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ratonnhhaketon · 3 years

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Still Breathing

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Summary: Six months after the defeat of Thanos, the world is still in chaos. The threat of the Flag Smashers combined with the new headstrong Captain America means it's time for Valencia Zicari to help save the world one more time. But, in doing so, she also has to pick up the pieces of a broken relationship.

Warnings: Major TFATWS spoilers, Swearing, Angst, Fluff, Slow-Burn, John Walker (just in general)

A/N: HHH, new fic time! TFATWS has been consuming my brain these past few weeks and it was only a matter of time before I made another oc and wrote for Bucky. I’ve had this in the works since the first episode but I’m super excited to finally be ready to start posting! This fic will be relatively short but I do also plan on doing a prequel fic eventually to further flush out my marvel oc, Valencia Zicari. I apologize that this starts off kinda slow, with just two phone calls at the beginning, but it will pick up a lot in the upcoming chapters. In the meantime if you have any questions or comments about the fic or Val’s story, don’t hesitate to send them my way! Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1 - Your Number On Speed Dial

Bucky’s eyes shot open, his throat closing and lungs gasping for air. He felt the sweat covering his body, the thin blanket tangled between his legs. The cool metal of his dog tags swung against his chest as he sat up, chest heaving as he sucked in breaths and tried to regain his breathing. He looked around his surroundings, slowly calming down as he noticed he was in his apartment.

Another goddamn nightmare.

Realizing he was alone, Bucky instinctively reached up onto the chair next to him for his cellphone. He flipped open the phone, eyes squinting to adjust to the light of the small screen in front of him. He noticed the time, 3:08 am. While he knew that she would more than likely still be up and wouldn’t mind talking, he felt guilty for instinctively reaching out for her this late. Still, he let his hand press accept and after only two rings he heard her familiar voice pick up.

“Hi Buck,” she said with a smile, exhaustion evident in her voice.

“Hi,” he replied with a hoarse voice, sleep still clinging to his vocal chords. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

“I could ask you the same question,” she said with a small laugh. “But, yeah. Probably. I’ve been working my ass off trying to get in contact with Fury and nothing is working.”

“Not even through the SHIELD lines?”

She sighed, a hand coming up to rub at her temples. “I’ve tried, but he’s ‘on vacation’ and is only taking messages if they’re life or death.”

“I mean, shouldn’t he be able to make an exception for you? Given, y’know..”

“Unfortunately I lost the ‘you’re my adoptive daughter’ privilege when I decided to grow up and join the Avengers.” Bucky chuckled in response, his nightmare finally starting to fade from the back of his mind. “I’m just.. worried about Wanda. The whole situation still isn’t sitting right with me, especially since any information has been classified and no one at all can access it.”

“Val,” Bucky said quietly, his metal hand coming up to rub against the chain hanging around his neck. “When was the last time you took a break?”

He heard an audible sigh over the phone and a pause before she spoke up. “Not since half of the world disappeared.”

“Well, how about this. Thursday, you finally put all of that aside for a few hours and we can grab lunch. I’ll buy.”

She thought it over for a moment, Bucky’s breath hitching in his throat in the few seconds it took before she spoke up. “Yeah, that sounds nice. We can go to that sushi place you used to take me to.”

“Sounds perfect, doll. I’ll see you then. Now go get some rest.”

“You too, old man.”

~~~~~

Valencia stood in the common room of the compound, a scowl present on her face as she watched the tv. John Walker’s Good Morning America interview was playing at a low volume. She hadn’t even met the man yet and already hated him. Partly because of how he talked about Steve without knowing the first thing about him, and partly because every journalist in the state of New York had been contacting her in an attempt to interview her about the new Captain America. Pulling her eyes away from the screen, she noticed her phone vibrating to announce an incoming call. She answered, a smile tugging at her lips for the first time in the past day. “Hey Bucky.”

“Hi,” he said shortly. She could feel the anger in his voice. “Have you seen the news?”

“Absolutely,” she replied, her scowl returning to her face. “Everyone has been bothering me about it for the past day. I had to tell Pepper that if one more reporter asked to take a statement from me I’d throw someone out of a window.”

“Jeez. Little harsh, don’t ya think?”

“Probably,” she said with a small laugh.

“Hey, have you talked to Sam recently?”

“Yeah, I was just talking to him earlier before you called. He was telling me about having to go to Munich today, something about the Flag Smashers? I don’t know, he didn’t really give me a lot of information.”

“No, that's great. Thanks, doll. See you Thursday.”

“Alright, Buck. See you then.”

~~~~~

Any normal person would be astonished by the amount of trouble one person could get into in the span of 18 hours. But, in terms of being an Avenger, it’s just a normal Wednesday. Especially when it’s Sam and Bucky’s fault. But, Valencia still found a way to be freaking out when Pepper rushed into her room, shoving a phone into her face to announce that Bucky had a warrant out for his arrest. And had subsequently ended up in a Baltimore jail.

In under an hour she had flown down to the city and found the facility Bucky was being held in. She pulled open the door to the jail, eyes quickly scanning the crowd of people before landing on Bucky’s literal partner in crime.

She made a beeline straight for the dark haired man. “You want to explain to me what’s going on here, Sam Wilson?” Eyes narrowed, lips pulled into a tight line.

Upon seeing her he pushed himself out of his chair. “Val! How ya’ been? You been doing okay?”

“Oh cut the shit, Sam. You better have a good explanation for why I found out that Bucky not only had a warrant out for his arrest, but then ended up in a Baltimore jail leaving me to haul ass down here to figure out what in the hell is happening.”

“First, I need you to calm down. Promise me you won’t freak out?”

She glared at him. “Are you-”

“Val,” he said in a stern tone.

She let out a huff before nodding. “Alright, fine. I’m calm.”

“He helped me with that mission in Munich I told you about and then wanted to introduce me to someone in Baltimore. And he may have missed his therapy appointment in the process.”

“He missed-!” Val immediately yelled out, voice louder than anticipated, which drew the attention of the people around them. Sam put an arm around her shoulder and led the two of them over towards an unoccupied side of the room. “Sam, are you serious? He’s been doing so well! He put in so much effort to make sure he made the appointments and you let him go with you?”

“First of all, I told him repeatedly that I didn’t want him coming, but you know how stubborn he is.”

She let out a defeated sigh and dropped her hands to her sides. “So what do we do now?”

“Well lucky for you they’re actually releasing him.”

Before Val could reply she was cut off by the sound of heels clicking before a familiar voice spoke near them. “Sam. I’ve heard a lot about you.” She reached out to shake his hand. “I’m Dr. Raynor. I’m James’s therapist. It’s good to see you again, Valencia.”

Val gave her a smile. “Good to see you too, doc.”

“So nice to meet you. You two already know each other?”

“I took Bucky to the first few of his appointments to make sure that he would, y’know, actually go. But that was before..” she waved a hand in the air, “everything.”

Sam nodded. “Well thank you, Dr. Raynor, for getting him out.”

“Oh, that wasn’t me.”

From across the room a booming voice spoke up, instantly grabbing their attention. “Christina!” The three of them all turned in unison and were met with none other than the new Captain America himself, taking pictures with a bunch of fans. “It’s great to see you again.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. You know him?” Sam spoke up with a frustrated sigh.

“Yeah, we did some field ops back in the day.”

“I heard you were working with Bucky, so I thought I’d step in.” Val watched as he approached the group, her arms instinctively crossing over her chest. “Miss Zicari, it’s nice to finally meet you. I’ve been trying to reach out for a formal introduction for several days now.”

“It’s Agent, actually. And unlike you I’ve had a lot of other pressing matters that required my attention.”

“Right. Well, anyway. Bucky’s not gonna be following a strict schedule any longer.”

“What?”

“We haven’t finished our work. Who authorized this?”

“Um,” John used both hands to gesture up towards himself. “He’s too valuable of an asset to have tied up.”

Val’s attention went from John to the sound of a metal door closing behind her. Her head turned towards the sound and she was met with none other than a familiar set of blue eyes side-eyeing the blonde man in front of her. She felt the corner of her mouth turn up in a half-smile as his head turned and saw hers. Almost instantly the token frown he wore at all times faded and turned into his own partial smile. She walked over to him, her arms finding their way around his neck subconsciously. “Hey, Buck,” she breathed as his arms wove around her middle, pulling their bodies flush together.

“Hey to you too,” he said with a small laugh. “Pepper finally let you leave the compound?”

She pulled away to look at him. “Less her letting me leave and more so her immediately getting me a flight and shoving me out the door when she found out you got arrested.”

“Alright lovebirds, break it up.” Dr. Raynor said from behind them. Val’s arms dropped to her side and before she had the chance to correct her, the woman spoke up again. “James, condition of your release, session now.” Bucky let out an audible groan, rolling his eyes slightly, to which Val couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle. “You too, Sam.”

“That’s okay, I’ll be out here with Val.”

“That wasn’t a request.”

She pulled her phone from the pocket of her leather jacket and noticed an incoming call. “Just go, I’ll be outside. I gotta take this anyway.” Val walked outside of the jailhouse, sliding a thumb across the screen to answer the call in the process. She partially paid attention to what Pepper was telling her as the new Captain America walked past her, obviously checking her out with a side-eye as she leaned against the chipped bricks. Her eyes narrowed at him as he turned to steal another glance her way before turning her eyes away and down the opposite side of the road.

“Yeah, he’s okay… no, I don’t know the specifics of how it works out with the pardon... I’ll keep you updated, but it doesn’t look like I’ll be back any time soon. I kinda feel like I’ll be joining the idiots on whatever they plan on doing next… Alright, I will. Keep me updated on the whole Westview situation and tell Morgan to stop stealing the snacks from my room. Oh, haha. Take care, Pepper.”

As she hung up the phone she saw the door next to her swing open with a visibly angry Sam walking out of it. Bucky trudged out a few seconds later, looking angry but more upset than the man in front of him. As the door started to close behind him he saw Val and walked over to her.

“Do you think Steve was wrong about me?” She could tell he was fighting back tears by the way his voice cracked at the end.

Her hands cupped his face. “Bucky, no, absolutely not. Why would you say that?”

He looked away, not able to look her in the eye. After all the nights they spent together, her talking him down from a nightmare, reassuring him and chasing the negative thoughts away, he couldn’t admit that part of him still felt that same way. “It.. doesn’t matter.”

“If it’s making you this upset, then yes it does.”

He let out a huff as her thumb began to lightly rub against the stubble on his cheek. “Sam shouldn’t have given up the shield.”

“I know, Buck, I know. But there’s nothing we can do now, so let’s just try to figure out what’s happening with..” she lifted a hand from his face and used it to make vague gestures around them. “Everything right now.”

The loud siren from a police cruiser halted their conversation, the sound making Val physically jump. She looked towards the source of the sound and scowled. This asshole again. “Gentlemen,” John’s eyes scanned Val’s figure quickly before adding, “and lady. Good to see you again.” Begrudgingly, she followed Sam and Bucky’s lead and walked towards the blonde haired man and his sidekick. “Look, if we divide ourselves we don’t stand a chance, you guys know that.”

Sam crossed his arms over his chest. “So what do you got?”

“Should she be hearing this?” John gestured to Val.

She scoffed. “I’m on board now, so out with it.”

“Alright. Well the leader’s name is Karli Morgenthau. We’ve been targeting civilians that have been helping Karli move from place to place. They geotagged a location, then scrambled the signal. But our satellites have found their symbol popping up in various displaced communities all across Central and Eastern Europe. We think that she's taking the medicine she just stole to one of these camps.”

“Well there’s been hundreds of those put up across the planet since The Blip,” Valencia interjected. “So I guess you’ll have to look real hard.”

“Good thing I have 20/20 vision, huh?” John shot back, annoyance prevalent in his voice.

“Where is she now, Walker? Do you know?” Bucky spoke up, patience quickly being stretched thin.

“No, we don’t know, Bucky,” Walker’s voice rose dramatically. “It’s only a matter of time before we find out.”

Bucky cocked his head to the side, eyes narrowing at the man in front of him. “Things are really tense for you, aren’t they Walker?” Val rested a gentle hand against Bucky’s chest, holding him back as a reminder not to do anything irrational- although she definitely wanted him to.

Sam approached the super soldier, putting a hand in the air to further make him back off. “Take it easy. Look, Walker’s right. It is imperative that we find them and stop them. But you guys have rules of engagement and all kinds of authorizations you have to get. We're free agents. We're more.. flexible. So it wouldn't make sense for us to work with you.”

The trio started to walk off before Walker stood up from the cruiser and spoke. “A word of advice, then.” The three of them turned to look at him once again. “Stay the hell out of my way.”

Knowing that it wasn’t worth it to get a final word in, Sam put a hand on either of their shoulders and pushed them to keep walking away. Once they were a reasonable distance down the street, Val turned to Bucky and noticed he was deep in thought. “What’s on your mind, Buck?” she asked with a hand coming up to rest on his shoulder.

“Well, I know what we have to do. When Isaiah said “my people”...” he trailed off, still staring ahead.

“Oh, don’t take that to heart. That’s not what he meant-” Sam tried to correct him before Bucky cut him off.

“No, he meant HYDRA.” He paused for a moment, feet coming to a stop as he looked between the pair next to him. “HYDRA used to be my people.”

“Bucky,” Val spoke up cautiously.”

Sam scoffed. “Not a chance.”

“Walker doesn’t have any leads.”

“I know where you’re going with this, no.”

“He knows all of HYDRA’s secrets. Don’t you remember Siberia.”

“Oh, you cannot be serious,” Val said as she dragged a tired hand over her face.

“So you’re just gonna sit in a room with this guy?”

Bucky hesitated for a moment, obviously not thinking about his idea that much ahead of time. “Y-yes.”

Val sighed, shaking her head slightly. “Out of all your ideas, this has got to be the dumbest.” She looked at Sam, who shrugged his shoulders and nodded. “Fine. Let’s go see Zemo.”

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writingonjorvik · 3 years

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Constructive Criticism Cheat Sheet

Since some folks are struggling:

Constructive criticism is a comment with the aim to improve something without tearing the creator down in the process. It should be:

Critical but not cruel

Pinpoint a specific point relevant to something the creator is asking about

Explains why the individual feels like it should be improved

Expresses how they feel is would look better to them

Be polite!!!

“I like this horse, but I think this muscle looks off. Here’s a reference [provides picture], but adjust it so the leg is a little thicker here.” Constructive Criticism!

Provides feedback, pinpoints their problem, supplies resources as a bonus to back it up.

“This doesn’t look like this horse. The Gen 2 model was better.” Not Constructive Criticism!

While the opinion is valid, there is no explanation of their problem, meaning it is not constructive because the creator has nothing to go on for improvement.

“The last horse looked so much better. I know you can do better.” Not Constructive Criticism!

Improving in creativity is not a linear process. Comparing creations in a recent time frame is not reflective of overall improvement, because we walk back and forth each time we make something. Comparing something you made to something years ago is a better benchmark. This comment sets unfair expectations of constant improvement, which isn’t realistic.

“I made an edited version on my own that you should use instead of what you have.” Not Constructive Criticism!

Everyone has personal preference for sure, but more importantly, everyone works and improves at different rates.You working solo on a project that you’re really proud of is not the same as a team of people working to make something with guidelines from their company as a whole. Comparing how “easy” it is for you to make something to someone else isn’t fair, because everyone grows at different paces and creates at different speeds.

“Why can’t you just change this thing? It’s not like it’s hard.” Not Constructive Criticism!

Again, you can’t judge how difficult something is for someone else. Expecting them to drop everything IMMEDIATELY for something that is subjective like preference in style is not helpful, particularly when the right now is two work days before basically the last active work week and update before holiday vacations start. Asking them to just promotes crunch culture, which is an issue we need to be backing SSE on, not the consumer.

“You’re professionals! This is your job! Why don’t you do better?” Not Constructive Criticism!

Professionals are still human. Experience in technical skill does not void the time it takes to work through the creative process and coordinate with other individuals on your team. These things still take time to work through and again, we’re talking about trying to get an update out right before the holidays.

“Did you even try? This looks terrible. You should just remake it.” Low bar, I know, but have seen this comment floating around, so in case it were not obvious: Not Constructive Criticism!

Does this need a blurb? This one is just mean. This is just an attack. But more specifically, this is not helpful in anyway to the point of not being relevant to the question of “how can this be improved?” Because if someone asks you “how do I make this better?” and you answer “start over” then there is nothing on the project they are actually asking about you are being helpful about.

“You guys are just being greedy and lazy and rushing horses! Just move the release.” Not Constructive Criticism!

If you have to attack someone’s ethics to “provide your point,” you’ve stopped being constructive. Should companies, including SSE, be called out for abusive practices. ALWAYS! But it’s always important to remember that the people making these horses don’t get to set their deadlines. Attacking their work ethics does not equate to being critical of SSE as a company and attacking a company because they don’t back up your opinion does not make them exploitative, particularly an indie company right before the holidays.

Also, bonus ones to fans between fans because someone tried to pull this one on me today:

“You don’t have as much as experience in art as me, so my opinion is more valid.” Not Constructive Criticism!

