, hair and microphone white, while his pants turn dark gray. Like the others, his expression changes to one of fear (normal) or confusion (3D).

Inside the files, it's possible to find a sprite sheet in Dave's folder called Davefriend. It's Dave's normal sprite, but with Girlfriend's face, and imitating the same poses as her, pointing the index finger. His finger nails are also painted blue, matching his clothing, as are hers (painted red, matching the dress). His icon imitates Girlfriend's icon, lacking amouth and having small eyelashes.

Pre-Alpha - Beta

In the first versions of the mod, Dave is identic as now, however, his drawing is more simpler and his hair color was lighter. His placeholder sprite at the Pre-Alpha version is a entirely flicky white and silver recolor of Daddy Dearest, even including the microphone, but with the gum (of teeth), belt, buckle and eyes remaining unchanged.

Personality

Dave is quite competitive, lively, and slightly calm, but seems to have some habit of stuttering when surprised (as seen in the House cutscene). Living in the "middle of nowhere" doesn't seems to bother him too much, as that doesn't mean he's completely alone. On the other hand, his son Tristan sometimes easily takes away his good manners, causing Dave to lose some of his polite language and curse his son right away. Despite this, Dave is not a violent father, as he is only very strict with his son.

He appears to be irritated or annoyed when he loses to someone (Dave's sprite in Insanity is called "dave-annoyed" in the game files) but maintains his composure despite this. The bad part of this is that the chances of him starting to turn his surroundings into 3D, and with that destroying the world, increases, and as seen in Furiosity/Polygonized, Dave doesn't have good control over the 3D world. It is revealed in the terminal texts logs that Dave turns the world 3D due to his interdimensional dislocation, which is triggered when Dave is under a mass amount of stress.

Trivia

Story

Dave broke his legs because of an experiment in a science place he used to work.[1]

Dave met Bambi while Bambi was trying to steal corn in a corn maze.[1]

Dave went to a tournament with other mod characters, but it's unknown which characters were at or about what the tournament was exactly.[citation needed]

Personal Life

Dave AlwAyS Hated ur mom [1]

Dave's right pose for Bambi Update resembles the first mod banner.

Strangely, Dave's icons get darker and darker as versions go by. Dave's first icon in the Pre-Alpha was a pale light blue, while his 3.0 icon is a saturated dark blue.

Simping for Dave is illegal.[1]

Gallery

In-Game

In-Game (Old)

Icons

Sprite sheets

Scrapped

Dialogue Portraits

Other

Normal

Insanity/Memory (2nd Half)

Polygonized

Splitathon

Interdimensional

Rano

Vs. Dave Rap

Five Nights

Overdrive

Recursed

Davefriend (Unused)

Dave's static idle in Warmup, House, Bonus Song and Memory (1st Half).

V-Pose, used in playable version, at the end of Polygonized and Memory

🍕🍕🍕

Who is bambi??

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Bambi

Bambi Bambi Bambi

Normal

Splitathon

Shredder (2)

Mealie (2)/Indignancy

Recursed

Normal (Scrapped 3.0 Remaster)

Normal (2.5)

Splitathon (2.5)

Angry (2.0-2.5)

Playable

Playable (Week 4)

Playable (Week 5)

Playable (Week 6)

Normal (2.5 Beta)

Normal (2.0)

Splitathon (2.0)

Angry (Scrapped)

Really Angry (Scrapped)

Normal (1.0)

Normal (Beta 2)

Normal (Joke/Beta 1)

Normal (Bambi Update - Alpha 9)

Splitathon (Playtester Build 1 - 1.0)

Aliases

Bambi Bamb Bamber Marcello

Relationships

Spong (Best Friend) Bob (Best Friend) Dave (Friend[1]) Tristan (Friend) Boyfriend (close friend or frenemy) Girlfriend (close friend or frenemy)

Biographical information

Sexuality

Aromantic Asexual

Age

34

Place of birth

João Pessoa, Brazil

Status

Alive

Physical description

Species

Deity

Gender

Male

Height

1'2" (two hotdogs)[4]

Eye color

Black (Normal) White & Black (Angry)

Hair color

Bald

Appearances

Created by

rapparep lol[3]

Appears in

Friday Night Funkin' (as a skin mod over Boyfriend) Vs. Dave and Bambi (Friday Night Funkin' mod)

Debut

Marcello's Fun House

Character Icons

Normal

With Dave (Freeplay)

Mealie (Freeplay)

Angry

Normal (Scrapped)

With Dave (Scrapped, Freeplay)

Angry (Scrapped/Unused)

Normal (Unused)

Normal (2.0 - 2.5)

With Dave (2.0 - 2.5 Freeplay)

Angry (2.0 - 2.5)

Joke

Normal (1.0)

With Dave (1.0.2 Freeplay)

Normal (Alpha 9 - Beta 2)

Normal (Bambi Update - Alpha 7)

Angry (Scrapped)

“I NEVER TOLD YOU THAT YOU COULD USE MY PHONE!!!”― Bambi, Post-Splitathon

Bambi Bambi Bambi, or simply known as Bambi, is the 2nd opponent of the mod.

Appearance

Bambi is portrayed as a short, flat, left-handed farmer with slightly dark skin and eyes shaped like blunt triangles with black dots serving as pupils, holding a microphone and his cell phone (similar to an old-fashioned telephone). He wears a large green hat, which has his eyebrows on, along with a red shirt or tank top and blue overalls. Bambi doesn't have hair, arms, neck or ears; his hands just float in the air, close to his chest. His legs are also round and apparently footless. His skeleton is just a single vertical bone, but he has normal bones in his hands.

In Splitathon, Bambi has a serious expression, and waves his hands back and forth. He wears blue pants or shorts, changing out of his overalls. After his verses, he eats an ear of corn behind Dave.

In Shredder, Bambi uses a red and white guitar, similar to a toy guitar from Guitar Hero.

In Mealie and Indignancy, Bambi has a very angry expression, gritting his teeth, having lines covering his pupils serving as white irises. He keeps his hands closed and continues to crumple his already broken cell phone. The cell phone has several cracks on the screen and film.

In Recursed, when the colors change to the opponent's palette, Bambi has a white hat, shirt and microphone, while his overalls turn dark gray. His expression changes to anger.

Personality

Bambi is a complete hothead and corn fan, but he also seems to be pretty slow in terms of thinking quickly. He always starts off by accusing anyone who enters his farm as a "corn thief" and banishing them when given the chance (calling it blocking), even though it is hypocritical of him as he stole Zardy's farm and only had written his name over Zardy's. If someone ends up beating him, he steps back and says little by little that it's a draw, until he meets the thief again (although he gradually accepts the presence of Boyfriend and Girlfriend). Even when trying to explain, his explosive reactions and unwilling-to-listen behavior makes reasonable communication difficult.

His relationship with Dave is pretty messed up. Bambi acts purely on impulse, and Dave can only talk and make Bambi listen after Bambi has already done something stupid (like breaking the very cell phone Dave bought him). Bambi mostly interrupts Dave when he says something (hanging up on him, taking his turn for himself), and it's become so normal for Dave that he smiles after Bambi takes his turn at Splitathon for the second time.

In the joke songs, Bambi changes his behavior to something even more idiotic. His lines are meaningless, and he constantly proclaims himself the winner before the start of a song.

Trivia

Bambi has stolen Zardy's farm.[1]

If Zardy would one day come back to his farm, Bambi would throw a phone at him.

Bambi's favorite Wii Game is Wii Sports.[citation needed]

Bambi's favorite Wii Sports game is Bowling.

Bambi goes to corn mazes and steals corn.[1]

According to the terminal texts, Bambi is a god.

More specifically, he is a forgotten god.

Bambi came into existence for no reason.[1]

Bambi can make friends with everyone.[1]

Bambi got his hat in a corn maze.[1]

Bambi can get so angry he loses his head, keeps his eyes and turns red.

This is a reference to Marcello's Fun House, where he does exactly that after the player collects the second notebook.

Bambi mooches off of Dave occasionally.

Bambi is made of human flesh[1], but his skeleton as seen on the game over screen of multiple versions show that he has only one bone.

Bambi has a lot of hours on Counter Strike Source.[1]

Bambi hates anime.[citation needed]

Whenever he wants to visit Dave, he teleports because he lives so far away.[citation needed]

The Bambi in Cheating and Unfairness are not actually Bambi, and rather an entity known as Expunged, the reason why it looks like Bambi is because Bambi's joke sprite sheet is the first one they saw.[5]

Bambi has managed to get grounded three times.[citation needed]

One time was when he destroyed the buildings because he didn't want to go to Cici's Pizza, he wanted to go to Burger King for lunch instead.

The second time was when he built a deadly roller coaster and kills an "ugly kid" named Exbungo.

The third time was when he stole Dave's "car" and caused minor crimes such as running into boxes, overthrowing a police, killing a man, and destroyed a line of cars. He was sentenced to jail for 25 years and was grounded for life.

Bambi has godlike powers, but he's too dumb to realize that.[6]

Bambi and Marcello are not the same entity. Marcello's Fun House was only inspiration for the original Bambi mod, not an official prequel.[7]

When Moldy, the creator of the mod, was asked for the first time what Bambi is, he said: "Ummm... *short sigh* I-I don't know. I have-I have no clue genuinely."[1]

If Bambi were to die, in Rapparep's (or Jumpman's) words, "If Bambi died, the whole universe would... Collapse on itself." but Moldy (Or Rapparep idfk) said, "If Bambi died... He'd be dead."[1]

Bambi can erase someone's YT channels.[1]

In Splitathon, Bambi has gone through 2 idle animation changes. In the playtester build and 3.0, he swings his arms around him, but in every other version, he has his hands next to him, and streches downwards.

Bambi's not real, he can't hurt you.

Bambi's phone in Indignancy has not only got cracks on the screen, but pieces of it have been broken off.

#dave and bambi #art #fnf dave and bambi #fnf dnb #vs dave and bambi #dave and bambi golden apple #bamdy draws #dave fnf #artists on tumblr #daves fun algebra class #nostalgiacore #nostalgia #nostalgic #nostaligiacore #Spotify

[obsidianfr3sk]

true colors

@renegadesnet event 10: pride

↪ [ “But everything was temporary. And pain was one of those things. Well, except love. Everything but love was temporary. Or that was what he liked to believe.” ]

Summary: Two years after the supernova, after Tamaya notified them the gearboxes that contained the lights had gotten soaked and that she needed the money to buy more before the next day (June 1st), Simon realized they were not enough for him anymore. 

Simon wanted a bigger flag. 

No. He wanted two. The biggest pride flags he could find.

AO3

Hello, friends!! I hope you’ve been having an excellent pride month and have been eating a lot rainbow cake and pissing off a lot of conservatives with the mere fact of your wonderful existence:’) As my contribution to this month and the event organized by @renegadesnet, I decided to write a fic focused on my favorite gay dads and their sons (bc I’m me, and you should have seen this coming.) 

Before you read, I want to give a trigger warning: at the start of a fic I talk about a homophobic attack, which is not graphic or violent per se (it’s someone in the middle of the night taking away the flag they put outiside the house), and I do discuss about internalized homophobia during some parts of the story. If you read it and are sensitive to this kind of stuff, proceed with caution and take care of yourself <3

Also, this entry is a collaboration with my talented mother @healing-winston-pratt, who is going to be uploading some fanart of this in a near future, so keep an eye on that👀 she’s the best skjhkjds thank you for accepting to collaborate, I feel this is a great bonding activity and I hope we can do this more often✨

I need to update my tag list because a lot of the people who were included are not active as active as they were before/changed their URLs. But I’m going to tag @the-wee-woo-rita @lackadae @all-weather-is-bad @chiyuki-hiro bc you guys are the only ones who are still active users who I had on my previous tag list lol

With that said, I hope you enjoy this fic. I think that despite the angsty parts, it came out really fluffy and domestic, it was fun to write. And to all my queer silbings who are reading this: I am very proud of you.  

But I see your true colors shining through.

I see your true colors, and that's why I love you.

So don't be afraid to let them show.

Your true colors,

true colors are beautiful like a rainbow

Simon couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t know he was gay.

There was a time when he didn’t know he was gay, of course. He was probably too young to even comprehend the meaning behind that word. And there was also a moment in his life when he felt embarrassed about it, and sad, and angry, and really, really scared, and probably thought that no matter how hard he tried, he was never going to be happy living the life he wanted to live.

That the pain was never going to end. That he was going to be miserable for the rest of his existence, and that maybe, there was no point in existing if he was going to stay like that until the day he died.

But everything was temporary. And pain was one of those things.

Well, except love. Everything but love was temporary. Or that was what he liked to believe.

That was the reason why, the first year after the Day of Triumph, he told Hugh they should get a rainbow flag for their house. They went to one of the first stores that opened at the mall (that had just been remodeled after twenty years of being abandoned) and bought one at a not so affordable price. Simon offered himself to install it on one of the fence pillars and had to spend thirty minutes listening to Hugh telling him that maybe he should let him do it, that the ladder Kasumi had lent them was ratty, and that Simon was going to fall.

Fortunately, Simon didn’t. He did almost fall, though, when he was about to pass out from stress because seeing Hugh getting all anxious, made Adrian cry and he started to basically beg him to come down, given that now he was convinced he was going to fall, and hearing his dad saying “Look what you’ve done to the kid, Simon” didn’t help at all to make Adrian (or Simon) feel better.

That night, there was a thunderstorm and Adrian used it as an excuse to sleep on their bed. As soon as he cried himself to sleep, two hours later, after their dads did everything in their power to calm him down, hugging him, giving him kisses, and assuring him his aunt Tamaya wasn’t going to let the storm hurt them, Simon raised his hand to high-five Hugh and tell him that they were amazing parents, just to realize he was already asleep. Simon silently judged him for sleeping so soundly while his son was having a crisis instead of sleeping.

When he woke up (at five in the morning) Adrian was looking out their window, with the Baby Indomitable blanket on his shoulders. The sky was still cloudy, but it wasn’t raining anymore.

“Darling, what are you doing?,” Simon told him. “Today’s Sunday. Let your daddy and I get some more sleep—”

“The storm took our flag,” Adrian blurred out.

Hugh was already awake too. “What?”

“You said the storm wasn’t going to hurt us,” Adrian said, turning around to see them, “but the storm took our flag.”

Simon got out of bed, looked through the window...

And, yes, the flag was completely gone.

But for some reason, Simon knew it hadn’t been the storm.

“Why would the storm do something like this?” Adrian asked.

Simon didn’t know how to answer that. Luckily, Hugh did.

“Because the storm is homophobic, son.”

Adrian laughed out loud and then asked his dads if they could have pancakes for breakfast. He had already forgotten about the storm and the flag.

They didn’t. Neither of them ever forgot about it.

While Simon and Adrian ate their pancakes, Hugh went to his office because, according to him, he needed to check something. When Adrian finished his breakfast and went back to his dads’ room to watch TV, Simon stayed in the kitchen, doing the dishes, and Hugh finally came downstairs. He was pretty quiet, and Simon thought that it probably was because he had told him to eat the burnt pancakes he didn’t dare to throw away, but after he finished them all, he said:

“I lied.”

Simon threw a glance at him. “When did you lie?”

“When I said the storm was homophobic,” Hugh answered.

“Well, of course, you lied, love. Storms don’t have strong political opinions about gay people.”

Hugh didn’t laugh. “What I mean is— that it wasn’t the storm.”

Every joke Simon’s brain could come up with disappeared at that moment. So he continued doing the dishes, and Hugh, thinking he hadn’t made himself clear, continued talking.

“It was someone else. It was a person. I saw them on—”

“I know,” Simon interrupted him. “I know. I’ve always known.”

But even if Simon knew, he still told Hugh to show him the footage because four eyes were better than two (especially considering that the owner of those first two eyes needed to wear glasses). It was all useless, though; the storm made the image all blurry, and the only thing they could see was someone taking it and running away in the middle of the night.

Simon wanted to think that it was just some dumb teen whose friends had  challenged him to do it. But when it came to things like those one never really knew.

On Monday, they had promised Adrian to take him to the park that was a few blocks away so they could teach him how to fly a kite, but the thought of going out made him feel as if something bad was going to happen to them if they did, so Simon told Adrian that he and Hugh were feeling sick and that they would stay in their room to get some rest. Adrian asked them if they minded that he stayed there too because he was in the middle of watching a movie he had never seen before.

“Only if we can watch it with you,” Simon answered.

It was a weird day to be alive. They really just stayed there, watching silly cartoons with their kid and listening to him ranting about the weird proportions those characters had.

During the afternoon, Adrian told them he was hungry, so Simon went downstairs to look for something they could eat. He was thinking that maybe they should order something from that Chinese restaurant Tamaya had taken him the other day, when Hugh entered the kitchen and told him Adrian had  asked him if he could bring him water.

Simon felt his hands were trembling while he looked inside his wallet for the paper where he had written the restaurant’s phone number.

“Do you want to get another flag?” Hugh asked him.

And something hurt.

Something hurt inside of him. Something started to cry, and to scream, and to flicker, trying to make him invisible to the world.

And it told him, the same way Adrian had told him he was hungry, that someone had taken him by surprise and made a deep cut on his chest.

But Simon didn’t allow it to come out.

He just said: “No.”

And Hugh answered him: “Me neither.”

He called the Chinese restaurant to order some food, while Simon went to their room with Adrian again and cuddled with him, trying to tend to the wounds of that something that was bleeding out inside of him.

Little Simon was crying, and screaming, and flickering, and needed adult Simon to take care of him.

The next day, they talked about the incident with the rest of the Council during their lunch break. It was one of those few occasions the six of them were together in the same room during their work hours. Tamaya was furious about the flag situation. She ranted for a good five minutes without anyone interrupting her about how fucking horrible people were and that she was going to find that little piece of shit and cut his hands off. Kasumi nodded in approval while drinking some horchata she had bought for herself, probably thinking about how to ask Tamaya to let her join her revolution (something she didn’t need to do, since Tamaya always included Kasumi in everything she did). Evander, on the other hand, was very quiet, something that made him feel a little bit relieved because he was not a sensitive person and Simon didn’t want him to... Evander  the situation.

He didn’t say anything insensitive that day, though.

In fact, he said something… helpful, even.

“What about a flag made of light?” 

Hugh rubbed his eyes and Simon knew what he was going to say before he opened his mouth.

Because he said that phrase constantly.

“Shut the fuck up, Evander.”

But Evander didn’t shut up. “Dude, think about it. No one would be able to take down a flag made of light.”

And everyone realized that, now, it was not only one of those strange occasions when the six of them got together to have lunch during their work hours; it was also one of those strange occasions when Evander had an idea that was actually good.

So after spending another hour discussing how they were going to make it work, they decided they were going to lit up the building in rainbow-colored lights.

Tamaya and Hugh were the ones in charge of almost all the operation because Evander said he had already given them the idea, so he didn’t need to do anything else (and then got mad at Hugh when he told the media he was the one who came up with it). Kasumi helped them, but was especially insistent about putting a trans pride flag somewhere in the building, and after they agreed with her, she personally hung it on the main entrance of Headquarters.

They started turning the lights on each night of June since that yeat.

Hugh and Simon still didn’t get a flag. Three nights after they told their friends about what had happened during the thunderstorm, Simon was woken up by the sound of someone crashing against the trash cans and almost jumped out of the window with his dagger  on hand to slay whoever was trying to break into their house, but when he peeked out to see what was going on, he realized the “robber” was Kasumi, who had put a bunch of small pride flags on some pots they kept on their porch and started crying as soon as she realized Simon was watching her, not because she was upset the surprise she had for them had been ruined, but because now she was covered in trash.

(That week was like a sign Georgie was sending them from the afterlife to tell them they needed to install a better security system.)

Those were the only flags they kept around the house. They were small and discreet, and, most importantly, no one had taken them away. Why? Well— because they listened to Georgie’s sign and installed a better security system. Not because there weren’t any more homophobes out there who were willing to do it.

Until that moment, those flags (the little ones Kasumi had given them in a rather unconventional way and the one made of light that Evander had come up with) had been more than enough for them. But, two years after the supernova, after Tamaya notified them the gearboxes that contained the lights had gotten soaked and that she needed the money to buy more before the next day (June 1st), Simon realized they were not enough for him anymore.

Simon wanted a bigger flag.

No. He wanted two.

The biggest pride flags he could find.

 ***

That was the reason why, after having pancakes for breakfast (because it had rained during the night), he took the car, took the other three people living in that house with him, and after he was able to read the map, they arrived at a store that, among other things, sold flags like the ones they were looking for.

“I want one too,” Adrian told them when they were at the flag section of the store. “For my room, you know. And I want to get ones for Danna and Nova because I don’t think they have any. They would’ve told me.”

Usually, when Adrian asked for something Simon hadn’t agreed to buy him, like some candy, an action figure, or a pair of sneakers, he would turn around and ask him if he had the money to buy any of those things himself, which would anger him so much he would stop wanting that certain thing.

But that day, he felt like buying them everything they wanted. As if money grew on trees (something he always told his kids didn’t happen.)

“Of course, darling,” he answered, “get them everything you want. It’s pride month.”

“It’s May 31th,” Max said. He was inside the shopping cart Hugh had grabbed the second they entered. It was something he always did, even if they weren’t going to buy a lot of things because, according to him, it felt weird and wrong not to.

“It’s almost pride month,” he corrected himself.

“So can I get something for Nova?” Adrian asked again, just to make sure.

“You can get something for Nova,” Hugh assured him, smiling a little bit.

Adrian quickly turned around and started looking for the flag he wanted while texting Nova about something Simon couldn’t read (not like he was trying to, anyway).

After making sure Adrian stayed on the same aisle as them, they started walking around, gazing at the flags and posters available. Simon felt pretty progressive because he was able to name every single sexuality and gender they were supposed to represent. He imagined Hugh was doing the same thing, but with a lot more difficulty than him. He kept his eyes fixated on each flag longer than Simon did, as if he were trying to remember what they meant, and when he did, he pushed the cart (with Max still inside of it, playing a game on Hugh’s phone because he had forgotten his tablet at home), and the cycle began again.

But suddenly, Simon saw ones that he didn’t recognize.

After three seconds of standing in front of those little flags, someone hit him in the butt with their cart. He turned around immediately, ready to say a really threatening “Hey” to whoever had done it.

Hugh was the only other person who was there. He had been the one who had hit him with the cart.

Suddenly, Simon felt a little bit stupid for thinking someone else had done it.

The two of them maintained eye contact for a couple of seconds until Hugh started looking at his own hands grabbing the cart’s handle.

“Simon.” Before Simon could ask him what happened, he added, with a deep voice: “Move.”

Simon didn’t move. Instead, he hit the cart with his hips, just out of spite. Hugh hit him again with it, making Simon feel the unexpected need to grab the cart with his two hands and use his own weapon against him, but Max was there and they couldn’t act like kids in front of him. So he just hit the cart with his hips again, a little bit harder than the first time, and left it there.

He realized he was just going to be wasting his time asking Hugh if he knew what that flag was supposed to represent.

“Cherub,” he called Max. “Do you recognize this flag?”

Max looked up from the screen. He usually didn’t like it when he called him “cherub” in public, but this time, he didn’t seem mad about it. “Um… no? Ask Adrian—” and continued playing.

Adrian came back with a basket full of pins, and for a second, Simon almost asked him if he really was that naive to believe he was actually going to pay for all of them. But then, he realized that it was only the basket where they kept all of the pins they sold and that Adrian had taken it to show them to them.

“Look, they have so many pins here—” he started taking random pins “—this is the aromantic flag… this is the genderfluid flag—”

“Interesting,” Hugh interrupted him, “but which flag is that one?” and pointed at the one Simon didn’t recognize.

Max took a random pin from the basket and started looking at it with curiosity. Adrian almost didn’t pay attention to it, and after a few seconds, he said: “That one’s yours.”

Simon frowned and took one. It was a handheld flag with green and blue stripes, with a white one in the middle. He touched the polyester with his fingertips as if that was going to give him the ability to communicate with it.

“But we don’t have a flag,” Hugh told Adrian. “I’ve heard of the lesbian fl—”

Adrian took a pin of the lesbian flag. “This one.”

“Yeah— but gay men don’t have one.”

“The rainbow is ours,” Simon said, without taking his eyes away from the blue and green flag he was holding. “Like, it’s for all queer people.”

Hugh directed his attention to Adrian again. “You’re messing with us.”

“I do mess with you a lot,” Adrian admitted, “but this time I’m not because if I do and you get mad, you won’t buy me all the stuff I want to get.”

“Huh.”

Simon knew Adrian and Max were a lot of things, but "dumb" wasn't one of those. And Adrian was especially intelligent when it came to convincing his parents to buy him things.

So he decided to believe him.

“Well, I like it,” he said. Then, he asked Hugh: “Do you like it?”

Hugh grabbed one and observed it for a while. “I like that it has blue on it,” he finally answered, nodding a little bit.

Simon noticed Max was spacing out while playing with the pin he had taken, so he waved the flag on his face, making him laugh and sneeze because the damn thing had a lot of invisible dust Simon didn't notice at first.

“Oh, sh—”

“You know? Maybe we should get two of these,” Hugh said, waving it too, but in his case, not on the face of one of their kids. “For our offices.”

“Matching flags, very romantic.”

Max rubbed his nose. “Why don't you get a big one for the house?”

Simon quickly started to look everywhere on that aisle, and he saw a lot of big versions of the flags he had recognized before (and some of the ones Adrian had mentioned), but there were no gay flags in sight.

“Maybe next year, I guess,” he shrugged. “I don't think they have them here yet.”

He grabbed two of the rainbow flags that were there, inside their respective plastic bags, gave them to Max, and he put them on his lap, still holding that pin. Simon made a quick mental note to remind his future self they needed to pay for that (he didn’t know if it had to with the fact that Max had been spending a lot of time with Maggie, Nova’s sister, but he had developed this weird habit of stealing the most random objects one could think of. Luckily, he limited himself to stealing things from his dads and, one time, from a store.) (Kids went through weird phases when they were Max’s age.)

(Because… it was a phase, right?)

Adrian received a text. “Danna says that she already has a flag, so I’m getting her a pin,” he said after reading it. “And Nova says she wants one too.” Then, his whole face lit up. “And I could get one too so we match.”

“Copycat,” Simon accused him, jokingly. “Your dad and I got matching flags, and now you want to get matching pins with your girlfriend.”

Hugh shook his head, disappointed. “I cannot believe you have betrayed your own family like this.”

They stayed at the store another 30 minutes to buy some other things they needed for the house, and from time to time, when he or Hugh grabbed something, they pretended they didn’t see Adrian and said: “Um, but the copycat may be listening” to a point he told them to stop, and refused to forgive them until they agreed to buy him the flag he didn’t intend to get anymore, but now was going to.

He got the last bisexual flag there was at that store.

 ***

The first time the four of them were together in their room was last June. Something went wrong with the A/C system of the entire house and the only room where one could stay without having a heatstroke was theirs because their A/C hadn’t broken down for some reason. Adrian and Max were sleeping on the air mattress until Simon (who hadn’t been able to sleep lately) heard that one of them woke up and asked Hugh something. He sat down on the bed, at the same time Hugh moved a little bit to allow Adrian to lay down between the two of them.

Then, in the middle of the dark, his eyes met Max’s.

He looked tiny. Young. Pretty young.

And far away.

Simon couldn’t remember who did it. He didn’t remember who talked that night. It could have been him, even. But he was sure that, at that moment, someone whispered:

“Get in here, kid.”

And Max obeyed. He crawled, raised his arms towards them, and Hugh grabbed him carefully by the collar of his shirt and placed him between him and Adrian.

It was a peaceful night. The bed was big enough for the four of them, and Simon was able to sleep and actually rest for the first time in weeks.

At least until their A/C turned off with a weird sound, and the four of them woke up at the same time, sweaty, uncomfortable, and almost at 11 AM, not because they weren’t necessarily willing to stay there longer, but because the heat was starting to get unbearable and suddenly the bed was too small for three adults and a little kid that was not that little anymore.

“This isn’t a room, this is a— a freaking oven,” Hugh said, while Adrian tried to push him out of bed to get the hell out of there and seek comfort on the air mattress he had abandoned in the middle of the night.

“And we are the... cookies,” Max giggled.

“The turkey,” Simon added.

Max turned around. His whole face was red and his hair was a little bit wet. “The lasagna.”

Simon grabbed him by the cheeks; a discreet way to check if he had a fever. “The cake.”

“The ham.”

“The—”

“Dad. Move.”

Later that day, Simon called someone to fix the A/C, and that was the end of the story.

When they arrived at the house, Adrian wanted to hang his flag as soon as possible, on one of his room’s walls, but Simon insisted that they should iron it first so it looked nicer. Hugh said that he was planning on ironing the ones they had bought for the house and offered Adrian to do the same with his, but when he insinuated that he didn’t trust him enough not to mess up his flag the same way he had messed up his favorite shirt (the one he wanted to wear to take Nova to a nice place during her birthday), Hugh reminded him that the only reason he kept doing that for him was that Adrian didn’t know how to iron yet, and decided that he was going to use that moment as a teaching opportunity. Max made the mistake of laughing at his brother when he thought no one was paying attention to him, but Adrian was and dragged Max into the teaching opportunity with him.

Simon joined too. Just because.

And suddenly, the four of them were in their room again.

With the A/C on, of course.

He didn't know if Hugh had noticed, but he had been so invested in his own explanation, that after he finished ironing the two rainbow flags, he started ironing Adrian’s without realizing it. Adrian, instead of giving up and stop pretending he was paying attention, was looking, kind of mesmerized, how he opened the bag of his blue, purple, and magenta flag, and proceeded to put it on the ironing board, now telling him that when Georgie had tried to teach him how to iron his clothes, she accidentally burnt Evander.

Simon was half-listening to the story, half-listening to the music video that Max was watching on the TV. He was sitting on a big and old ottoman they had bought a long time ago but had never found the perfect place to put it and just stayed there for years until they forgot about it. Max was in front of him, sitting on the floor and resting his back on the ottoman, while he covered his blond hair with small butterfly hair clips he had found at the store and bought just because he thought they were cute (who knows, maybe Nova wanted them for Maggie, or Kasumi could use them for herself, she loved them when she was little).

When all the hair clips were on Max's hair, he took a small mirror they kept in the bathroom (but Simon borrowed it for a minute) and gave it to him so he could see the final result.

“Look at me,” Max exclaimed, laughing. “I look so pretty.”

Simon grabbed one of the hair clips and pulled it a little. “Butterfly hair clips are a popular trend this time of the year.”

“This is definitely going to make me the most popular kid in the playground.”

“Definitely.”

He leaned forward to start taking the butterfly hair clips off Max's hair and was putting them on Max’s open hand when he noticed that he hadn’t let go of the pin they bought him at the store.

(Simon did remember to pay for the thing, but if he hadn’t done it, Max wouldn’t have said anything.)

“That was really nice of you,” Simon said.

Max looked at him, confused. “What?”

“Getting a rainbow pin—” he took his other hand and started putting the hair clips on it so none of them would get lost “—to show support.”

Max didn't say anything and Simon continued with what he was doing. After the music video finished, and another one started playing, Hugh gave Adrian his flag and told him he could go and hang it in his room, and as soon as Max heard that too, he gave Simon the hair clips and followed his brother out of the room, asking him if he could help him with it.

Simon, after realizing the bag where the hair clips came in had been destroyed by Max punching holes in it with the pin, took one of the empty pill bottles he kept in his drawers and put them there.

He closed the pill bottle and realized Hugh had been gazing at him during all this time, slightly leaning on the ironing board. “What?”

“That’s my pill bottle, Si,” he told him.

“Ah—” Simon pressed his lips “—can I have it?”

“No.” Hugh smiled at him. “Yes, you can.”

“So funny. Come here—” and patted the bed mattress.

Hugh, being extremely careful not to touch the flags he just ironed, lied on the bed and sighed.

“Do you want me to play with your hair?” Simon asked him with a soft voice.

He closed his eyes and nodded.

After a while of the two of them just being silent, he said, “Hey… I heard what you told Max, by the way.”

“The butterfly hair clips trend?”

“The pin thing.”

“What about it?”

Hugh opened his eyes, just a little bit. “Just don't tell Max I told you, all right? Because he told me he wouldn't tell anyone else until he was sure, but… I think it's important the two of us know,” he explained.

Simon was starting to feel his palms get a little bit sweaty. “Okay— but just tell me, please.”

He checked overhearing their conversation one last time, and that the kids were still at Adrian's room. “Max told me a couple of days ago that he has been thinking about… what he likes.”

He stopped playing with his hair for a second. But then, he continued.

It was his way of coping with the feeling of his stomach twisting inside of him. “What he likes?” Hugh nodded again. “Huh. And has he— does he has an idea or—”

“No, he doesn't,” Hugh answered. “He just knows that he doesn't like girls. Or that's what he told me.”

Simon raised his eyebrows and scoffed. “That sounds like a lot of things. Not liking girls.”

Hugh scoffed too. “That's what I told him. And that he can take all the time he needs to figure it out. Because he can—”

“Yes. Yes, of course, he can,” Simon assured, with determination. “Life is longer than we think it is.”

They stayed silent again. And Simon couldn’t help but feel relive inside his head the moment he called Max an ally, feeling his stomach twisting even more at every second it passed.

“I feel bad.”

“Why?”

His palms started to sweat again. “Because I called him an ally.”

“It’s all right. You didn’t know.”

“I shouldn’t have assumed anything.”

“You didn’t know,” Hugh repeated.

But Simon didn’t listen. “Si.”

Then, Hugh grabbed him carefully by the wrist, and, a little bit surprised, Simon tilted his head. Hugh usually didn't interrupt him when he was playing with his hair.

“What's wrong?” he asked.

“No, what’s wrong with you?” he deadpanned

Simon knew him well enough to know he wasn’t trying to be rude. It was just his way of asking things. Especially when he was genuinely worried and didn’t think about modulating his tone so it It fitted the situation better.

He sighed. Because he didn’t want to lie to him. “I assumed Max was straight.”

As soon as he said it, he realized how silly it had sounded phrased like that. But he also noticed his voice had broken and he had to put a hand on his mouth so he didn’t start crying.

And Hugh, instead of saying the encouraging phrase he expected him to say…

He smiled.

And for some reason, that made him want to cry even more. “Ew, why are you smiling?” he asked.

Hugh took his time to answer him. “Oh, it’s nothing.  I think I'm just… happy.”

“Well, I’m not.”

Hugh smiled more. “I know, love, I know… It's just one of those things…” he tried to find the right words this time. “One of those things I didn't think we were going to go through together,” he kept saying. “Like… we're going to be together when Max finally discovers who he really is. Like we did with Adrian. And like other people did with us. And that makes me happy.”

Simon wanted to tell him to shut up and let him cry and be dramatic as much as he wanted because he considered he deserved it. But he tried to do it, the only thing that could come out of his lips was almost imperceptible “Yeah…” and then, a small tear started running down his face. Hugh quickly noticed this and wiped it away with his finger. Simon scoffed and looked away, rubbing his nose.

“Hey…” and he moved aside so Simon could lay beside him.

The space they had was a little too small but he didn’t mind because now he had an excuse to be closer to him.

And there it was again. Little Simon. Little Simon was there again with them.

Just that this time he wasn’t crying, or screaming, or even flickering. He was just… existing.

And all he wanted to do was to exist.  

When Hugh held him that way, sometimes he felt as if it was the first time he did it. Which made Simon (and the sad, angry and scared part of Simon) wonder if there was a sad, angry and scared part of Hugh that also craved that comfort and validation, and if it was the one who hugged that younger version of Simon until they convinced each other that everything was fine.

That there was nothing wrong with neither of them.

Because sometimes it was as if people didn’t remind them that as many times as they needed. So the only option they had was to be there for the other, and tell him that it was okay to hug, to kiss, to touch, and to share until the one who was talking ended up convincing both of them.

Love wasn’t temporary.

And their love was as powerful as they wanted it to be.

Those younger versions of themselves wanted to stay like that forever every single time. But their adult versions knew they couldn’t do it because they had other responsibilities that they needed to attend.

Installing those two pride flags that were next to them, for example.

Their younger versions were excited to do that, but they also asked them if they could rest together a little bit longer. And neither of them had the heart to tell them no.

Hugh started to play with a lock of Simon’s hair. “We’ll be there to catch him.”

He knew he wasn’t talking about either of them. Even if, with his eyes closed, he could see little Hugh and little Simon holding each other’s hands and throwing themselves into the world, a little less sad, and angry, and scared than before, without being sure if there was going to be someone down there to catch them if everything went wrong.

“Together.”

And Simon agreed. “Together.”

 ***

“He’s going to fall.”

Simon rolled his eyes.

“No, he’s not,” Hugh told Max. “I’m here.”

“But what if—”

“Done,” Simon announced before Max could even finish his sentence. “Now, let’s just hope these things stay there as long as possible, because this ladder makes me anxious. I was trembling while putting the first flag.”

Max clicked his tongue. “It’s a windy day. The wind could have pushed the ladder or something.”

Now it was Hugh’s turn to roll his eyes. “Take my hand.”

Simon went down the ladder without letting go of his hand. Then, while Hugh took it and quickly went inside the garage to put it there, Adrian pricked his little brother up with his own rainbow flag pin, and in response, Max punched him in the stomach with all his might (which wasn’t that much). Adrian laughed and pretended to be hurt, but immediately asked him if he wanted him to help him with his pin.

Simon noticed that Adrian had already put his pin of the bisexual flag on his clothes, and watching him pull Max a little bit closer so he didn’t prink him again (now by accident), while Max gazed at his hands, trying to memorize his movements so he could do the same thing when he wanted to wear that pin again, made his mouth curved into a smile.

When his husband came back from the garage, he thought he was going to tell them to stop blocking the sidewalk and get in the house so they could continue with their day. But instead of doing that, he walked towards them and looked at their waving flags, flying on their mansion for the first time in years.

Adrian grabbed Max by the waist and carried him on his shoulders so he could have a better view. And he realized that there would be a day when they would throw themselves into the world completely alone, without knowing how people were going to act and aware that two of them were brave enough to take whatever blows that they were going to throw at them.

But they weren’t going to do it alone. Because Hugh, Simon, and their hurting parts weren’t going to spend a day without reminding them that they were going to be there, ready to catch them every single time they needed it.

Simon started to look for Hugh’s hand just to realize, Hugh was already looking for his too, and when they found each other, he couldn’t contain himself and stood on his tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. Then, Hugh smiled and kissed him back, this time, on the corner of his lip.

Simon felt proud of what they were.

He was really proud.

And he hoped they were proud too.

#renegades #archenemies #supernova #renegades trilogy #hugh everhart #simon westwood #adrian everhart #max everhart #everhart-westwood family #the warden and the captain are sitting in a tree #obsi's writs #i should get an oscar for the homophobic storm joke

[huearmy]

Life is Beautiful - I

Summary: You are a glass half full person, your life motto is "Life is too short to... Insert something and anything here". During your whole life you wanted something more, and even not knowing what it is, you put yourself to find out and get it, experiencing everything  brilliant that the world offers - within the measure of what is safe, of course. The curious thing is that your way of living ended up rousing  the interest of two vampires. One who sees beauty in everything and  loves to exist, currently working with suicide prevention; and another one who no longer sees grace in things, in that boring immortality that never ends, and only complains about the Netflix catalog all the time.

Pairing: Jimin x reader / Taehyung x reader.

Genre: fluff, angst, future smut (very soft, ok?)...

Words:  7509.

Rating: +18

Warnings: As much as my writing is soft and light, and as these are not the main topic of the story, treated in a non-descriptive way, there are sensitive themes from the beginning of the first chapter to the end of the fic that can trigger sensitive people, like depression, suicide, addictions in general - Jimin literally works at a suicide prevention center here. SO PLEASE! Read responsibly, my intention when dealing with topics like this is always 1) dealing with them in myself, as a way of putting out part of my own healing process 2) generating identification in other people, so they can go through the difficult time a little less alone. THIS IS A STORY THAT SEES THE WORLD WITH POSITIVITY.

Chapter II Chapter III .

After some centuries of not living, all vampires go through a kind of midlife crisis in which everything loses its grace and eternity becomes endless boredom. Nothing new happens, humans are born, sometimes they are relevant to world history, they become vampire food or they die dull. Vampires do not need to sleep or use the bathroom, nor to feed more than once a month, so the days are long, and often lonely, which leads many of them to stand still without moving, looking at nothing until their thirst quits, forcing them to go after a pulsating neck. Many go through this phase as serial killers, with killing as their only source of pleasure, others prefer to hibernate in some dark place or tomb, because false death is more interesting than false life. Some never get past the phase.

Jimin is not like that. With almost a thousand years of existence he is totally in love with life. Every day when the sun rises and the sunlight forces him to stay indoors so as not to burst into flames, he spends his hours with a smile on his face, engaging in small banal hobbies, such as gardening or online courses at distance - after almost a decade of doing this, Jimin already has fifty-two certificates in different areas, and he is pretty pride of it. When night comes and he can go out and see the world it’s even more interesting, because humans ’nightlife isn’t as hectic as daytime, so those who live in those dark hours are different. There are those who do wrong things and commit crimes, those who have double lives or who keep secrets, there are people working to protect and save, like doctors and police, there are night guards and twenty-four hours convenience store attendants, groups of friends who spend the night partying until dawn, and those who feel lonely in their empty apartments unable to sleep... And this is the part that he likes the most: people.

He likes to meet random people in the empty metro, buy a drink for a girl who doesn't take her eyes off him and then dance with her, strike up a conversation with a homeless man under a marquee because he knows the guy must be lonely. Watching and learning about other lives keeps him alive, more than the blood he needs to drink.

He likes to get temporary jobs to have some human experience. He has worked in pizzerias, both in the kitchen - he was not very good, so he was put in the dishwasher - both in deliveries, and at a gas station, as a hotel receptionist... But now it looks like he found a job he wants to stay in, so much that it has been a year and he has not yet resigned. Perhaps Jimin has found his calling.

"It's okay... You are not alone, I'm here and I'll stay until you feel good again." He said with his sweet, angelical voice. "Can you get away from the sharp objects? Please?"

The voice on the other end of the line sounded like just a choked whisper, before the answer came, fast, heavy breathing filled the air.

"No... I can't..." The female sobbed.

"Can you tell me why?" Jimin's voice was calm. "I... my legs are numb... I can't... stand up." Her breathing was erratic and desperate.

"Are you hurt? Do you need an ambulance to be sent to you?" He used his most reassuring voice possible.

"No!" She started to cry even harder. "I don't want no one... to see me... like this." Jimin bite the inside of his cheek, thinking, maybe she just wasn't able to get up  because of the anxiety attack, but she also didn't say she wasn't hurt.

Regardless of the case, he needed to make the girl trust him in order to help her.

"What is your name?" He smiled, hopping she would listen to it in his voice. "... Ana" She whispered. "Nice to meet you, Ana. Do you remember my name? I told you at the beginning of the call."

One moment of silence.

"Jimin." She said with little certainty.

"Exactly, good job. Hi, Ana." "Hi, Jimin." Despite the crying voice, she was no longer sobbing.

"Ana, can you recall the last thing you did that made you feel safe? Secure?" A sigh reached Jimin's ears. As he waited for an answer his hands moved over a sheet of paper, he was drawing a beautiful face of a girl with crayons, without paying much attention, but getting a beautiful result.

"No." She said at last.

"I know you can, Ana. No need to rush. Breath." She thought some more, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. Almost a full minute passed, the two of them silent on the call. Jimin did not press for an answer.

"I was watching Friends... with my cat." "Your cat?" Jimin smiled more spontaneously now, noticing in her voice an oscillation of affection when saying the word cat. "Talk more about your cat."

"His name is Sushi, he's fat, full of himself, and loving. He likes children, food and sleeping. I recently bought him a cute collar, it looks like a pink bow tie." She almost laughed.

"Wow...He is a lucky cat." Suddenly she started to cry again, sobbing so hard that Jimin hardly understood what she was saying.

"He ran away and hasn't come back yet... He's never been away from home  so long... He's all I have, there's no one else... I don't want to live... alone." "Is it just you and Sushi?" Jimin spoke more forcefully for her to hear over the sobs.

"Yes." She choked. "I can't get up... It hurts so much. I'm so-sorry..."

"Ana, do you need an ambulance to be sent to you?" He tried again. Silence.

"Yes." "So I will stay with you until they come to help you. You are not alone."

Jimin was a vampire in love with live, eager to live each day as if it were the most precious gift, so working in the Center of Valuing Life and Preventing Suicide was perfect. He considers himself an expert in convincing anyone that life is beautiful when he has the opportunity to say everything he thinks about. And not letting people feel alone is one of his favorite hobbies.

After all, eternity can be quite lonely, he knows how it is.

________________________________________________________________

That call is over. Jimin was searching for missing cat posts on social media. In the silent office room it was just him and three other people working, each at their separated personal table. Perhaps due to the nature of the work, or due to the late hours of the night, nobody spoke loudly or made a lot of noise when doing things, even when talking to each other, everything is always very restrained, calm.

Jimin's eyes followed the clock hands on the wall above the door. It was almost one in the morning, actually, to be exact, twelve minutes to go, so in two minutes, you would punctually enter that door with your heavy backpack full of books, of someone who just left college on the other side of the city, and after stopping at a twenty-four hours fast food to get a well-deserved burger spent an hour on a subway trip. He could already hear your footsteps down the hall, the characteristic sound of the rubber on the soles of your boots and your bunch of keys stuck in the handle of your backpack tinkling. He heard you putting your stuff in your closet and hanging your coat on the rack in the next room, and a smile formed on Jimin's face. When the hand on the clock struck ten to one and you opened the door trying not to make any noise so as not to disturb anyone's call, Jimin pretended not to notice you entering, not taking his eyes off the computer screen full of images of cute cats. You straightened up and held firmly the pair of coffee cups in your hands till the knots turned white, looking straight at him - in fact, from the moment you walked through the door you were already expecting to see Jimin sitting at his table, as always, and since then you haven't looked away. Walking in light steps - that he could hear by the way - to him who had his back to you, you tried to control the butterflies in your stomach, happy he wasn't in a call right now.

"Jimin?" You called softly, close to his ear, but not that close. Yet. Jimin contained a smile and turned around as if you had taken him by surprise. "Hey, Y/N, didn't see you there". As usual, his direct look made your heart race and you gave a nervous laugh before getting along with his flirty tone. "I bought you coffee." You handed him one of the cups. "To take the night shift a little better."

"Thanks, sweetheart."

You are the other reason Jimin didn't quit this job yet. A few weeks ago, when he was working long enough to decide to leave and go for the next adventure, you started working at the night shift, and right away you caught Jimin's attention, even though at first you didn't talk with him that much - in fact you only talked to the women on the team, and avoided the men. More than once he found himself paying attention to your emergency calls, how you talk, being positive without being suffocating for those in pain ... how you love life. After a while you started doing the same thing, a little less easily, since you don't have a vampire audition, but it was enough for you to acquire a platonic crush on Jimin, which resulted in you opening up, and you two start talking here and there. Now almost whenever you have time or money left over - college life is poor life - you bring him coffee. Jimin doesn't actually drink coffee at all, and he doesn't feel sleepy either, but he thinks it's cute that you worry for him. You see each other three to four times a week, depending on the schedule of work, and he is always eager to see you. Flirting is exciting, and he hasn't done that in a while... Like two centuries, and how it was done back there was quite different. Other times indeed.

"Did you lose your cat?" You asked, confused.

"Oh, no, I didn't." He closed the page with the photo of a white and gray cat wearing a pink bow tie.. "One friend of mine lost her cat, Sushi." "Poor thing. I hope she finds Sushi soon..." You slightly pouted.

"Me too. I'll help her." Jimin said, and the butterflies in your stomach thought it was beautiful.

Something on his desk caught your attention, a colorful draw of said cat made with crayon. Before Jimin could stop you - he was distracted by hearing your heart beat faster because of him - you picked up the stack of papers to get a closer look.

"And you drew him! How beautiful... I didn't know you were so talented." "Thank you. My friend who taught me, he is much better than me..." Jimin simply answered.

You moved on to the next sheet, where another sketch of the cat in different colors made your eyes shine. "So he must be awesome. Look at this!" Jimin was happy to be praised by you, the pink of your cheeks when speaking was a beautiful sign for him, but then he remembered what was the next drawing in your hands, and before you could see it, he cleared his throat and took them back, keeping them in the drawer. It was a drawing of a girl's pretty face. Your face. "They are not quite ready yet..." He pretended modesty.

"Oh, sorry. If you need help, just tell me. I can hang up posters or something. About finding the lost cat, I mean." You volunteered, and then looked around. "I better get to work before someone scolds me."

You went to your desk, across his, and your eyes met a few more times before as you sat down and turned on your computer. Jimin's phone rang and he forced himself to look away from your face, someone else needed him now. "Good night, my name is Jimin and you called the Life Valuation Center. Can I help?" He spoke, his voice welcome and full of affection. ________________________________________________________________

Jimin's shift ends before yours, just before three in the morning he puts things away and leaves the table ready for the person who will use the next shift, but he won't leave, even if everyone thinks so. Instead he goes to the roof to look at the stars and wait for you to leave - not that you know he is waiting for you. He was listening to a random playlist on spotify, stretching his body to the beat just because it feels good, thinking about nothing specific, just existing and feeling good about it.

The night breeze brought his scent to him, looking down from the parapet, he could see you leaving the building, with your scarf well wrapped around your neck, covering half of your face to protect you from the cold air. He doesn't understand you... It's beautiful that you want to help people who are going through a difficult time, and you've commented before that the night shift matches your other schedules, and that you like to stay up at night. However, he thinks you should consider it's not worth it. It's so late and empty when you go home, it's dangerous for a human woman, and as much as he knows that you have a pocketknife in your pocket, Jimin thinks it's silly of you. Usually he wouldn't think much about it, but it's you, and he is fond of you, he can't just do nothing about it. So even if you don't know it, he accompanies you home every night to make sure you are safe. He is only satisfied and goes home when he hears you enter your room. Sometimes he stays a little longer, sitting on the emergency stairs outside your building, listening to you walking up and down in your room, doing whatever, instead of going to sleep soon.

That's kind of creepy. He knows. But he is a vampire, he is already creepy in essence. But of course he would never watch you sleep, for exemple, this is a stalker limit that he does not intend to cross.

"Okay." He sighed as he heard you getting into bed. "I have one hour and a half before the sun rises... Let's find that cat." __________________________________________

You were awake for a couple of hours already, currently packing your books at the end of a lecture, really needing sugar to feel prepared before the last class of the day, and excited that instead of going to the study group you are a part of, you will take an experimental dance class and it's your day off, which means that instead of staying up until dawn working, you can stay up until dawn studying, and maybe sleep a little earlier. Life is too short to not take all the free trial classes available just because your schedule is already full and totally demanding. Anyways you are dead tired, wishing your body doesn't need to sleep... Since you started to work on the Life Valuation Center all your sleeping schedule went down the drain. At first your plan was to work the night shift only at the beginning, and then change your hours, but for some reason you always liked to stay up all night, also the movement of calls in this period is bigger and more specific, which helps in your internship report, and of course, in the day shift there is no Jimin... You've settled in, and now after months of this crazy, fickle routine, your body is feeling the side effects.