This is gatekeeping creativity! Should people with more experience in a field be listened to because of their experience? Yes! Experience is important and in STEM fields is often a good indicator of their knowledge, though there are still exceptions. But time put in for art doesn’t work because art is subjective! Just because I’m a published author doesn’t mean I don’t listen to my unpublished writer friends or my fanfiction writer friends. I can still learn from them, even if I have experience in writing they don’t. Their art and their processes are different from mine. We still have things to gain from learning from each other. Time and training does not equal skill in artistic fields, and expectation of university level training equaling experience/mastery in a creative field in particular is incredibly classist as this is not accessible to everyone in the world and traditional schooling is not built for all types of people. Your opinion doesn’t win by default because you’ve taken two years in 3D design and mine is independent study starting a month ago. We all learn at different rates, are better at different things, and ART IS SUBJECTIVE! That means even if I only know how to personally model dice, I can still make reasonable judgements about the amount of time and effort that goes into animating an animated rig. That’s called empathic reasoning. Don’t gatekeep being a creative. Creators competing with each other is why we’re fucked over in the industry in the first place.

#sso #starstable #star stable #star stable online #ssoblr #sso blr

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professorspork · 4 years

Note

fic prompt + daily queenly duties

Well, this one definitely got away from me a little bit…

—-

The day starts at dawn. Not with an alarm, but nevertheless, like clockwork–

“Ouch! Ah, jeez–”

Kristoff opens an eye to watch Anna hop around on one foot, holding her stubbed toe in both hands as she inhales sharply and tries to keep from crying out any further.

“Did you kick the chair again?”

Realizing she has an audience, Anna puts her foot down and attempts to look regal and put-together. It’s a losing battle; her hair is all over the place and there’s still a bit of drool on her chin. It’s adorable.

“…No? Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I keep telling you to move it.”

She shakes her head. He watches as she brushes out her tangles and ties her hair in a bun–as his wife fades to the background and the queen emerges in her stead. “If I move it Olaf can’t climb up to read us a bedtime story, and you know how much he loves that. It’s too heavy for him to move by himself.”

“We could always move it after he’s done.”

“Well then I’m comfy and I don’t want to leave bed.”

“I could move it.”

She smiles at him, winsome. “The bed’s comfy because you’re in it.”

He sees his chance and gives it his best shot–lifts up the covers to show his bare chest; the inviting spot on her side of the bed she’s just vacated. “I’m still in it now, y'know.”

Her nose scrunches as her face can’t decide whether to be playfully disapproving or to flirt right back. “You’re a terrible influence, Kristoff Bjorgman.”

“Yes, but I’m your terrible influence.”

Unable to suppress her grin at him any longer, she leans over the aforementioned chair just long enough to peck him on the lips, then disappears behind her privacy screen to change.

“What’s on the docket today?” he asks. On the other side of the divider, the vague outline of her silhouette disappears under layers of fabric.

“Oh, um. Open petitions this morning, and then a sit-down with the Stonecutter’s Guild. I guess some of the young apprentices are freaked out ever since meeting the Earth Giants because they’re worried all rocks have feelings? Which: they might, honestly. I’m going to have to ask Elsa–remind me to send her a note before breakfast, okay? Oh, and then tonight is the solstice pageant.”

“Can’t forget that.”

“Don’t be mean!”

“I’m not,” he laughs. “I’m genuinely looking forward to it.”

Queen Anna emerges from the other side of the wardrobe. “Well, good. Alright, I’ve got to check in with the castle staff and get my day going. I’ll see you downstairs?”

“Of course.”

Only she doesn’t, because by the time he actually makes it to the dining room he learns she’s long gone–she’s skipped breakfast to go deal with some issue at the fjord, two ships double-booked for the same dock and each refusing to yield to the other.

Sounds about par for the course.

Shaking his head, he wanders down to the kitchens for a sandwich or two, scribbles out a note for Elsa, and heads out to the dell where Gale likes to gambol and play most mornings. Anna’s better at finding Gale than Kristoff is; more than once he’s caught her laughing at him for talking to a stiff breeze that was simply that, and nothing more. It takes up more of his morning than he’d like, but eventually he feels the telltale tickle under his chin that he’s in the presence of the wind spirit.

“Hey. I know Elsa’s coming down tonight, but Anna’s got a question that can’t wait until then. Do you mind?”

Gale blows his hat right off his head, which he takes to mean don’t be silly. Or possibly how dare you, I’m very insulted, but hopefully not. Like he said: he’s not as good at this as Anna.

“Thanks,” he says, and he opens his palm to let the gusts carry his note away. He watches until it’s disappeared past the treeline, just in case.

He heads back to the castle, arriving just as the sun hits its zenith. Anna hates these short winter days, he knows–doesn’t like the idea of the dark outweighing the light. The solstice will be good for her; every day from here on out a little brighter than the last.

Open petitions are in full swing in the front hall–he lingers in the back for a bit to watch Anna work. Long gone is the single throne and long queue of Agnarr’s day. Elsa rethought the space about three times during her reign, and Anna’s made further changes, since. Now the dais contains a few overstuffed armchairs, and a side table for tea. Anyone who comes to speak to Queen Anna does so in comfort, and on her level. They… chat. Like friends; like equals.

When she wraps up the inquiry she was working on–some sort of misunderstanding about a dowry, and a young couple pretty desperate to give back what sounds like the world’s most ornery goat to the bride’s father–Kristoff strides to the front of the room.

“Sorry folks, just gonna call a quick recess, okay? Ice Master privilege, sorry, I’ll give the Queen back in just a minute.”

Before Anna has a chance to protest, he escorts her out the room and into a side hall.

“What are you doing?” she asks, unable to quite keep the laughter at his antics out of her voice. “I still have like a half-dozen people to see.”

“Yeah, I noticed. Which is why I figured you could probably use a pick-me-up.” With that, he takes the wrapped sandwiches from this morning from his satchel.

Her shoulders drop in relief at the smell of the fresh-baked bread; she immediately snatches one from his hands and starts scarfing it down. “Oh my gosh, I’m starving. How did you know?”

He knows because it’s his job to know. Anna takes care of Arendelle. Kristoff takes care of Anna. It’s as simple as that.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have skipped breakfast, feistypants.”

“Duty called,” she shrugs, unapologetically talking with her mouth full. “And hey, that’s ‘Queen Feistypants’ to you.”

“Apologies, your Majesty,” he teases, dropping into a low, ostentatious bow. His hat falls off with the movement, but when he goes to pick it up, it dances away from his hand.

“Wait, what? Oh, for–Gale!” he groans, and snatches at the air as the wind plays keep-away with him. “C'mon, give it back.”

Anna slaps her forehead. “Oh no, I was supposed to ask–oh,” she blinks as Kristoff’s parchment falls daintily into her hand, Elsa’s reply scribbled on the back. “Thanks.” She scans the note quickly. “Well, apparently there’s some sort of knocking test you can do to see if a rock has the spirit or not; Ryder can come down and teach it to the guild members. That’s easy enough.”

Kristoff raises an eyebrow. “Ryder has to tell these kids 'only dead rocks don’t knock back?’”

“They’re not dead rocks, they’re never-been-alive rocks. Totally different.” She polishes off the last of her sandwich and–when she gives him a plaintive, puppydog look–the last few bites of his, as well. “Okay, I’d better get back to work. Catch up with you tonight; thanks again, love you!”

And then there’s a quick kiss and she’s gone, like the whirling dervish she is. Or maybe that’s just Gale, chasing along behind her.

He’s at loose ends for the rest of his day–an ice harvester doesn’t tend to have as much to do, in the winter–and decides to ride out and meet Elsa halfway. Sven brays happily at the opportunity to go full speed, and before long they’re racing through fresh powdery snow. Just for the thrill, just for the fun of it. It is in these moments–bitter wind stinging at his face, the world whooshing past him in a rush–that Kristoff thinks he best understands the two women who make up his family. The freedom of speed and cold air and ground under your feet. The joy of going as fast as you can, because you trust your own legs to carry you. Or, y'know. Sven’s legs, as the case may be.

Anna’s the one who’s good at metaphors. He’s just along for the ride.

He hears them approach before he sees them–Ryder shouting out a Northuldra call-and-response song, a children’s rhyme about reindeer. Elsa’s voice chimes in on the refrains–hesitant, tremulous, happy. Like she’s still not quite certain she remembers all the words, but she’s so pleased to be included she can’t help but try anyway. It brings a full-toothed grin to Kristoff’s face, unbidden; he dismounts as they crest the ridge ahead and come into view.

“Kristoff!” the two shout in messy union, then immediately engage in a race to get to him first. The Nokk leaves Ryder in the dust; in moments, Kristoff’s got an armful of ex-Queen as Elsa jumps down into his arms.

“Hey,” he laughs, “I missed you, too.”

“What about my Kristoff hugs?” Ryder pouts as he catches up. Elsa squeezes Kristoff just a little bit tighter.

“Get your own. This one’s a family heirloom.”

“Imagine if I played that card every time you hugged Honeymaren,” Ryder teases slyly, and Kristoff bites back a laugh at the way Elsa turns bright, bright red. She lets him go and draws herself up to her full height, clearing her throat and squaring her shoulders. All he sees is Anna pulling the same maneuver that morning, and he can’t help it–the giggles escape, despite his best efforts.

“That’s quite enough of that,” she grumbles, re-mounting her horse. “We should get going or we’ll be late.”

Ryder settles for a fist-bump, in the meantime, and the three of them turn and make their way back towards Arendelle.

It seems like the whole town has turned out for the solstice pageant, the amphitheater down by the fjord filled with the buzz of proud families waiting for the kids to begin. Anna’s saved a whole passel of seats toward the front–piled high with cloaks to stop other people from sitting there. As though people might edge in on the Queen’s saved seats.

Kristoff feels his heart melt for her that much more.

Elsa and Anna do their usual song and dance at being reunited, prompting good-natured eye-rolls from everyone around them, and then the lights go down and the curtains come up. They hurriedly fall into their chairs as the schoolmaster comes out on stage.

“Hello parents, friends, and families! As you know, the children have been working hard on our little revue these past few weeks, and they’re very eager to share it with all of you. Enjoy!”

All the students shuffle out, holding hands. And there, standing among them, is Olaf–clearly scanning the crowd for their friendly faces. Anna lets out a whoop, and he positively beams at them.

Kristoff crosses his fingers. “Here we go,” he murmurs under his breath.

Olaf had been begging for the chance to go to school for ages now–but after he learned to read, they kind of ran out of excuses not to let him. The other children are more than used to his presence, and he loves coming home every day with new facts to share with all of them. Honestly, he’s thriving–though he had been heartbroken not to get the part of the Spirit of Summer to Come in the solstice pageant, cast instead as, perhaps predictably enough, a snowman.

Olaf nails every single one of his lines; at one point, Anna elbows Kristoff in the ribs, eyes mirthful, and he realizes he’s been mouthing along with them the whole time. After the final song, they all jump to their feet and cheer. Elsa puts her fingers to her lips and whistles loud, just the way Kristoff taught her.

The rest of the evening is a blur–Olaf dangling between Anna and Kristoff’s hands as they all walk home; Elsa and Ryder talking over each other at dinner in their eagerness to share all they’re learning about Ahtohallan; a lively game of Twister that Anna wins easily (Olaf being disqualified after detaching his arm to reach left hand blue). Ryder and Anna make plans to meet back up with the stonecutters first thing the next day, as Anna will be swamped the whole of the afternoon with trade delegation meetings. Kristoff has to all but drag her away before she can promise away what little free time she has left to making final adjustments on plans for the New Year’s ball in the coming days–“that’s tomorrow-you’s problem,” he reminds her, and she lets herself be led away by the hand.

And then finally, at long last, it’s just the two of them.

This, perhaps, is Kristoff’s favorite moment of the day: when Anna takes off her crown, lets down her hair, and curls up against him. Just Anna, no more, no less.

“I’m e-e-exhausted,” she yawns, burying her face in his shoulder, and he drops a kiss onto her forehead.

“Just one more queenly duty for the day,” he chuckles, before calling out “Okay buddy, we’re ready!” towards the door.

The quiet sound that had served as background noise throughout their nightly routine, of Olaf counting to one thousand on the other side of the door, goes quiet. “Are you sure?” he asks. “I’m only at eight hundred and thirty four.”

“Come on in, Olaf,” Anna laughs, and he does–dragging the book they’ve been reading behind him. On little snowball feet, he makes his way to the bed and, as Anna knows he likes to, clambers up onto the bedside chair before perching on the armrest.

“Are you ready?” Olaf asks, his eager smile pulling a little to one side, just like Elsa’s does. At their nods he begins: “Chapter Eight: The Enigma Becomes Doubly Mysterious. The child had laid her head on a stone and fallen asleep…” They gasp in all the right places as Jean Valjean realizes Cosette’s gone icy cold in the snow and cannot be roused; when the chapter ends on a cliffhanger, they even let him read on, until they know Cosette is safe. “One more?” he asks hopefully when he reaches the end of chapter nine, but he takes it with grace when Anna shakes her head–finishing their ritual by giving each of them a hug and lugging off his book, closing the door soundly behind him.

“I still feel like giving him that book was probably a mistake,” Kristoff chuckles.

“The schoolmaster says his vocabulary is improving too fast for us to hold him back.”

“Yeah, but Les Miserables?”

“He’s tough; he can handle it,” she says with certainty, and, well: the Queen has spoken. Who is Kristoff to argue?

Out of habit, his hand drifts up; he traces a delicate line with his pinky from the top of Anna’s forehead to the tip of her nose, once, and then again. Her gaze goes dreamy and disoriented, her blinks growing longer–and then her eyes narrow and she frowns, shaking him off. “Hey, quit it.”

“Quit what?” he teases, but she’s sitting up now, climbing into his lap to straddle him, and–oh.

“One more thing to check off my to-do list before bed,” she murmurs into his mouth, and oh, that’s awful, but–

Somehow, he just doesn’t have it in him to complain.

#this is so much longer than i thought it would be #i hope you enjoy!#they are MARRIED i am INTO THEM BEING MARRIED #fic what i wrote #frozen #frozen 2 #kristanna #Anonymous

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miguel-manbemel · 4 years

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Aspects & Fanfics Ep. 34: The Vacation Part 1: A Rough Start

I thought I wouldn’t have this finished on time, as I’ve been writing all the monologues with the Sides, making that Roman video and then also writing the Spanish subtitles for the new episode of Sanders Sides. But I got it just on time, and here it is. It’s the first part of a story which I don’t know yet how many parts it will have. We’ll find out together. Now, without further ado, I leave you with the story and I hope you enjoy it. Until next time.

SYNOPSIS: Thomas and the Sides travel to Sandersia to spend a week of vacation in the Royal Castle with Roland and Ira. The objective is for Remus and Roland to get to know each other and eventually become friends, so that Roland will let Remus and Janus marry in the Royal Castle with Logan and Patton. But Remus has all kinds of doubts about it and the day is not going to end in very good terms...

WARNINGS: Romantic prinxiety, logicality and dukeceit. There’s a scene featuring an apparent death, and a lot of angst, especially from Remus.

EPISODE INDEX

[Remus and Janus are inside the royal carriage going through Sandersia towards the royal castle. Roman and Virgil are sitting in front of them]

REMUS: [nervous] I don’t know if this is a good idea, guys…

JANUS: Why? It’s only a week of vacation. You have nothing to worry about.

REMUS: Honey, I appreciate that you lie to try and comfort me, but you and I both know this is more than a vacation, at least for me.

ROMAN: Remus, relax. If you behave just like you’ve been behaving with us the previous weeks, there’s nothing you should be afraid of… Well, maybe bringing crushed cockroaches to his door like you usually do to mine is not a good idea if you want to impress my brother Roland, but you know what I mean, right?

REMUS: What about it? It’s a proof of my undying brotherly love for you, Roman! I'm bringing you the delicious products of my hunting around my room!

ROMAN: [trying to hide disgust] Yes, of course, Remus, of course…

REMUS: [over dramatically offended] Okay, whatever, it’s your loss! The next one I catch, I’ll cook and eat it myself, and I won’t share!

JANUS: Hearing that makes me long to be a real snake again… at least as a snake I could eat that without feeling nausea…

[intro sequence]

REMUS: Ugh, this carriage is taking forever. Didn’t you say that this thing used to travel at lightspeed? It doesn’t look so.

ROMAN: Yeah, I know. Since the Dark Master manipulated the royal carriages, we haven’t been able to figure out how to put them back to normal. We’ll have to deal with that for the time being. At least, they’re still convenient to travel, even if not faster than a regular car of the outer world.

VIRGIL: Also, maybe it’s not a good idea to have two carriages at the same time running at that speed. We could crash against Thomas and the others’ carriage if they stopped abruptly for some reason, and Thomas could get hurt. I mean, all of us could get hurt, but Thomas is human and his wounds wouldn’t heal as easily, so…

ROMAN: Yeah, maybe so…

REMUS: And I don’t know what your brother expects from me! How can I please him if I don’t know him or what he wants?

ROMAN: Well, that’s what we’re going there for, Remus. Your task is to get to know him and let him get to know you, and eventually become friends.

REMUS: [beat] And then, we’ll live happily ever after, right? We’re the Sanders Sides, Roman, not the Brady Bunch.

ROMAN: But Remus…

REMUS: Let’s face facts, okay? Your brother hates me. He has a valid reason, of course, after what I did, but nothing I can do is gonna make him stop hating me.