"Three of this rainbow donuts please." You asked at the college cafe. One because you want, two because one is not enough, three because you are greedy. Life is too short not to overeat your current favorite sugar source. You sigh to yourself, taking a seat along your friends. Your mantra for life is life is too short to...insert anything here, experimenting and doing things that you never imagined before and that your mother probably wouldn't approve a hundred percent is what moves you. Basically nothing scares you, since childhood you were courageous and fearless. You subject yourself to almost anything, within the measures of what is safe, to have good stories to tell. The world is too big to be content with just having good grades to graduate and have a good job. What you want is much more... so much more that you don't even know what... But it’s not just because you don’t know yet that you’ll stand still without going after it to find out.

"Hey, Y/N, what are you gonna do on the weekend?" Your friend, Becca, asked comfortably within her girlfriend's embrace. As usual, whenever you see the two of them together being all lovey dovey, you feel a twinge of pride in your heart, because you were responsible for them to start dating in the first place. Although your romantic life is not very interesting, without serious or successful relationships, you are a great cupid.

"For the very first time in months... I don't know. I didn't plan anything, maybe something will show up, if not I'm just going to sleep. Why?" You smiled your happy smile of eating what you like.

"Pool party. You need to get a tan, you look like a vampire with that pale, tired face of yours."

You laughed because it's true, since you started changing the day for the night, your skin has acquired a not healthy tone that you are not used to. You've been missing the sun a little.

"First of all, I'm too cute to be a vampire. Second, yeah I'll think about it, I have a new bikini I haven't worn yet that makes my breasts look stunning." One of your friends that was sitting by your side put his arm over your shoulder. "I changed my mind, I'm going to this party." He loudly said. The girls in the group didn't laugh at all. "Shut up, Mike." You playfully pushed him. ________________________________________________________________

This was the second night that Jimin was looking for the cat, Sushi. It was not difficult to find out the address of it’s owner, since he had to activate an ambulance for her, and with that he started looking for the animal in her neighborhood. Passing through the empty streets at night after his work shift, he could see the girl's tracks leaving "missing" posters with a picture of a kitten wearing a pink bow tie, on lampposts and bus stops. At first Jimin thought it was going to be easy, with his keen vampire senses, but all he found were stray cats that weren't Sushi. The second night of searching was already ending, the sun was rising, threatening to make him explode into ashes if he didn't come home soon, and no clue as to where to look the next night he had.

Before getting into the car and driving home, Jimin took one last look at the slightly open curtains in the girl's room, Ana, just to make sure she was okay. She had been discharged from the hospital that afternoon and was now sleeping on the couch, probably medicated. Jimin didn't want to leave her alone, but he couldn't just walk into her apartment and offer help, for now all he could do was find a way to find the cat. ________________________________________________________________ Jimin lives in an old pretty house in the wealthiest part of the city, it isn't a mansion, but it is big and expensive enough to impress anyone who sees it, privileges of centuries of saved money. It's a cliché, but vampires dress in designer clothes, ride luxury cars and live in expensive mansions, houses, apartments, and Jimin is no exception.

From one of the main rooms, behind a heavy curtain, hidden in the gloom, was another vampire, watching the street with intent, expressionless eyes. When Jimin's car turned the corner and up the wide street lined with huge trees, the vampire got uneasy, his beautiful restless hands worrying the hem of his sleeves. He was anxious and angry, if his heart was still beating it would be racing. The garage door opened and the car entered, disappearing from view, in the next second the vampire was no longer in the room but in front of the door leading to the garage, waiting in the empty, dark hall. The knob turned the door slightly opened, Jimin with his head down did not seem to notice the presence of the other before being attacked.

"AH!" Jimin screamed as long arms embraced his neck. If it wasn't for the wall behind him he would have fallen, yet he had no escape, with a body much larger than his overpowering him. "Taehyungie!"

"You are late! Is the second day in a row you get home after sunrise! Are you trying to die?" Taehyung said, and didn't let Jimin go just yet. "It's okay. I was careful, I just had to do a few things before I came home. Look, there's not even smoke coming out of me." Jimin ran his hands over Tae's back, making him relax. The other stepped back a little, taking his face in his big hands.

"You could have sent a message. I asked you to let me know if you were going to be late again, Jiminie..." Tae pouted, still distressed. "And why do your clothes smell like garbage? Take it off."

Even feeling deprived of affection, Taehyung walked away looking disgusted, covering his nose with two fingers. Jimin obeyed, taking off his sneakers, jacket and jeans, following Taehyung through the corridor to the laundry room, where he put everything in a basket to wash later, and also exchanged the shirt for a clean one too. "I went into some alleys today, looking for a cat. That's why." Jimin explained, feeling much more comfortable in not smelling bad.

"And where's it? I don't think Tannie will like to share the house with a cat..." "Where is what?" Jimin was confused. Tae crossed his arms.

"The cat?"

"Oh no!" Jimin laughed, reaching for Tae to take him by the shoulders. "I wasn't looking for a cat to bring home, as much as I would love one as a pet... It's the cat of a girl I met, and is very sad to have lost it..."

"I got it..." Taehyung mumbled.

Jimin was just helping someone. Again. And Taehyung couldn't say exactly why it bothers him so much every time, but it does, he feels distressed, almost as if the world around him collapsed, and it makes him think he's being overdramatic. Live an eternity when you can't even put your feelings out in moments of frustration. Damn, it is conflicting... If vampires could cry, he would. But never that he would let Jimin discover that he feels that way.

It was Jimin's turn to take Tae's face in his little hands.

"You are so skinny. When was the last time you fed?" Taehyung didn't answer.

"You don't even remember, right?" Jimin's eyes went worried. "Did you see that I brought some O- packs for you? I left it in the fridge."

"No, I didn't." A shy smile spread across Tae's face. O- is his favorite blood type, but because it is a not so common type, and humans need transplantation, it's not always that Jimin brings it to him, usually opting for his second favorite flavor or other one available.

Jimin has been trying to cheer his friend up with little treats. It has been a difficult phase, in which he thinks Tae is going through the vampiric midlife crisis. He hasn't been out of the house for almost two decades and does nothing without a little external motivation, even the simplest things like eating. So Jimin tries to bring the best blood types to fill the fridge, signed all available streaming platforms, updates Taehyung's video game consoles as soon as a new model comes out, tries to get him interested in new hobbies - which never works but he doesn't give up - and he even adopted a puppy so that Tae would never be alone.

"Come." Jimin pulled him by the hand to their modern practically untouched kitchen, opened the fridge and picked two packs of blood, the dark liquid shining at the cold light. “In my room or yours?"

"Yours."

The two of them got to Jimin's room, followed by the sound of four paws scraping the polished wooden floor, Yeontan chasing them closely. Jimin pulled the covers off the clean bed, on which he rarely lies down, so they could get more comfortable. Tae laid on his back, against the pile of smooth pillows, carefully opening a packet of blood to not spill a single drop, and put a stainless steel straw in the opening. Jimin turned on the TV, put the dog in the bed, and cuddled Tae's side, with his head on his chest.

"What show have you been watching?" Jimin asked.

"None. I've been looking for something interesting in this shit for days and I can't find anything." Tae took a sip of his blood with a pout.

Jimin chuckled. "I'm choosing then."

A moment of silence followed, in which the only sound was of Tae drinking the rest of his first pack, and then opening another one.

"I think I need to shower..." Jimin commented.

Taehyung's arm that was around Jimin tightened. "Not now. Later." Jimin laughed, thinking it was cute. An idea crossed his mind, another small treat.

"Do you want to bath with me instead?" He looked up to Tae.

Tae hold tightened even more.

"Not now. Later. Now we cuddle."

As if agreeing, Yeontan climbed over the two vampires, finding a comfortable place to lie down and join the cuddle pile.

"Ok."

________________________________________________________________

Tonight you didn't have time to talk to Jimin when you arrived at work, he was on a call, and it seemed really serious. You didn't have the money to buy extra coffee even for yourself, so you hadn't an excuse to pass quietly by his desk to leave a post-it written "Hi :)". In those circumstances, you went straight to your desk to work, to do your best to be a good listener.

To your surprise, making your heart melt and your breath hold at the bottom of the throat, you saw at the top of your computer screen a post-it with a "Hi, sweetheart." written on it, and another one with a "Look in the fridge.". After working with him for that time, regularly doing some paperwork like filling out documentation and such things, you could say for sure that this was Jimin's handwriting, besides, only he calls you sweetheart.

You checked the clock on the wall with an eager look and a silly smile. As you always arrive ten minutes early, there was time to go to the break room quickly, and look inside the fridge before starting to work. And so you did. The break room was nothing more than a small table with a few chairs, a small couch, a sink, an old coffee machine, a microwave and the refrigerator, all in a tight space lit by white lights that leave the place a little impersonal. None of your co-workers were there, as usual. You crossed the small room to the fridge and opened it trying not to make a noise, more out of habit than necessity.

The interior was very empty, with some forgotten lunchboxes, but that didn't interest you. Your goal was right in the middle. A big cup of iced coffee, from a franchise that you don't usually buy from because you find it a little too expensive for your student budget, with your name written on a post-it on top of it.

"Y/N, I wanted to be me treating you today. Hope you like it."

That coffee was as cold as Jimin's fingertips when touching yours, but it warmed your heart. Sometimes you question yourself if it's healthy how head over heels you are for this guy, for so little.

Back at your desk, now with your iced coffee, you wrote a post-it and pasted it on the back of your computer screen, where Jimin could see it. "Thanks :)" Then you started to work. Other people needed you now. ________________________________________________________________ On your fifteen minutes break time, you were leaving the restroom, passing a moisturizing hand cream - because you swear that the soap in this place dries out your skin, and god forbid you from harsh hands -, the sound of the break room's door opening made you lift your eyes from the floor. It was Jimin. He don't take breaks, it's not like he needs it, he doesn't get tired, but he didn't get the chance to talk to you today yet, so as soon he saw you stretching in your chair, indicating that you would soon get up to go to the bathroom - yes, he learned your routine and mannerisms - he discreetly left the room to meet you by coincidence in the hall afterwards.

"Hi, Y/N. Did you like the coffee?" He charmly smiled at you, he was eager to ask it to you, to find out if he made the right choice of flavor, or if he made a bad mistake and you hated it - he couldn't help thinking about that possibility. Anyway, he was looking forward to your approval.

The truth is that you were so stunned by his caring that it didn't matter what the flavor was.

"Actually, yes. I love vanilla flavored things. It's basic but it makes me happy." You fixed your hair, pulling it behind your ears. Jimin could tell by your smile and your heated face that you aren't lying.

"Nice. I wanted to make you happy." He approached you, more than is suitable for the work environment, and it made you nervous, and of course he noticed. But it was okay, if someone came close he would hear and walk away before they could see you, too bad he couldn't tell you that.

"Mission completed successfully." You said, without looking away from his eyes - no matter how much part of you shouted at you to do it, your heart felt like it was going to explode. Well, your heart has a limit, so you changed the subject. "Did your friend find her cat?" Sadness took over Jimin's eyes.

"Unfortunately not. I've been looking for him for two days and nothing, I swear I think I've looked in every street, alley and trash can. I don't want to think like that, but I think Sushi is no longer with us." He sighed, clearly frustrated. You had the impulse to rub his forearms to comfort him, it was the very first time you really touched him. "If he is a cat that wasn't accustomed to getting out, and didn't know how to walk on the street, it is possible that something bad happened... But! He's a cat, if he used to go out often, he might have some other house, other owners, and that's why he hasn't come back yet." You optimistically said.

A smile spread in Jimin's face.

"That makes sense! She told me something like 'He's never been away from home for so long', there's hope then. And you also gave me an idea. Thank you, Y/N." He pulled you into a hug, and you thought you could die.

"You welcome." You said against his chest, deciding not to waste the opportunity to return the hug. ________________________________________________________________ The day was perfect for a vampire walk in the daytime. Cloudy and rainy. No deadly sunbeams and an excuse to use an umbrella without calling attention to it. After the tip you gave, Jimin looked in the right place after accompanying you home that night, and in less than an hour he was outside the window of two children's rooms, in a ground floor apartment, looking inside, and sleeping between the feet of one of the children was the cat, he wasn't with his bow tie but there was no mistake, Jimin was sure. Even without being able to enter - vampiric rules, you only can get in somebody's house if invited, or else you explode as if you were under sunlight - Jimin could smell cat all over the house, and the windows all had anti-escape screens, which indicated that it was a family of cat people.

Jimin would need to come back to pick the cat during the day, knock on the front door and politely ask. That's why heavy weather is perfect. With a dark couture coat, covering all from his neck to the back of his hands, to his knees, a design hat and sunglasses, and last but nos least, a big umbrella, he approached the lower middle class apartment complex. Without hesitation he raised his hand and knocked. Some seconds passed by, sound of kids running inside and a voice of a famale scolding them muffled by the closed door, and then a little girl, maybe six-year-old, appeared in Jimin's field of vision, her eyes sparkling as she looked at him. He was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen after all.

"Hello." Jimin smiled. "Are your parents home?"

She smiled at him, but shook her head negatively.

"Jo, who is it?" An older girl opened the door wider and faced Jimin with a frown that fell apart when she saw his smile. Great, a teenager, he thought. "What do you want?"

"Sorry to bother, I really wanted to talk to an adult, but..." Jimin lifted his phone, the screen showing Sushi's missed post. "I saw my friend's cat on your window."

The older girl narrowed her eyes as she looked at the photo, but before she could answer, the little girl she called Jo before ran away.

"No!" She screamed, disappearing inside the apartment, and then slamming a door somewhere.

"Sorry for that, please wait a minute." The teenager closed the door on his face, and he could hear her shouting and scolding the girl little inside. He was starting to lose his patience. Jimin doesn't like to be ignored at all. Should he knock again and use his mind control powers to get the cat? He was pondering the idea when the door opened again, the two girls were still loudly arguing inside, and this time it was a small boy who must be the middle sibling in front of him.

"Hi, grandma said to tell you to come in." He mumbled.

"So you are letting me get in your house?" Jimin asked with a satisfied grin.

"Yeah... follow me." The boy was avoiding eye contact, being shy. Jimin thought he was adorable.

Jimin followed the boy to a tiny living room, where an old woman was sitting in front of the TV. The girls were now silent, but clearly wanting to argue some more, and the small one was with Sushi in her arms. Jimin sighed, he likes children, a lot, even though he doesn't live with many, but he likes them even more when they're not having a tantrum.

"Hello. Please, take a seat." The old lady pointed to the old couch. The vampire obliged, and almost immediately a fat orange cat jumped into his lap. In this small room alone he could see three more of them. "So, why do you want to steal one of my babies?" Steal? Jimin was slightly offended, he already explained himself, but the chaotic situation created a misunderstanding. "I'm not here to steal nothing, ma'am." He showed his cellphone again. "One of your cats is Sushi, my friend's cat."

"That's not his name!" The little girl shouted tapping a foot on the floor in anger. Jimin just raised his eyebrows at her, making her swallow hard. But he is in control of the situation, so Jimin smiled to remain pleasant.

"Of course it is. Just watch, little one." He reached out to call the cat. "Come here, Sushi." Even though the cat didn't know Jimin to trust him - and these people don't need to know that - cats are creatures of the night, strongly attached to magic and protection in the dark hours, and in the hierarchy of the night they obeyed vampires. The only things that cats respect more than vampires are witches and their own owners whom they protect. As Jimin expected, Sushi jumped off the girl's tight hold and went over to him.

"Good boy. Ana is missing you like hell." Jimin scratched behind his ears. Before someone else could say anything, he proceeded. "When he got lost he was using a pink bow tie." The old lady was still with Jimin cellphone in her hand, and he could see she was convinced he know the cat, but wasn't intending on letting him leave with him yet.

"I'm seeing it in the post, but there was no tie when we got him." She replied. "You just didn't see it, ma'am." Jimin was tired of this conversation, it was being a lot less nice than he imagined on his way there. When he looked to the little girl to talk to her, his eyes were intense and powerful, and his voice was full of authority. "Go get the tie where you hid it, little one."

Mesmerized by Jimin's power, the girl didn't even blink or say anything as she obeyed, turned around and ran to one of the rooms. Jimin doesn't use hypnosis very often but he has fun every time. She got back with it and handed it to him.

"Thanks." He removed the effect and the little girl blinked a few times before understanding what happened.

The old lady was clearly angry with the girl, but it wasn't Jimin's business. "Well I think that's all. We are going now." Jimin got up from the couch.

"Wait!" The teenager snapped. "Jo lied about the bow to keep the cat, and that's bad, but she already loves him! You can't just take him away!"

Jimin was almost on the door.

"Of course I can. Besides, it's not because what she did is bad, young lady. It's because my friend loves him, actually this cat is Ana's family. No one should live alone, right?"

"Right!" The old lady got up too. "I'll get you to the door, tell our friend we are sorry."

"I will. Thank you." ________________________________________________________________

"You found the cat!" Tae sniffed the back of Jimin's neck. "Where is it?"

Jimin was putting the clothes he was using to wash, to remove the smell of cat and the places he passed by. And to get comfortable, as is his habit when he gets home, he just stayed in his underwear and t-shirt.

"I already gave him back to his owner." In the next second Jimin was dropping himself on the leather couch.

"And how was it? Did she thank you with tears in her eyes?" Tae leaned over the back of the sofa with his chin in his hands.

Jimin chuckled, Taehyung's thirst for drama is funny, and he's always been like that. And at least that doesn't seem to have changed...

"Well... She cried a lot when she found him in the window. She looked really happy!" Jimin sang. He was really happy too. He helped someone to find their smile again, even if it is a little bit, it made him really proud of himself, a warm feeling in his chest telling him it was the right thing to do, and that he should do it again if he gets the opportunity. Taehyung's expression changed, suddenly he was disinterested.

"You didn't even talk to her? Just left the cat there for her to find?"

"Well, yeah." Jimin threw his hair back. "I couldn't risk she recognizing my voice and thinking I was stalking her. Scaring her was not the goal, Tae, quite the contrary..."

Taehyung stared at him in silence for what felt a whole minute - maybe it really was, vampires perceive time differently. "You are not a secret superhero, Jimin. You are a vampire." Said that he got back to his room.

Jimin doesn't understand. These outbursts and mood swings leave him confused. And it's not like he hasn't already tried to talk. This... This he doesn't recognize in Taehyung. It hurt his feelings and at same time he feels it is partially his faut. "I can be both if I want to!" He exclaimed.

No answer. To find somebody who would be happy for him and understand the euphoria he felt for saving a little bit that girl he went through his contact list. A lot of vampire names - a lot is maybe an exaggeration, since he doesn't have many friends at all - who wouldn't be rude, but wouldn't understand, and also some former human colleagues from past jobs with whom he hasn't spoken in a long time and maybe should erase the number... And you. Of course you are the obvious choice. You had sympathy for the case from the beginning, even offered to help. And if it weren't for you he wouldn't have succeeded...

Jimin: hey sweetheart Jimin: I found sushi! Jimin: thanks to you btw He sent the messages, hoping it wouldn't be strange. It wasn't the first time you two texted before, but it was just an exchange of memes and silly flirt... without compromise talk. And what he wanted this time was different. You took too long to answer, and he wondered if you were in class and if he was bothering you. He wanted everything but to mess it up with you right now. Maybe he should've checked your class schedule for the week to make sure he texted you when he was sure you were free. But he was so eager to talk to someone... with you. He gave up waiting and went after doing something productive. Crochet dolls. He was doing a mini Taehyung, with red eyes and little cute fangs - an apology for later, neither of them like fighting with each other, even if you can't call that earlier thing a fight- when his cell phone started to crazily vibrate and beep.

You: OMG! You: thts amazing! You: sorry i didn't aswr before You: I was taking a nap hehe You: anyways You: i'm so happy u found him You: [image.jpg] You: ur friend must be even happier :) You: what do u mean thanx to me? You: sorry i spammed u :( Jimin can't handle you. You are too cute. You literally sent him a photo of you with an enormous smile, cheering, to show him your reaction. And you were with your hair all messed and the puffy face of someone who just woke up. Precious. Jimin: no problem, sweetheart Jimin: you said to look in other owners' houses. basically. I found him with a old cat lady with three grandchildren   Jimin: you are looking cute btw You: OwO You: i'm looking like shit Jimin You: BUT thats awesome You: if it was me id be crying til my eyes fall You weren't even there with him, in person, and you were putting a smile on his face. How dare you say you look like shit when you have those perfect cute cheeks? So alive...

Jimin: EXACTLY. that's why I wanted to find him so much. Jimin: and because you helped me, I want to reward you Jimin: i know you don't work today. me neither. do you want to go out for coffee in a nice place? You took too long to answer again, and that's because your heart is exploding and knees trembling while you stare at your cell phone screen, standing midway in your kitchen. You: u dont need to. i did nothing. This time Jimin took too long to answer. He was making a decision. To be more straightforward. More honest. Until now he was dictating a slow pace for your flirting, because for him romance is like that. But what if he tries to speed things up a bit? Or if he lets you command? How would things be?

Jimin: Y/N, respect my excuse to ask you out.

He knew what your answer would be. Even so, he felt anxious, hearing a non-existent heartbeat in his ear, while the three dots indicated that you were typing.

You: ok. what time do you come to pick me?

Tag List:  @angrygardenerr @depressed-dude20 @milktaetae95 @tangledsparkles  @wlalsrkfla @minikolima​  @wrecklesseuphoria

If you want me to add you to the list let me know, and please let comments :)

#bangtanshadowfamily #bts #bts fanfic #bts fluff #bts fanfction #vampire bts #bts vampire au #vampire jimin #vampire taehyung #jimin fanfic #park jimin #jimin #jimin x reader #taehyung fanfic #taehyung #kim taehyung #taehuyng x reader #bts smut #bts angst #poly!au #vampire!bts #vampire!au #vmin x reader

[prismatales]

Baby? (Yagi Toshinori)

Anon:could you do one where all might finds out his girlfriend/fiance is pregnant even though they thought she would never be able to have children? 👉👈

How dare you hit me in the feels Anon...I love you

...This had to be a joke...right?

Those two pink lines had to be some mistake, a sick joke from the 10% chance of inaccuracy from the pregnancy test clutched tightly in your shaking hands, breath coming out in shaky puffs just from looking at the dreaded plastic stick.

Why did the universe enjoyed torturing you and Toshi so much?

After years and years of trying, of taking overwhelmingly nasty home remedies, fertility treatments and going from clinic to clinic, you and your then boyfriend had given up on the dream of having a child together after the last medical check-up, hearing the news from the doctor together with that damned look full of pity on her face didn't help the situation one bit the moment she gave you the diagnosis.

"I'm really sorry to be the bearer of such disheartening news, but based on the results...It's highly unlikely you'll manage to conceive a child..."

That was five years ago, and each and every single time you stumbled upon the children's section at stores that heaviness inside would always come back, each time more painful than the last one in cruel mockery.

So...Why did you let Midnight talk you into taking this cursed test into the first place after seeing you rushing to the bathroom to empty the contents of your stomach for the third time that week, considering that by this point the answer would be more than obvious and you knew it better than anyone?

"What does the test say Y/N?" Nemuri's voice could was heard from the other side of the door, she could hear you pacing back and forth through the small room.

"It's says it's a god damn joke!" She could hear you yelling, if anyone came in the small bathroom they'd quickly notice how much you were trembling, tears dangerously close to come out from all the emotions growing inside of you at the same time...along with the small life inside of you.

If there's really something, or rather someone growing in there...

"Are you serious?!" Midnight yelled out in excitement and opened the door, but her expression faltered a bit when she saw you sitting in the toilet while glaring at the test in your hands with a look of doubt.

Both fear and happiness radiated off your whole being, happy at the idea of finally being able to become a parent alongside your now fiance, but you were also afraid it was only a false alarm, you knew the possible outcome that would come should this be just some fake hope. Toshi and you would definitely be devastated, it was already hard enough the fist time you got the news that having a baby would be nearly impossible...so if this was just a mistake you weren't sure if the both of you could take it.

"I'm scared Midnight..." Your hands grasped your head stressfully, afraid this was just a dream or some sick joke "What if it's just a false alarm? I don't think Toshi and I will be able to handle it..."

She quickly crouched down in front of your nervous self, hands caressing your shoulders comfortingly, she knows how sensitive this subject really was for both you and Yagi, so it's natural for you to be so afraid of stepping inside another clinic just to be let down once again. Pinching the bridge of your nose in frustration the only thing left to do was face this current situation and see what happens, dwelling in fear won't give you the answer you're looking for.

"I may not understand how you're feeling right now, but I'll assure you everything's going to be alright...besides, think about it from this perspective" She stood up in front of you with a smile "Isn't it a coincidence that you guys are finally going to be a happy little family after he retired?"

...Midnight had a good point, why did this happen right after Toshi officially retired as the symbol of peace and Number One hero? Maybe it was some kind of signal, telling you this was the perfect time to bring a little one to this world, the small flicker of hope inside you kept growing and growing, reassuring you everything would be fine.

You were not aware your hand was caressing the spot where the little one was growing, not until the thought of giving Toshi the news came to mind, a smile crept upon your face at the idea of telling him that before he'd realize there would be somebody around calling him "Papa", probably wearing one of his characteristics hero Onesie.