ROMAN: But…

REMUS: If saving your son from the clutches of the Dark Master himself didn’t change his opinion about me, I doubt I can do anything else to convince him… This is a mistake, we should go back.

ROMAN: [loud and a bit angry] NO!

[there’s a short silence, then Roman continues]

ROMAN: You’re not gonna run away from this without at least trying! You owe it to him, like you said, after what you did to him! At least, make the effort to fix things for once in your life! I’m tired of having to mediate between my two brothers, not being able to share time with both of you at the same time!

REMUS: But he’s your brother, Roman, not mine! I don’t owe him anything!

ROMAN: That’s bold of you to say considering that you would have killed him if Ira hadn’t stopped you at the last second.

REMUS: [hurt] You’re never gonna let me live up with that, right, Roman? You will always hold that against me!

ROMAN: Remus, I already forgave you long ago, but it’s Roland to whom you did that. You have to earn his forgiveness too. I think it’s only fair that at least you try to apologize to him and show him that you have no ill will against him.

REMUS: But I have no ill will against him, you know it!

ROMAN: But he doesn’t know. I’m gonna tell you something he told me last time, but I beg you, please don’t mention him I told you. He’s still terribly scared of you. And even if he hadn’t told me verbally, he had already made that clear to me non-verbally. What you did to him… traumatized him to the point that your mere mention makes him go pale and slightly tremble. I noticed it the last time we spoke. He tries to hide it because he thinks that, as the regent prince, he has to show strength to govern this principality, or at least that he has to look like it. And I’m sure he wants to make me believe that he’s strong enough so that I think that nothing can affect him. But I’ve know him since he was a baby. I know when he’s scared, and you, Remus, you scare him to death.

REMUS: Why are you telling me all of this? To make me feel even guiltier? To remind me that the blame for his suffering is all mine and I should go to hell for my past actions? To tell me that my struggle for doing better is useless and I should stop trying?

ROMAN: No, Remus, you’re taking it the wrong way. I’m telling you this to make you understand that your actions had consequences, and in order to be able to truly move on, you must try, at least, to fix those consequences the best that you can. I want to be able to tell my brother about you without causing him a panic attack and my biggest wish, even if probably impossible, is that you two managed to get along, or at least tolerate each other. He’s doing a big effort to make this work. I want that at least you do the same effort. If it doesn’t work out in the end, I’ll understand, but don’t give up without at least trying. Like I told Roland, if not for him, at least do it for me.

REMUS: [sighs] Okay… I can’t promise that I’ll fulfill your brother’s expectations in the end… but I will try, for you.

ROMAN: Thank you, brother. [singing sweetly] “That’s all I ask of you.”

JANUS: Phantom of the Opera, my favorite musical.

VIRGIL: [ironic] I wonder why? [looking out the window] Okay, guys, I think we’re arriving to the castle.

REMUS: [nervous] Oh, gosh…

JANUS: [holding Remus’ hand] Calm down, Rem. Remember we’re rooting for you.

REMUS: I hope so…

ROMAN: Your nervousness shows that you’re taking this pretty seriously. Thank you.

[the carriage stops in front of the castle, next to the other carriage. All the gang comes out of the carriages. Roland and Ira are waiting at the door. When Roland sees Remus he makes a tense face for a second, but puts himself together]

ROLAND: Greetings, guests. Welcome back to the castle.

THOMAS: It’s nice to be back, Roland.

ROMAN: Hi, Roland, nice to see you again. I… suppose you remember my brother Remus.

ROLAND: [frowning at him slightly] Yes, I do. [low voice, but not low enough so that they can’t hear him] Unfortunately…

REMUS: [ignoring that] How… how do you do, sir?

ROLAND: [sardonic] Oh, “sir”? You call me now sir? That’s new.

ROMAN: Roland… you promised.

ROLAND: I know… I know, sorry, you’re right. Let’s do as if nothing had happened and start over. Welcome to the castle, Remus.

REMUS: Thank you.

[Remus rises his hand. Roland hesitates for a second, then timidly reaches his hand to Remus’ and shakes hands with him. Remus can feel Roland’s hand trembling inside his and when he looks at his face he notices how pale he’s suddenly gone]

REMUS: Before anything else… I wanted to say that I’m sorry for everything I did to you. It was really bad and I understand that it probably is unforgivable. But I’m sorry, anyway, and I hope you accept my apologies. I promise I will never ever do that sort of thing again, by my noble title I swear.

ROLAND: [with a face of surprise] That’s… that’s actually kind of you to say. Okay, enough time spent at the door. Please, come in. Ira, show them their rooms. I have to take care of some urgent matters in my room.

IRA: It will be my pleasure.

ROLAND: I hope you excuse me right now, we’ll have time to talk later.

ROMAN: Of course, Roland. See ya later.

IRA: Follow me, guys.

ROMAN: Thank you, Ira.

[The gang enters the castle, following Ira, while Roland goes somewhere else]

IRA: You must excuse Roland today, he hasn’t been himself at all. He’s so nervous that this morning he dropped the teapot when he was about to serve himself a cup of coffee. It took two hours to clean the shattered teapot and the huge stain of coffee from the carpet, and the stain is still not gone completely.

ROMAN: I’m sorry to hear that.

REMUS: I guess it’s my fault.

IRA: It is, indeed… Oh, I’m… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude, but I suppose you understand this is not easy for him.

REMUS: It’s not easy for me either. I may act without thinking most of the time and I may love to pester everyone with all kinds of shenanigans, but I mean no real harm for anyone, and back then I wasn’t myself either. By the way, I never got the chance to thank you.

IRA: Thank me? For what?

REMUS: For stopping me at the last second before I did something unfixable. To think that I could have killed someone for real if you hadn’t arrived on time… I would have had that on my conscience, at leas the little amount of conscience I have in my brain, for all of my life. So, again, thank you for stopping me.

IRA: Well… you’re welcome, and I’m happy I could have been of help in your path to… redemption. I apologize too for the times I had to take control of your body in emergencies.

REMUS: It’s okay… as long as it happens in a real emergency and you don’t take too long. It’s a horrible feeling, like Roman and Patton can attest.

IRA: Of course. I’ll try not to do that again, unless I’m forced by circumstances. Well, we’re here. This is Patton and Logan’s room. I hope you like it.

LOGAN: It looks adequate.

PATTON: I love this room, [excited squeeing] and look, Logan, there’s a portrait of kittens on the main wall! I love this! Thank you, Ira!

IRA: I knew you would love it, Patton. See ya later guys.

[while Logan and Patton enter their room, the others follow Ira to the next door]

IRA: This room will be for Thomas, Ian and Chris.

THOMAS: Yeah, a room for the single ones. It will be like being back on the student residence when I was in college.

CHRIS: It could be fun.

IAN: Thank you, Ira.

IRA: You’re welcome.

[the others follow Ira to the next door]

IRA: This room will be for Roman and Virgil. I would have given you the royal suite as the Royal Princes of Sandersia, but I thought you would prefer to be all next to each other. I can set up the royal chamber if you want me to.

ROMAN: No, Ira, you guessed right. I prefer being next to my friends for the week, and this room is lovely too.

VIRGIL: Yes, thank you, Ira.

[Remus and Janus follow Ira to the last door]

IRA: And this is your room, guys. I hope you like it.

JANUS: It’s totally not great at all, Ira. Thank you.

IRA: You’re welcome.

REMUS: Yes, I suppose it’s okay. I’m not an expert in super clean rooms, so…

IRA: I… I prefer not to know what you’re talking about… Okay, now, if you excuse me, I’ve got some chores to do. I still have to finish up cleaning the coffee spot. I’ll go check on you later. See ya, guys.

JANUS: See ya, Ira. It’s so good to see you living your best life now. When I think that for some time, we had lost you.

IRA: That time is in the past now, thankfully. See ya later, my friend.

[Ira leaves them while Remus and Janus enter the room]

REMUS: Yes, it’s not a bad castle. Not as good as my own castle, but not bad at all.

JANUS: Are you feeling any better now, Remus?

REMUS: I wish, but the truth is that I’m not. I feel… I don’t know, like an octopus out of water, like… this was not my place, and everyone living here knew it and looked at me like a freak. Normally I wouldn’t care about it, but now, I do, and I don’t know why.

JANUS: Maybe it’s because you’re feeling a sense of responsibility you have never felt before. You don’t care about the others’ opinion, but you’re scared to disappoint Roman. Am I wrong?

REMUS: Maybe. I didn’t want to do this at all. If I’m unwanted somewhere, I don’t need to set a foot there. We could have married anywhere, even if it couldn’t have been the double wedding we had planned with Logan and Patton. But when Roman begged me like that the other day. I knew it was really important for him, and I acquiesced.

JANUS: You really love your brother, right?

REMUS: Yes, I do. Despite all, and even in my worst times, when I was enduring the worst isolation, I could never stop loving him. If this is important for him, I’ll do it.

[Janus holds Remus’ hand]

JANUS: I knew under all that exterior of madness and randomness of yours, there was a heart of gold. It’s just a little rusty of not using for a long time, but it’s gold nonetheless.

[Remus smiles lovingly at Janus, then kisses him. Meanwhile, Roman and Virgil are in their room]

VIRGIL: Roman, you look so worried.

ROMAN: I am worried, Virge. Very much.

VIRGIL: About Remus?

ROMAN: Of course. I’m afraid I’ve placed on his shoulders too much weight to handle, all for my selfish wish to force my two brothers to get along. Maybe I’m hoping for the impossible and I’m about to do more harm than good.

VIRGIL: Well, from the moment we welcomed Remus into the team, we all knew we had to tackle Roland and Remus’ relationship one day or another.

ROMAN: Yes, you’re right, but still… I don’t know how this week is gonna end. I’m imagining all the worst-case scenarios and it’s driving me mad.

VIRGIL: [understanding smirk] Welcome to my world, Roman.

ROMAN: And you have to deal with this all the time? Gosh, Virgil, I don’t know how you can handle this.

VIRGIL: When worrying is all that you’ve known in your life, you become used to it. For me it’s my natural state of living at this point. Except when I get too heightened or Thomas goes into a panic attack. In those times, not even I could endure the pressure and I break down, just like anybody else in those scenarios. But my job is to try and maintaining the balance of tension between vigilance and anxiety, and I must try to be strong to maintain it as much as possible.

ROMAN: Well, kudos, my love. I admire your strength so much.

[Roman kisses Virgil on the cheek. Virgil gives him a heartwarming smile]

VIRGIL: You’re welcome. And I wouldn’t worry too much in advance in this case. I think Remus looks pretty capable of dealing with this, and if he loves you, which I think he does, he’ll do everything he can to make this work.

ROMAN: I know he will… But on the other hand, I’m also worrying about Roland. This is a huge struggling situation for him and I essentially pushed him into it against his will. Maybe he wasn’t ready for this ordeal.

VIRGIL: He loves you too, so he’ll do his best too. Let’s hope for the best.

ROMAN: Let’s hope so, indeed.

[someone knocks at the door]

ROMAN: Come in!

[a servant opens the door]

SERVANT: Your highness, the regent prince asks to meet you, alone.

ROMAN: My brother? Okay, I’m coming. Will you be all right, Virge?

VIRGIL: Yes, I’ll be fine. After I have retouched my eyeshadow, I’ll go hang out with Thomas and the others. Look for me in their room if you don’t find me here when you return.

ROMAN: Okay, see ya later, Virge.

[Roman gets out of the room and follows the servant to Roland’s desk room]

SERVANT: [announcing him at the door] Your Royal Highness, Prince Roman!

ROLAND: Hi, Roman, come in.

[Roman enters the room, then the servant leaves and closes the door behind him]

ROMAN: Is everything okay, Roland?

ROLAND: Yes… yes, it’s fine, it’s fine.

ROMAN: [sitting down next to Roland] Are you sure? Ira told me about the teapot.

ROLAND: Oh, he shouldn’t have. I didn’t want you to worry about me.

ROMAN: As if not knowing it would have spared me the concern. I’ve been worrying about you for days already.

ROLAND: I’m so sorry, Roman.

ROMAN: Don’t be, I’m your big brother, it’s my job to worry about my little brother. Who else would, otherwise?

ROLAND: That was when we were kids, Roman. Now we’re both adults, we’re supposed to be able to take care of ourselves without making others worry about us.

ROMAN: If only that was true. But it isn’t. It’s only natural that we worry about the people we love and their well-being. That’s part of being family. And we’re family, right?

ROLAND: A very atypical family, though. Sometimes I’m still confused about if I should call you brother or father because you created me in this world as your brother.

ROMAN: As you said when you learned the truth, I’m family either way, so does it really matter?

ROLAND: No, I guess not.

ROMAN: Okay, you asked me to come, and here I am, so what is it?

ROLAND: Yes, I was thinking that this afternoon, after lunch, we could all go to the beach in front of the castle, to spend the rest of the first day having some fun. I’ll be free then to join you. If you want, of course, we can do whatever you want if you had something else in mind.

ROMAN: Sounds like a great plan, Roland. I’m sure the others will agree too when I tell them.

ROLAND: Then it is settled. Now, since you’re here, perhaps we could spend… five boring minutes together as I bring you up to date about the principality. I need to know if you agree with the choices I made, you’re the real Royal Prince after all and it’s your duty too.

ROMAN: [sighs with a smirk] Okay, brother. Bore me.

[Roman and Roland start talking about the principality’s administration while looking at some documents on the desk. Time goes by and it’s the afternoon. The gang is at the beach. Ira and Janus are lying on some deck chairs, under an umbrella, wearing a bath suit and sunglasses. The others are all in the water, Remus splashing at Roman who complains about it, Patton trying not to go too far from the shore as he can’t see anything without glasses. Logan is next to him trying to protect him, even though he’s as blind as him without his own glasses. The rest just enjoy the water on their own. Janus and Ira look at the others]

IRA: The water looks fine. Don’t you want to join them, Jan? Oh, it’s still weird to me to call you Jan instead of Dee. I can call you Jan, right?

JANUS: Of course you can, Ira. And nah, I’m not in the mood for swimming. Maybe because I still remember my days as a real snake, when I was a cold-blooded creature and I preferred sunbaths better than water baths. What about you? You don’t want to join them? Don’t feel obligated to stay with me just to give me company. I could take the time to take a little nap while you have fun.

IRA: I’m much better here, having a tranquil rest. A palace can be hard work sometimes, you know?

JANUS: You know what? I’m glad you bring this up now that we’re alone, because I’m often wondering something.

IRA: What is it?

JANUS: Is it okay for you to be a servant of Roland in exchange of living here? Working all day, doing the castle’s chores till you get exhausted… I thought you came here as his personal protector, not as his butler, and I purposely used that word instead of “slave” so as not to talk bad about Roland. I don’t know… you once were a full Side of your own and it hurts me to see you down to this, if you know what I mean.

IRA: I understand your concern and I appreciate the sentiment, but it’s not what you think. When I first came here, Roland treated me with so much reverence, as if I was almost… like a god of some kind. He didn’t let me do anything in the castle and treated me as if I was the true owner of this principality. I had my own servants to do everything for me and… it got a little stressing, not to mention that I got really bored after days went by without doing anything. So, it was me who suggested him to let me do the chores in the castle. At first he refused, but when I talked about how I was feeling, he acquiesced. I told him from the first minute that I wanted him to tell me what needed to be done as soon as it needed to be done, so I could stay busy, and so it has been up until today. So don’t worry, Janus. I’m totally fine and I’m doing this on my own free will.

JANUS: Okay, if you say so. You know I didn’t mean to be rude to Roland, I just wanted to make sure you were okay.

IRA: I know. You’ve always looked after me ever since the Dark Realm days, and I’ll always thank you for your friendship.

JANUS: My pleasure.

[Ira smiles at Janus, then looks at the sea. After a few seconds, his smile fades away and is replaced by a face of fear]

JANUS: Is there… something wrong, Ira?

IRA: Where is Roland? I can’t see him anywhere.

[Janus looks for Roland too]

JANUS: You’re right… He’s gone!

[Janus and Roland get up and run to the sea, next to Patton and Logan who are the ones closer to them]

IRA: Guys! Roland is missing! Where is Roland!?

PATTON: I… I don’t know, kiddos, I can’t see without my glasses.

JANUS: [carrying both glasses and giving them to Logan and Patton] Here guys, put them on.

[Logan and Patton put their glasses on]

LOGAN: You’re right, Roland is missing… And Remus too, I can’t see him anywhere either.

IRA: What is going on here? [yelling, calling the others] Guys! Guys, Roland and Remus are missing! Guys!

[the others hear them and start looking in all directions, trying to find them. Roman swims next to the beach]

ROMAN: I hope nothing happened to them.

[suddenly, Remus rises up from under the water]

IRA: Look, there is Remus, he was diving into the sea. But where is Roland!?

[Remus swims calmly without any concern at all]

IRA: Why is Remus so calm!? Did he have anything to do with this? This is suspicious as heck!

ROMAN: Remus! Remus, come here at once!

REMUS: What? I can’t hear you!

ROMAN: [yelling as loud as his lungs allow him] I SAID COME HERE, RIGHT NOW!

REMUS: Okay!

[Remus swims next to the others]

REMUS: What’s the matter?

IRA: You tell us! Where is Roland?

REMUS: What? Roland? What do I know?

ROMAN: Remus, if you know anything about where he is, tell us now, before it’s too late!