The fit of giggles that came out couldn't be contained, the mental image of a mini Toshi stumbling around the house as they struggled to follow their father around the house was too cute to handle, and Nerumi knew just what you were thinking just by looking at your face.

"I need to surprise him, would you help me plan something?" She smiled brightly by your question.

"Thought you'd never ask!"

..........

......

...

Yagi Toshinori came home with exhaustion running though his whole body after today's training session with class 1-A and his training with Midoriya, in that moment his one and only desire was to die into bed to have a well deserved rest and possibly spend some time with his lovely Y/N before delving into the land of dreams.

Especially after he barely had time so see you that morning because of the stomach bug you apparently caught most likely due to the takeout ordered from that new place, he'd have to make sure to send a complain if by any chance his fiance's condition happened to get worse.

"I am home!" His voice came out mixed with a soft laughter, ever amused by the little call you always enjoyed to hear every time he came home, living together was quite an adventure, something full of excitement, happiness and joy, it was something that you wouldn't change for anything in the world.

"I am in the kitchen!" You call back with enthusiasm, there's something that has you in a good mood it seems, considering you're not waiting for him in the living room reading that book you love so much with that look of serenity that always manages to put him in a good mood even with all the current events, it's something worth adoring that could make even the most stoic of persons remember we're just humans after all.

Despite the exhaustion coursing thought every inch of his body Toshinori make his way to the kitchen in a steady yet slow pace, nothing but curiosity driving each step, thoughts deep in wonder...what exactly happened that has you in such a euphoric mood? Not that he doesn't like it, but today there's something else boosting that happy mood.

Stepping inside the kitchen he's met with an unusual sight, in the first place there's a small pastel yellow gift bag sitting on top of the table, and you're sitting on the other side of the table, chin resting over your hands which are resting over the wooden surface, there's such a bright smile on your face it could illuminate even the darkest of nights, it's been a while since the last time he saw you smiling that brightly.

The last time he saw that kind of smile was probably when he proposed two years ago.

"Welcome home Toshi! How did class go today?" You asked cheerfully, a glint in those E/C colored eyes hinted for an incoming surprise, a big one by the looks of it so he played along with it to see just what kind of stuff you were going to pull out.

"Hard as usual, those kids are going to become some of the greatest heroes the world has ever seen" Yagi pulled out the chair in front of you and took a seat "Young Midoriya's improving greatly as well...if only she could see his improvement as well..."

His voice dropped quickly and it was so easy to figure out why exactly, after all he told you everything about Nana and the history with All for One, it was clear as water talking about this would always be a sensitive subject for Yagi.

You were quick to comfort him, standing up and softly wrapping your arms around his shoulders from behind "I'm sure Nana's watching everything from above...and even though we were unable to meet each other, I can assure you that she's proud of you and Midoriya"

Yagi's hands caressed your own and gripped it back carefully, it was his own way of thanking his love for being there for him despite everything that's happened so far, that's the very reason that made Yagi make up his mind the day he proposed, that's why he wanted you alongside him for whatever time he had left on earth.

"But enough of that, you have a surprise I do not want to ruin with my pessimist mood, what got my dear fiance in such a good mood?" He turns around in his spot to take a good look at your face, despite the recent conversation that smile is still there and doesn't seem to go away.

Pecking Yagi on the cheek before releasing him from the hug, the first thing you did was grab the gift bag in front of him before shaking it with enthusiasm, the sight was almost like watching a child getting riled up about their birthday present and was enough to make Yagi release a full fledged laugh at the way his fiance behaved.

"I got a surprise for you! And trust me when I say you did NOT see this coming!"

You hand him the bag before rushing for the phone to get his reaction on camera, it leaves him wary at first thinking it must be a prank, but on the other hand this good mood you're in it's more than enough proof it's something important.

"Should I expect something jumping at my face?" He chuckles.

"Just open your gift and take a look for yourself!" Your giggles are contagious, and with that motivation Yagi caves in and sticks his hand inside the bag, the ruffling inside riles up his curiosity tenfold when your literally start vibrating in excitement.

A few seconds later he finally pulls out a small pair of white baby shoes from the bag, they're small enough to fit a newborn and look even smaller when he's holding them in both hands, he just stares at them quietly for a while, there's not a bit of sound in the kitchen asides from your guy's breathing and the sounds outside from traffic and people passing by.

"What's this?" He can't help but ask, thinking is some game or something.

"They're shoes you dummy" You say from behind the camera, awaiting for his answer.

"I know what they are Y/N, but why did you buy this? They're small enough to fit a--" Yagi freezes on the spot, once he connects the dots his head whips around in you direction with wide eyes like a deer caught in the headlights.

"You're not joking...right?"

You shake you head with a smile, but before Yagi can say anything else you interrupt him.

"Look inside the bag, there's something else in there"

He rapidly starts rummaging through the bag and finds a white envelope that's quickly ripped open in a rush to get the paper inside it, his eyes quickly scan the contents of the letter before he turns back to look at you.

"This isn't a joke...right?" He asks you once again before looking back and forth between you and the papers in hand, practically shaking from everything he's feeling in that moment, it's actually a surprise to the both of you he hasn't started coughing up blood from the shock.

He stands up so quickly the chair scrapes against the titled floor, making a high pitched, ear splitting screech that neither of you seemed to mind, too distracted by the news to pay attention to anything else currently going on.

"Are you really...Are we really having a baby?!" He's standing in front of you, and the hope in his eyes makes it impossible to hold it in anymore.

"Yes! We're finally going to be parents!" You almost want to jump from happiness, but knowing Yagi he'd probably give you an earful before telling you to be careful, if the way he's constantly dotting over Midoriya isn't already proof enough.

Yagi quickly hugs you, strongly but carefully not to hurt you or the small life growing inside of you, he's only known about it for less than a few minutes and he's already being extremely careful with you.

"How long...?" He can't even speak properly, too close to tears and his voice comes out hoarse from how much he wants to cry in that instant.

"Four weeks, turns out the little one was the one responsible for the stomach ache, not the takeout" You laughed "I seriously hope you didn't send a complain"

"Who, me?" He pulls back, hands up in the air "No way!"

Good thing he forgot to call the restaurant in the midst of the whole surprise...

"Do you realize what this means?" Yagi quickly changes the subject, a glint in his eyes that can only mean one thing.

"We need to prepare the nursery asap!!"

"Oh my god Toshi, we still have 9 months to do so!"

"Nonsense, It's never too early, the quicker the better! Wait until young Midoriya finds out!"

"Should we get him an 'Honorary big brother' T-shirt?"

"Yes! And don't forget about the wedding! Should we do it before or after the baby's born?"

"Careful Toshi, Midoriya finally rubbed off on you"

This was going to be so much fun.

MASTERLIST

@t-amajiki @undead0relived @shoobirino @bnha-ra @godtieruwu @mysticalite

#mha imagine #bnha imagine #mha imagines #bnha imagines #bnha toshinori #toshinori yagi #yagi toshinori #all might #reader insert #female reader

[theritualofourexistence]

Clarity in the Cancellation Crusade

After posting multi-paragraph comments on a couple different things that have popped up in my feed recently, it seemed like I should probably just sit down and write this out.

“Cancel culture.” Crazy shit, right?

The recent onslaught of cancellations includes Mr. Potato Head, Pepe Le Pew, a handful of Disney movies (Peter Pan, Dumbo, The Aristocats), and *audible gasp* Dr. Seuss. The Muppets also got a newfangled Disney+ content warning, though I’ve seen significantly fewer headlines about that.

The thing that inevitably happens when the news media decides to publish a headline about a children’s toy or book being “canceled” is a veritable parade of social media complaints about how sensitive people have become. I saw this particular post over 10 times in the period of a couple hours one day last week…

The question I’ve been asking recently when I see posts like that is this: “Who do you think cancel culture is?”

Because “cancel culture” isn’t real. In the majority of the cases currently making headlines, the choice to remove a character from a movie or stop publishing a book has been made by the company responsible for that character or book… and that is very much a normal thing companies can choose to do.

No one I’ve posed the above question to has overtly mentioned “Libtards,” but it’s certainly implied. People who haven’t read a Dr. Seuss book in 20 years are now suddenly all up in arms (literally?) because “the Liberals” are coming for “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.”

The Liberals are not coming for Dr. Seuss. They do not care about a potato toy. Also, nothing is happening to the Cat in the Hat. I repeat: NOTHING is happening to the Cat in the Hat.

The choices to stop publishing that book and to market a vegetable toy in a less gendered way were made by the companies responsible for producing those products… not the Liberal “cancel culture” ghoul. In fact, it’s really, really hard to find public outcry about any of the things that have been recently “canceled.” There was a single NYT article that recently discussed the problematic nature of the Pepe Le Pew cartoons… that said, Warner Bros hasn’t aired that show in decades and it is not clear whether that article had anything to do with the skunk’s scene being removed from the new Space Jam movie.

Even growing up I remember things like political correctness needlessly becoming a partisan issue. When we fall into that media trap, all we’re doing is watering the plant of an already poisonous and ineffective two-party system. Be bigger than that temptation. Push back against media intended to further divide Americans. If something stinks, it’s probably rotten. Sure, there are certain topics that fall under the umbrella of political correctness that sound alarm bells for censorship issues… but didn’t everyone’s mom tell them that if they didn’t have anything nice to say, they shouldn’t say anything at all?

Again, though, the most important thing to remember about this recent wave of “canceling” is that censorship concerns are moot. A person who owns a thing is legally allowed to do all the censoring they want. It’s not the government that has decided to stop publishing 6 books written by Dr. Seuss… if it were, we could have the censorship conversation. These changes aren’t happening because there is a Democrat in the White House. They’re happening because the company who makes these products, has for whatever reason, decided to take a different approach.

In the case of the Dr. Seuss books, Dr. Seuss Enterprises re-evaluated their choice to publish 6 books based on racist themes and images. I have only heard of two of those six. The image below is, in my opinion, objectively problematic:

The fact that a major company behind such a well-known name has seen that something is problematic and has decided to stop publishing the books containing overt racist images is awesome. It sets a great example that we can all learn from. Humans have an amazing capacity to learn… that’s one of the only reasons we are in charge here on Earth. If we fall on ice once, we are often more careful on ice the next time. When we see that something is racially problematic, it’s a good thing if we can take action to get that thing out of rotation. More on that later.

Fundamentally, what is happening right now in Media Land is gross sensationalism.

“Cancel culture” isn’t real. Should people face consequences if they say or do racist things? Yes. We should all agree on that. Should we stop publishing books that perpetuate racist stereotypes? Yes. There are plenty of non-racist books that provide an education about racial differences without the added (exceedingly inappropriate) zing of Asian characters being painted yellow and African characters being given monkey features.

If you’re not convinced that some of Dr. Seuss’s material is racially problematic, I encourage you to pop on over to Google to check out the series of ads he did for FLIT in the 1930s. Yes, it was the 1930s. In the last 90 years, we’ve learned that images like that are not okay… let’s use that knowledge to let old racist graphics die.

Still can’t accept that “cancel culture” isn’t real? Still feeling like there’s something in the air now that is different and worse than before?

Okay, then, let’s consider it further.

Things have been “canceled” by people for millennia… this isn’t new. Being all for cancel culture when Colin Kaepernick kneels for the anthem (a perfectly legal form of peaceful protest considered respectful by many veterans) but opposing cancel culture when it’s threatening to eliminate an obviously racist thing is not exactly a moral stance. Burning your Nikes in the street but then turning around and spending $400 on a copy of “If I Ran the Zoo” on eBay after Dr. Seuss’s own family has pulled it from publication due to racist imagery is… silly.

The same people who seem to be so vocal about “cancel culture” now are part of the same communities who tried to cancel plenty of things in my lifetime. Things like trick-or-treating, Harry Potter, school dances, books and movies with LGBT+ characters and themes…

History absolutely bubbles over with things that have been canceled… often for good reason! Some examples that come to mind: 

DDT

the Catholic Church (see the 16th century Protestant Reformation)

doing our everyday poopin’ in outdoor holes

polio

hoop skirts

phrenology (new science cancels old science like every damn day)

Ford Pintos (not to mention cars without seatbelts)

telegrams and rotary phones (replaced by easier and better ways to communicate)

lead paint

asbestos

Four Loco

Y’all remember when we all did the ice bucket challenge to cancel Alzheimer’s?

Learning that something is problematic and moving past it is LEARNING… not cancel culture.  Learning and growth are good things. We all benefit from them.

Another thing worth commenting on from that Cat in the Hat post that circulated in my Facebook feed: why do we consistently demonize sensitivity? Racism feels like something we should all be sensitive about. If being sensitive about something results in meaningful change and a less hateful country, isn’t that… good? Why do so many Americans seem to place so much value on their “freedom” to hurt others?

And don’t get me started on comparing this stuff to Cardi B. It boggles my mind that that’s happening at all. Why is there suddenly so much outcry about one song that features female genitals in a literal ocean of songs that feature male genitals. I grew up knowing every word to songs about sex well before I even knew what sex was. Your kids are only desperate to listen to WAP because they know it makes you squeamish. And take a second to think about why it makes you squeamish. Genitals are human and scientific and we literally all have them. If you have more of a problem with WAP than with any of the other 10,000 songs about dicks and sex, you need to spend some time examining why that is.

Here’s another post I’ve seen bouncing around the social media feeds:

Something about this is just plain hilarious to me. Like what are racism and rape culture if not THE REALEST issues? This country’s problem with systemic racism runs so, so deep and is reflected very plainly in centuries of cold, hard numbers. It’s not that I *think* systemic racism is a problem. The data very clearly shows that regardless of what white people think about race in this country, systemic racism absolutely IS a problem. Racism and rape culture, arguably at the root of the most recent canceling spree, are not just real issues, they’re real American issues. They’re cultural issues. And solving cultural issues is not easy. We know that these issues have been passed down through the generations so maybe changing children’s toys and books and shows isn’t such a bad thing to try. There is SO much work to do to address racism and rape culture in the United States, but small steps are still progress.

If choosing to stop airing a show that blatantly perpetuates rape culture means one less young person is stalked or assaulted or raped, that’s worth it, no? What if that one young person who doesn’t become a victim is your daughter?

If choosing to stop publishing a book with racist themes and images leads to even one kid understanding more about the nuance of race in America and the breath-taking extent of white privilege, that’s worth it too.

Would I rather the media spend time and money to bring American attention to bigger issues associated with this nation’s racism and rape culture? 100%. There are ENORMOUS fish to fry. Dr. Seuss is not an enormous fish. Potato head toys are not enormous fish. Pepe Le Pew is not an enormous fish. They’re not even big fish. They’re small. They’re tiny fish. They’re anchovies. But frying some fish is better than frying no fish.

Canceling Pepe Le Pew is not hurting anyone. Warner Brothers owns Pepe Le Pew. Warner Brothers owns nearly everything; they are not hurting for money. And canceling Pepe certainly isn’t hurting American kids. There are plenty of other kids’ shows to watch that are significantly less problematic. Just because you watched Pepe Le Pew and went on to be a properly respectful adult doesn’t mean there aren’t other kids out there who did internalize a harmful disrespect for consent. No, Pepe Le Pew probably isn’t single-handedly responsible for anyone’s decision to stalk or rape anyone else. But could a show reinforce the groundwork that ultimately leads a kid down a path where he is unable or unwilling to respect the boundaries of others? I mean, it’s not the craziest thing I’ve heard this week.

Canceling six total Dr. Seuss books that are already pretty obscure is not hurting anyone.

Changing the name of an already genderless potato toy to reflect that genderless-ness is not hurting anyone.

A brief recap: racism and rape culture are very real, very American issues.

If the decision to stop doing a thing doesn’t hurt anyone and may even save someone some hurt, why does that decision bother you?

Also, in all your frantic Facebook posting, make sure you are differentiating between “cancel culture” and consequences. When the media tosses around the phrase “cancel culture” it has this tone of finality that is, plainly, not realistic. Fads and trends move so quickly in the internet age that the idea that a group of people could “cancel” something permanently is just not possible. People who do or say racist things, though, should face consequences. People who do or say transphobic or homophobic things should face consequences. Consequences are one of the only ways we learn to do better. And again, that’s not my opinion, it’s science.

One of the consequences that can have the most impact is, you guessed it, losing money! In this capitalist hellscape, money talks. Boycotting and choosing how we spend our money are some of the most engaging ways to combat racist and homophobic garbage. When you have your temper tantrum because the company who owns a book with overtly racist imagery decides to stop publishing that book, that speaks volumes about your priorities. If you respond to that company’s decision by buying the book in question on eBay for $400, that speaks even louder volumes. What are you doing? WHY are you doing it? I’m guessing you don’t even know, and you should probably spend some time thinking about it before you flush away a chunk of your stimmy on a freaking RACIST KIDS’ BOOK.

All actions have consequences. All of our choices never affect just us. How we vote affects other people. How we spend our money affects other people. Spending our money on things that are problematic perpetuates the problem… whether it be racism, rape culture, homophobia, or transphobia… or so many other things this country desperately needs to address.

It’s human to not like change. Change is going to happen, though, regardless of whether or not we’re comfortable with it. In the information age, we have a remarkable opportunity to steer that change. Leaving behind racist relics is change, so it may be inherently uncomfortable. But change that moves our country away from racism and rape culture is GOOD change.

I am begging you. Use critical thinking… if you’re seeing a headline about something being canceled, look up WHY. Some of these headlines are absolute bunk… they’re shared just to get people all riled up and create American division. However, just like we *should* cancel lead paint, a children’s book with overtly racist images shouldn’t be published anymore and it’s weird if you disagree with that. Disagreeing with that decision, as silly as it may seem, perpetuates racism. I know how triggered y’all can get when someone suggests you might be perpetuating racism, but it is what it is. Do your research. Don’t spend your money on racist garbage. Be better.

I feel like this post is me just barking the exact same thing in different ways, but I also feel like there is so much more I could say.

I’ll leave you with this:

What will it take for Americans to weigh the threats of racism and homophobia the same way we weight the threat of lead paint? If it’s a matter of costing lives, well, the numbers speak for themselves.

#cancel culture #cancellation #racism #rape culture #the muppets #pepe le pew #dr. seuss #seuss #consequences #change #mr. potato head #potato head #cancel culture isn't real

[acidmatze]

Gojou's eyesight

aka „I wanna be realistic but also not too much cuz research makes my eyes go hurty“

Disclaimer: Yeah yeah I know Gege doesn't actually meant for Gojou to have albinism and it's Not That Deep but I am bored and can swim well so I will make it that deep.

I'm not an eye doctor (obviously), just someone with too much free time and all of this is speculation just for fun (also obviously).

So what he can see how he sees it and what he cannot see, maybe.

He's already wearing glasses canonly which makes a whole lot of things easier for me. Thanks, Gege.

Most people with any form of albinism experience photophobia (sensitivity to sun).

Yeah, I know he probably wears the tinted glasses because his eyes are too pretty to handle or whatever but it's not much of a stretch to assume he's sensitive to light.

IIRC normally the melanin in your eyes and the iris and such prevents too much light from entering your eye and bouncing around like a rubber ball but if you lack said melanin all of the light that normally would be blocked does exactly that. Which produces glare and pain and makes the whole Seeing thing pretty hard.

Pretty obviously, bright sunlight is unwanted but not many people realise that certain types of overcast weather have just the same effect.

Also quite obviously, dark tinted glasses reduce the glare.

Gojou is either near or far-sighted. Which it is is a roll of the dice but I lean towards near-sighted because he does the head tilt sometimes. I also do that cuz my glasses are so strong if I wanna see something up close it takes a lot of effort to keep my eyes „in place“ and doing so is very straining so looking over the brim of the glasses is much easier.

Would explain why he wears them rather loosely. Even though that makes a whole lot of things unnecessarily complicated again since very strong glasses for near-sightedness seem to „shrink down“ things and make them seem smaller than they are and the effect gets worse and worse the further away the glass is from your eye.

(Does this mean glasses for far-sighted people make things seem bigger.....?)

He most likely has a reduced visual acuity due to two things: Nystagmus Less cones in the retina and an either complete lack or an underdeveloped fovea cuz of a lack of melanin (Yes melanin doesn't just make your skin, eyes and hair dark its also needed for the eye development)

Less cones does not equal blurry vision. Blurry vision is caused by near or far-sightedness and astigmatism (something Gojou most likely also has) and can be corrected with glasses.

The fovea is kind of like a screen where the image is projected on to and where it Should be sharp. Without it, there is no sharp image and details are lost. Visual acuity could be broadly described as.... The maximum „resolution“ your eye has. The higher the resolution the sharper and more detailed everything is even over great distances.

It has no impact on colour vision so Gojou can see colours just fine.

Since Gojou has completely white hair (realistically it would still contain hints of blonde) and blue eyes his vision should be... not particularly spectacular.

I'm throwing darts here and guess roughly about 20/250...? 20/300?

Google „visual acuity tool bayer“ and you will find a tool that simulates with questionable accuracy several pictures with different accuities. It has a slider and all. Put the slider down to 6/75 and that's roughly what I imagine his vision to be (with glasses!).

It puts him under sight impaired but not yet legally blind. I think.

I'm going by european definitions here, no idea how its handled in america or japan.

And if someone wonders if he can see HD or 4K, i have been informed that yes, he can if hes close enough.

Nystagmus is fast involuntary eye movement. Which would be a bitch to animate and also pretty impossible to draw.

It can either go from side to side, up and down or even rotate.  

How fast and frequent and everything it is depends on person to person. Some people say they notice the movement and some say they don't notice anything until someone points it out.

It additionally lowers the visual acuity.

And again, experiences vary. Some people say they have trouble focussing on things and others say they don't have troubles focussing on stuff at all, it just happens to be blurry.

Some people are able to find a head position that counteracts the nystagmus and either balances it out or the position slows it down somewhat for whatever reason.

I haven't noticed Gojou doing that but realistically he probably would.

Why would he wear glasses then if his vision is bad anyway? Because it makes the difference between seeing barely moving blobs of colour that could be very close or very very far away and seeing something definitely car-shaped coming at you fast and it doesn't matter wether you can read the license plate or not cuz you need to get off the damn road fast.

It makes the difference between knowing that he needs to make a right turn at the McDonalds but not knowing which blob is McDonalds and which blob isn't and being able to see the giant fucking McDonalds sign.

It's the difference between knowing that Yuuji is wearing a red hoodie and being able to spot said red hoodie in a crowd and just seeing blobs of colours that run into one another.

You get the gist, i guess.

Just turn the tool all the way down to get a feel of how the world without glasses would look. Kinda sorta.

For reasons i don't quite understand people with albinism also have bad depth perception. Because experiences vary once again, some people notice this a lot and others have no problems with it.

Since Gojou seems to have no problems with aiming, throwing and catching things i guess either Six Eyes helps or he has adapted to no stereovision.

I wonder if Gege will ever drop hints wether or not Gojou can see anything under that blindfold of his. But i assume no.

We also have no real information on how Six Eyes actually works but several people say he can see cursed energy.

If we assume that works despite the blindfold he could still easily navigate crowds of people and recognise people (didn't he recognise Getou that way...? Or did i misunderstand?) probably even better than with his regular eyesight. So moving around in Tokyo wouldn't really be a problem and he probably has memorised the layout of the schoolgrounds already anyway.

Recognising people he knows well at a glance from a distance also wouldn't be a problem anymore.

His phone probably has a screen reader.

Also modern phones work just fine when controlled per mic.

The old phone he had as a teen was a lot less sophisticated but also a lot less complex so it would be easier to use. Less things that can go wrong and the physical buttons provide sensory feedback. Also the buttons on old phones make different noises so that's another clue.

No need to read who calls you when you assign different songs to different people. (Maybe Nanami is Dancing Queen.... who knows? Megumi calls and Black Parade starts playing.)

Adding a strong contrast between things can also make or break a situation.

Why he wears the blindfold at all would also be interesting to know.

Is it because the information he gets from Six Eyes is enough to get around?

Is he overwhelmed from the visual input he gets?

Does it simply keep the sunlight out way better than glasses?

Gege, explain!

Anyway I'm done with this, no idea where I wanted to go with this. If you Actually know stuff about vision please feel free to throw stones at me and all.

#gojo satoru #jjk #calling this 'analysis' would be an insult to actual analyiseseseses so i wont #i dunno what to tag this as #ergh

[somedrunkpirate]

in the dark we travel (geraskier scifi au part III)

Ao3 | Tumblr: part 1, part 2 | WIP | No Major Warnings | Rating: M |

The first night is always sleepless. 

Be it the rambunctious nature of a group of people having made it out from whatever they’re running from— you do not use these kinds of ships if you’re not running from something— or getting used to the movement of the ship, the rumble of the engines and the thrum of ventilators. 

Geralt doesn’t even bother laying down. He sits on the far edge of his grate, one leg dangling over the edge and his back leaning against the wall. He hadn’t had much time to pack for the travel; he’d had to leave his larger case behind, but he isn’t bothered by the cold. 

As such, he takes off his jacket and sits on top of it, a measure more comfortable than the iron on its own. But after a while, he takes it, folds it, and puts it behind his head, one loose sleeve over his nose. That way he can at least pretend it’s filtering out some of the stench. 

By some miracle, the passengers down below start to quiet down in earnest three hours into the journey. Maybe the rush has left them all more exhausted than usual. It’s been barely three days since the Magistrate let Enforcers into Erilisis Boulevard. The riots are still going, as far as Geralt knows. 

The Sovereign Wastes have not been all that Sovereign lately, at least not the planets and cities that border with the UNC. A new fervour of anti-augmentation has come out of Novigrad, led by their most fearsome priests on the pulpit. Raving on and on about their beliefs, inexplicably convinced that anyone else should give a fuck about them as well. The everlasting fire will purify the masses, and so on and so forth.