REMUS: I’m telling you I don’t know where the f… [bleep] Roland is!

IRA: Yeah, Roland and you disappear at the same time, then you emerge out of the water and swim as if it had nothing to do with you while we’re all worried about him. And you expect us to believe you don’t know anything!

REMUS: Listen, you damn ladybug, I’m telling you I know nothing about this! I was diving calmly, watching some octopuses underwater, and when I came out I didn’t know that your little prince was missing! Janus, say something!

[Janus hesitates. Remus shows a face of huge hurt]

REMUS: You don’t believe me either? I thought you could distinguish between lies and truths! I’m saying the truth right now, please believe me!

JANUS: [after looking at Remus’ face for a couple of seconds] He’s saying the truth. He’s had nothing to do with Roland’s disappearance.

IRA: Sorry, Janus, but you are too attached to Remus. Forgive me if I take your judgment with a pinch of salt. Not saying that you’re lying on purpose, but maybe your love for him could be fooling you.

IAN: Look! He’s there, behind that rock! He’s floating on the water!

IRA: [horrified] Oh, no!

ROMAN: [also horrified] Remus, what have you done?

REMUS: [in despair] I did nothing! I swear! You have to believe me!

[Roman swims to the place Ian pointed at, until he reaches Roland. He’s unconscious, floating on the water]

ROMAN: [horrified] Oh, my goodness gracious, Roland! No!

[when he touches Roland, he flinches and opens his eyes]

ROLAND: [scared] What!? What’s going on!?

[Roland sinks into the water, getting out as quickly as he can, then looks at Roman and takes some ear plugs out of his ears]

ROMAN: Roland, you’re alive! Thank goodness, you scared the sh** [bleep] out of me!

ROLAND: I’m… sorry, Roman, I was floating on the water, with my ear plugs so that water didn’t enter my ears. I guess I got so relaxed that I fell asleep for a moment. I’m sorry I scared you.

ROMAN: Then that means… [looking at Remus, who watches the scene from afar] Oh, Remus!

[Roman returns as fast as he can to where Remus and the others are. Roland follows him from behind]

ROMAN: Remus, I’m so sorry!

REMUS: [serious face] How could you honestly believe I could do that to you, even for a second?

IRA: Well, it wouldn’t have been, like, the first time you had tried to do that…

REMUS: [yelling in a sudden outburst of wrath] I’m talking to my brother, not to you! I don’t give a f… [bleep] sh… [bleep] about what you think about me, you fake doodle! But I do care about Roman’s opinion and…

[tears burst out of his eyes. Remus turns around, then gets out of the water and approaches the deck chairs, not facing the others, who follow him a few steps behind]

ROMAN: I have no excuse. I can only tell you that I’m sorry and that I should have trusted you from the start.

REMUS: Yes, you should have. But you didn’t. And it seems no matter what I do to be better, you’ll never fully trust me, right?

[Remus makes a gesture and he’s dressed with his usual outfit]

REMUS: I’m not in the mood for more… beaching around. I’m going to my room, I want to be alone.

JANUS: Remus, I…

REMUS: I said alone, Janus. I don’t want you to follow me either.

JANUS: Okay… As you wish, Remus.

[Remus walks two steps, then, with a broken voice, he looks at Janus, with his eyes wet and red, and speaks]

REMUS: What hurts me the most is that… even you, Janus, had doubts about me… Even you, my love, thought me capable of…

[before Janus can answer, Remus starts running towards the castle. They can’t see his face, but they all notice clearly that he’s crying]

[to be continued, guys, gals and non binary pals]

[end card]

ROLAND: I’m sorry I have been the cause of this terrible misunderstanding.

IRA: No, it’s my fault, I didn’t give Remus a chance.

ROMAN: It’s not your fault only, Ira. You were driven by concern over Roland’s life, as much as me, and we were all unfair to Remus.

IRA: But still, what I said is true, he did try to do harm to Roland once, so to claim that he’s not capable of doing such thing is false. I was wrong and I’m really sorry, but even so, I had a high chance of being right. You all know it.

LOGAN: But you’re judging an old version of Remus, a Remus that is long gone. The Remus of today may be a lunatic, but he’s not a murderer. Humans evolve all the time and we, Sides, as we’re part of a human, do too. Do I need to remind you of your first entrance in the living room, Ira, and how much you changed afterwards?

IRA: I… [sighs] I guess you’re right.

THOMAS: Well, getting to know who is right or wrong or who to blame is not important. The important thing right now is to make sure that Remus is okay and apologize to him.

JANUS: I’ll go see him.

ROMAN: But he said he wanted to be alone.

JANUS: I’m the one who has the most to apologize for. I’m his fiancee. How am I supposed to start a marriage if I fail in the most basic idea of marriage, which is trust. I need to talk to him, in the name of all of you but also and mostly in the name of me, because I failed him.

ROLAND: Again, I’m so sorry I’ve been the cause of so much pain for all of you. I didn’t mean…

JANUS: It’s not your fault at all, Roland. Okay, I’ll go see him. I hope at least he lets me in the room.

[Janus heads to the castle while the others look at him with faces of remorse]

PATTON: Who would have thought this day that seemed to be so happy would end so badly. I hope Remus and Janus can amend things.

ROMAN: And I hope he can forgive us too…

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tygerbug · 5 years

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A personal note, if you'll allow me. I was seven, on vacation in Martha's Vineyard, when I saw Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I was probably too young for that film but it sure blew my young mind. I slept on Roger Rabbit bedsheets. I had toys, and the inscrutable NES game. I read about Richard Williams' work in a Comics Scene magazine the next year, and that he'd spent 25 years on a film he intended as his masterpiece, called The Thief and the Cobbler. That stuck with me, and then I saw the film's trailer in 1995 (or so) and realized that something horrible had happened to it. I ended up spending 8 years restoring that unfinished film, and Dick's other obscure work. Worth it, I think. I met a lot of interesting and talented people, and was able to honor the work that so many had put into Richard's films by essentially forcing the internet to actually watch them. At one point (we retain this in the Recobbled Cut) Richard Williams called his film "Once." As in "Once Upon a Time" but also that it, like Roger Rabbit, was a film he could only do once. He made "one offs." He put all his effort on the table, and he, like his films, was one of a kind. Richard Williams' work always inspired me. It showed that animation is artwork - it's not a genre - it can be and look like anything. His animated advertisements could be any genre and style, and those who worked with him in the 70s and 80s were frustrated by his high standards and shifting moods, but also tended to learn quickly and start their own studios and go on to greater things. It was a golden age for commercial animation in London and most of that is unseen today. You can't even get A Christmas Carol on modern home video and that won the Oscar. It had originally screened on television and they changed the rules afterward so no film could win the Oscar after doing that. Dick was not always well treated in the industry. He had a habit of accepting budgets that were just a little too low, and getting 90% of the way through production on a masterpiece before the money ran out. Raggedy Ann & Andy, A Christmas Carol and Who Framed Roger Rabbit got finished anyway. Warners got cold feet, and The Thief and the Cobbler didn't. He wanted to be the greatest animator of his time and he more or less accomplished that. His book on animation is the guidebook for almost every animator working today. He was difficult and temperamental and irreplaceable. He always pushed for higher standards. His influence on animation cannot be understated. Through sheer force of will, he forced the entire industry to do better work. In the 60s and 70s, television was king and the standards of what an animated film should look like had plummeted. Even Disney was repeating itself, and the best animators from the 40s were older then. Richard hired some of the best of them, to pass on their knowledge not just to him but to his competitors. Eventually he became an old master himself. The industry was never quite ready for him. In Raggedy Ann & Andy, you can occasionally see great animation poking out from an otherwise cheap-looking production. Roger Rabbit was beyond what anyone else was doing, and set a new standard that others copied. He never made another feature after The Thief and the Cobbler was taken away from him. He focused on life drawing and becoming a teacher. It's tempting to think of what could have been, but what he left behind is a staggering legacy, most of which is not available to watch legally. The first Recobbled Cut was a VHS which suffered so badly from VHS-copying Macrovision issues that you couldn't actually make a copy of it ... In 2005 The Thief and the Cobbler was not well known outside of animation circles and I figured no one would watch a restoration. Its quality, as a film, is what lured people to it, even beyond the strange story of its production. I've listened to hundreds of people tell their stories about Dick. That he could be emotional and impossible and his own worst enemy, but also the greatest teacher they ever had. He was beloved, and the people who knew him best loved him best, and were fiercely protective of him and his legacy. He was so much better and so much worse than he's given credit for, and I've never heard a recounting of the story of the making of The Thief and the Cobbler that I fully agree with. I always wanted to hear Dick's side of things instead, because the story of the making of that film is really the story of a big chunk of one man's life. Even if Dick's account of things wouldn't be entirely true, it would still be the right one to listen to. The film reflected him in so many ways. I'm sad we'll never get to hear that story. People - especially people who knew him only briefly - like to talk trash about Richard Williams and have funny anecdotes that paint him as crazy. These are usually easy to debunk if you look at the facts. From the outside, Dick seemed out of control, but he was always completely in control, on his own terms. People joke about him not storyboarding the film until 1990, or about constantly changing the script, or constantly changing the character designs. But as we examined his documents over many years, we realized the easy punchlines weren't true. He had a plan, he just wasn't telling everyone about it. He had storyboarded an earlier version of the film in its entirety and apparently felt no need to update everything until he ran out of usable boards. The script was in place with scene numbers ten years before production officially began. And the character designs evolved as he became a better animator. They had to, since times had changed too. I've heard a rumor, though I can't confirm it, that Richard Williams watched my Recobbled Cut sometime in 2013 and had mixed feelings - presumably including pain and rage - about seeing a version of his demolished masterpiece that wasn't his. And it wasn't, you know. I didn't make it for him. I made it for everyone else in the world. Richard Williams had the best version of The Thief and the Cobbler in his head, and he's the only one who ever got to see it. I can confirm that around that time he started talking about the film, for the first time in 20+ years, and screening his unfinished workprint as "A Moment In Time." When asked about my work in London, he said simply "Don't fuck with my hustle." A unique man. I'm finally crying. I think I just needed to find the words first.

#richard williams #the thief and the cobbler #who framed roger rabbit #animation #the animator's survival kit

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trying2beefine · 4 years

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31.12.2019

Hi guys!!! Winter break’s ending soon!!! I was a bit nervous about it, worrying about my homework, but I already started some stuff and I’ll distribute it so I don’t have to stress over it the last day of vacation, haha. I’ll be finishing one of my assignments today and continue tomorrow with an oral exposition I have to do about the Mind-body problem!

Anyways, it’s the final day of 2019. I have never in my life done one of this posts, and I’ve struggled a lot with festivities growing up, but recently I’ve been starting to appreciate this traditions, so here it is. I’ll be doing my first New Year’s Resolutions for 2020!

10 Resolutions for 2020.

Lose weight! I don’t have a target weight, but I will be setting small goals each time until I reach a weight I’m happy with. :)

Read 6 books! I choose 6 books because it’s quite hard for me to find books I may enjoy. I do read a lot online, but I would like to get back into reading books, so I think starting with 6 a year is an okay number! And obviously, I will try to read more than 6, but I’d be happy just with those.

Getting an avarage grade of 9/10 (or at least over 8.5). I got an 8.2 in this first trimester with very little effort so I will try to get over 8.5 for the second and reach my goal of over 9 in the end! I think by putting some extra effort I may be able to do it. :)

Do monthly spreads and journal. I plan to do my own calendars each final day of the month and set goals for the next one and journal a bit everyday or every few days to keep track of my habits and have a way to be more creative by trying to do aesthetic monthly spreads!

Walk at least 5k everyday. I just want to get the 365 days in a row from my podometer app, so I set it low enough I can get it even at bad days, but I actually usually walk around 10k a day.

Walk 60k once. Again, I just want a badge from my podometer app, but this one actually seems REALLY hard to get, specially because I hate going outside and I’d definitely would need to leave my house to get 60k steps (and it would take me many hours of walking).

Have an intense workout a week. It can be HIIT, or dancing or whatever, but I would like to have at least one workout session a week to complement my walking and stretching.

Stretching. I plan to have monthly goals on this, starting with 12 stretching sessions for January, and I’ll be adding more as the months go by.

Learning one choreography each month. I want to learn how to dance, but I can’t really afford going to dance classes, so I will be learning choreographies from youtube each month, and planning them ahead so I get it done before the month ends.

Try to be more clean and hygienic. Dirty spaces stress me, and my house tends to be dirty ‘cause I don’t have the energy to go cleaning after someone else’s mess, but I do want to at least have a nice tidy room and take care of myself, because I deserve it.

And that’s it! I will be distributing my goals each month to be able to accomplish them, and I’ll try to update every now and then. Anyways!!! Good luck everyone with their New Year’s Resolutions and enjoy the rest of your holidays!!!

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cupidmarwani-archive · 5 years

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Come Into the Water (1/15)

Summary: Sarah, after a mental break, gets a fresh start in a small Northwestern town with a lot of secrets. (AVA/SARAH)

Warnings: Implied past rape, semi-graphic self harm, implied depression

The first box is the easiest.

Sarah sets it down in the middle of the floor and subsequently spends a few long minutes just staring out the slider as waves crash against the shore not too far away. Far enough that the high tide won’t attack her, but close enough for nothing to obstruct her view of the rolling blue under a sky of marine layer thick like the fog over her head. Bringing the box in was easy, putting it down is easy, but she’s suddenly confronted with the fact that she is not on a vacation, as eager as her mother had been to paint it that way. She gets it, in a way. Everyone would like to believe this is just a vacation, herself included. That’s what her old therapist had said, anyways. They’re still going to call every couple weeks, but she’s supposed to be seeing someone new in town twice a week.

All the boxes in the middle are a little harder, but the hardest is the last box because it forces her to confront the fact that everything she owns fits into only six cardboard moving boxes. One of pillows and blankets. One of towels. Two of clothes. One of plates, bowls, cups and silverware. And one of books and trinkets. Six boxes contain her whole life, or at least what she’s managed to salvage of herself. Sarah just looks at the last box, not bringing it in, while the movers supply her with freshly bought furniture courtesy of her mother. A couch, a dining room table, a few chairs, a bedframe and mattress, and a dresser are put in their places. Then the movers bid her a stiff goodbye and drive off, leaving her to numbly look at the box on the front porch in front of her.

In theory, it’s easy. Pick up the box. Carry it inside. Put it next to the others. It’s a little heavy, but nothing she can’t handle, in all honesty. She’d managed to build some muscle a few months ago, and while it’s begun to wither away, she’s still more than capable of carrying in the box. All she has to do is pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Her hands are in her hair, pulling but not hard, yet. Eyes shut. The weight of her body is too heavy on her feet. Sinking into the concrete porch. Pick up the box. She just has to pick up the box. But instead, she thinks she might be crying. Wasn’t this supposed to be over?

The next thing she knows, she’s sitting on top of the box, pulling absentmindedly at the bandages on her forearm. However, absentmindedly has an implication of something peaceful. Habitual and familiar, absentmindedness is pleasant the way so many talk about it. A forgetful college professor rushing into class, a mother spreading peanut butter on her phone, a kid scuffing his shoe on the pavement. This is a different absentminded, the way her fingers dig into the edge of the white gauze and pull at it with fervor. But it’s still absent, still unintentional and without the awareness with which she has taken to approaching a great amount of her life lately.

She finds herself watching the sun fall into the horizon over the waves, and scours her mind for when she got here. It was morning, she thinks. The sun was low in the sky, the fog still drooling onto the land from the restless waves. Now the day has escaped her, and she’s torn open the first layer of bandages on her arm. For this very reason, there are three or four layers of spirals before her skin.

“Sorry to interrupt, but you’ve been sitting there all day.”

Several things happen in the span of one second; Sarah’s heart skips a beat, her hand tenses on the bandages and rips another layer, her feet skid on the pavement in her effort to get up, and she bursts into frustrated tears. It’s too fast, or perhaps simply feels that way to her because the world has gone too fast lately. Breathing is a chore, the only one she seems capable of handling today, and for a few labored breaths, she stares at the stranger in front of her, a kind woman with rich brown skin, downturned eyes, and a low ponytail. She’s the sort of woman Sarah would like to trust.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” the woman says. She extends a hand tentatively, the way one holds a hand to a dog to sniff before they try to pet it. “I’m Maggie, I live next door.”

“Sarah.”

With a deep breath, Sarah forces herself to shake Maggie’s hand. Her voice is as sweet as the caring expression on her face, one of a woman who has spent a lifetime looking after others. A nurse, or a daycare worker, or someone like that. Someone good. It would be so nice to know someone good instead of cutthroat, but the fear is there. She’s sizing Maggie up, she realizes. Trying to decide if she’d be able to overpower Sarah if she really wanted to. It’s a bad habit she’s supposed to be getting out of.

“Let me carry that in for you, and if you want, I’ve got leftovers in my fridge. We can eat together, or you can just take them. You could use them.”

Maggie picks up Sarah’s box, carries it inside, and sets it with the others. Heat sears into Sarah’s cheeks because she knows how it looks. Six measly boxes. Each labeled in neat handwriting, revealing how little of herself remains. She had been more, she thinks, at some point. But a lot of her died in an office packed with books and journals and photos of a daughter who had made it into the world. She is empty now. Her thumb digs into the center of her bandages. It doesn’t hurt, but she’d like it to.