Geralt’s fingers curl into his palm of his own accord. The cool lines of crystal and metal weave between patches of labour-hardened flesh. He breathes, makes a subtle sign in the air. Igni. 

It’s only a flash of flame, ignited by the mechanisms in his fingertips, the fuel stored in a divet between his wrists. At least, that’s the story. It’s mostly true. 

But if the priests already wish to tear out the technological, Geralt can’t even imagine the way their eyes would bug out of their heads when they discover that even without it, he’d be able to produce flame. Not as much, not as controlled. But still. 

For all Ancienthunters are called, hypocritical isn’t one of them. They’ve worked hard to keep it that way. 

Geralt produces another flash of light— for warmth, for something to do, when movement catches his attention. 

A figure, at the mouth of the space between the containers. 

He was distracted, and the figure has already stepped into the dark. 

Well, it's no matter. Roach will handle it. 

He sends her a quiet warning and feels her stand at attention, ready for anything. She’ll start with intimidation, but she’ll be prepared for anything if there is a threat, if someone dares to come to close to her—

She sees the target, recognizes him, and relaxes at once. 

Geralt has to pull himself out of it, tumbling into the sensation helplessly, muscles slacking and breath coming too easy. A warmth of delight. He pushes it all away and grabs his blade. He shifts, leans over the edge,  trying to see below, when he hears—

“Good girl, Roach. Now, can I go up that ladder?” 

Roach huffs. 

“Thank you.” 

Geralt stills and closes his eyes for a moment. He sighs through his nose. 

Jaskier clambers up the ladder with anything but subtlety. His movements make the steel clank and groan under his weight. 

Geralt doesn’t need light to know that he’s grinning, the moment his head peeks over the edge. 

“Jaskier.” 

“Yeah, yeah, don’t push me off just yet. I’m not here to bother you.” 

Geralt can’t help but huff at that. 

Jaskier throws something at him. It’s soft, heavy— a thick padded blanket. 

“Figured that is better than nothing,” he says, and begins to climb down again. 

Geralt stares at the fabric in his hands. Questions rise up in his mind but none of them find their way into his throat, and he’s left there, stunned, rendered mute, at the sheer inexplicable action of giving something— something of actual use — without demanding anything in return. 

Jaskier is half way down the stairway when he calls out. “Geralt?”

Geralt tenses— here it comes. 

“If you change your mind torturing yourself for no reason I can discern, I’ve a cot with your name on it— well, technically, one with my stuff on it, but I suppose it will survive lying on the floor. You can even drag it away from mine, if the illusion of privacy means so much to you.” 

Sideswiped by the lack of— expectation, pressure; Geralt blurts out his surprise before he can stop himself. 

“You’re not in a bunk?” 

“No? Why should I? I don’t need one. Not as much as Skosa, or you.” 

Since when has anything been about necessity, in places like this. 

Jaskier reaches the ground. Geralt can hear him stumbling in the dark. 

Roach sends him a vague thought impression— snout pressing against a back. Gently. Leading. 

Geralt sighs. 

Jaskier laughs softly the whole way, as Roach softly pushes him back to the light. 

He thanks her, and wishes both of them a good night. 

Roach sends him another thought— a young Amaureen, the newest one in the stall. Brash, confident, but uncertain. Out of place. It had to be taught how to belong. 

Geralt isn’t sure if she’s right. Jaskier is out of place, yes. If there is any honesty to his disposition, he shouldn’t be able to survive. He shouldn’t have made it to this point at all. But he does belong, in a strange way. Or rather, he seems to trick others in believing that this is a place of belonging. That everyone does. 

It’s a fantasy. A false belief that will shatter the moment the darkness comes. No group of strangers can be held together by one man, no matter how bright he pretends to shine. He’ll burn himself out trying. 

And yet, Geralt finds himself hoping that he doesn’t learn. That he doesn’t have to grow bitter, after this. He lies down on the blanket, watches Jaskier return to a group of eclectic species, circled in the gentle glow of an emergency light. 

Geralt doesn’t dream— doesn’t sleep at all, but he dozes, a little, wondering despite himself what it would have been like to follow him down. To enter that circle and be welcomed. 

Stupid, of course. 

It wouldn’t do to break Jaskier’s carefully constructed illusion of sociability so quickly. 

For all his mastery of the ways of people, he seems to be blissfully unaware that even the presence of Geralt in his circle would scatter it into pieces.

Ironic, really, that refusing him could be considered a kindness. 

Not that Geralt has any intention— any need, to join him regardless. 

There is no space for him there, but he also never expected there to be one. Never desired to have one. 

He had his place in Ka’er Mor. He has his place now, with Roach, anywhere he wishes to go. Anywhere he can be useful. 

He doesn’t need anything else. 

He doesn’t want the responsibility of keeping it, once he finds it— to deal with the irrevocable consequence of losing it, the unerring awareness that if there is a mistake to make, a misstep to take, he will find it and have no hope of preventing himself from doing it. He’s proven that much. 

He doesn’t want to deal with any of it. 

Geralt is free. He won’t be if he’s holding on to something. 

Or someone is holding on to him. 

And he’s become very good at making sure no one wishes to keep him. 

It is only a matter of time before Jaskier learns that too. 

Geralt doesn’t sleep, but he makes himself stop watching. 

He tries to think of nothing at all. 

The following two days are almost normal. 

Normal, in the sense that they’re excruciating. Geralt does not, in fact, get used to the smell. There is something about the specifics of this batch that clings onto every surface and every fabric. The air dews onto the walls, sparkling droplets of utter disgust, and seeps into his blanket, his jacket, his clothing, until they’d be better suited for the containers than on his body. 

Geralt spends the time curled up and shivering— fleeting memories of before the Trial of Glass encompass his mind, ones he’d forgotten entirely after the change. His mother, a vague image, pressing cooling packs against his forehead. Gentle words of encouragement. Music— lullabies at first, and then longer songs, some lasting hours and hours. Lyrics in shards and pieces, half remembered, half imagined. 

And she stood on the way side, swaying in line

The stars of infinity before her

Sunlight shines brightly, a traitorous friend

Her home, her childhood, she doesn’t look back

Forced to flee her planet’s end. 

Her voice, curling around the words. Her laugh— no, that isn’t right. She wouldn’t have laughed. She was worried, then. Back when he could still get sick— when he could still die from it. 

This is normal. Geralt knows the burden of his senses, shakes and sweats but knows he will live through it. It’s only a matter of time.

In the dark, no one can see him. 

Only Roach knows. 

Her pacing is like a rhythm. Her unrest is only tempered by Geralt’s acceptance. By the familiarity of it all. 

Geralt breathes, and listens to the music down below. He’s annoyed to find that it helps, a little— the kind of stimulation that has a measure of sense to it. A pattern he can follow. 

But singing is not all Jaskier does. 

On the evening of the third day, two nights without sleep, Geralt senses a change in Roach’s footsteps. A line, instead of a circle. 

Geralt groans and sits himself upright. By the time Jaskier crests the edge of the grate, he’s regained control of himself— no trembling, no shaking. His fists are clenched. 

“Jaskier.” 

“Ah, you’re still alive, I started to wonder.” 

He climbs on top of the grate, sitting down with his legs crossed. 

Geralt is too tired to argue— too hungry, too desperate, for anything to distract him. His senses have gone haywire, so sensitive that he can feel the creaking of fabric when he breathes— that he can feel Jaskier’s breath, hear his heartbeat. 

He almost closes his eyes to it. 

Every night, Jaskier has come here. Sometimes to bring water, or food. Sometimes for an attempt on conversation. Every time Geralt managed to get him to leave within ten minutes. But he already knows that this time will be different. 

“Corron, you know, the Decalon, makes a mean stew from those dehydration packs. No clue what he puts into it, but I traded him some in exchange for a few song requests, so if you’ve been wanting to carve out my eyes because of those ballads, hold off for a moment and tell me if it wasn’t worth it.” 

With that declaration, he pushes a bowl into Geralt’s hands, lid open. 

For a single moment everything melts away as Geralt’s focus is entirely enveloped by the scent of actual, edible, warm food. But Geralt would have to put his face in it for the smell to linger, and he hasn’t lost that modicum of dignity, yet. Instead, he begins to eat it, trying desperately to block out all his senses except taste. 

Jaskier, of course, doesn’t let him and continues speaking. 

“Oh and Skosa has been working on these things.” 

Even with Geralt’s darkvision, he can’t make out enough details to discern what objects Jaskier is digging out of his bag. 

“You shouldn’t be near her,” he says, low. A sentence that has somehow become well worn in only a few days. 

“Yes because she’s really going to turn around and shoot me while fixing these—“ 

Suddenly there is a flash of light. Geralt almost drops the bowl at the shock of it and closes his eyes. His head throbs. 

“Shit, sorry, should have warned you. There is a setting somewhere—“ 

The light flashes again, but then dims a little. When Geralt opens his eyes again, he sees Jaskier grinning at him, electropulse-torch in his hands. 

“Karoline found them in the Piles looking for more shot glasses. They were completely busted but Skosa knows her way around broken tech. That T-1 Blaster of hers was also… a project, lets say.” 

Geralt closes his eyes again but this time less from the light and more out of the sheer force of stupidity that the universe manages to confront him with. “The Sketh has a recently repaired T-1 Blaster on her person.” 

“She’s tested it extensively, she says—“ Jaskier begins, sounding slightly defensive, but then he suddenly cuts off. “Oh fuck, Geralt.” 

Geralt snaps his eyes open, hand to his blade, looking for the treat. “What?” 

“Why didn’t you say you were sick?” 

Jaskier is staring at him, mouth agape, and that is when Geralt realises that the torches have more dangers to them than being allegedly fixed by a trigger-happy mercenary. 

Geralt has lost the shroud of darkness. 

“Geralt.” 

“Get out.” 

“The hell I will. What the fuck—“ Jaskier is shaking his head, pulling himself forward, his eyes searching Geralt’s face. “What is wrong with you? Were you already sick when you got here?” 

“Witchers don’t get sick.” 

“We have already established that you’re a special case.” 

Jaskier reaches out a hand— it's going— going to his forehead. The intention of a gentle touch— checking temperature. Worried. 

Geralt responds as if it’s an attack. He can’t help it. He snatches Jaskier’s hand away and growls, “Don’t.” 

Jaskier’s breath catches and he drops the light. It tumbles over the edge of the grate and shatters on the floor. 

Roach gives an affronted noise. 

“Geralt.” 

For the first time, Jaskier sounds uncertain. Not scared— not yet, but on his way to be. His fingers go slack in Geralt’s grip. He’s— he’s holding Jaskier’s wrist too tightly. Geralt can sense the blood being unable to push through, a persistent throb against his palm. 

He lets go as if he’s been burned. 

Jaskier yanks his arm back, his other hand curling around where Geralt had held him. 

Geralt imagines the skin— red, bruising — and his jaw locks together. It takes a mountain of effort to pry them back open and say, “It will be better, once I get some sleep.” 

Jaskier doesn’t respond for a moment. He’s sat back, leaning a way a little, eyes still wide. 

It makes Geralt a little sick, in a different way this time. He should’ve— he should’ve never let Jaskier up here. He’d known this would happen. He’d known and— indulged himself anyway. 

“Is there anything I can—“ 

Still. Still. 

Geralt wants to grab him by the collar and shake him— wants to yell, “Why do you do this? Why, after I hurt you, do you still insist on helping. Don’t you see this is why, this is why I can’t?” 

He’s so tired that he isn’t sure if he’s done it. The image is so vivid in his head. But when he blinks, the world reorientates around him, and Jaskier is talking, still worrying the skin of his wrist like no time has passed. 

“— the problem. Every time I’ve been here, you’ve been awake. I mean, have you even slept at all?” 

Geralt does not say anything. It’s an answer regardless. 

“Wait, really?” 

“I can handle it.” 

“Oh yeah, it really looks like you’re handling it. My wrist agrees with that assessment.” 

Geralt can’t suppress a flinch. He lets his head fall back against the wall, hard. It's so much easier to be miserable when there is no one to see it. He just wants to be alone. 

“I’ll leave you, now, because I can see you’re one wrong word away from pushing me off—“ 

Geralt imagines it— one movement, one snap decision and then Jaskier would fall, scatter, break. Just like the light. Bile gathers up his throat. 

“--so I’m going now. But if you haven’t slept by tomorrow night, you’re gonna fucking get in that bunk, you hear?” 

Geralt suddenly feels a strange kinship with the Sketh— Skosa. This is how she must have felt, overwhelmed with wild emotion, dangerously close to enacting some measure of pain, and then confronted by this strange creature that seems unable to prioritise his own safety above his stubborn fucking sense of what is right. 

“Fine,” Geralt grates out. He doesn’t mean it. He’d say anything to get Jaskier out of here— to be able to fall apart, finally, without a witness. 

But then Jaskier says, “Thank you,” with such naked relief and gratitude, that Geralt already knows he won’t be able to go back on it. He’s excruciatingly aware that it must be the mod— he feels the pull of it, the delicious warmth of genuine care that cannot be anything more than a nicely flavoured lie. Jaskier is kind; he is even kind in using his abilities to convince Geralt, but he can’t truly care like this. Not in this short amount of time. 

Geralt feels himself being persuaded and hates himself for it, but he’s going to let it happen anyway. 

Except if he is able to sleep. He doesn’t have to listen, if he sleeps. That’s the deal. 

By whatever fucking power in the universe, Geralt will convert to any if he just can fucking fall asleep. 

He lies back down and shakes and shakes and shakes. 

He doesn’t sleep at all. 

His vision begins to blur and shift. There are strange shapes in every corner. Figures, sometimes. Roach stops pacing and starts twitching erratically, trying to find the enemies that Geralt’s mind is carving out of a thick cloth made from pure exhaustion. He tries to show her, to calm her down. There is nothing there. It’s all false. 

Her breath comes more rapidly when one figure, a tall elongated humanoid rises up in the shadows, looming over Geralt. It’s fingers are long and thin. His torso is all bones-- too many of them, dozens of ribs, protruding out of paper thin skin. Geralt almost laughs at it. It’s a good impression of something terrifying. Vaguely familiar, even. Dragged out of nightmares, past memories, or even his teachings at Ka’er Mor.

But it remains funny to see a creature so imposing, completely without a head. It reminds Geralt of a butchery-- chickens walking on their last legs. A horrific comedy. 

The creature reaches out, and when its finger is about to touch Geralt’s forehead, it disappears. 

See, Geralt tells Roach. Not real. 

Roach huffs, sceptical, but for the rest of the night the visions stay away. 

Sleep does too, but what's new. 

#geraskier #geraskier fic #geralt of rivia #Jaskier #witcher #the witcher #geralt/jaskier #witcher fic #myfic #cw hallucinations #cw sleep deprivation #in the dark we travel #angst #angst in space #hurt/comfort #incoming #ive just started with chapter 5 so we be plotting along

[rosaline-kei]

Don’t Go - Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own Attack on Titan/Shingeki no Kyojin nor the characters.

Parts: 「1」「2」「3」

Chapter 2′s Title: Mikasa

Synopsis: Even after what was thought to be the end of the chaos, Mikasa Ackerman struggles with conflict, confusion and her emotions. The Raven plans to leave for the Kingdom of Hizuru—without a proper goodbye to Eren Jaeger. What is she running away from? What is she afraid of? Are apologies enough to heal? (Contains Manga Spoilers)

Prompt Summary (from a user): The reunion of Eren and Mikasa after Eren comes back from Grisha’s memories. Even though Eren’s head got blown away xD, I think that he will transform into his Titan Form. After reading the latest chapter I Think Eren will apologize to Mikasa for everything he did to her after the time-skip and will probably tell her not to join that Kiyomi and the Hizuru Kingdom. Thank you!!!

Eren wouldn’t let Mikasa leave for Hizuru because he knows that she loves him and that her love has nothing to do with her Ackermann genetics.

Takes Place after the war is finally settled. When Eren apologizes to Mikasa and Armin and ofc to all the members of the 104. Squad

I don’t think that Mikasa will accept his apology immediately since she is the Person that got hit the hardest by Eren’s deeds and especially his words in chapter 112

Rated: T

Read it also on / Leave a Review at:

Ao3 or FF net

Author’s Note: I hope this was okay haha. T-T, like I said, long time since I written something so I hope this isn't shit lmao. I hope I managed to convey Mikasa's conflict and confusion well. The next and last update, which is where the apology scene will occur, will most likely be posted in December (Hopefully, December 1st) since I still have things I want to touch up in part 3, which I feel is still missing stuff. I also really want to focus more on and finish the next chapter for my other two ongoing AOT/SNK fanfictions (Bloodlust and Love; which you can find on my ff net or ao3 account) since I hadn't update them for a while due to exams, and I really want to update them before November ends. ALTHOUGH, if Love and Bloodlust are done earlier than expected, part 3 (the last part) will come out earlier too soo, wohoo? Haha. 

“…How do you know I’ll be able to stop her…?” Eren mumbled out subconsciously. Undoubtedly, he did want to stop her. He… couldn’t bare the idea of her leaving, especially when he hadn’t had the chance to speak to her. But given the fact she had given the red scarf back to Eren, he wasn’t even sure if she wanted to see him, or if she’d even listen to him at this point.

Armin only scoffed, followed by a brief laugh. “Because you’re Eren Jaeger… you would never let someone you care about so deeply, leave for a reason like that.”

--

“Mikasa! Wait!” Armin called out as he ran after her. “You’re… You’re not serious about leaving are you?”

The meeting had just ended. Kiyomi Azumabito had sent them a letter. In the letter, Kiyomi wrote that she’d like to invite Mikasa to stay over at Hizuru—to which was where the money-eyed woman stated was her home, her rightful home.

But, Kiyomi didn’t state how long she wanted or planned for Mikasa to live there.

All the letter contained were those persuasive words and the time their ship would be at Paradis’s docks to escort Mikasa back to her homeland. And should Mikasa agree, she was to meet them at the docks, wearing a ruby necklace (that came along with the letter), which was a welcome gift.

The meeting was short, because Mikasa was the first to speak, and to conclude. “I will go.”

Truth be told, everyone was caught off guard by her response. “Mikasa Ackerman,” Commander Hanji said in a rather reassuring tone, “Nobody’s forcing you.”

Whatever Hanji had assumed was Mikasa’s reasoning for wanting to leave, was most likely wrong. But Mikasa didn’t seem like she was going to correct her anyway. “If you feel obligated to go because you want Paradis to remain on good terms with Hizuru, then—”

“It’s not that.” She had cut her off, “I… I just want to go back home.”

And just like that, the meeting ended. There was no stopping Mikasa, everyone knew that. Plus, this was her choice to make.

Armin watched Mikasa leave the meeting room, feeling a surge of worry running in his veins.

Because she didn’t state how long she planned to stay there either.

And that’s how he ended up chasing after her.

. . . . . .

“I’m serious. I already said I want to return home—my homeland. I want to see what it’s like.” Mikasa stated as she continued to walk. And despite her attempt at sounding convincing, Armin wasn’t easily fooled nor tricked by her lies.

“Are you sure you want to leave?” Armin frowned, “You haven’t even had the chance to have a proper conversation with Eren!”

Armin knew he was pushing it. He could tell from the way she suddenly froze in her steps that he himself had stepped into a dangerous, sensitive territory. Eren was a touchy subject for her, he knew. But someone had to say it—someone had to remind her what, or who, home actually was.

Silenced diffused into the air. The chilly air grew colder as a cool breeze blew by. Mikasa never knew she’d ever find herself hating the cold this much… it made her miss warmth. A warmth that she once grew so attached that was later forcibly taken away from her by a twisted fate. Her hand went up, wanting to adjust the scarf around her neck… to only realise she wasn’t wearing it.

Ah, that’s right… ever since then…

Mikasa shook her head. No. She didn’t want to remember any of that now.

“Mikasa?” Armin called out again, but in a gentler tone as his hand reached out, gripping her shoulder tightly. She felt comforted by his gesture, at the same time she still felt a sting in her heart from the words he spouted out earlier.

“… I have nothing to say to him.”

Lies. And even Mikasa knew she was lying to herself.

“Try again.” Armin murmured, urging her to be a little more honest with herself, “Do you really have nothing to say to him?”

Mikasa bit her lip before she proceeded to admit some truth, “I… don’t know what to say to him.”

“Trust me, Mikasa… if Eren could’ve apologised to you personally—if he had the time to apologise to you, to everyone a million times, he would… but he didn’t have time, and now he’s detained.” Armin sighed, “But when he’s released, he—” Armin cuts himself off halfway as he noticed a troubled expression forming on his beloved friend’s face. And because he knew her for so long, since childhood, he was able to read her like an open book.

“Is what he said back then still bothering you?”

Mikasa flinched, which confirmed his thoughts.

“You know… he didn’t mean it. He—”

“He had to.” Mikasa completed Armin’s sentence, her obsidian coloured eyes meeting his gaze briefly, before staring down at the ground. “I know that…” She muttered.

Yes, for the most part, she knew that he didn’t mean what he had said. But there was this haunting voice—and this other small part of her brain—that couldn’t help but still believe in his words. There was evidence to support it after all, like how she pinned Armin onto the table when he had tried to attack Eren when he had belittled her.

And as that image flashed in her mind, Eren’s distressing words began to echo.

Do you know what I hate most in this world? Anyone who isn’t free.

Slave. Slave. Slave.

I couldn’t stand to look an undoubting Slave who only followed every order.

SLAVE. SLAVE. SLAVE.

Ever since I was a kid, Mikasa…

Ever since. Ever since. Ever since…

I’ve always hated you.

HATE. HATE. HATE.

Always.

Out of the blue, Mikasa suddenly stumbled as she felt a sharp, and familiar piercing pain in her head. The headaches never left, huh?

Armin quickly supported her before she fell, but before he could say anything, Mikasa started to murmur in a stressful way, as if something was haunting her. “I have to leave…I need to… leave… then maybe I…”

Armin’s eyes softened as the raven trailed off. To some extent, he knew what Mikasa was trying to do by leaving. To some, travelling across the world would mean one is trying to understand… trying to comprehend, and trying to find themselves. Perhaps that’s what Mikasa wanted, to find herself. Or, she wanted to get away, run away… to find some form of distraction. But the blonde knew better—that her leaving and running away wasn’t going to resolve anything.

“You’re not a slave, Mikasa.” Armin said firmly, but he already knew that she would know that he never once saw her as that. Armin knew that these words were what she wanted to hear, it’s just… that it wasn’t him that she needed to hear those words from. “Remember that time, you defended me from Eren when were kids? You—”

Before she could let Armin finish, she pushed herself away from his support and began to walk off again. “Maybe that was because my Ackerman instincts hadn’t fully manifested…” She mumbled.

Armin frowned as he followed after her, “I thought you knew that he didn’t mean what he said? You know… his words weren’t true, right?”

“I know… I know that he didn’t mean what he said, but it doesn’t mean what he said wasn’t true.” And before Armin could retort, he found himself standing in front of the house Mikasa currently resided in. “Wait here.” She muttered before entering.

And when Mikasa came back outside, it wasn’t what she came out with that surprised Armin, it was what she said next.

“Return this to Eren after I leave…” Mikasa mumbled, as she passed the red scarf to the blonde gently. It took a while for Armin to process what she had just said.

It wasn’t like Mikasa to… give away something that she once treasured so much.

“I heard it doesn’t snow as often at Hizuru…”She quickly excused.

And we’re back with the lies, Armin thought tiredly.

“Oh, but don’t tell him I’m going to Hizuru. Nor this. I wouldn’t want to… he doesn’t need to know.” Mikasa added on, forcing a smile that made the blonde began to lose his patience with her lies.

“Mikasa! You’re overthinking this. This scarf… it means a lot to you… Eren… he… Mikasa rethink what you’re doing! I know you’re still hurt after what Eren said. But… time will eventually assuage the pain you have in your heart. And… Eren didn’t mean it! If you just talk to him, I can pro—”

“… Then tell me, Armin…” Mikasa said with the forced smile that remained plastered on her face, “What Eren said to me on that day… is there any proof that what he said was wrong?”

“Yes! Yes there is! Like I said, you…when we were kids, when Eren was talking bad about me, you punched him—”

“—And I also slammed you on the table when you tried to defend me.” Mikasa bit her lip as she said this, her tone suddenly overflowing with regret. “I’m… sorry for th—”

“Mikasa.” Armin didn’t seem interested in her apologies, he was keener in knocking some sense into her. “Please rethink about what you’re doing.” He persisted.

“…Don’t worry.” She reassured, and with the smile she had forced on her face, she made her way back towards the door of her house. “You have to face it!” Armin suddenly exclaimed with his fist clenched, “You’re running away now… from Eren… from everything… you need to face it! You… Just talk to him, Mikasa!” Despite his pleading tone, Mikasa continued to walk.

Is she really going to leave?

By now, Armin knew he can’t stop her but he continued. The only person who can stop her right now wasn’t here. He was somewhere else, lying in a goddamn cell.

“Why don’t you want to talk to him? What’s there to be afraid of?!” Armin began to shout. And that’s when the next four-word question slips from his tongue, that made the raven paralyse. “Don’t you love him?”

Once again, Mikasa felt a sharp arrow stabbing her heart, piercing it all over. And just like that, she remembered a question Eren had asked her before.

What am I to you, Mikasa?

And honestly till now, she doesn’t know. She answered him saying that she saw him as family. But now, with everything… with all these overwhelming emotions. She doesn’t know.

Most of all, she doesn’t know if what her heart was feeling was due to her raw emotion or due to her Ackerman genetics that supposedly made her cling to Eren.

Was everything a sham? She wondered. What am I so afraid of?

Ah, that’s right.

“I’m afraid… of my emotions.” Mikasa didn’t care to elaborate on what she meant by that. Regardless, that was the truth. She was never great with handling emotions—especially the overwhelming ones that she was currently suppressing, with much difficulty.

She was afraid of seeing Eren, because he had all the power to evoke one too many emotions out of her. And she was afraid, so afraid that one of those emotions would be associated with the pain she felt during one of the previous meetings she had with Eren.

Most of all, despite all reassurances, there was a small part of her that was afraid of confronting Eren to only hear him say: Yes, I still think you’re a slave.

Maybe Mikasa did love him, and maybe if she stayed, she’d realise how much she was in love with him.

But love can be painful, and it was pain that Mikasa was running away from.

The world is a cruel place. And sometimes, it can be so cruel to the extent it can make anyone forget about its beauty.

“…and what good will it do to your emotions, Mikasa, if you leave…?”

For some reason, Mikasa felt an itch at her eyes, but she chose to ignore it.

“You’re just confused, Mikasa! Just stay and you and Eren will—”

Mikasa turned back towards the blonde before he could finish his sentence, causing him to pause mid-way in his sentence and his eyes to widen. There were tears forming in her eyes.

If only she could be more honest with herself… if only she could understand her emotions better, Armin thought. After all, those tears of hers that streamed down her cheeks revealed all too much.

It just showed that she was still conflicted, about staying, about leaving… about everything.

“Armin,” She said in a tone meant to soothe, though it made him jump a little, “It’s getting late. You should go to bed… goodnight.”

The raven then reached out for her door knob, twisting and opening it, entering her house… but not without uttering, “Thank you, Armin.” before closing the door.

--

At the Dock – The Day when Mikasa is due to Leave for Hizuru.

--

Eren was now running.

The moment he heard the key unlocking his damn cell, he sprinted away and towards the docks. Clenched in his fist were a red scarf and a piece of paper where Armin jotted down the exact location where Mikasa would be at.

As he ran, he began to remember the things Armin said to him the other day…

The things he said about Mikasa.

But before his thoughts could dive any further, he spotted a figure standing at the docks, which he didn’t fail to recognize immediately.

“M…Mikasa!” He called out hastily.

He hoped it wasn’t too late.

The figure turned, and his pair of emerald orb finally meets her obsidian orbs that soon widen in shock.

“E-Eren?!”

#my fanfic #don't go #eremika #eremika fanfic #eremika fanfiction #shingeki no kyojin #shingeki no kyojin fanfic #shingeki no kyojin fanfiction #snk #snk fanfic #snk fanfiction #aot #aot fanfiction #aot fanfic #attack on titan #attack on titan fanfiction #attack on titan fanfic #Mikasa #Eren #Armin #Mikasa Ackerman #Eren Jaeger #eren yeager #armin arlert #hanji zoë #mikasa x eren #eren x mikasa #woohoo #i hope this was okay lmao

[mysterious-prophetess]

I ranted about this on another post, but I really have nothing nice to say about 7,8, and 9 now that I know what I know about behind the scenes bullshit. 

The thing that pissed me off the most was finding out why my favorite of the new characters-Finn-was turned into a useless character, but I digress. 

So, how could I have fixed this inconsistent trilogy to be more my liking (and a little more consistent) without getting rid of any of the new primary characters?

Edit added later by more awake me: This is going to get long AND There are bound to be sleep-addled mistakes.

Starting with 7  Set it farther into the future. 

If Disney wanted to avoid Lucas’s legacy characters at all costs (as it would appear) then setting it in a time where all should be dead would be the easiest side step.

Like instead of 30-some-odd years into the future, make is 130 or 200 years. That way, Luke fading into being some sort of mythic being would make a lot more sense. Han Solo too. 

BB-8′s map now leads to Luke Skywalker’s tomb. The reasons to find it could be a)proof jedi existed, b) rumors of a hidden weapon of great power, c) rumors of it hiding a terrible secret that could shake the galaxy to its core, or d) some kind of combination of all of the above. 

 Kylo Ren can still be a Skywalker descendant. He can even still be Leia’s direct descendant. He just doesn’t have to be her son (who should have been named for Bail Organa and not Obi-wan “Ben” Kenobi).

Rey and Finn’s backstories don’t have to change all that much. Rey was abandoned on Jakku. Finn was stolen to be a storm trooper. Finn defects. Rey find him and BB-8 etc. 

Poe can even still be the dashing pilot just no former drug smuggler backstory because that was a yikes. Instead, he could have had a past as a street racer or a regular circuit racer.

They can even still find the Falcon. it’d make even more sense for Rey to call it garbage and think it couldn’t fly. Poe isn’t a damsel this time. He gets separated from Finn but meets up with him and Rey in town and they have to book it. He’s still too dazed to fly, so Rey has to do it. He could then be the one to suggest getting to Mazz’s place. Rey can even still find Anakin’s lightsaber. 

Kylo can still catch her. All the other stuff can still happen, except no Starkiller Baser. No Death Star planets. No death stars period. Instead Finn knows which is the main base but is too frightened to go, but Poe could inspire him to face his fears for Rey or something. 

Maybe there’s a heist/rescue mission planned with Resistance HQ. They need Finn’s intel and he can still be janitor but people don’t realize how much janitors see or what they know, which makes him vital for planning this heist. Because aside form Rey they’re after a McGuffin. IDK maybe R2D2′s CPU/memory components because R2 will still have most of the map, and a fragment that was found will be stored in BB-8 like before. 

We can have a tet-a-tet between Finn and Phasma, Finn nearly losing but new friends helping him. Rey can still free herself after she witnesses Kylo using the mind trick on a fellow prisoner (who he killed afterwards once he’d gotten what he wanted). Rey is cautious as she steals a blaster and nearly blasts a fleeing group of Resistance fighters who managed to purloin R2′s parts and falls in with them. They end up cornered a la the end of Attack of the Clones, but this time their reinforcements is Finn using the base’s own security against it with shields like from the Phantom Meance snapping up and trapping the majority of the First Order troops. Rey gets a moment to shine too as she summons the lightsaber to her hand after Kylo cuts down on of their allies as they’re fleeing because the security didn’t kick in with enough time to block him. 

So, she’s on defense the whole time as they flee. Kylo does something to hurt Finn or Poe or both and Rey gives into the dark side for a bit before Finn, Poe, or both snap her out of it and they manage to work together to injure Kylo enough to flee to the waiting ships to scram. 

Cut to the Resistance attempting to retrieve the data, but Rey as a junker/scrapper realizes that it’d be easier to put him in a new astromech shell. So she does so, and R2 is back and after several back-and-forths in binary between BB-8 and R2 the map is projected and BB-8 completes it. 

But, in a twist, they have no starting coordinates, which means they’ve only half gotten what they need. Poe looking at it points out there are only three or four possible places in the galaxy they could start from which means there are only three or four possible destinations: Jakku, Tattooine, Utapu, and Ahch-Toh. 

They can rule out Jakku. The First Order had been there. If Luke Skywalker’s tomb was on that planet, it would have been found. Plus the last map fragment was there, making it all the more unlikely it was there. Tatooine is also out because Luke was from Tattooine, or so the legends said, and it was the first place people looked. Leaving Ahch-toh and Utapu. End 7 there.

8 picks up with a year or so having passed. Utapu, it turned out, was a dead end. Ahch-toh, on the other hand, while not containing Luke’s tomb did have a bunch of evidence he’d been there. In fact, there was evidence of some of what happened to his New Jedi Order and why they vanished.The problem is, as Rey struggles with learning the force from the sacred texts and avoiding the temptation of the Dark Side after tasting it in the previous story, has to also avoid Kylo Ren hunting her as well as the First Order’s dogged pursuit of the Resistance Fleet. Plus, she also has to deal with the other Knights of Ren--fellow force sensitives recruited and trained by Kylo Ren’s master. Only, they all want her dead. Their ambitions are why. No new Knight=less competition for advancement in the Knights of Ren. They also sabotage one-another often. They’re Sith. Backstabbing is what they do. 8 is essentially a race against time since the First Order managed to have a spy steal intel they’d gotten from Ahch-Toh that essentially led them on another hunt for the Tomb of Skywalker and this time they would not be denied. 

Also, Rey is trying to find out what happened to her parents as well and why she was left on Jakku. Finn is also looking for his family. Poe is doing what he can to help. Finn was much easier to track intel down on, and finds his missing person’s report in the holonet equivalent of the “have you see me” database. It’s still hard to find his parents but they have a home world: Corellia. Which actually was harder because Corellia is a very populated planet. They do eventually find out his parents were spacers and he was stolen right off their ship while they were stopped for repairs. They were still looking for him. Finn’s plotline could come down to him choosing between finding out who he was in the past, or staying with building the person he wanted to be in the present. Finn chooses to stay Finn, for now. 

They think the Tomb’s on Endor’s Forest Moon. The wreckage of Death Star 2 looms in the distance (what little of it didn’t blow out into space or get burnt up in the atmosphere or pulled into Endor’s own atmosphere and destroyed because gas giants are no joke) when they land and they’re led into the forests where they find a simple cairn marked with the name “Anakin Skywalker.” After confusion over “Who the Sith is Anakin Skywalker? I thought his name was Luke?” occurs, the First Order shows up to ruin their day. They had the right idea, but the tomb of the wrong Skywalker after all. They had misread the coordinates and were off by approx two kilometers. They need Rey, however to help open the tomb because it was locked in such a way you need light side and darkside to open it and the Knights of Ren are fresh out of Light Side techniques. 

This could also play into Rey’s struggles with the dark side being a problem at first too. She could grow as she sees what the dark side has done to the Knights of Ren. Playing off her psychometric vision from the canon trilogy, that could be her special talent and she can see visions of who they were before being twisted by their master and the dark side clouding their minds. This could be something that gives her the strength to reject it later. They go into the tomb of Luke Skywalker and Rey is plunged into the mother-of-all visions from the past. It shows fragment of what happened to the new order, and how it all went so wrong. It could even show Luke withdrawing from the galaxy out of some misguided idea of “no one can misuse my teachings if they can’t find me or them” Luke dying alone and Leia finding him later and burying him on Endor. but seeing he wasn’t wrong so, with a sense of the dramatic she inherited from her biological parents set up the trails and maps to try to weed out those who would seek the knowledge for power and domination. It’s then that Leia’s force ghost makes her presence known to Rey but not Kylo. Leia leads Rey to a hidden cache. 

Kylo tries to tempt her after she finds that within the cache are merely two kyber crystals and a holoprojector that had an image of Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie together with a golden thumb at the bottom edge of the image. To Rey with her powers, there are memories encoded within that she can access, but to anyone else, these appeared useless.

Kylo has noticed her skills and tries to say the dark side could help her find out what happened to her parents. that it could amplify her powers enough for her to see the past of herself. Throughout, the film she’s seen Finn struggle with his choices and realized along the way through the trials and such with Finn and Poe that she doesn’t need to know who her parents were to know who she is. She’s Rey of the Resistance and that’s enough for her.

There’s a showdown, the tomb gets destroyed and Poe ends up injured enough to need a bacta coma and Finn shows force potential for the first time. Poe had thrown himself in front of an underhanded attack meant for Rey who’d taken her eyes off the Knight thinking they were down. The hero part of the film ends with Finn and Rey outside Poe’s tank worriedly watching him.

Unbeknownst to the heroes, Kylo did manage to find something in the tomb: it was a piece of tech Rey overlooked and a way for the First Order to find more force sensitives than ever before: a fabled Midichlorian Tester. A device thought lost to the ages now within his and the First Order’s grasp. Soon, they would crush all who’d oppose them and end the Light Side’s teachings forever.

 End 8

9 will start with Rey and Finn force training with their limited texts and a few holocrons they’d managed to find thanks to the texts mentioning that they were a thing and what they looked like. It’s been a year and Poe’s slowly recovering. He was kept in the bacta coma for most of it and is in physical therapy now. He’s dealing with the possibility that he’ll never fly again. 

Rey and Finn are dealing with the fact that more knights of Ren are appearing than ever and every time they try to find a new recruit for their light side order, the knights scoop them time and again and with their superior numbers and better training, it’s a near scrape for Rey and Finn to get away. On the bright side, they’d managed to make new lightsabers and Rey had modified her old staff into a light staff, making her fighting style a lot more smooth after she stopped trying to emulate what she’d seen Kylo and his knights do. Their arc is about building forwards and standing up to evil in spite of their overwhelming odds. It’s hard for both Rey and Finn. Finn, who still has some buried fears of the First Order and Rey who is still somewhat traumatized from what happened to Poe because of her inattention. She has to realize that it’s not her fault, that Poe has his own choices to make in life, and that the result was because Poe cared and her guilt was because she cared too. Rey’s over all arc would be about realizing why the old jedi were against attachments and finding that she can still love Finn and Poe, but she has to be able to handle letting them go. 

Finn’s got to learn to let go of his fears and learn to trust in the Force as well. After escaping the First Order, he has trouble with trusting authority and doesn’t join the Resistance per-say, but is there because Poe and Rey are there.

She has to trust in the force, and trust in them too. She could show this by being over protective of Finn and Poe. 

His Master will finally show his face and it’ll turn out he’s possessed by an ancient pre-Banite Sith Lord but it’s voluntary. The self-taught darksider had wanted power and this Sith spirit offered it. The dark sider like the feeling of power he felt when possessed and agreed to be this Sith’s new vessel. It was through this body that the Sith ghost used his superior knowledge to ruin Luke’s New Jedi Order. Some seduction here. Some manipulation there and the order tears itself apart without Luke realizing what actually caused it since the Sith managed to block Luke’s foresight.

The Sith Ghost’s so attached to life, he’s holding onto his vessel like a black hole’s hold on matter past its event horizon. The Knights of Ren are so attached to their feelings of power they can’t consider another life and Kylo Ren is so attached to the myth of Darth Vader, he can’t see who he was anymore.  

It’d come down to a final fight and the few new jedi Rey and Finn managed to find would be pushed back at first but letting go and embracing the Force would help them start to push back the Knights and destabilize them enough for disables/knock outs until it was just Kylo Ren and his Master Darth Eterantus vs Finn and Rey. Rey goes head to head with Eternatus (yeah I know that’s a pokemon. I’m writing this off the cuff). Finn with Kylo Ren, one of his greatest fears.  Eternatus taunts Rey with knowledge of her past. How in another time and place she’d have been from a fine pedigreed force user family line but thanks to him, she’s a desert guttersnipe playing at being a jedi. 

Rey is a descendant of Obi-Wan Kenobi. This would be shown by visually cueing it with his force ghost flickering into existence at the Sith’s taunts. 

Kylo would reveal that Finn and he are kin. 

Finn’s a descendant of Leia and Han too. One of their kids married Lando’s kid. Han was not pleased to be in-laws with Lando at first. Finn’s father is a chip off the old Han Solo block with some Calrissian Swagger. Kylo had seen Finn’s face but had no idea why, but this prompted the Master to have the First Order take kid Finn--whose real name will be Jax Solo. Kylo’s name will have been Ben Solo like in the canon films. Kylo is ten years older than Finn. Kylo would try to use this family connection to manipulate Finn, but it won’t work. Finn could even quip about “not seeing any resemblance” between him and Kylo. 

Poe, he would fly again at a crucial moment to turn the tides for the B-plot of Resistance vs First Order. A last stand. 

Rey manages to break the hold the Sith ghost has on life.This kills his vessel too since without the ghost using the darkside the body turns to dust. Finn manages to defeat Kylo Ren and Poe helps the Resistance win. Kylo Ren is all but shattered by his defeat. He the proper inheritor of Darth Vader’s legacy! He’s forced to realize that maybe that’s not who he is. That maybe he’s always been simply Ben. Those who were still alive are taken prisoner with force null cuffs taken from their own belts and their conscripts freed to choose whether or not to learn about the force. It ends on a positive note with the new trio celebrating together with the Resistance. Finn’s parents arrive and he gets to reunite with them. Rey’s are nowhere to be found but she’s ok with that. Obi-Wan’s ghost reappears with a smile with other force ghosts and we end with Rey and the others happy.

Is this a good alternative? I don’t know. It’s just an alternative that doesn’t discard characters like they’re trash. It also tries to keep things more consistent. 

#disney star wars #long post #star wars

[theclaudehuggins]

Important for Hugginsverse audience

It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything with this blog, really. I’m sure most of my followers have gone away and a bunch of folks straight up think I abandoned Hugginsverse completely (I haven’t), but I feel it’s important to put some stuff out there.

This isn’t a vent, callout, sob story, or anything like that. I just want to say a few things that are very important to me, and if you enjoy Hugginsverse, they might be important to you, too.

When I was 15, I dabbled in RPG Maker and made a game called ?????. It got a major facelift when I was contacted by potential assistants and this remake was called UNKNOWN. I had no idea it would become what it did.

I’ll be 23 in less than a week, and no longer live in the house I grew up in. When I look at UNKNOWN, and the games that followed in its trail, I simultaneously see the happiest point of my life and the cringy doodle in the middle school sketchbook (but in a loving way!...mostly). I hold nothing but appreciation and love for both the stories I had created and the people I had in my audience.

However, I’d like to take a moment to look back on this series through the eyes of an adult, and point out a few things that are going to change now that I’m a bit older and my life experiences have shifted. There will be Cool New Hugginsverse News, too.

The first thing I want to put in here is an apology. I know, I said this wouldn’t be vent, but this is important. I’ll try to make it quick. There will be fun stuff later on, I promise.

The first big change is that in UNKNOWN, the entirety of Zone 2 is hereby removed from canon entirely. No UNKNOWN-related material (I’ve been questioning remakes for a while) I ever release in the future will contain any part of Zone 2 for any reason. I have more than one reason for this, and it leads into my apology.

The main reason for Zone 2′s removal is that it contains a scene depicting assault that was handled in a very insensitive way. In the interest of keeping my promise of not telling sob stories or doing callouts, I will keep it short and say that Zone 2 was not written by me, and this scene was put into the game without my full consent. (If the full story is really needed, feel free to message me on Discord at  The largest bee you've ever seen#9642, as this is where I’m most active.)

However, this does not mean I’m not responsible for the scene being in the version of the game that was released to the public. Beyond all else, UNKNOWN was my own project, and everyone on the team was aware of this. At any moment I could have made the choice to remove this scene from my game. I feel insulted that such a scene used a character of mine that I love so dearly, that my favorite OC I’ve ever made is depicted committing such an action, but I had every power in the world to prevent it. I did not do so because I was worried the assistant involved would drop their support -- even though the game was pretty much complete at this point and their refusal to continue would not have mattered.

I want to apologize to anyone who may have been insulted, offended, or triggered by this scene. There was no excuse for it being left in the game. It should be considered non-canon, and will never appear again.

I also want to apologize for an ableist slur used in FastForward. This was used in an attempt to emphasize a character being unforgivable levels of mean, but looking back, it is now clear that my usage of the word at all was in incredibly poor taste and horrifically irresponsible. Any FastFoward related materials I release in the future will have this line removed entirely.

Ok, that was the most serious part, I swear. Let’s do these in ascending order so we keep getting happier.

The second retcon I’d like to introduce is actually a spoiler for 365, so if you haven’t played it, and intend to do so, please do that before clicking this link. I’d also like to warn anyone who is sensitive to animal harm before reading, although it’s non-descriptive. This one is short because it involves a traumatic event from my own life, and I don’t want to upset myself or anyone who reads this.

Third, I’d like to announce a few characters that are no longer canon in the Hugginsverse universe. These include CHARLOTTE THE OBSERVER, BANDIT THE ELSEN, LOUIS THE ELSEN. These characters are no longer included in the universe because permission to use them has been revoked by the owner. I am a bit sad, as I have seen many of these are popular characters in the fandom, but I would like to respect the original creator’s wishes.

Okay! Time for more fun stuff.

An announcement I’d like to make is that I’m working on another game. It will not be an OFF fangame, as I no longer have interest in building off that world, but it is still included in the Hugginsverse canon and features Seneca and the Puppeteer as protagonists. I intend on divorcing the franchise from OFF from hereon out by instead focusing on Seneca and the world he comes from.

I do not know a release date. Hell, I’ve been making, scrapping, remaking, rescrapping this thing for a few years now, as is made obvious by scrolling even just a little on my blog. (The images and news provided there are, unfortunately, outdated and no longer represent the game.) Do not scroll down my blog. I’ve been informed my Tumblr was taken over by sex-related spam bots in my absence. Please message me on Discord using either the server in the link below or my ID above if you wish to contact me or see what I’m up to. Perhaps posting every now and again will motivate me to create the best product I can. I’ve learned a lot since my last Hugginsverse adventure, both from a game design side and technical side, and I want my growth to show as best as it can.

One more thing... I have a Discord server where I post information about games (uncommon) and the world Seneca originated in (common). If you would like to hang out there and discuss Hugginsverse, as I am no longer in the OFF or spinOFF servers, or simply learn a bit more about Seneca’s species and the world he comes from, this server would be a lovely place to do so. I spend most of my time online nowadays on Discord, so anything sent to me there will be seen quite quickly.

Thank you for bearing with me through this very very long text post, and most of all for enjoying the series I put all my little teenage heart into. All of you are wonderful, and I am blessed to have had the experience of making something people loved and were inspired by. I can only hope, and try my best, so my future projects can achieve the same.

#hugginsverse #unknown (game) #unknown (off spinoff) #off fangame #off spinoff

[tessatechaitea]

Wonder Twins #5

Jayna just punched straight through her brother's butthole.

If you're a being who turns into water, your dick and butthole don't just disappear, right? They just become part of the water! So I'm almost certainly correct in my comment on the cover. Hopefully Mark Russell will explore this topic in a future issue. Until then, I'll be certain to tell everybody I know that Jayna basically fisted Zan. Luckily for the Wonder Twins, I don't know many people and also they are fictional characters. This issue is called "Magic and Games." I think. It will probably take me less time to read this entire comic book than it took me to puzzle out the word "Games" in the font used for the title.

Sure, you can see it now that I already told you what it was! But it was difficult before I worked it out! Although I still wouldn't be surprised to learn the title is "Magic and Galljes" or "Magic and "Gaines" and that the second word is somebody's name.

Usually I don't comment on Mark Russell comic books because to comment on a Mark Russell comic book, you should probably be smart and serious. Sure, he's having fun and writing an entertaining book that I can easily use to make jokes about fisting incest! But he also writes sensitive stories about social justice and systemic bias and ethical dilemmas in changing times and, well, other stuff that I'm too dumb to even discuss in the most general terms! He's a smart guy which is why I hate him with a burning passion! But it's a good hate! It's the kind of envious hate that pushes me to my own Emerald Twilight! I probably won't wind up destroying an entire town and ruining my reputation and becoming the most vilified hero in our universe but I almost certainly will eventually become the avenging spirit of God judging everybody around me! Wait, I think I already am that! Whatever my point is, it's that Mark Russell writes good and I'm too weak to not despise him for it. Polly Math has just won first prize at the science fair because her last name is Math. I guess Sandra Science didn't compete this year so Polly was the obvious next choice. Jayna wins second place because her project on fucking hot guys while being a nerd in high school fell apart when the guy she attempted to science fair fuck turned out to be a villain. It's also possible I'm confusing story lines but you have to expect that kind of thing! I'm not spring chicken! Remembering details between chapters that come out a full month apart has been nearly impossible for the last twenty years! I shouldn't make fun of Polly Math's name because I have a name that people always try to make jokes about too. It's not Grunion Guy! You can probably find it if you do even the smallest amount of Internet research! I'm not going to help you though because I don't want to get called a Deaf Chef anymore! Polly is upset that her father is working with Lex Luthor and the League of Annoyance. But Jayna has a plan to fix things! I bet her plan is to turn into a giant tortoise while Zan turns into an ice dildo and...wait a second! Why am I giving out good ideas that Mark Russell will just steal in a few issues?! Better to not speculate on things! Also, I mean, the cover shows Jayna going with the shark plan.

Okay fine! I'm finally interested in Fox News!

The most disturbing thing about people who watch Fox News is that they ignore five hundred other channels that are showing entertaining things on their television at the same time! Who chooses that shit over Comedy Central or the Game Show Network?! I haven't had cable for nearly twenty years and whenever I'm staying somewhere with cable, it's locked on the Game Show Network 24/7! Who the fuck chooses to watch state propaganda over old game shows?! Fucking psychopaths, that's who!

Polly Math's father wound up working with Lex Industries because only Lex Luthor hired African Americans, I guess? Hadn't he heard of STAR Labs?! Maybe Silas Stone and Sarah Charles fulfilled their quota?