“About dinner-”

“Thank you, but I really- I can’t. Maybe another time?”

“Another time,” Maggie agrees. Her eyes trace Sarah’s face too closely. She wants to die on the spot just so Maggie will stop looking. “If you ever need anything, I’m just to the left, so don’t hesitate to come over. And if I’m not home, my wife probably is.”

“Okay.”

With that, Maggie lets herself out and shuts the door gently, once again leaving Sarah alone surrounded by her miniscule life and furniture she didn’t pick out. She looks around the space and finds herself drawn to the slider again. Darkness edges in above the horizon, and she scrambles forward to close the cheap plastic blinds. They’re not perfect, but they block the window so no one can see in. She gets the kitchen window too and finds the switch for the light in the dining room, one of the only ones the house came with. It allows her the light she needs to tear open the towel box and grab one, a soft bath towel in a forgiving dark red. As of yet, she hasn’t gotten any soap or shampoo, a tooth brush, anything. But she goes to the bathroom anyways and spends a good five minutes figuring out how to turn on the shower and get the hot water she craves going. The crumpled towel earns a home on the toilet seat as she all but tears off her clothing. No laundry hamper yet, either. That’s fine.

The hardest part of this is taking off her bandages to prevent them from being soaked and contracting an infestation of mildew or worse. She doesn’t want to look as she unwinds the cause and peels up the cotton pads, which join her clothes on the floor in a mess Sarah just doesn’t have the energy to deal with right now.

Somehow, she’s staring at it. Most of her arm is healed, a splatter of dark pink skin that has scarred, but there’s plenty only beginning to scab from her most recent attack, if that’s what one were to call it. She doesn’t mean to, but when she’s anxious, caught in her head, upset, existing- she finds her right fingernails digging into the tender skin of her left inner forearm. Cutting her fingernails short, wrapping herself in bandages to protect her arm and its scabs, they’re supposed to help.

She looks at the scabs for a long time before dragging herself into the water and letting it wash over her like it’s washing away her pain. The coating of school and stale white walls melt off of her, spiral down the drain, mesh together to remind her exactly what forced her into this otherwise quaint little cottage. It would be a nice home, had she picked it herself and come voluntarily. Perhaps she’d put art or photos on the walls, which would be painted a warmer color than the current murky dark green-grey-blue.

When the water soaks through her curls to drizzle over her scalp, she comes back to herself. As much as she can nowadays, anyways. There’s a thin layer of plastic sheeting between her mind and body, and no matter how hard she tries to break it, it stands impenetrable. Sarah wonders if it’s for the best. It protects her, at any rate. She’s better off on this side of the barrier, she tells herself, and turns off the water. Going out, she isn’t any cleaner; she didn’t wash her body or her hair- which isn’t even totally wet yet.

Sarah wraps the towel around her, more as a blanket than anything to actually dry herself off. It’s soft, comforting around her. She checks, as she drags her exhausted body into the main area, that all the windows are covered so that anyone walking by can’t see her. So he can’t see her. Sometimes, invisibility feels like the safest thing in the world and she needs more of it than she could ever have.

She lays down on the floor, surrounded by her boxes, although she knows come morning she’ll regret it. It’s only fitting. Regret is the main emotion she deals with nowadays, when she manages to feel anything at all. Her eyes lock onto a little crack where the wall meets the trimming, thin and probably in danger of mold when she’s this close to the ocean. Her mother had said something about keeping the house aired out, but Sarah hasn’t listened to her in quite some time.

By the time she falls asleep, orange has begun to disrupt the sky outside.

Taglist: @bookreader525 @sextonsharpwinhalstead @sarahreeese @bipeteypie

#sarah reese #chicago med #fic #mine #ciwfic

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thunder-the-ranger-wolf · 5 years

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Just Enough: BNHA oneshot

Summary: Hizashi had always been a tactile person. He liked to shrug an arm around your shoulders or loop your arm with his or snag your hand and drag you places. As long as you were alright with it, of course. He knew all about limits, and body language happened to be something else he was good at. No came in multiple forms and he respected all of them. Which is why he knew that Shota didn’t mind that he was a tactile person. He always had a hand on the other man’s arm or messing with his hair. His hands moved at a speed no one could match, and no one tried. So, of course, Shota noticed the changes when they started.

One

Hizashi dropped his hand almost as soon as he woke up.

“Morning, sleepyhead.” The blond snorted as he shimmied into what Shota always considered the tightest pants one could possibly wear. “It’s, like, five in the morning. You were out for a couple of hours.”

“That explains why I feel like shit.” Shota grumbled as he rolled out of bed and headed for the shower. “What’s your day look like? I know you have an early show but what’s after that?”

“Afternoon classes, what else?”

“You get out of the studio no later than one and classes start at three. No way are you going to make it to UA and be able to teach right away.”

“I can too!” Hizashi snapped. “And I will.”

“It’s alright to stay home every now and then. We get vacation days for a reason.”

“It’s fine!”

Hizashi sounded far away, but that wasn’t right because usually, he poked his head in the bathroom to say something before he left. For that matter, what did his hair look like? He always got dressed before doing his hair because any other way would guarantee something getting snagged on part of it. The front door shut with a loud thud. Shota rinsed off and cut the water. He couldn’t help but feel like this was the weirdest interaction they’d had in a while, and for Hizashi, that was saying something.

Two

Hizashi was home when he got there. What’s more, there was food in the house. More than just the jelly packs he grabbed to get himself through a mission. Those were there as well, but there was sushi and donburi and little cat-shaped onigiri. Hell, Hizashi had even made curry rice, which Shota would absolutely be devouring. Depending on how hungry he was, there might not be any left.

But he wasn’t hungry just yet, so he made sure every door to the fridge was shut and shuffled to the bedroom. Hizashi was conked out on his side of the bed but with each passing second, he stretched to the other side. Shota was used to that, and it was no trouble to slip into comfortable clothes and squirm into a spot under the covers. Or it wouldn’t have been if Hizashi hadn’t literally yelped and flung himself off the bed. He landed with a crash that was worthy of hero fights. Shota peeked over the edge of the bed to find that Hizashi hadn’t taken off his speaker and a flash of metal before he turned his head revealed that the newer setting, one that allowed him to control exactly how loud he sounded to other people, was turned down as low as it could be.

“Are you okay?” He prompted when he noticed the blond hadn’t made any effort to move. “Want some help with the speaker?”

“I’m fine.” Hizashi mumbled. “Just scared me awake.”

“Have you been having nightmares?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“Sure, but you’ve been…”

Touchy, grumpy, out of step, nowhere near as close as usual. Shota knew his husband was pulling away but had no idea why.

“Different.” Shota settled for the word to avoid an argument at what had to be one a.m. “You know you can talk to people if something’s wrong. It doesn’t have to be just me.”

“I know, Shota. I’m not one of your students. I’ve got plenty of listening ears.” He grumbled as he heaved himself off the floor and sank into the bed.

“But?”

“What if that’s the problem?”

“What does that mean?”

Hizashi jolted, as it just occurred to him what he’d said.

“Nothing.”

“Zashi, what-?”

“It’s nothing.” He scowled. “I’ll figure it out on my own.”

Shota blinked, stunned at the sudden change in attitude.

“Alright.” He said slowly, fixing the covers so they both were warm. “I’m here if you want me.”

“Thanks, Sho.” Hizashi mumbled.

Three

Shota called out the next day, and when Nezu picked up the phone, he seemed to know why.

“I assume Yamada isn’t doing much better?”

“Not really. Did he go into work after that early show? I didn’t see him.”

“He certainly tried. Midnight practically sat on him to get him to stay in one place and the second he did, he nearly collapsed.”

“He didn’t tell me that.” Shota muttered. “Barely said a thing.”

“Present Mic not talking? You’ve definitely got a problem on your hands. Good luck, Eraser. I don’t want either of you back until he’s gotten some sleep and knocked that attitude of his.”

“Fine by me.”

“I’m sure it is. Use some of those vacation days you two have stashed away. You alone have enough for a whole year and then some.”

That was that, and the call ended. Shota glanced up to find red eyes boring into his own.

“Would you like to talk about just what that was last night?”

“I’d prefer not to.” Hizashi grumbled. “You didn’t eat much yesterday.”

“No, but I did see that you cooked and that curry rice is mine.”

“I’m sure.” Hizashi snickered. “I honestly didn’t expect that to see the light of day, but you must have been more tired than I thought.”

“Apparently so are you.”

“Nightmares are a common thing in my family, you remember what happened to my father.”

Yes, Shota did. Yamada Hibiki lost his voice as a side-effect of his Quirk and his hearing to baby Hizashi. While he loved his wife with the passion of a thousand sons and wouldn’t give his boy up for the world, nightmares of what could be plagued him as Hizashi grew up, to the point where his wife had to count his sleeping pills each night just to make sure he wasn’t taking too many. Hizashi hadn’t hit that breaking point yet, but some things ran in the family so Shota resolved to be on the lookout.

“Anyway, since you got the day off, what’s your plan?”

“Well, if you don’t mind I’d like to stick around for today.”

Hizashi narrowed his eyes at Shota but the Erasure Hero gave nothing away.

“Alright.” He accepted quietly. “Let’s go. Next train’s in half an hour.”

Four

Hizashi loved all of his jobs equally, but hero work could be draining. Along with the rather chill day at the studio, the Voice Hero’s agency claimed he shouldn’t make his normal patrol route today because he wouldn’t be of much use. He hadn’t touched the volume module on his speaker all day, which meant that any noise he made came out about the same as it would for anyone else. If said people were timid and mild, that is. It was unnerving to Shota, and what’s worse was that he wasn’t getting any answers. Hizashi had started falling asleep everywhere but the bed, regardless of whether Shota was in it or not. Bathroom, couch, kitchen… Hizashi almost fell off the balcony when Shota jostled his shoulder in an attempt to wake him up. It had been two weeks since Shota first noticed that Hizashi was different and he was no closer to figuring out why.

All he could do was stalk the other man around the house like a cat would a rabbit, and Hizashi definitely noticed.

“You’re awfully clingy lately. You sure you’re not the one having nightmares?”

“You’d know.” Shota bit out fiercely, more than a little annoyed.

“Snippy, too. If I didn’t know any better I’d say you were mad at me, Sho.”

“Why would I be?”

Mad was not the right word to explain the mixture of concern and desperation that he was feeling when it came to thinking about his partner.

“You’d tell me, right?” Shota prompted. “If you ever felt like doing something stupid?”

“Sure, sure.” Hizashi yawned into his soba. “What gives with the pushiness?”

“I’m worried about you.” Shota admitted. “You haven’t been this quiet… ever. And I still don’t know what you meant about figuring out your nightmare.”

“You don’t need to.” Hizashi snorted, responding to both parts of what was said. “Like I said-.”

“You’re not fine!” Shota snapped. “You’re quieter than a dead mouse and you move about as much. When’s the last time you actually ate what you cooked huh?!”

“Shota-.”

“And why are you wearing your gear all the time? You’d usually take that off first thing but for the past few weeks it’s always on, and you’re practically mute. What are you doing, Hizashi?! Can you at least tell me that?”

“I…”

Hizashi pushed the bowl away and let his head rest on his hands.

“I’m about the age my father was when he started abusing his meds.” He explained quietly. “I’ve never needed them, and I don’t want that to change, but I wasn’t lying when I said I have nightmares.”

“Of course not, but what’s the problem?”

“They’re so real… so stupid. Things I know wouldn’t ever happen but one slip and they could.”

“Do you want to-.”

“I don’t need to talk about it.” Hizashi growled. “As I said, they’re stupid.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re wrong about them. Or that they’re nothing to worry about. Would the meds help?”

“Sure they help, but so would being knocked unconscious or being too tired to think.”

“So that’s why you’ve been so edgy lately.” Shota realized. “You haven’t been sleeping and when you’re awake, you’re working.”

“Or trying to. No one would let me. Not even you.”

“Yeah, because something’s up with you and they noticed.”

“I can fix it!”

“Yeah, with better sleep. If that looks like a heavy dose of sleeping pills then who am I to say no?”

“You’re supposed to be against me on this.”

“Why would I be? You need to sleep. You can’t go without it. I’ve tried, remember? Your father did too. It never works.”

“I don’t want you to die.” Hizashi mumbled, deflating. Shota swallowed loudly and tilted his head.

“Is that what your nightmares are about?”

Is that why you’ve been pulling away?

“Partly, yeah.”

“That’s pretty fuckin scary.” Shota admitted. He was sure he’d react as badly if he were in Hizashi’s position. Currently, the only difference between them were that Hizashi’s anxiety rarely entered his dreams. When it did, since no one had any control over their dreams, the absolute lowest parts of himself came out to play.

“But I don’t plan on going anywhere anytime soon.”

“We rarely do.” Hizashi muttered darkly.

“That’s your fear talking, Zashi, and I promise you I’m going to prove it wrong.”

Five

Shota was a light sleeper. Years of being on-guard for his mother and later on Heroics screwing him out of a sleep schedule tended to do that to a person. So, of course, he clocked the exact moment Hizashi whimpered in his sleep. After a few seconds of deliberation, Shota reached out to shake his partner’s arm. This had an eighty-percent success rate, but the few times it backfired, they usually broke a lamp or a window. That hadn’t really happened as of late, and oh, Shota wanted to smack his forehead against the wall. That was why he had the volume module added to his speaker! That explained so much!

“Zashi.” Shota hissed. “Zashi, wake up. You’re alright.”

“Of course I am.” His husband muttered bitterly. “I’m always alright.” He scoffed. “I’m immune to my own Quirk, why wouldn't I be? But you’re not. No one else is. I’ve proved that well.”

Shota froze, horrified. Did Hizashi think his partner had been hurt by his own Quirk?

“I’m right here.” Shota murmured. “I swear to you, Yamada, I haven’t gone anywhere, just open your eyes.”

“Oh, but if I do that you’ll be gone.”

“No, Zashi, I’m right here. Please trust me. Just open your eyes.”

“Nope.” Hizashi snorted, flopping down on the bed.

Shota thanked all the deities he remembered that this bed was reinforced. Not much could stand Hizashi full-force but the speaker made him even heavier.

“But you can hold me if you want. I still run pretty warm but you never cared about that and I don’t see why you’d start. I mean, since you’re dead and all.”

Shota snorted and gathered his husband in his arms.

“No shit.” He scoffed. “You’re my own personal furnace, just how I like it.”

“Suit yourself.”

Hizashi didn’t talk after that, and eventually, his breath evened out.

Plus Ultra

Three weeks was long enough to be away from their daily grind. The kids at UA were clamoring for attention, Hizashi’s fans were a bit rabid for his updates and there was at least half an hour longer for questions than usual.

He still didn’t sleep as much as he should have. He still wore his speaker more often than not. He still fell asleep in odd places and woke up with someone else’s name on his tongue. Usually Shota’s.

Those times, Shota would tap him and shake a couple of pills into his palm. He hated them. He was determined not to turn into his father, but that came at the cost of his everyday wellbeing and Shota wasn’t having that. It was a fine line to walk, and Hizashi detested every step.

But he did it. There would be a day that Shota didn’t have to stick so close, that Nemuri wouldn’t have to use her Quirk on him or Nezu wouldn’t order him to take an extra planning period or go home early. That day wasn’t today, but that’s what Shota was for.

Author's Note: This came up because I've been having trouble sleeping (too much, in my case, instead of not enough) but I've been thinking of how this affects the people in my life and how a potential partner might react to such a situation. I also have some serious anxiety that might have tricked me (and subsequently Mic) into thinking that I have an addictive personality and that pills aren't the way to go. My issue, but still. Some context.

#boku no hero academia #thunder's bnha fics #just enough: erasermic character study #thunder's anime collection #thunder attempts to write

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gwiiyeoweo · 5 years

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For @fangirlig-intensifies and for the @ignoctgiftexchange This, uh, actually has nothing to do with White Day, but I hope it’ll be cute and sweet enough :’)

Ignis gets hit with a hilarious case of Confusion, and Noctis helps set his boyfriend back on track.

Pairing: Ignis/Noctis Rating: G

“Alright, gentlemen, it's our last night outside of Insomnia. Any requests for a last supper?”

“Gee, Iggy. You make it sound like we're getting executed in the morning.” Prompto deadpans, his voice oozing dry sarcasm.

Ignis locks the supports into place and tests his strength on the collapsible kitchen table, while Prompto squats behind him and coaxes the embers of their campfire. The sun sets just beyond the horizon, painting the darkening skies with its last fiery hues, and Gladio and Noctis are scramming to get the tent set up before all light fades. Two of three of their lanterns are broken, due to a certain blonde's clumsiness, and they would prefer to not struggle by the light of their shoddy campfire.

“Prompto, a little hand here?” Noctis grunts out, pulling the tent this way and that as he tries to unfold the whole thing. By the way it keeps collapsing on him, he thinks Gladio might actually be sabotaging him, except he knows the man wants this tent set up just as much as he does.

“Noct, just. Six, can you stop pulling it like that? Like, just — okay, you're doing the exact opposite now.” Gladio grunts out and rolls his eyes. After all this time, he'd think Noctis would get the hang of this already, with how much he's trained the Prince in wilderness survival.

“Eh, I think you guys got it handled. I'll just be over here taking care of our little fire,” Prompto hums, snapping a twig in half and feeding it into the flames.