I might be misreading this scene but I don't think I am because the white guys with white guys playing golf pictures behind them seem interested in Filo Math if he's Norwegian (so, you know, totally white!) and then when they meet him, they don't want to hire him. It could be that they really are concerned with his specialty! What could that be?! I mean, it can't be any worse than Silas Stone's specialty of turning his son into a cybernetic example of the castration of the black male in America! That's a really terrible specialty! Although Sarah Charles seemed to be pretty into it. See?! This is why I can't review a Mark Russell book! He's making a great point about the systemic bias inherent in corporate hiring practices and I'm not taking it seriously! I mean, he isn't either, really? He's being light-hearted while still making a good point. Which is what I've done, I think, in my comment about Cyborg's lack of a penis! The Scrambler wants to play a trick on society. He's a magician that believes people are frightened of magic and only like the part where everything is normal again. Magician: "Is this your card?" Audience Member: "Why yes! Thank God you picked my card! I was worried I was going to have to live in a world where my card wasn't picked!" Maybe I'm not comprehending his point. Anyway, The Scrambler wants to do a trick where things don't ever go back to normal! He's a monster! Imagine picking the Three of Clubs and nobody ever showing you the Three of Clubs ever again! Ugh, I'm feeling faint. To save Polly's Dad from definite prison time (or possibly, if Superman shows up, an eternity in the Phantom Zone. As if Superman can be bothered with Earth's judicial system! Pshaw!), Jan has challenged the League of Annoyance to a duel at the zoo. I guess if she wants to stress out all of the animals there with a big battle, who am I to judge? I mean other than being the real life version of Hal Jordan's Spectre, of course! At the zoo, Jayna recruits a bunch of Australian animals to help fight which goes as spectacularly as you can imagine it would. And what I mean by that is that a koala is blown to bits. But I guess that's worth it in the grand scheme of getting Polly Math's father to stop working with the League of Annoyance. It's like that philosophical conundrum about an ant that sacrifices its life for even the tiniest amount to better the world. It's just an ant! It practically owes it to the universe to die for nearly nothing! What does this koala bear expect? It should get to live in luxurious confinement at the zoo and not die for a trivial reason? Stupid koala bear. Go fuck yourself, you selfish bastard. The Wonder Twins defeat two out of three of the League of Annoyance members at the expense of just one koala's life and the bruised jaw of an innocent kangaroo. The third member, some woman with a Kryptonian cell phone whose name maybe I should remember, gets away to go regroup. Sylvia is a racist that joined the League because she didn't like the demographics of her small town changing. She's startled by Filo entering the League's headquarters to pack up his stuff and winds up zapping him like she zapped the koala. Okay, I guess the koala isn't as dead as I first thought. I should have realize a Kryptonian phone is probably sending everything to the Phantom Zone. So once again, I, the Grandmaster Comic Book Reader, was correct when I speculated that the worst that could happen to Filo was prison or the Phantom Zone! I'm the smarterest! Sylvia is caught on camera zapping Filo Math and then messes up in an interview when she kind of admits to having maybe zapped more than one black person with her phone off-camera? It's a real public relations nightmare!

But Lex can fix it! His greatest strength is turning public relations nightmares into public relations wet dreams!

Lex News turns Cell Phone Sylvia into a national hero. Because anything is excusable if you just say how scared you were! I mean, as long as you're white! It's scary being white! Sometimes you have to kill people with your legal gun while standing your own ground after confronting somebody for the most inconsequential reasons! It's just the way the world works! At least in America! Happy 4th of July! Just in case some readers weren't smart enough to get that everybody blasted by Sylvia's phone went to the Phantom Zone, Mark Russell supplies us with an image of Filo and the koala and a bunch of Sylvia's other victims (hmm, all black! But that's probably just a coincidence!) in the Phantom Zone. Polly, at the end of her rope with doing the right thing in an unjust world, decides to contact The Scrambler. I can't wait for her big magic trick to fix the world! The Scrambler's big trick to fix the world is to threaten to scramble everybody's identity. Everybody's minds will switch around so that they're now in different bodies. That means the powerful might wind up being the poorest people in the worst poverty. And the only way he won't do it is if the powerful fix the world in thirty days. Seems like a good plan! Except I'm curious to see how they fix it. Most people's ideas of fixing the world rely on the current world still existing somehow. So the fix is handicapped from the beginning by needing to be built on the ruins of the old system. To truly make a new system that works, the old system must be completely razed to the ground. But nobody has the stomach for that. So we make exceptions and compromises, building the new structure on top of a rotting foundation. It's why DC's Universe fixes always fail. They rely on making things new and better but need to remain rooted in the past. Crisis on Infinite Earths was built on a world that still contained members of Infinity Inc. who suddenly didn't fit in the world anymore. So DC then had to do Zero Hour which told new origin stories but still refused to throw out everything that came before to simply start again. Even The New 52, which people hated because they felt it did exactly what I suggested (razing the shit to the ground), didn't work because, I believe, it didn't go far enough! It still accepted Superman had died. It still accepted all of Green Lantern's past. It still contained a Batgirl who was shot by Joker and became Oracle. It was still the DC Universe but with arbitrary and subtle changes that made no real difference except the jettisoning of a ton of history. So it didn't work for anybody! Um, anyway, my initial point was that real life political structures and social dynamics and economic systems can never really be restructured in a meaningful way because they have to kowtow to older ways of thinking and doing things. The comic book stuff was just easier to write about! I'm sure Mark Russell will figure it out! Or he'll just have The Scrambler and Polly Math arrested and nothing will work out like it should and it will just be the punctuation on the idea that everything fucking sucks. Yay! Wonder Twins #5 Rating: A+. Come on! Everything Mark Russell writes gets an A+! It shows how smart I am!

#Wonder Twins #Mark Russell #DC Comics #Comic Book Reviews

[sambethe]

CS FF: We’ve Got This (4/4)

OMG! I don’t even know what to say. Suffice it, it feels good to get this out in the world finally! All my love to each of you who prodded, asked, encouraged, and more about this story. I’m glad to get this final part out in the world.

Summary: Killian and Emma have been using all sorts of things to avoid what’s right in front of them. Some off the cuff words, though, might get them on the right track.

Rated: M [ao3] [tumblr - 1 | 2 | 3 ] [pillowfort - 1 | 2 | 3 ]

+++

Later.

One word. Two syllables. And a myriad of ways of to duck the promise contained within it.

In her defense, it had been less than 48 hours since they had made it, and she and Killian had other things to occupy themselves with. Things that now left her stretched out in his bed, a little tired, definitely sore, and more than a little alone now that Killian had left to take a shower before joining his brother for the day’s charters.

Emma wanted to begrudge whoever had booked this afternoon’s charter. She wanted to spend another day wrapped in these sheets and Killian’s touch. Though she also knew she was due back in Boston. Her cases weren’t going to solve themselves, and her boss was already likely ticked that she called off two days in a row.

Not to mention that she had all those boxes to pack.

She dragged her hand along where Killian had been sleeping.

His sheets were really nice. As was his bed. Firm without being hard, molding to her while never leaving her feeling like she was sinking. Emma now knew why people might dish out actual money on a real mattress.

She wondered if she might get away with calling today a research day and setting up camp in this bed with her laptop and case files. If only she had thought to pack up either of those things when she made the decision to drive up to Maine.

Also, Mary Margaret would kill her if she didn’t come home and sign a lease on one of the apartments they’d looked at. Emma was days away from the very real possibility of living in her car again. She should be panicked, or at the very least mildly concerned. But here, (finally) in Killian’s bed, worry was the last emotion she was feeling.

Just who are you, and what have you down with Emma Swan?

Stretching out again, she enjoyed the firm press of the mattress as she rolled her shoulders back and into it. The sheets slid along her as she did, pooling at her waist and leaving a trail of goosebumps down her sides as the cool air hit her skin. She trailed her fingers in the sheets’ wake, dragging them across the expanse of her ribcage, just below her breasts, and then circling her stomach.

They both had a little more time, didn’t they? The water in the bathroom was stilling running. Killian couldn’t be in that much of a hurry she reasoned as she bent her knee and drew her foot up the bed. The move left the sheet barely covering her as she dropped one hand to the juncture of skin at her thigh. Her clit pulsed in interest as she thought of Killian emerging from the bathroom, hair damp and skin warm, finding her splayed out like this, fingers sliding along her own slick skin.

She brushed a finger in a slow, lazy circle around the sensitive skin. Would he stand in the doorway and watch her? Or would he settle on the end of the bed, heaping praise and direction as she continued to touch herself? Maybe he’d bring his own hand up to cover add to hers as she worked.

She closed her eyes and hummed at the thought, the memories of Killian’s sure, deft fingers sliding into her last night joining in the images playing in her head.

“Swan…”

The gravel in his voice as he groaned her name would be seared in her memory long after this day was through.

“What are you…” he tried to continue.

She didn’t open her eyes, but she knew he would be biting his lower lip as his attention shifted from where she had one hand wrapped around her breast to the movements of the other beneath the thin sheet that covered her.

“Hmmm?” she murmured as she dropped her raised knee to the side, knowing the change in position would shift her just enough to begin to expose exactly how her fingers were slipping along her folds. She slowly teased at her entrance before returning to just above her clit and starting the whole cycle again.

“We don’t have time.”

He was closer this time, his words coming from the end of the bed before she felt the dip in the mattress. She opened her eyes to find him naked, the towel he must have been wearing left abandoned at the bathroom door. He was watching her, one knee perched on the bed as he rolled on a condom.

“You sure about that?” she asked, giving him a slow smile and a nod. “You don’t look like someone worried about time at the moment.”

“We were supposed to talk, love.” He hooked a hand around her ankle and pulled her towards him.

She settled both feet at the end of the bed and leaned back on her elbows. He leaned in as she did, settling a hand on her hip and lining himself at her entrance.

“We have time, Killian,” she whispered against his lips.

Pulling back, Killian gave a shallow roll of his hips, settling himself just an inch or two inside her. “You promise?”

She raised her hips, trying to angle herself in invitation for him to go further. Instead he grinned as he withdrew before pressing forward once again, teasing her with the shallowest of penetrations.

“Promise?” he repeated.

Smiling at him, she nodded.

*

Emma Swan was a world-class idiot. That was the only explanation for a woman who gave herself two days to pack of all her worldly possessions and move them across town.

Rolling onto her back, she blew at the stray piece of hair that slipped from her ponytail and had plastered itself to her forehead in the night. At least she was a world-class idiot with only enough stuff to fill a small cargo van, and friends who were willing to help her move it with only the bare minimum of grumbling.

Though she was beginning to wonder if they shouldn’t have left her mattress behind. She didn’t remember it behind so lumpy.

She owed David and Elsa more beer. A lot more beer.

Just as soon as she felt like moving. So maybe in another week or so. Once her arms no longer ached.

While it was not nearly as comfortable as Killian’s place, the walls of her new bedroom had been painted a soft, quiet, robin’s egg blue. It wasn’t something Emma would have picked for herself, but lying here, buried beneath both her comforters and the mound of pillows Mary Margaret bought for her, it left her feeling like she were floating.

Floating was good. It was soothing. It stopped her from thinking about just how much her life had been upended in the two last weeks.

Some change is good her brain reminded her in a voice that sounded suspiciously like Mary Margaret’s.

That didn’t stop her heart from racing or the cold sweat from breaking out across the back of her neck, though.

He’s Killian, she reminded herself. This was the guy that wore down each of her reservations, steadily, methodically, and kindly, night after night, one cup of coffee at a time.

The one with the wicked smile who teased her, and challenged her. The one who encouraged her to apply for the job at the bail bonds office. The same one who later nudged her to apply for her PI’s license. He was the guy who never crossed a boundary with her she didn’t want to cross. It was him who had been there every time she needed someone.

But that was just it - this was Killian.

This wasn’t something she could just fuck up. Not without upending a decade of friendship when she did.

You’re not going to fuck this up. This time her inner voice sounded more like Killian.

“Says you,” she muttered to herself and pulled one of the pillows over her face.

As if it knew she was spiraling, her phone buzzed from beneath her head where she’d shoved it last night before falling asleep. She turned and pulled the phone into the pillowfort with her. Two texts from Killian flashed brightly on the screen.

You going to answer the door? It’s Saturday morning. I know you are home at this hour.

She knew the smile she was shooting the phone was ridiculous, but she couldn’t help herself. He was at her door. Again.

Somehow, this felt more monumental than the fact she’d spent two days in his bed. Because this, Killian being here after her promise to him that they’d talk, this was important.

Coffee’s getting cold Swan…

///

“How’d you know?”

Killian laughed as Emma’s eyes tracked the two coffee cups balanced in his hands. “It’s Saturday morning.” He nudged past her and into the small entryway of her new apartment. Little of the space was visible from where he stood, but he did catch sight of a few boxes stacked behind her. “You always need coffee on Saturday morning. Well, really, any morning. Let’s be honest.”

She scowled at him but accepted the to-go cup held out to her.

“But Dave also let slip that it was after two AM by the time he left your place last night. Thought you could use reinforcements to unpack.”

She shrugged. “You know me. I pack light.”

As she took a sip of her coffee, he took the opportunity to get a good look at her face. While they’d texted a few times since she left his house four days ago, there hadn’t been time to really talk or FaceTime. There were still a few good weeks left to the season and he and Liam had been booked solid. Even getting down to Boston for the day - his one day off this week - was a stretch, but there was nowhere Killian would rather be.

Emma was dressed in a pair of plaid sleep shorts and an oversized sweatshirt that was threatening to fall off her left shoulder. The skin beneath her eyes was darker than normal and her hair was falling out of the ponytail she’d pulled it into. She looked like she could use another full day’s worth of sleep. Regardless, she was still one of the most beautiful women he’d ever had the pleasure of seeing up close.

“I know,” he said, handing her his coffee and lifting the first box they passed as they made their way into the large room that opened up off the hallway. “Still wish I could have been here to help.”

“It’s ok.”

He hated the tentative expression that furrowed her brow as she glanced down at her bare feet. But he hated even more how she shrunk backwards when she caught him watching her. Killian put his box down and reached out to rest his hand on her hip, tugging her to him. She shot him a look he couldn’t quite read, but dropped the two cups she was holding onto the nearest box and took a step towards him.

There was a clear, plaintive note in her voice as she whispered his name. But she still took another step and swayed into him. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer, his own worries scattering when she didn’t offer up any resistance.

“I know it is ok.” He traced along her jaw, sinking his fingers into the loose hair pulled back behind her head. “I know you could do this on your own. Still doesn’t mean I didn’t want to help you.”

Shaking her head, she glanced up at him. Her worry was plainly etched in her eyes and he wished he could read her thoughts, could offer her the reassurance she was plainly looking for.

“I’m going to fuck this up.”

Oh, Emma. He bit back a smile that he knew would only piss her off, but couldn’t resist teasing her with a raise of his eyebrow. “It’s only coffee and unpacking, love. Nothing to possibly screw up with either of those things.”

He worked the elastic band the rest of the way out of her ponytail and let it fall to the floor before combing his fingers through the few knots that had gathered in her sleep. Emma stepped out of his embrace and rolled her eyes at him.

“This. I’m going to fuck this -” She stopped and gestured between the two of them before continuing, “Up.”

He shrugged off an internal sigh. This was not how he intended to start this conversation. Killian had hoped to feed her first, but he certainly wasn’t going to back down now that she had finally offered him the opportunity. Instead, he walked himself backwards towards the couch that had been haphazardly pushed up against one the walls, dragging her with him as he did.

“So what?” he asked, his knees hitting the edge of the couch. He sat, pulling her down into his lap as he did. “We’re bound to screw up, Swan. Both of us. Remember when I had that brilliant idea to start screwing that one roommate of yours?”

She stiffened and he cursed himself yet again for the idiocy that was the series of events that led to that epically bad idea. He smoothed his hands along her thighs, trying to not get distracted by the fact that they were bare and smooth beneath his fingertips.

“I hurt your feelings, didn’t I? You stopped speaking me for a couple weeks there, but we eventually sorted ourselves out. ”

She nodded and rested her hands on his stomach.

“Then there was that time you dented my car and didn’t tell me about it. For weeks you avoided fessing up about it. Even after I asked.”

Emma had the grace to blush, and he leaned in and brushed his lips against one of her warm cheeks. “Or what about that time you and Liam -” he whispered.

She pulled back and raised her eyebrow, effectively cutting him off from going into the details of that cock-up of a night.

“Your point?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

He pried one of her hands free and slid his fingers between hers, tugging until he held both her hands and could pull her to him. When her face was only inches from his, he answered her, “My point being that we’re here. We’re still friends. That’s how I know this will work. We’re going to be fine.”

She glanced away. “You can’t promise that.”

He dipped his head, peering up through his eyelashes to get Emma to look at him. “I can, and I will.” He brushed his lips along her cheek. “Though I’d prefer if we opted to not go the route of not speaking to one another next time one of us does something daft.”

“But, I’m not...”

Letting her trail off, Killian dropping both of her hands and wrapped his around her waist, pushing them beneath the hem of her sweatshirt. He inched his right hand up, brushing against the skin where he knew she had the words “this is who I am” etched below the side of her breast.

“You forget. I know who you are, Emma Swan.” He swept his thumb back and forth across that stretch of skin. “You are worth every ounce of trouble and effort. Worth so much more than I can begin to express.” Killian took a breath, waiting a beat until Emma was looking directly at him. “Fuck anyone who’s ever made you feel otherwise.”

“Killian…”

This time, the way she breathed out his name was threaded with hope. A hint of a smile played at the corner of her mouth and Killian couldn’t help but lean in to kiss it wider. He brushed his lips against hers, allowing his teeth to to drag against her on his second pass. Drawing his mouth up her jaw, he lingered just beneath her ear, giving himself a moment to enjoy her soft, warm scent before he teased, “Besides, I’m no walk in the park.”

Emma tossed her head back and let out a full throated laugh that warmed his entire chest.

This, he thought as he watched her, this is going to work.

///

18 months later…

Emma leaned against the brick wall of the Bar Harbor Sheriff's station and listened to the heavy glass door click closed behind her. She didn’t know whether to laugh hysterically or have a panic attack. Neither was probably a good look for the town’s newest deputy. Standing there as the snow falling around her picked up strength was also probably not the best display of her sanity, but she wasn’t quite sure that her legs were up to the task of carrying her to her car.

Oh. My. God.

Glancing down at the shiny gold badge in her hands, she still couldn’t quite believe that she was offered the job or that she accepted.

She hadn’t even told Killian she applied.

He’s going to kill me.

She fingered the keys in the pocket of her coat, smoothing her thumb along the one that opened the front door of Killian’s house.

“Emma?”

She jumped at the sound of Liam’s voice, dropping the deputy’s badge in the low mound of snow that had been shoveled into a pile next to the station’s entrance. Liam bent and picked it up, eyeing it briefly before handing it back to her.

“That yours?”

Emma bit at her lip and scanned Liam’s face in a vain attempt to get a read on what he might think of her change in career paths. While there were traces of Killian in his eyes and the set of his jaw, Liam was always much better at keeping each of his thoughts from being telegraphed across his face.

Liam prodded her foot with the tip of his boot. “You took the open deputy’s position?”

She nodded, still feeling all too nervous to form any words.

“Killian didn’t mention that you were looking, or even that you were thinking of moving here.”

She cleared her throat. “He doesn’t know.”

“Come again?” Liam cocked his head to the side and narrowed his eye at her.

Before she could offer up any of the weak defenses as to why she hadn’t mentioned to Killian that she had applied - let alone interviewed - for the job, Liam’s mouth broadened into a full smile and he reached out and pulled Emma into a bear hug.

Emma smiled as his arms tightened around her and wondered, not for the first time, if she were crazy. There was absolutely no good reason why she hadn’t told anyone. For months, Mary Margaret had been encouraging her to think about moving. Killian had given her the key in her hand almost from the start. She had spent more time at his place in the summer and fall than she had in Boston. This should have been the easiest thing to admit that she wanted to do.

And yet…

“He’s going to be over the moon,” Liam whispered against the side of her head before placing a kiss on the brim of her knit cap. “Now go tell him before the Sheriff goes to Granny’s for his afternoon cuppa and the old biddy pries it out of him. If you’re not careful, she’ll have someone squawk to Killian before you have the chance.”

“Yeah?” she asked,

“Yes, love. He’s going to be thrilled. As will Rose. Speaking of, dinner tomorrow? To celebrate?”

She laughed and Liam pulled back, placing his hands on her shoulders and shoving her in the direction of her car.

“Now go, before someone spoils your news.”

He was right. The town might have a population of 5000 residents in the winter months, but it often felt like 500 once the gossip mill got started. She really wanted to be the first to see his face when he realized she meant to stay. For as long as he wanted her there.

#cs ff #captain swan #cs smut #cs crew #cs mc #ouat #my ff ouat

[mostlysignssomeportents]

#5yrsago Mysterious announcement from Truecrypt declares the project insecure and dead

The abrupt announcement that the widely used, anonymously authored disk-encryption tool Truecrypt is insecure and will no longer be maintained shocked the crypto world--after all, this was the tool Edward Snowden himself lectured on at a Cryptoparty in Hawai'i. Cory Doctorow tries to make sense of it all.

The Sourceforge project page for Truecrypt now sports a cryptographically signed notice that Truecrypt should no longer be used as it is not secure. The news came on the heels of a crowdfunded $70K security audit of the open source, anonymously maintained software giving it a relatively positive initial diagnosis. The announcement -- signed by the same key that has been used to sign previous, legitimate updates -- links Truecrypt's deprecation to Microsoft's decision to cease supporting Windows XP, though no one seems to have a theory about how these two facts relate to one another.

WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is not secure as it may contain unfixed security issues. This page exists only to help migrate existing data encrypted by TrueCrypt. The development of TrueCrypt was ended in 5/2014 after Microsoft terminated support of Windows XP. Windows 8/7/Vista and later offer integrated support for encrypted disks and virtual disk images. Such integrated support is also available on other platforms (click here for more information). You should migrate any data encrypted by TrueCrypt to encrypted disks or virtual disk images supported on your platform.

Truecrypt is a widely used system for disk-encryption, and is particularly noted for its "plausible deniability" feature, through which users can create hidden partitions within their cryptographic disks that only emerge if you enter the correct passphrase; this is meant to be a defense against "rubber hose cryptanalysis," in which someone is physically or legally threatened in order to coerce them into yielding up her keys. In the "plausible deniability" scenario, the victim can give up the keys to a "harmless" partition while keeping the very existence of a second partition for sensitive material a secret. I am a Truecrypt user, as, apparently, is Edward Snowden, who lectured on the software's use at a Cryptoparty he held in Hawai'i before going on the run.

The response to the Truecrypt news is mostly frank bafflement. The software is licensed under an obscure "open source" license that makes it unclear whether third parties can support the now (apparently) orphaned codebase.

Matthew Green, a Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute crypto researcher, is the experts who led the fundraising in order to audit the Truecrypt source; in an interview with Brian Krebs, he says that he intends on continuing the work:

“There are a lot of things they could have done to make it easier for people to take over this code, including fixing the licensing situation,” Green said. “But maybe what they did today makes that impossible. They set the whole thing on fire, and now maybe nobody is going to trust it because they’ll think there’s some big evil vulnerability in the code.”

Green acknowledged feeling conflicted about today’s turn of events, and that he initially began the project thinking TrueCrypt was “really dangerous.”

“Today’s events notwithstanding, I was starting to have warm and fuzzy feelings about the code, thinking [the developers] were just nice guys who didn’t want their names out there,” Green said. “But now this decision makes me feel like they’re kind of unreliable. Also, I’m a little worried that the fact the we were doing an audit of the crypto might have made them decide to call it quits.”

Whether or not volunteer developers pick up and run with the TrueCrypt code to keep it going, Green said he’s committed to finishing what he started with the code audit, if for no other reason than he’s sitting on $30,000 raised for just that purpose.

The recent Heartbleed vulnerability demonstrated that even code that is widely used and widely examined can harbor long-lived critical bugs. As Green points out, the spectacular and mysterious blow-off from the anonymous Truecrypt team means that even if the code is given a clean bill of health from its auditors, it may be hard to convince people to trust it ever again.

Truecrypt's own warning suggests that users try Bitlocker, the proprietary Microsoft full-disk encryption tool that relies on the on-board Trusted Computing Module to attain a high degree of security. Microsoft itself has a deservedly poor reputation for standing up to government demands to weaken its products' security, but Peter Biddle, one of the architects of Trusted Computing and Bitlocker, has previously told me that he was repeatedly approached by frustrated federal agents who couldn't decrypt Bitlocker partitions, and I believe him, based on my personal knowledge of his character and work.

The free/open source world has some good solutions, like LUKS and dm-crypt, both of which come pre-installed on popular GNU/Linux versions like Ubuntu. The Ubuntu installer has a nice front-end to this stuff, allowing you the option of encrypting your whole disk while you install your OS.

In the meantime, the cause of the shutdown remains a mystery. This Reddit netsec thread is full of juicy speculation about the cause and suggestions for alternatives to Truecrypt.

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on alternatives to Truecrypt, and your overall data-security practices. Do you have a "plausible deniability" strategy for your own sensitive data?

https://boingboing.net/2014/05/29/mysterious-announcement-from-t.html

[tisfan]

One Hand Washes the Other

Title of Piece: One Hand Washes the Other Also on A03 Square filled: A4 - WTF Warning: unrepentant fluff, weird coping mechanisms, first date Pairing: Tony Stark/Bucky Barnes Summary: Bucky doesn’t always eat with the team. It takes Tony a while to figure out why. Created for @tonystarkbingo

Barnes didn’t always join the team for dinner. Tony didn’t always notice when he wasn’t there. At first, it was because maybe Tony was there; they weren’t exactly on friendly terms. But as time went on, and Tony was a rational, reasonable person, the enmity faded. Grew into something like grudging respect, and then grudging admiration. And then, because it was Tony, it might have turned into something like a reluctant crush.

Tony didn’t like to admit that he liked someone; it hadn’t usually worked out well for him. Case in point: Pepper Potts was back on the West Coast again, and sometimes missing her was like an extra hole in his chest, and he was beginning to believe that his emotional make-up was something very swiss-cheese in composition, and he didn’t need any more random aches and pains, thank you very much.

So, Tony tried not to notice when Barnes wasn’t around.

It’s not like Tony showed up to every single one of them, either.

To keep people from fighting about food, team dinners were two different protocols; ordering takeout was on a semi-random, preference oriented schedule. Which was to say, everyone entered in their personal favorites and Friday would select what people were getting for dinner. Which meant pizza was regular, as well as Chinese take away. Burgers.

The other protocol was the cooking roster, because some of the team liked to cook, and others on the team liked to sit down to a home cooked meal. Bruce, for instance, made the words best baby back ribs and absolutely would not tell anyone his secret, even swearing the AIs to secrecy and Friday diligently kept her word (traitor) and refused to allow Tony to access the kitchen camera. Not that Tony could cook, most of the time, but it was the principle of the thing.

But eventually, Tony noticed a pattern, because it was Tony.

The first night they’d done cheeseburgers, Barnes had eaten his portion with a knife and fork. Okay, weird, but a lot of Europeans did that, too, and Barnes had spent a lot of time in Europe. Tony, who drank a lot of his meals (sometimes they were smoothies and sometimes they were booze, and who asked you anyway?) didn’t comment, but Clint did.

And Barnes stopped showing up on burger nights.

He’d never showed up for pizza.

Barnes showed up for chicken one night, but he’d backed up and left in somewhat of a hurry when he saw the containers and realized it was fried chicken, not baked. Clint had waved a drumstick at him, trying to tempt him, but Barnes didn’t even look back.

Tony couldn’t help but notice a pattern after a while.

Barnes never showed up -- or left quickly if he did show up -- when the meal was something eaten by hand. Spaghetti nights, he was as deft with a fork and spoon to twirl pasta against as anyone. He ate epic amounts of steak and potatoes. Raw oysters disappeared like crazy, and sushi was a big hit, but peel-and-eat shrimp or crab legs were right out.

The guy wouldn’t eat popcorn on movie nights, either.

Well, Tony knew all about weird hangups that manifested in odd behavior, and he wasn’t going to call the guy out. Maybe it was some sort of shame-thing about the metal arm, even tho Shuri’s design was top notch, really quite elegant. Or something weird about the way it clicked when he moved it, but… well, it wasn’t Tony’s business, was it?

It wasn’t until one particularly bad bout of engineering fuge where Tony hadn’t slept in days, but had to stagger out of the workshop because he was out of coffee downstairs, and staring at the fabricator wasn’t going to make it run any faster that he actually saw Barnes.

Alone.

[more below the cut]

Sitting in front of the television, watching some late night, black and white, movie marathon and eating out of a bowl.

At first, Tony thought he had some of the left-over noodles -- there were always Chinese noodles of some sort or other in the fridge -- because the bowl was small, he was holding it under his chin, and he was wielding a pair of chopsticks with his left hand. The ridiculous mock up lightsaber kind that Tony had bought from Think Geek, because it was cool, and also because he was a little jealous that he hadn’t thought of it first.

Barnes didn’t take his eyes off the television, dipped the chopsticks into his bowl, and something crunched.

Not like a bamboo shoot, or a water chestnut, either, but…

“Are you eating Cheetos with chopsticks?” Tony couldn’t help but burst out. “Barnes, what the fuck?”

Barnes scrambled to put the bowl down; the chopsticks disappeared like a magician’s trick. “What? I was jus’ watching a movie, can’t always sleep--”

“No, no, that’s fine,” Tony said, waving that away. He knew quite a lot about not being able to sleep. “Can I just ask why?”

“Why what? Why can’t I sleep?” Barnes’s wide-eyed innocent look was both very good and damned endearing, but he wasn’t fooling Tony.

“Why do you eat like that, it’s so--”

“Weird. Creepy. Fucked up. I know.” Barnes heaved a sigh and by the time he was done, he looked somehow smaller and more fragile than Tony had ever seen him. This man, the one in front of him, blushing uncomfortably and fidgeting, that was a man that Tony could call Bucky. Not the cold-blooded killer, or the reluctant Avenger. He rubbed thoughtfully at the palm of his metal hand with the thumb from his right.

“Hey, I don’t let people hand me shit,” Tony said. “I am the last person to give you grief about weird coping mechanisms, I’m just wondering why.”

“Did you know that your computer keyboard has twenty thousand times more germs than a toilet seat?”

That seemed like a non-sequitur if Tony ever head one. Also, pointless. Supersoldiers didn’t get sick.

“There might be a reason I use hard light and projected imagery instead of something as quaint as a mouse and keyboard system,” Tony said. Also, projected imagery was a lot cooler than a clunky board.

Barnes spread his metal fingers to their max extension, all the little plates opening up to allow for the movement. Gold and black, it was gorgeous, and Tony wanted to touch it, poke at it, because, well, he generally had a boner for engineering, even if it wasn’t his own.

“Dust gets caught up in here,” Barnes said. ���An’ other stuff.”

Blood, Tony read between the lines.

“There’s no cleaning features? That just seems like a failure in--”

“It was a little easier with th’ old one because there wasn’t a lot on th’ way of actual sensitivity. Used to brush it out with compressed air, but that shit is cold, and this hand can detect temperature extremes,” Barnes shuddered. “There’s coating on the circuits, that makes it waterproof, so like, I c’n wash my hands and stuff. But it’s disturbin’ as hell to wash my hands and see… grease an’ crumbs drippin’ out. Put m’ hand in th’ sewer a few weeks back, durin’ that fight with th’ Wrecking Crew. Took me almost forty minutes t’ wash all the muck an’ grime and other people’s shit out of it.”

“Well, that’s a disturbing image, yes, I can imagine,” Tony said.

“I jus’... don’t like to touch my food with it. And I’m left-handed, so eatin’ right handed is awkward.”

“So, you don’t eat things that you can’t use utensils for,” Tony said.

Barnes’ chopsticks appeared again and he hefted a cheeto and crunched it. “Saw this on one of them videos on YouTube, some girl showin’ how to eat without messing up your makeup, or getting chip dust all over your fingers.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Tony said, and his mind was already whirring, because that’s what his brain did. Problems existed in order to be solved. Bucky’s chopsticks would work well for small things; chips and french fries and popcorn, but what about pizza? Cheeseburgers?

For that matter, what about raw sewage? No one should have to put up with that inside their bodies, even if Barnes couldn’t get sick, hadn’t he already gotten the short end of the stick with the unwilling body modifications?

“It works, at least,” Barnes said. He crunched another cheeto with pleasure.

Tony got a second bowl out of the cabinet, and snagged a pair of chopsticks. “Mind if I have some?”

“You pay for the groceries,” Barnes pointed out, but he poured out a serving of cheetos for Tony.

“Thanks.”

“What’s this?”

“Add-on,” Tony said, handing over the little disk. “It’s a-- well, consider it a deflector dish. I didn’t get a test audience on the branding, but since it’s only for people with high tech prosthetics, I don’t expect they’ll care what it’s called. Here, it goes on the back of the hand, here--” Tony picked up Barnes’ metal hand without really thinking about it, and the man froze. Tony was standing much closer than he usually did, and when Barnes glanced up at him, they were practically close enough to kiss.

“Right? Then what?” Barnes asked, not pulling back, and his blue eyes went deep and liquid.

“Well, I was studying the princess’s specs, and your arm still has an unreasonable amount of circuit heat, thus the plate mechanism, in addition to flexibility and strength, provides the cooling. So, we can’t quite do without it, yet, but she and I are doing a little collaboration, maybe make Steve Austin Mark III a little less clunky…” Tony said. “But for now… here, come here, and put your hand in this.”

There were not words for the look Barnes gave him, as Tony led him over to a bucket of slime.

“Go on, test it out.”

“I’m gonna make you clean all this shit out,” Barnes threatened.

Tony gave him a smile. “Deal. Put your hand in there, Buckybear.”

Barnes grumbled, but pushed his fingertips into the slime, which hastily shifted and pushed away.

“What th’ fuck?” Barnes -- no, Bucky’s -- eyes lit up, and the smile on his face was beyond joy. Wonder, amazement.

“It’s not very strong, but it extends about an eighth of a millimeter past the plates. Consider it a sort of electrostatic… skin. Works just like our skin,” Tony said. “Keeps all the dirt out, and…”

Bucky swirled his fingers in the slime. “I… can feel that. I can feel it. Not just pressure, not… I can feel that, Tony.”

“Yep, sunshine, that was the plan,” Tony said. He nodded to a cloth on the side of the bucket. “You’ll still have to wash it off, but--”

Bucky wiped his hand free, and then, before Tony was quite aware of what Bucky planned, those metal fingers were stroking down the side of Tony’s skin.

He told himself the tingles that it raised was nothing more than an effect of the electrostatic shield. He was lying, because he’d already tested it, several times, and he knew that there was no way any normal human would detect anything different about Bucky’s arm. That it would just feel like metal, smooth and supple.

“Tony, I can…” Bucky’s eyes filled and a tear spilled down one cheek.

“Yeah.”

“Why?” Bucky pulled his fingers back, rubbed them against his shirt, then held them out again, marveling. “Why-- thank you, but why?”

“Well, mostly, because out of all of us, you deserve to be able to eat a cheeseburger in peace.”

“Thank you,” Bucky said again, and he cupped the side of Tony’s face, as if still enchanted by the way Tony’s cheek felt under his palm.

“You’re welcome,” Tony said.

“Uh, can… will you join me, for a cheeseburger?” Bucky asked. And Tony might not have thought anything of it, except at the very end of the word, Bucky winked.

“Are… you asking me on a date?”

“If I said yes, will you say yes?”

“It’s a date, then,” Tony said.

#tonystarkbingo2018 #tonystarkbingo #winteriron #tony stark #bucky barnes #Bucky's metal arm #fluff

[netflixanthrothings-blog]

Black Museum Netflix Review- Isaac Ho

The show I have chosen for this Netflix review assignment is Black Museum. It is an episode from the well-known TV series, Black Mirror. In this episode, a black woman named Nish is driving along a dusty highway and then stops by a rundown petrol station to solar charge her car. She, then, notices a tourist attraction called the Black Museum nearby. With plenty of time to spare, she decides to take a tour around the museum lead by the owner, Rolo Haynes. He explains to Nish that the museum contains many artifacts that were in one way or another used to commit a crime. Rolo, then, tells Nish to pick anything and he will explain to her the story of the artifact and how it ended up in the museum. After Nish chooses an item, Rolo narrates the story to Nish, through a series of flashbacks scenes. Nish had chosen two items and in both stories we see Rolo’s previous job where he had made these devices, and distributed it to people.

After that, Rolo directs Nish to his main attraction. The item was actually a black man, Clayton Leigh, that was a convicted murderer who was executed and now his consciousness was turned into a hologram. We get another flashback and an explanation to how Rolo procured Clayton and his function in the museum. We are told that when visitors arrive, they are able to witness the black man getting electrocuted. Even though he was just a hologram, the man could feel the pain every time it happened. We then see a plot twist revealing that Nish is actually the man’s daughter and she has come to kill Rolo. She explains that after the museum was running out of business, rich white men come to the museum just to see the black man getting electrocuted. They even pay Rolo extra money just to prolong the experience and when her mother found out, it made her commit suicide. We also find out that Nish had poisoned Rolo earlier on when he drank her water. Nish’s ultimate plan is to kill Rolo and take his consciousness to put it into her dad’s. After she does so, she electrocutes her dad with Rolo in his head one last time to end his life. Nish then blows up the entire museum and goes into her car. Another twist then happens as we discover that the consciousness of Nish’s mother had been in her head the whole time and the episode ends with Nish driving off back onto the dusty highway.

The reason why I chose to watch this is because I am very interested in the topic of racism. Growing up in Malaysia, a country that has majority Malay people, and going to a Malay dominant school has given me an experience of what racism is like. I would not say my experiences are as intense as what other people may feel but nevertheless racism was prominent during my time in primary school. Thus, to me racism is a sensitive topic and it’s close to my heart. I also think there has been many movies or TV shows touching on this subject, I wanted to see how Black Mirror adapted the notion of racism in their series. Moreover, I chose it because of many have raved positively about the TV series. Thus, I hoped for great content by watching this show.

Even though we see such a little portion of the episode touch on the topic of racism, we can draw many parallels from it and the suffering of black people in history. The museum held objects that were used to commit a crime or murder in one way or another and everything we saw in the museum was very technological. Just as Nish said, “this stuff looks techie” (Black Mirror, 2017, 6:40). An electric chair had been used for years, the first execution by an electric chair happened in 1890 so it is not unheard of (Cavendish, 2015). Rolo Haynes needed something spectacular, he could have gone with a Caucasian criminal, an Asian or a Latino but instead he went for an African American criminal. He used Clay as his main attraction and he profited off Clay’s suffering on the electric chair. Which in essence is the same as how Americans in the South were profiting from black slavery in the 1600s (Timmons, 2018). In much of the 17th century, the American economy revolved around agriculture, selling many different types of crops such as rice and sugarcane (Timmons, 2018). In the South, property owners with the right environment and land size began huge plantations which meant that they needed more help to plant crops (Timmons, 2018). At that time, slavery was socially acceptable and slaves were being brought into America from West Africa (Timmons, 2018). With an upsurge of slaves emerged a new industry, the slave auction, where Africans lives were bidded on with money (Timmons, 2018). Once sold to the buyer, they were given hard labour everyday and were treated like animals (Timmons, 2018). Most of the profit from selling the crops were gone to the white man and some to the slaves just for motivation but they in the end still had no freedom apart from their master (Slave Labour, 2011). Rolo did not care that he was hurting Clayton, he profited off Clayton’s pain and kept him in a prison cell decor box. In return, he kept his family afloat financially but just as in the past, Clayton had no freedom away from the museum.

What makes this so racist is because Rolo knew Clay was definitely going to get executed. Even after all the doubts and inconsistencies of evidence pointed out by Nish, the judge did not take that into account and charged Clay guilty. Maybe the judge did but because all judges are allowed to decide the sentence or punishment of the person in their own discretion, there can be a racial bias to the decision (Ingraham, 2017). In reality, this is very much a real issue and it is proven that black males do get sentences that are worse than white males (Ingraham, 2017). A real-life example would be the sentences given to Brock Turner and Brian Banks. Both of them committed crimes in the same degree and yet Brock (white male) was only sentenced to 6 months in prison while Brian (black male) was sentenced to 5 years in prison (Noman, 2016). Thankfully, the accuser for Brian Banks crime came out and admitted the allegations were fabricated which then dropped all charges against him (Noman, 2016).

There is a scene in the episode where this “race-hate rich guy,” as said by Nish (Black Mirror, 2017, 59:55), pays more money to Rolo just to see Clay get electrocuted longer. That is racism in its rawest form because the definition of racism is the prejudice, discrimination or hatred directed at someone because of their color, ethnicity or national origin (About Racism, 2017). I think the director, Charlie Brooker, did an amazing job fitting a lot of black suffering history in such a short time but I do not recommend this episode to be added into this course in the future. In a few minutes over an hour, on about 25 minutes was used to go through this racism part in the episode. The other 40 minutes were used to show how bad of a person Rolo is and in those 40 minutes was a narrative of two stories. One of two is not for the faint hearted which is someone like me. I think it can really scar a person and place an image in their head that they will never forget. I believe people should get out of their bubble of comfort to be aware and realise the suffering others go through. Yet again there are things that people who are not ready should not face and it will take them more experience to be ready for harder things. If Black Museum were to be used again in this course, I think it would be best to let the students know the type of intensity they will face. That is why I do not think it is a good idea to add Black Museum as a part of this course.

This moment of the episode is when Nish had gotten her justice for her father and is headed off away from the Black Museum. The reason why this is my favorite moment of this episode is because it was satisfying to see Nish getting her justice and ended a museum built by the horrible things that happened because of Rolo.

[loadingjp597]

Maemo For Mac

Memo For Management

Memo For Mac

Maemo For Mac Os

Maemo For Macbook Air

Memo For Microsoft Word

IMO for Mac pc: With the help of IMO for Mac we can able to stay connected with our friends, Imo families and relations no matter whatever may be the distance IMO for Mac pc is not just a social app by which we can send a message to the people worth to us. This is a TECHNOLOGY PREVIEW of a new development tool for Maemo. MADDE stands for Maemo Application Development and Debugging Environment and offers the following features: Command-line cross-compiling Multi-platform support (Linux (32-bit/64-bit), Windows, Mac OS X) Configurable for different targets & toolchains. Maemo Community e.V. Invitation to the General Assembly 01/2015 Nomination period closed for Q4 2014 council election Announcement of the Q4 2014 Community Council election. GPE is a suite of applications that was ported to Maemo. Search for GPE in the downloads section for your version of Maemo. (You'll probably want GPE Calendar, GPE Contacts, gpesyncd to start with.) These are standalone applications, there's no integration with the Maemo address book. You'll not find data from GPE in the Mail client or Chat.

Download

Thank you for using our software library. Use the link below and download Maemo Flasher legally from the developer's site.

We wish to warn you that since Maemo Flasher files are downloaded from an external source, FDM Lib bears no responsibility for the safety of such downloads. We recommend checking your downloads with an antivirus. FDM Lib shall include an option for direct download from developers, should it become available in the future.

Often downloaded with

Flash WallpaperCreate and distribute Flash Wallpapers! Flash Wallpaper converts a Flash...DOWNLOAD

Flash Media PlayerFlash Media Player is a handy flash tool kit designed as Macromedia flash...DOWNLOAD

Flash JoinerFlash Joiner provides a new way to create your SWF easily. You can merge...$39.95DOWNLOAD

Flash SecurerFlash Securer is program which will allow you to carry your sensitive documents...DOWNLOAD

Flash WiperMany people believe formatting the drive or deleting the file will complete...$19.95DOWNLOAD

iWisoft Flash SWF to Video Converter

Editors & Converters

The Nokia 770, N800 andN810are 'Internet Tablets'running Maemo: a handheld Linux distribution based on Debian.

Although there is acommand line flasher availablefor Mac OS X from Maemo, there's no officialGUI interface for it. This has been written usingPlatypus and CocoaDialog and is, of course,supplied with no warranty.

This is not affiliated with Nokia and so if your machine turns into amongoose and starts dancing ballet, don'tblame me. Or blame me, but don't complain - or, more importantly, sue.

Usage

Download the latestNokia image (large file ending in .bin, for exampleNokia_770_0.2005.45-8.bin) and either selectthis file when prompted by 770Flasher, or just drag the file on to the770Flasher icon.

Screenshot

770Flasher-2.0.dmg(Mac OS X disk image, 361K, requires 10.3 or above)

tablet-encode (aka 770-encode)

770-encode has now been renamed tablet-encodeand moved to a larger project called mediautils.

Due to the unreliability of garage.maemo.org, there is a mirror here:

mediaserv

mediaserv is a project which allows you to convert, on-the-fly,video from a Linux, Unix or Mac OS X box and watch it on your Nokia InternetTablet. It even integrates with VideoCenter.

Like tablet-encode, this is part of mediautils.

Due to the unreliability of garage.maemo.org, there is a mirror here:

mediaserv.tar.gz(Perl tarball, v0.05, 29K)

mud-builder

MUD is anauto-builder, designed to make it easier for people to port, in a simple andmaintainable fashion, software to Maemo; customising the resulting packages toMaemo's subtle requirements.

More info can be found on its Garage page.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is anexcellent online resource and tied with a network connection through aNokia 770 is almost equivalent to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.Although not yet available offline for Maemo, it is possible to enhanceWikipedia to make it look better on the 770's screen.

The default skin contains a long left-hand column, however by creatingan account with Wikipedia (which is free), you can change the 'skin'to one more suited to a device such as the 770.

Default style

'MySkin' style

Usage

Create an account on Wikipedia.

Go to the URL, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:YourUserName/myskin.css.='detail'>

Paste the code below into the text area andclick Save:

/* <pre><nowiki>*/ @import url('http://www.bleb.org/software/maemo/wikipedia/myskin.css'); /* </nowiki></pre> */

Go to your Preferences page and selectthe Skin category.

Select MySkin and click Save.

Backgrounds

Under development

I've currently got the following under development. For each there is a short description and links to screenshots and photos. If you have any questions on them, please don't hesitate to contact me. Updates will be provided in my diary.

Better Maemo planet layout

I don't like the new MaemoPlanet that much. I've developed a user style for Firefox to turnit into this.

ArcEm

Acorn Archimedes emulator, allowing RISC OS to be run on an ARM device inyour pocket. [1], [2],[photo 1], [photo 2].

NetSurf

A lightweight open source web browser, for when Opera is deciding to betempremental. [1], [2], [3], [photo].

Galculator

A scientific calculator. No screenshots available, but a straight-forward port of a Glade application.

Java

Following on from Alexander Lash's work porting JamVM/Classpath/Jikesto Maemo, I've some thoughts on auto-Hildonisation of Javaapplications which could help make Java a suitable high-level language forMaemo application development.

Older stuff

Sylpheed

Sylpheed is a full-featured email client: supporting POP3,IMAP, SSL and everything else you'd expect. The full feature list can beseen at the Sylpheed homepage.

This is a port and Hildonisation of Sylpheed to integrate it as a properMaemo application. It's not finished, and so should be viewedas an alpha-release. You may be better off using Claws or (even better, hopefully)Modest.

Known bugs

Not all windows are Hildonised yet (that is, many have menubars ratherthan pop-up menus, and so on).

Fix dependencies on N800 to avoid start-up problem (see this solution in the mean time).

Full-screen button doesn't work.

Some windows appear too small, others too big.

Select from middle of direction pad should open message in proper viewwindow.

Problems with (some?) LDAP servers.

...

Limitations

No GPG support as yet.

Address book functionality removed due to a bug.

Built-in FAQ, manual and support for non-English languages removed forspace reasons.

Screenshots

sylpheed.deb(Maemo v2 package, v2.2.0rc-3, 511K)

Rebuilding from source

If the binary above whets your appetite for Maemo development,and you want to help with this port, the Maemo port is being maintained in aSubversion repository.

Username/password: guest/guest.[Browse the source]

Synchronisation and backup using rsync & make

Please note this has not been updated for 2006 OS,instead I prefer bind-mounts, however it is easily customisable.

The built-in backup/restore tool doesn't backup all yourdevice's configuration or installed applications. This script (aMakefile)meets those requirements and allows for maintaining patched parts of the rootfilesystem across firmware upgrades.

Usage

Requires rsync and SSH (on both 770 & hostcomputer) and make on the host.

Memo For Management

To 'install' the script:

Create a new, empty directory, on a Unix-like box (e.g. Mac OS X,Linux, *BSD, Windows with cygwin) and ensure you have rsync, make and SSHinstalled.

Download Makefile.770sync and move it to thenew directory, named Makefile.

Modify the line beginning REMOTE_DEVICE topoint to your 770. For example, my 770 has a fixed IP, I have root accesson it (by enablingR&D mode) and Dropbear is running on port 22 (the default), thereforethe line in my local copy says:

There are three 'targets' which can be executed to act onyour device. To execute them, run the following command:

Memo For Mac

make target

push

Push changes in the local copy to the remote device. This is effectivelya restore from a backup, if pull has been previously run.

pull

Pull changes from the remote device to your local copy. Effectivelyperforming a backup.

bootstrap

Similar to push but doesn't use rsync. This is useful when yourdevice has just been reflashed and is missing any software. By just installingand starting SSH, thistarget can be used to restore your documents, changes and applications (suchas rsync). An article on dillernet.com,Recovering From A Firmware Flash, has some techniqueswhich may also help in this regard (specifically scripts to install theneeded packages & SSH keys from the MMC card).

Since bootstrap will generally be required when reflashing andbefore SSH is running as root; SSH may well be listening on port 2222 (ifstarted by an unprivileged user), rather than port 22. Therefore, you canoverride the REMOTE_DEVICE variable:

make [email protected]:2222/ bootstrap

Note: in this example, as the SSH server was started as anormal user, it would not be possible to restore symlinks in /etc.

Example

One common requirement when SSH is installed is startingit automatically when your device is turned on. This is easily done bycreating a symlink, as described in the InstallSsh document in the wiki.

Unfortunately, when you reflash your device, this symlink will be lost.However, by using the script you can ensure that this (and similar changes)are put back on the device when you restore:

$ mkdir ~/770-sync $ cd ~/770-sync $ wget http://bleb.org/software/maemo/Makefile.770sync $ mv Makefile.770sync Makefile $ mkdir -p etc/rc2.d $ ln -s /var/lib/install/etc/init.d/dropbear-server etc/rc2.d/S99dropbear-server $ make push

As you can see, the local 770-sync directorycontains a copy of any changes you've made to the file system. In addition,the user's home directory, the configuration and the installed applications are pulled back on a pull operation.

Citrix ICA client

The below screenshots show that theCitrixARM Linux client can be got to run on a Nokia 770, although it iscurrently much use: the virtual keyboard is tied to onboard GTK+applications. A USB keyboard, or a Bluetooth keyboard using kbddshould work, however.

The Citrix install file won't work with busybox's 'expr' implementation andwithout 'cpio'. The application itself requires a few extra debs (whichfortunately Debian/ARM can provide):

libxaw6_4.3.0.dfsg.1-14sarge1_arm.deb

libxmu6_4.3.0.dfsg.1-14sarge1_arm.deb

libxp6_4.3.0.dfsg.1-14sarge1_arm.deb

libxpm4_4.3.0.dfsg.1-14sarge1_arm.deb

Maemo For Mac Os

Unfortunately, with the advent of 2006 OS and the use of EABI, older ARMLinux binaries will no longer work on the 770 without recompilation. Therefore,unless Citrix recompile and provide new binaries, or an open source clientis made available, Citrix is not easily possible on a modernMaemo device.

Maemo For Macbook Air

vim/rsync

Memo For Microsoft Word

These ports were for the 2005 OS, and have now been removed.mud-builder isa project which aims to simplify simple ports like thesein future.