“Prompto.” They both snap at him.

“Yikes! Okay, okay, I'm coming.”

Ignis quietly smiles to himself, enjoying the friendly banter among the three. Today will mark the end of their mini vacation, Noct's momentary getaway from all his royal duties before he's plunged back into the politics of Niflheim's proposed ceasefire. Though, this was a well-deserved break for everyone else; Prompto from his rigorous Crownsguard training, Gladio from his burden of expectations as Shield, Ignis from paperwork and duties as future advisor.

“How about a casserole? Any objections?”

“Nope.”

“Nada.”

“Go easy on the peas.”

Of course, leave it to his picky Prince to carve out the specifics. “Duly noted.”

As the rest get the tent set up, Ignis takes stock of what they have, double checking the ingredients, only to see they're running low on sweet peppers. He clicks his tongue, lightly berating himself for the oversight. But he remembers then, some peppers growing only a few paces away from the haven. It would take less than a minute, and no daemon would think to approach so close.

Noctis pokes his head out from under the tent flap and catches Ignis stepping over the outer runes. “Iggy?”

“It seems we're low on the peppers, but coincidentally there's some growing just around that patch we passed by earlier. I’m just going to fetch some.”

“Need me to come with?”

Ignis smiles, always touched by that hint of concern. As much as Noctis tries to keep up with his lazy farce, he always stands at the ready should anyone be in need of him, though he tends to downplay it as part of his whims. He still hasn’t realized Ignis knows his heart’s kindness extends far past that, and most likely Prompto and Gladio have caught on as well. They all still humor him, at least, and lightly berate him here and there whenever he makes a show of being a bratty prince.

“I'll be fine, I assure you,” Ignis says, already stepping down the stones, “But if you'd like to stand by as lookout, then by all means.”

Noctis does just that and steps over to the haven’s edge, eyes trained on Ignis’ snapped-on flashlight and remaining ever so vigilant.

Ignis takes just a few paces when he sees something pink and oddly peculiar sticking out beneath a pile of stones, and his curiosity gets the better of him. He steps over and angles his light at the rubble, and he quickly recognizes the mystery as a cactus fruit, pink and ripe for the taking. He thinks it odd for a lone cactus to be sprouting out here, and stranger still that it's fruiting; but the culinary student in him is delighted at the find. He's read of recipes and desserts all centered around prickly pears, though he never found the opportunity to try his hand at them. And as their last night out, he figures they’d make for a wonderful dessert to end on a high note.

Except, everything spirals downward when he tugs at his leather gloves, making sure they're on securely lest he pricks himself on the needles, and reaches over to gingerly pluck a fruit off. When his innocent act apparently startles the cactus so much that it jumps. When he realizes, too late and too gravely, that this isn't a cactus.

It's a godsdamned cactuar.

The prickly green foe spirals into the air and stares him down, its pitch black eyes boring an ice-cold pit in Ignis’ stomach. He stands there, frozen in his hunched position with one hand still extended from tearing off the fruit, and he keeps still as possible as if any movement will incur the cactuar's wrath. Ignis knows of their notorious speed and reflexes; he'll get a face full of needles the moment he even twitches for his daggers.

But despite his best efforts of playing marble statue, the cactuar shifts its empty black eyes from Ignis to the stolen fruit in his hand, and he can almost see the absolute indignation that rattles the prickly creature's body. Ignis gets a face full of needles anyway.

He's vaguely aware he's falling — backwards, once he feels his head hit the hard stone. He doesn't have time to register the pain or admonish himself for his folly, because really, it's his fault entirely for not picking up the cues and realizing that hey, a single cactus in the middle of nowhere with a bright pink fruit on its head is not suspicious at all.

He hears Noctis shout from behind and above, registers the blue flash of a warp strike, and feels his heart rend at the look of absolute terror marring his beautiful Prince's face. Ignis wants to murmur an apology, for bringing their final night to such an end, but his lips turn numb and his eyelids close to the heavy darkness that swallows him.

Noctis sits by the hospital bed, thrumming his fingers on his thigh as he tries to wait it out. The physicians told him Ignis would be perfectly fine, that the swelling would be gone with the perfect ratio of antihistamines and potion — and it did, his red chubby cheeks back to those sculpted cheekbones and defined jaw. All that's left is the wait, for Ignis to crawl back into consciousness and see if a Remedy was in due order, if he had ended up getting hit by Confusion after all.

Noctis had ridden through the adrenaline that burned through his veins, when he first caught sight of the stare-off between the cactuar and Ignis to when he rushed everyone to the car and took advantage of his crown and pushed through the driving laws and legal speed limits. They even left all their camping gear back at the haven, but they were all too scared for Ignis to really care. Now that they’re back in Insomnia, after Noctis rushed past the guards and ran straight into the medical wing with Gladio towing an unconscious Ignis right behind him, the energy rush slowly seeped out of him — until now, when he’s just an anxious pile of weary bones.

Because despite the physicians’ reassurances, Noctis still couldn't help but worry, and he's certain he's justified in his anxiety despite Prompto telling him to calm down for the fourth time in the last ten minutes. Okay, sure, the cactuar scampered off right after raining its needles on Ignis, and he even dumped a Hi-Potion on Ignis just in case. But. This was his boyfriend. And he panicked.

Noctis wishes he paid more attention in Lucis Ecology: From Fauna to Flora back in high school, at least when they studied about cactuars, because he feels absolutely useless just sitting at Ignis’ bedside. He's still jittery too, despite the tiredness that's settling into him, so he pulls out his phone and pulls up Moogle, typing in ‘what to do if hit by cactuar needles.’

Prompto, who took the seat by the door to wait things out with Noctis when Gladio left to give a status report, sees Noctis frantically tapping and scrolling through his phone. The motions are definitely not for King's Knight, so he knows it must be Noctis freaking out again. He sighs and walks up behind Noctis and peers over his shoulder to see him looking at WebMD. Oh great, nothing like some website telling him cactuar needles induce cancer to really get Noctis going. So before his gullible-but-lovable friend starts getting the wrong ideas, Prompto reaches over and plucks the phone right out of his hands.

“Hey!”

“C'mon, buddy. You heard what the doctors said, Iggy will be just fine. Just chill out for a minute and wait, or I'll go get them to strap you down in a bed too.” Prompto tuts at him, waving the phone in a gesture of disapproval.

“I am chill, okay? Totally chill. Ice-cold Shiva chill.”

Prompto only shoots a look, and Noctis knows those were the words of a man who was, in all actuality, not chill. He mentally curses himself, for the not-chill idiot that he is, and makes to hopefully rectify his poor wording and assure that he really is calm, okay, he's really fine and not at all freaking out over Ignis, when he catches a low groan and a rustle of clothes and blankets.

Noctis snaps his neck around so fast he nearly gives himself whiplash. Prompto takes the cue to fetch the nurse, figuring his friend could use the time to reassure himself that Ignis is perfectly fine. “See? Told you Iggy would be okay. I'll be back in a sec,” he says, patting Noctis on the shoulder before heading out.

Noctis gives a noncommittal hum, too focused on Ignis who's slowly returning to the waking world. He takes one of Ignis’ hands into his, watching and waiting for the moment he sees those sweet green eyes.

Ignis takes a moment, but when he finally opens his eyelids, he does so with monumentous effort. He wears the expression of a man who looks so personally offended that the lights are on, despite the half-conscious gaze staring blankly at the ceiling. Noctis has never seen that sort of look on Ignis face, but the way he looks so… Grouchy and out of touch is actually kinda cute and funny. He looks like a petulant brat about to throw a tantrum for not having his Ebony fix of the day.

Noctis lets Ignis gather his bearings, having his own anxieties finally cowed by the man's awakening, and only holds his hand in silence until he slowly turns his head to look at Noctis. Ignis furrows his brows, and he works his lips and jaw as he tries to remember how to speak again.

Noctis already knows the question on his mind, so he answers without needing to hear it. “We're back at the Citadel, in the med wing. You got hit by some cactuar needles.” He makes sure to leave out the part where they had to cut their trip short and the fact he broke some driving laws on the way back to Insomnia. He didn't need to stack on guilt on Ignis’ sore shoulders, and neither did he want a lecture on road safety.

Prompto returns, a pack of crackers in one hand with the other holding a water bottle to his lips, when Ignis’ face splits into the most ridiculously goofy smile any of them has ever seen him wear, and he drops the carpet bomb on them with his seemingly innocent question.

“Did the doctor send you?” Ignis slurs, “Because you, my dear, are a Remedy for sore eyes.”

Behind him, Noctis hears Prompto spit out his water as he desperately tries to cough air back into his lungs. He can only share the same sentiment because —

“Holy shit, is he hitting on you? While he's Confused?” Prompto rasps, thumping a fist into his chest. “And a pun?!”

Noctis barely nods, his mind not quite believing what he's seeing and hearing. Because Ignis looks absolutely hammered, and not even two bottles of wine was able to get him looking this drunk, and damn it, Iggy's love for puns apparently outweighed his love for his boyfriend since he'll remember his way around words but not the Prince of Lucis. Noctis doesn't feel bitter about it but only because despite his scrambled up memory, Ignis has the gall to still flirt with him.

Ignis, perhaps impatient by the lack of reply, presses on, his voice coated thick with sleep but eyes filled with lovesick adoration. “You are the most fetching man I've seen in all my life.”

Noctis feels a warmth in both his heart and in his cheeks, and he lifts a hand to hide his embarrassed smile. Okay, sure they'd flirt with each other, pass comments of silly affection in between, but this was… This was different, and his heart was not prepared for this sort of cutesy-cheesy outcome.

Prompto, however, leaps at the opportunity. He dumps the pack of crackers in Noctis’ lap and immediately pulls out the phone he confiscated from Noctis. “Okay, so, the nurse said they're getting the Remedy” — he easily picks the pattern on Noctis’ lockscreen and swipes to the camera function — “But they want him to eat something first or it's gonna upset his stomach but ohmygod I need all this on video.”

Noctis doesn't ask him how or why he knows the correct pattern to unlock his phone, so instead he picks at the crackers and tears it open.

Meanwhile, Ignis is adorably stubborn and suddenly very sad Noctis had to take his hand away to open the plastic wrapping. His hand twitches, and he tries to chase after the prince's hold, but all he manages to do is to let his wrist fall limply against the bed railing. His charming smile is replaced by something smaller, and his eyes seem to be a bit brighter with wakefulness, but the Confusion still has his him a touch away from reality. Apparently accepting the loss, he returns to his wooing. “Are you perhaps a model? Who are you?”

Noctis actually answers this time, trying to keep his own amusement and smile under check. “I'm Noctis. How're you feeling, Ignis? Think you can eat some crackers?” He takes Ignis’ hand and presses one in between his fingers.

Except, this one skilled and dexterous assassin who could twirl and catch his daggers midair all while blindfolded, has an insanely difficult time trying to navigate the cracker to his lips. After failing his second attempt, Ignis squints at the snack, peering at it suspiciously as though it may bite him, and his unsteady hand probably isn't it making his inspection any easier, swaying it back and forth before he can get a real good look at it. He glances back to Noctis, as if seeking approval and reassurance — Noctis nods and gently guides the hand toward Ignis’ lips — before finally taking a nibble at the cracker.

“Ow.”

Ignis chews impossibly slow, then another, “Ow.” He stares at the cracker rather begrudgingly. “I don't believe this agrees with me,” he groans.

Noctis isn't sure how eating the cracker really hurts, and he's more positive it's only because Ignis is really out of it. He tries not to laugh at the absurdity of all this, but each passing second only makes it harder. “Sorry, Ignis, but the nurse said you need to eat it,” he says, surprisingly composed. He hears Prompto snicker from behind him.

“Nurse… You're not the nurse then?”

At this, Noctis smiles. “No, Ignis, I'm your boyfriend.”

Ignis looks absolutely floored. His jaw drops, and he loses whatever that was left of his fine motor skills as the half-eaten cracker slips from his fingers. He turns his head to stare up at the ceiling, no longer bothered by the lights that so offended him only minutes ago, while he draws his hands together in prayer and brings his fingertips to his chin.

“Boyfriend,” he whispers, absolutely enthralled by the word, in a tone full of reverence and wonder. “You're my boyfriend? Good Shiva.”

Ignis stares at the ceiling for a while longer, as if the stucco ceiling held all the answers to the universe. Noctis takes the opportunity to gently pry Ignis hands apart and give him a new cracker. He munches on it successfully — and without any apparent pain, probably too euphoric from his newfound knowledge.

“My boyfriend…” he whispers in awe, between his small bites. Ignis looks away from the ceiling to gaze upon Noctis like a fool drunk on love and asks, “For how long?”

To be exact, Noctis would say two years of “official” boyfriend status, though the feelings had been mutual for far longer. It had only been the King's gentle assurances and his friends’ prodding and meddling to get them finally tied together. He wants to tell him the whole story, how they were childhood friends who practically grew up together, but he thinks Ignis’ mind would explode, given how well he’s reacted thus far. Noctis skirts the question and directs the cracker back to Ignis’ mouth.

“Just eat the cracker, Iggy.”

“Iggy? My name is… Oh. Do we perhaps have pet names for each other? How lovely. I'm quite fond of Iggy. What do I call you?” he says, completely ignoring the cracker now.

“Noct.”

“Ah, Noct. Hello, Noct.”

“Hi, Iggy. Now c'mon and eat your cracker.”

Ignis sighs and looks pathetically forlorn at the saltine, but he brings it back to his lips and takes a small nibble. It looks as if it takes all his concentration to remember how to chew — concentration that he'd rather spend on looking at his boyfriend. It might be why he seems so sad to eat, and the only reason he does so is because Noctis asked him to.

“It's… It's difficult, darling. Can I call you darling?”

“Sure you can, Specs.” Noctis hands him another cracker.

“Specs?”

“Another pet name.”

“Another!” His hand flies to his heart, the same hand that held the cracker, which flings across the room when he forgot to keep his fingers on it. “Another pet name. What a lucky man I must be. I quite love it. I quite love you. May I say that? That I love you?”

“Yeah, you can.” Noctis can barely keep the smile that splits across his own face. “I love you too, Specs.”

Their friend circle of four were all struck with Confusion before — at least once. At Cor's instruction, they had been called to meet in the training room, to be hit with the status ailment in a controlled environment; so they each would know how it felt, and how to act and prepare should their comrade fall to it. But Ignis never acted like this, nor did Noctis hear or read of a Confusion that had such an effect. But it’d be great, he thinks, if all Confusion cases went like this.

“Oh, Noct.” Ignis coos, and he looks upon Noctis like an utter dream.

“C’mon, cracker.”

“I can’t quite…” Ignis huffs and looks away from the cracker — yet again — and squints his eyes at Noctis, dropping the snack to curl his fingers and beckon the other. “Come closer, darling, let me see your face.” When Noctis obliges, he sucks in a sharp breath and softly brushes his crumb-y fingers along Noctis’ cheeks. “Six, your eyes are absolutely gorgeous.”

Ignis makes to cup both his hands on Noctis’ cheeks, but his other hand doesn't agree with him and instead flounders on his stomach. He doesn't seem to care, however, and continues to stare into Noctis’ eyes. Noctis remembers, during a cozy date at his apartment with some wine shared between them, when Ignis had started spouting cheesy romantic lines at him. How his deep blue eyes were akin to the Lucian nights, with its shining stars and wall of magic, that Ignis could simply gaze into the prince’s eyes for hours if he ever wanted to stargaze. He knows now, with the absolute reverence and wonder Ignis looks upon him with, that he wasn’t kidding.

Noctis, however, almost wants to choke, given how thick the love that's plastered in Ignis’ gaze, so heavy that he might just suffocate from the weight of it.

“And we’re dating?” Ignis whispers to himself, questioning the reality that his addled mind can’t quite grasp. “Marvelous.”

“Yep, you even got me a ring.” Noctis takes a deep breath, trying to keep his head on straight, and holds up his left hand, flaunting the promise ring wrapped around his finger — a simple black band with a thinner line of silver cutting around the middle. Ignis — the Not Confused Ignis — had known anything remotely close to the Lucii Ring would only bring terrible reminders, had known to steer away from fine jewels and precious stones.

Current Ignis, understandably, forgot all about it.

“A ring! A ring,” Ignis gasps, immediately reaching for Noctis’ hand, “Let me — oh. My, I must be very fond of you.” He runs his thumb over the smooth onyx, the physical touch doing nothing to jostle his memory. He did, however, look somewhat smug, perhaps satisfied in knowing he had good tastes.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that. I’m pretty fond of you too, y’know.” Noctis nods his head toward Ignis’ hand, glancing at the similar green tungsten ring sitting on his finger.

The gesture went entirely unnoticed, with Ignis too occupied with the return of affectionate words. “Oh, Noct. I —”

“So! I’ve got one extra special Remedy ready for Scientia here. Did he eat his crackers?”

Noctis doesn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed when he turns his head around to see the nurse walk in, carrying a small bottle and a bright smile on his lips. On one hand, thank the gods because he didn’t know how much longer he could suffer through the embarrassing love flutters in his chest before his face turned red. On the other hand, it was, in all honesty, a bit endearing to see Ignis so… disjointed and stupid in love.

“Um. Sorta,” Noctis says, lifting the half empty packet of crackers. At best, Ignis probably only ate three, considering the half-eaten and crumbled up crackers scattered across the bed — and the one flung across the room, no doubt in a sad and shattered shape.

“Well, that’s good enough, but we might want to try getting him to eat a few more after this Remedy.”

Noctis nods, gaze following the nurse until he crossed in front of Prompto. Who still held the phone in his hand. Who probably —

“Were you recording this whole time?”

From behind the phone, Prompto only smiles and offers a thumbs up.

Noctis, for all the time he’s spent with his best friend, realizes he should have expected as much. It’s no wonder Prompto was oddly quiet the entire time, aside from the few quiet snickers Noctis managed to catch, instead of his backseat commentary and stomach-busting laughter.

“Wait a minute.” Noctis rises from his seat, barely managing to ignore Ignis’ disheartening whines at being left behind by his boyfriend. He turns his eyes to Ignis and bribes him with a “Drink the Remedy — all of it — and I’ll give you a kiss, okay?” which does wonders to settle him down, even has him grabbing for the bottle the nurse hands him.

Noctis circles around Prompto and looks just behind his shoulder, peering at the screen of his phone, and yep, that’s a video still recording.

“Instagram?”

“Nah, man, straight to YouTube.”

Noctis levels a look at Prompto.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding! Geez, I’m not that evil. Just saving it for later, show it to Gladio when he gets back. And,” Prompto looks over to Ignis, who’s trying his hardest to chug the Remedy down, “to Iggy when he gets all his marbles back in his bag.”

“How embarrassed do you think he’ll be?”

“Five bucks he’s gonna turn red like a Lucian tomato.”

“Deal.”

Ignis hides his face behind his hands, after having pausing the video halfway through and dropping the phone in his lap. Gladio has no qualms with picking it right back up, tapping play, and continuing on with his obnoxious roars of laughter.

“There, there.” Noctis sympathetically pats Ignis’ back with one hand, while he uses his other to fish the promised money in his back pocket and hand it over to Prompto's greedy fingers.

He presses a chaste kiss to Ignis’ temple, and offers a comforting smile when the other peers through the slits in between his fingers to glance up at Noct.

“I promised you a kiss for drinking that Remedy,” Noctis says, answering the silent question in Ignis’ eyes.

The dear man only buries his head deeper into his hands, groaning at the reminder of his earlier delirium. “Please, if you truly love me, you won't remind me.” But a beat later, he picks his head up. “Also,” he says, reaching over and pulling their foreheads close, “I think I deserve an extra for drinking that horrid thing.” Ignis slots their lips together, tilting his head to the side and claiming his proper reward. And when he pulls back just in time to see Noctis run his tongue over his own lips and scrunch his face up at the bitter remnants of the Remedy, it at least lessens the blows on his pride.

#ignoctgiftexchange #noctis lucis caelum #ignis scientia #ff15 #final fantasy xv #i can type #fangirlig-intensifies

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taehyungiestummy · 6 years

Text

Summer Dreams -- Chapter Thirteen

Masterlist Previous Next

Warnings: Little swearing

Word Count: 2646

After around an hour spent in the toy shop, Emily and I were finally able to decide on our one item. She went with a t-shirt that looks to have popular Korean cartoon characters on it. I went with a stuffed animal box set of tiny Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, and Eeyore.

Once we were done in the toy shop, we headed down the street to a clothing store that looked to be deep into the swing of summer. There’s all kind of dresses and tank-tops out on display.

Now, Emily and I are in dressing rooms trying on different items of clothing to show the boys.

“Amber, are you ready to come out?” Emily calls out to me as we’ve been walking out together to show Taehyung and Namjoon.

“I’m ready if you are,” I call back, looking myself over again in the mirror.

“When I say three,” she knocks on the wall that we share. “One, two, three.”

I spin around to face my dressing room door, pushing through on her count.

“So pretty,” Taehyung’s big, box smile takes over his face as Emily and I exit the dressing rooms.

“I agree,” Namjoon nods. “Are those the last ones you need to try on?”

“Yes,” I nod, looking over at Emily. “Damn, looking good girl.”

Emily chuckles and looks at me, “I’ll say the same to you. You’re looking so damn good.”

The two of us burst out into laughter as the two boys just smile at us.

Emily is wearing a summer dress that goes to her mid-thigh. The straps are thin, and the collar doesn’t go too low. The design is simple and colorful: flowers of all different sizes fill up the dress, colors ranging from red to yellow to blue make it overly eye catching. A pair of white or black sandals would complete the look.

My dress is also a summer dress, and it passes my knees and stops mid-shin. It has t-shirt like sleeves, and the collar barely shows my collarbones. It has a tie-dye design with yellow, blue, and light red all over, never quite mixing to form other colors. High-top Converse will look good with it.

“Best ones,” Taehyung speaks up. “You have to get.”

“Yeah,” Namjoon says, a grin playing on his lips. “Those dresses are perfect on you two. They were, um, made for you. That’s something you Americans say, right?”

Emily and I break our gazes on one another’s dresses and look back at the boys.

“Yeah, that’s the saying,” I confirm. “Do they really look that perfect on us?”

“Like models,” Namjoon sits up a bit straighter. “You’re embracing a new culture, too.”

“That’s too kind,” Emily giggles, covering her cheeks with her hands. “You’ve made me blush.”

Namjoon smirks, “I’m glad that made you happy.”

I somehow smile bigger at their exchange. “I’m overjoyed that you two are getting along.”

“How could we not?” Emily questions. “He’s such a gentleman.”

Taehyung pouts, “Don’t understand.”

“Sorry Tae,” Namjoon pats the boy on the back before diving into Korean.

After a minute or so, Taehyung is caught up and smiling again. He’s such a kid at heart.

“Tae says you are like the stars, Amber.” Namjoon translates Taehyung. “Always shining and beautiful.”

I meet Taehyung’s eyes and can’t hold back the blush that spreads on my cheeks. “You are so creative. Thank you.”

“Cheeks are red,” Taehyung smirks. “Me?”

I nervously laugh, “They are red. That’s your doing.”

“I did good?”

“Yes, Taehyung. Beyond good.”

“Okay,” Namjoon breaks up our moment. “Enough of this gushy, love stuff. You two, change back into your other clothes so we can buy those dresses. Then let’s go get something to eat.”

“Do you know a place that’s close?” I place my hand on the dressing room door.

“We’ve lived here for a little bit, so I would say we know quite a few places that are nearby,” Namjoon chuckles. “If you continue to travel around while here, and keep coming back, you’ll learn all the best places to go to eat.”

“We are slowly coming around to Korean cuisine,” Emily adds in. “It’s been fun trying new things whenever we can.”

“Well, you’ll be trying some new foods today,” Namjoon waves us towards our dressing rooms. “If you keep talking to us, though, we may never get there.”

Emily and I let out laughs before heading back into our respective dressing rooms. It takes us a few minutes to change back into our outfits of the day and then to be back with the boys.

“We’ll pay for our own dresses,” Emily speaks up as we walk towards the register. “Our parents have given us some money to buy souvenirs and the like while we are over here.”

“And we want to pay at the restaurant,” I hold my dress close to my chest. “Nari is trying to educate us on everything in Korea, and that includes what it’s like to be an idol. You two are in a relatively new group, so that means there isn’t a lot of money to go around. Like someone working for minimum wage in the States.”

“We do fine,” Namjoon shrugs. “It was really a struggle at the beginning, but things seem to be trending upwards right now. Some of the boys are still in school, so that’s were most of the struggle comes in. Balancing everything in our lives.”

“Namjoon-hyung,” Taehyung pouts.

“You girls go pay so I can catch Taehyung up,” he pulls his friend into his side.

Emily and I pick up our pace to get to the check-out counter. It’s a joint effort as we do our best to talk to the lady at the counter, but it’s clear we are still at the very beginning of our communication skills.

“Well, that could have gone better,” I chuckle as we make our way towards the boys. “Every time I think we know enough Korean, we are put in a situation that proves that wrong.”

“Everyone has to start somewhere, and everyone we talk to has been very understanding,” Emily slightly smiles. “It is clear that we are not from Korea and did not grow up with the language.”

“You’re right,” I swing my bag. “We are slowly getting better, though. It is quite encouraging when our conversations with Koreans keeps getting longer and longer.”

We stop taking as we step up to the two boys deep in a conversation that neither Emily or I can understand. Mainly due to the fact that they are talking so fast that I can’t even pick out any words I know.

“We’re back,” I giggle, stepping up to Taehyung and grabbing his hand like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “Are you two done talking? I’m starving,” I lean my head onto Taehyung’s arm.

“Tired?” Taehyung gives my hand a squeeze.

“No, baegooeun,” I pout up at the boy.

“Follow me,” Namjoon nods towards the door. “It’s been quite a while since you’ve had breakfast.”

It seems like a blur as we exit the clothing shop and head down the street towards an unknown destination. Taehyung’s hand never leaves mine, and it doesn’t fail to put a blush on my cheeks. It’s also nice to see how close Namjoon and Emily are as the lead the way in front of us.

I’m not sure how long it takes for us to get to the restaurant as I am stuck in my thoughts the entire time. Luckily it is not busy, so we can get a table right away.

“There’s so much that we haven’t had before,” I nibble on my bottom lip as I look over the menu that they thankfully had in English. “You two are going to have to give us some direction on what to get.”

“Soup is always a good choice,” Namjoon looks up from his menu. “Emily was telling me that there are some things that you just won’t eat, but that won’t be a problem.”

“It’s called being a picky eater,” Emily teases.

“I’m getting better,” I pout for a few seconds. “I can’t help that my taste buds don’t like every single food out there.”

“Try this,” Taehyung points to a soup in my menu that actually looks like something I would like. “You will like.”

I giggle, pulling on all my Korean knowledge to talk back to him. “I trust you, so I better like it.”

“Your Korean is so cute,” he says slowly so I can piece all the Korean words together. “You are so cute.”

“It’s because she is just learning,” Namjoon grins. “Now, it’s time to figure out what we are getting to eat.”

********

I let out a sigh as I reach for the ceiling to stretch out my back. The couch is comfortable, but one position for too long can’t be good for my back.

It’s been a gloomy day with a steady rain falling since Emily and I woke up. The sun has been hidden behind clouds the entire day. It’s a good thing we didn’t have any plans with the boys.

“It’s been quite boring today, hasn’t it?” Emily speaks up, looking at me from behind a laptop screen. “One of those really chill summer days that we need very little of.” She wiggles around in the recliner, trying to stretch out her legs anyway she can.

“I guess so,” I lean down to place my notebook on the floor, picking up my DS. “I needed a day to get back into my writing, though, and play some video games. We’ve been spending most everyday either with the boys or studying to improve our Korean.”

“It was nice being able to go through the photos that I’ve taken and delete any bad ones. Hopefully I can find time when we get back home to put together a scrapbook.”

“Just come over and I’ll help you cut things out and glue things down, so it won’t take as long,” I pout as my phone shows only a notification for an email. “Damn, still no texts from anyone. It’s been silent all day.”

“Everyone must be hard at work,” she shrugs. “We’re lucky because we can just go with the flow of everyone’s plans. We don’t have to go to work or school.”

“Summer vacation, only good for a student,” I giggle as I start up my game of Pokémon. “It’s also way too short. Even if it was a month longer, like in college, it would still be too short. There would still be something that I wished I had gotten done.”

“That’s how you always are,” Emily chuckles. “Always wishing that you had more time to get something done. There’s never enough time in the day, or week, or year. You’ll always be wishing.”

“It’s because I have so much that I want to do,” I focus my gaze on the DS screen. “It’s been fun staying up late and playing video games on our TV. This is like a summer camp, but with no set times to go do things.”

“You would never last at a summer camp. Out in log cabins with however many girls you don’t know in one building, and food that is made in a great sum at once. Then community showers, no doubt, and you would hate that. If you had to be forced to do something at a certain time, you’d get bored within minutes. Summer camp would be the worst thing for you.”

“Remember that one summer camp that needed kids to go around selling chocolate, so then they wouldn’t have to pay as much?” I tap my feet together a few times. “And I would always buy some chocolate because it’s cheaper than normal, but kind of off brand.”

“It was still good chocolate. I loved how they would come to the door with the briefcase like box full of chocolate bars, and there was always one that you would really like, so you’d buy more of that one than any other.”

“I like this summer camp, though,” I smile as I take out the second gym leader. “We didn’t have to pay for anything, and we get to spend time with people we know and enjoy being with. Also, we can do whatever we want, almost whenever we want.”

“Can you turn some music on? It’s fun sitting in silence with the sound of rain, but now I want to expand my horizon with some Korean music.”

I quickly grab my phone, pulling up a playlist that I saved on Spotify. Then I place my phone onto the coffee table, and Emily and I go back to what we were doing before we were talking.

A few hours pass, the rain never letting up, and the two of us just waiting for some contact from my cousin or the boys. It’s like the rain slows time.

“Girls, I’m home!” Nari’s voice shocks Emily and I out of our trances. “And I have take-out!”

Emily and I bound out of our seats, making sure to not throw our stuff all over the place. Then we rush to the front door to see Nari dripping from having to walk through the rain.

“Nari, it’s been such a long day with out you,” I take the bag of take-out from her, so she can take her rain jacket off. “We just sat around and did some random things waiting for anyone to text us.”

“When nap time came at the daycare, I almost feel asleep with the kids because of how calming the rain sounds,” Nari smiles as she gently shakes out her coat. “These are the kinds of days that you have to power through to get a lot of work done.”

“We were doing all different things all day,” Emily nods. “I was going through photos I’ve taken and planning future scrapbooks. Amber was a writing machine until she really wanted to play Pokémon.”

“Ah, always a fan of Pokémon,” Nari pats my cheek as she slips her shoes off. “You dressed up as Pikachu a long time ago for Halloween, and you looked so cute.”

“I think you dressed up as a dog that year,” I point at Emily. “That was years ago.”

“As much as I love talking about how cute we were in the past, I would love to eat this amazing smelling take-out,” Emily begins to walk into the apartment.

Nari giggles, “I have to agree with you there.” She grabs my hand and starts pulling me to the living room.

Nari makes a quick stop into the kitchen to grab some drinks and plates, while Emily and I begin to take the food out and place in on the coffee table.

“I did my best to get food that I know you girls like, and some that I thought you would like,” Nari begins to place a little bit of everything onto her plate. “I’m doing my best at opening up your taste buds to the cuisine here.”

“I think you’re doing a great job,” I smile as I carefully pick out what I want to eat.

“It was definitely a taste that we had to get used to,” Emily nudges me. “Even for a girl as picky as Amber.”

I roll my eyes, “Some food just grosses me out and doesn’t taste good.”

“I think that you are doing good,” Nari smiles, settling into her recliner. “Besides that, I’d like to know more about your next outing with the boys. You’re going to a waterpark, right?”

“That’s right,” I smile. “We were actually wondering if you’ve been to it and could tell us what to expect.”

“I’ve lived here my entire life,” Nari giggles. “I can tell you a lot about this city. Now, what’s the name of the waterpark?”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

And that is finally chapter thirteen. I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted a chapter for this, and I am sorry for that. Life can get a bit crazy. Anyways, hope you enjoyed reading. If this looks a bit different, I’m trying a different format, so I hope it’s okay.

#BTS imagine #BTS x oc #BTS series #Jungkook x oc #Jungkook imagine #Taehyung x oc #Taehyung imagine #Jimin x oc #Jimin imagine #Namjoon x oc #Namjoon imagine #Hoseok x oc #Hoseok imagine #Yoongi x oc #Yoongi imagine #Seokjin x oc #Seokjin imagine #my oc

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lovemesomesurveys · 3 years

Text

[found at: joybucket]

When was the last time you did something for the first time? Hmm. My days are so routine and much of the same I don’t even remember.

Which do you prefer: Valentine's Day or Easter? Easter.

Do you wait until the last minute to decorate, or do you decorate early? I only decorate for Halloween and Christmas, though the past few years it’s just been Christmas. I like to start right after Thanksgiving.

What color bottoms are you wearing right now? I’m wearing black Adidas leggings with the 3 white stripes down each pant leg.

Do you love life?! No. I love my loved ones in my life and I am grateful for them and the things I do have, but I don’t have this lust or passion for life that I wish I did. I’m definitely not living it to the fullest, or really at all these past few years. I feel like I’ve wasted so much time. I don’t know what I want to do in life or what my passions are. My depression and other health stuff have taken over and hardened me it seems. :/

What's your favorite Starbucks drink? For a little over a month it’s been a peppermint white chocolate mocha. I’ve literally had one like 4-5 times a week. Prior to the holiday season I definitely wasn’t getting Starbucks that often, so I don’t know what sparked the sudden obsession but I’ve been obsessed. I’m hoping they have the smoked butterscotch latte this year, which should be coming out soon and will be next go-to. Other times in the year I typically get a caramel macchiato or white chocolate mocha. I often buy the Starbucks Doubleshot coffee energy drink from the store, too. The white chocolate one in particular.

What were you wearing in the last good selfie you took? It wasn’t good, but the last selfie I took was on NYE and I was wearing a Baby Yoda/Grogu sweatshirt and leggings, but in the photo I had my rose gold throw blanket wrapped around me.

What's on your wish list right now? Christmas just passed and I certainly haven’t started one for this year yet. Or for my birthday, which is months away. I can’t think of anything right now.

What do you use to sweeten your tea? A packet or two of Sweet n’ Low.

Which dollar store do you like best? I don’t have a favorite one. I rarely go there.

Have you ever owned an expensive eyeshadow palette? No.

What's one challenge you want to complete for YouTube? None. I don’t make YouTube videos.

If you make YouTube videos, do you have a posting schedule? --

When was the last time you stepped outside of your comfort zone? Leaving the house during a pandemic, which thankfully and fortunately for me is only once a month.

How would you rate your self-esteem? low, healthy, or high? I’m just a sucker with no self-esteem.

Do you own a tripod for your camera? No. I don’t have a camera, I just use my phone to take photos.

Would you rather go to London, Paris, or Tokyo? Either London or Paris.

Were you a bigger fan of Lindsay Lohan or Hilary Duff? Ha, the previous question made me think of that Hilary Duff song. Anyway, I’d say Hilary Duff.

Which Olsen twin was your favorite: Mary-Kate or Ashley, and why? I didn’t have a favorite one, I liked them both. I watched all their movies and TV shows growing up.

Do you make Halloween costumes out of clothes from your closet? I have a few times before.

Do you enjoy putting outfits together? I used to put effort and thought into that, but now I just throw something on lol.

Would you rather it rain or snow? I wish it snowed here.

What does your umbrella look like? I don’t have one.

What color are your nails painted? They’re not. I haven’t painted my nails in years.

Are your nails always painted? Well, no.

What's one thing you've had a toxic reaction to? Tangerines.

Do you wear headbands? No.

Do you own a boho bandeau? No.

Which do you prefer: cropped tops or tunic tops? I don’t wear either of those.

What's a style or trend that you think is ridiculous? I don’t understand why Crocs became popular. I remember when everyone thought they were ugly and typically they were only worn by doctors because they’re apparently really comfortable. Then there was a shift in recent years and people love them now?? They even have different pins to decorate them with that you stick in the holes (kjfksldklsd that word).

Which YouTuber do you want to be more like? There’s not one particular one, but there’s a few whose personality traits I’d like to have.

Do you wear jeggings or leggings more? Leggings all day, everyday.

^Same questions, but jeggings or skinny jeans? I’ve only worn legging the past few years, but before that I would have said skinny jeans. Those are the only jeans I have and would wear.

Do you like stuffed animals? *looks around my room and sees the shit ton of giraffe stuffed animals all around, along with several other plushies* Yeah, you could say that.

What was your favorite class in high school? English.

Have you ever gotten straight A's in a class? If so, which classes? Yeah, English for sure and some others.

Were there any subjects that you got a perfect SAT score in? If so, what? I didn’t take the SATs.

What's the best coffee shop in your town, in your opinion? I just go to Starbucks. Judge me all you want.

Are you happy today? No.

If so, what made you happy today?

When was the last time you woke up to a beautiful sunrise? For the past year I’ve been up past the sunrise everyday.

Is your bed right by a window? It’s right across from it.

Do you spent more time in your bedroom or your living room? My room.

Which holiday is your favorite to decorate for? Christmas, for sure.

Do you decorate for holidays? Just Christmas the past few years, but I do have Halloween decorations. To be honest the past 2 years I kept my Christmas decorations up in my room. Not sure why I didn’t put up the Halloween decorations the other times. I want to put away my Christmas decorations and decorate for Halloween this year.

What craft project do you want to do next? I don’t do crafts.

Do you name stuffed animals still? A lot of my giraffes have names.

Do you still own your favorite Barbie? I still have my Barbies and their accessories stored away.

What was your favorite Barbie? I just loved Barbies.

Favorite Bratz doll? I didn’t have a favorite. I was a little old when those came out, though I did have a couple. I just wasn’t into them like I was Barbies.

Favorite American Girl doll? I didn’t have one.

Favorite Disney princess? Ariel.

Favorite cartoon character? The Rugrats crew.

Are you rebellious? No, I’m like the least rebellious human on the face of the Earth. <<< Count me in as well.

What's the most rebellious thing you've ever done? Smoking weed was a big thing for me.

What's your favorite thing about yourself? I’m not a big fan of myself, particularly the person I’ve become the past few years.

Have you ever celebrated Valentine's Day when you were single? I’ve always been single on Valentine’s Day, so. It’s really just another day, but there were a few years I specifically got my favorite candy or sweets and watched a few rom-coms on that day.

What's your dream date? I think a Disneyland date would be cute.

If you were dating a guy right now, where would you want him to take you? Nowhere, ha. Just get me takeout and a Starbucks and we can chill at home lol.

Is there a guy you regret letting slip away? Yes.

Are you a guy or a girl? I’m a female.

Are you more boho, girly, edgy, sporty, or hipster? My style is comfy casual. I live in leggings and oversized graphic tees.

Which stereotype do you fit the most? Uhh.

What titles did you win in the senior class polls? None.

Were you popular in school? Nope, not at all.

If you won a car, what color would you like it to be? Red or blue.

Do you wear hats? Yeah. Do you ever put your hair up in the winter? I always have my hair up. I don’t have the energy or motivation to do anything with it so it’s easier to just throw it up.

Do you have bangs? No.

^If not, have you ever had bangs? Yeah, from when I was like 1 until I was like 20, which at that point I transitioned into side bangs. Now I have neither. I’ve actually been kinda wanting to get bangs again, but ehhh.

How many siblings do you have? I have two brothers.

Do you have any family members that you've never met? Yes. If you're from the US, what states have you lived in? Just California.

Who was your best roommate? Haven’t had one.

Was your first roommate your best roommate? ^^^ What's the best family vacation you've ever been on? Disneyland vacays.

Do you have a Mac or a PC? Mac.

Do you use iMovie? No, but I did in the past before.

What's your dream job? I don’t have one.

What types of YouTube videos are your favorite to watch? ASMR, vlogs, lifestyle.

Which do you watch more: TV, YouTube, or movies? YouTube, followed by TV, then movies.

Do you prefer books or movies? I enjoy both, but I definitely read a lot more.

Have you ever wanted to be a model? No.

Are you cold right now? No, I’m kinda warm.

What do the last pair of pants you bought look like? It was a pair of leggings, surprise, surprise. They were Halloween leggings.

What store(s) do you do most of your shopping at? Boxlunch and Hot Topic.

What style of wedding dress is your favorite? I don’t have one.

What years did you attend prom? Just senior year.

What color is the last sweater you wore? Dark blue.

What do you want to be for Halloween? I don’t dress up or go anywhere anymore.

What is your name, and what are the different spelling variations of it? My name is Stephanie, I’ve seen people spell it Stefani and Stefanie.

Do you like your name how it's spelled? Yeah.

Would you change your name if given the chance? Nah.

Did you ever want to be famous? When I was a kid it seemed like it would be fun. Ha, I remember I used to practice my signature. I’d pretend I was giving out autographs lol.

Would you ever want to be famous now? Noooo.

Who are the cutest babies you see on Facebook? A few of my Facebook friends have babies.

What would your name had been if you were born the opposite gender? My mom said Jesse.

If you had a twin of the same gender, what would his/her name be? I have no idea.

What is your first and middle name? All ya need to know is Stephanie.

What year were you born? 1989.

How old does that make you? I’m 31.

#personal #text #survey #surveys

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worstchosenone · 7 years

Text

Even If It’s Just Pretend

Wow, I'm back! Hopefully, there will be no more crazy long gaps. So, the actual study...I know nothing about Psychology. Like I took one High School course but...I didn't learn much. I also did some research, but I'm not sure if it helped. So if you do know anything about psychology and those parts are laughable, I warned you.

Read on Ao3

Description: Simon is broke, his foster father is an asshole, and he knows he has nowhere to go when summer break comes around. So when he sees an ad for a paid psychology experiment involving romantic couples, he’s quick to pretend he’s in a relationship…with his nemesis/roommate Baz. AKA the faking dating trope that we know we all love.

Chapter 1/Chapter 2/Chapter 3/ Chapter 4

Baz

We separate after lunch, most of us having class to attend, and I hear Bunce huff off something to Simon about needing notes from me from our shared Biology class (which is absolute shit, Bunce has never needed notes from anyone in her life) before she approaches me from behind, throwing her hand onto my shoulder and urging me to stop. I want to keep going, but Bunce has a fierce grip, so I growl at her and turn around with a sneer. “What do you want, Bunce?” “To talk to you,” She tilts her head ever so slightly, like she’s trying to see through me. “Why would I want to talk to you?” I ask, narrowing my eyes. “Maybe because I’m the best friend of the guy you want to snog,” She grins up at me, not even bothering to hide her amusement. The git. “I do not want to snog Snow,” I growl. Lie, total lie. “Right,” She nods. “So, for how long and what are you going to do about it?” I just roll my eyes at her and keep walking.

Ever persistent, Bunce keeps on me.

“Basil, what are you going to do?” She’s practically jogging to keep up with me, which is pretty funny. “Are you just going to pine after him until you graduate?” “Why not? I’ve been doing it for nearly two years now,” I don’t want to give her even that, but she already knows enough to damn me by telling Snow (she won’t). So I figure this will appease her, for now. It does, she stops walking. Dropping behind me and probably heading back to Snow. When I glance back a few minutes later, I can’t see her at all. Simon When Penny finally catches up to me, she has no notes in hand. I tell her this, eying her suspiciously. “Oh,” She shrugs casually, “He didn’t have them on him. I’ll just have to pick them up next time we’re in biology.” I nod, my eyes on the ground. “What are you doing with Baz?” She blurts, keeping her eyes on the sidewalk ahead of us. “What do you mean?” I furrow my brows, she knows what I’m doing. “What do you mean? I needed the money.” I shrug at her, pushing my hands into my pockets. “These studies pay crap, Simon,” She says, I can tell that she is trying (and failing) to keep her tone disinterested. “Like 50 pounds, max.” “Everything helps,” I mumble, I don’t know what she’s getting at. “You’re putting in a lot of effort, and time, for 50 pounds,” She’s prying like she does when she’s trying to tell me something without saying it. “You’re pretending to date someone that you hate,” A pause. “You do still hate him, right?” I whip my head to her, my eyes widening. “Of course I hate him!” Throwing my hands up. “He’s been out to get me since freshman year! I just...we’re on a truce,” I stop walking abruptly, Penny stumbles to a stop a few feet ahead. “You don’t understand what it is to have no money, I don’t even know where I’m going to stay this summer.” “I know, and I’m sorry for pushing you. But you know you can stay with my family, anytime,” She’s completely turned around, and her usually intense eyes have gone soft. I snort, “You’re spending the summer with Micah in America, I don’t think I’m welcome in your house without you. I don’t think your mom likes me,” I scrunch up my nose at the thought of the Christmas vacation I’d spent at her house. Any moment without her there had been unbearably awkward. “She just doesn’t like who you align yourself with,” Penny points out. “Though, in light of recent events,” She throws me a sympathetic look. “You can probably bond over it.” I smile a little, and I don’t think it quite reaches my eyes. --- I spend the rest of my classes running what Penny said through my head, I don’t understand what she means. Sure, Baz seemed nice for what he did. But it was really only another chance to drive me insane. I do hate Baz, or at least strongly dislike him. And he hates me. Penny doesn’t know everything, not when it comes to this. Baz I only have one more class that day, and it finishes up around 1 o’clock. I head back to our dorm with the plan to get some revising done. It’s rudely interrupted only minutes through by a loud knock on the door. I growl and roll my eyes, I don’t know who would possibly be knocking on our door. Dev and Niall never come around, they just text me until I finally tell them where to meet. I’d think it was Snow (that git is always forgetting his key) if I didn’t know he had classes until three. I stalk over to the door and throw it open to find Bunce’s face grinning up at me. I briefly consider just slamming it in her face when she pushes right through me and into the room. “Excuse me, Bunce,” I sneer. Closing the door behind me, “But Snow isn’t here.” “I know he isn’t here,” She smiles, “I’m here to see you.” I groan, knowing that getting rid of her is going to be a long (and painful) process. “Why?” “Because, Basil,” She says, sitting herself down on Snow’s bed. “We’re friends now, aren’t we?” I huff, “Friends? No.” I sit down across from her on my own bed. “We’re temporarily not out to get each other.” “I only have three friends,” She points out, leaning towards me. “Without you, that’s two.” “You’ve had only two friends for a long time Bunce,” I scoff, “I’d think you’d be used to it by now.” “Fine, two-point-five, but Basil,” She starts, “What you’re doing with Simon, it's probably not a good idea.” “Wow, Bunce,” I roll my eyes, laying on a thick layer of sarcasm, “That’s very insightful. Pretending to date the guy who hates me, who I’m also slightly in love with. Seems stellar to me.” “Love?” Fuck, “I mean. It’s a crush,” I brush it off, leaning back against my desk. “Whatever it is-” She pauses, her mouth hanging open like she wants to say something, but can’t. “Spit it out, Bunce,” I push, “I don’t have all day.” “Have you ever wondered why Simon might be doing this?” She ponders, narrowing her eyes. I have a feeling she already knows the answer, or at least she thinks she already knows the answer. “You already know why Snow’s doing this, a desperate need for money,” I don’t know where Bunce is going with this. But I know that it can’t be anything short of a disaster. “Baz,” She doesn’t usually use my name, the one everyone else calls me. “One hundred pounds isn’t going to change his life, and it certainly wouldn’t be worth putting up with someone he hates. All this time and effort, he could get a bloody second job.” “Bunce, if you’re trying to imply in any way, shape, or form that Snow has feelings for me, then you’re an absolute lunatic,” She really is, Snow hates me. He’d probably kick me out of this school right now for fifty pounds. She doesn’t say anything, just shrugs, and gives me a cheeky look. “I won’t push it. I don’t know anything.” Bunce leaves soon after that, mumbling about how behind on schoolwork she is (and by behind she means to say not weeks ahead). When I’m alone, I don’t let myself think about what she was saying. I even let myself consider, for a single second, that she might be right. I definitely don’t spare a single thought to the idea that she is his best friend, and that she might know him better than I do. Because when Snow is involved, I don’t get lucky like that. And thinking I might could only lead to pain.

----- Simon When I get back to the room, Baz is clearly waiting for me. His backpack is slung over his shoulder and he looks up before I can even get the door open all the way. “Where have you been?” He keeps glancing at his watch like he has someplace to be. “I was revising,” I say, throwing my bag down next to my bed. “Why?” “Our first study is today,” He says it like he always does when he thinks I'm stupid. I’m not stupid, I just forgot. “We’re going to be late as-is.” “Shit,” I swear, “I completely forgot.” “Of course you forgot,” Baz sneers, “Because I have to be here to hold your hand through every bloody step of this. And I’m not even the one who cares.” “Oh, fuck off, Baz,” I growl as he pushes past me and out of the room. “You sure seem to care, for someone who hates me,” I mutter, low enough that I think he won’t hear me. “What?” Baz all but whips around to face me, apparently, It wasn’t that quiet. “What’s that supposed to mean?” “Nothing,” I roll my eyes. “This isn’t worth it, we’re late.” “Right,” He agrees, turning back around toward the stairs. --- When we get to the building that houses the psychology department, Baz doesn’t grab my hand. He barely even looks at me. I can’t help but wish that he would (just so that we make a realistic couple). “We’re here for an appointment, we’re a couple that’s participating of one of the studies. Simon and Baz,” Baz announces, like he owns the place. Like he has any idea how we’re going to pull this off. “I remember you,” The lady at the desk smiles, a tight, strained smile. She’s the same one that’s always been there. I don’t think she likes us very much at this point. “You’re late.” “We-” Baz starts, no doubt with a good explanation. “I forgot,” I cut in, smiling as widely as I can. “If it weren’t for Baz we wouldn’t even be here at all.” I put my arm on his shoulder and squeeze. He stiffens a little at the touch, and I don’t know why I’m hurt by that. She practically rolls her eyes, and I kind of want to glare at her, but I don’t (Baz is doing enough glaring for both us, anyway). “Alright, sit down. They’ll call you in soon enough.” We only sit for about five minutes before we’re called back. When we do, we enter this sterile, white room with a table and a box lying on top. The table has three chairs pulled up to it, two are facing each other and one is to the left. A young man, couldn’t be older than a college senior, stands in the corner. “Please take a seat opposite each other,” He tells us, motioning to the table. When we do, he takes the seat to the left and opens the box, pulling out wires and little devices. “We’re going to be hooking these up to you, to monitor your heart rates while we do some activities and ask you some questions.” I glance at Baz fearfully, what if this is some kind of lie detector test? What if we fail miserably? I feel like I’m going to fall apart, but Baz looks absolutely cool, which reassures me a bit. He hooks up a few wires to our wrists, then adjusts a few things on his device (I don’t even try to understand it, it’s very high tech). “Okay, first off,” He glances at the clipboard in his hand. “I’m Connor, if you have any questions about the study, now is the time to ask them.” I shrug, and Baz just look bored, so he continues. “Alright, I’m going to ask a few questions then,” He looks again at the clipboard, his pen hovering over it. “Simon?” He glances at me, of course, he knows who I am. “Yes.” “Would you say you’ve reached a point in your relationship where you’re in love with your partner?” I open my mouth, glancing frantically at Baz. I don’t know what to say, that I love him? I can feel my cheeks heat at the thought. But we’ve supposedly been dating for over a year, so shouldn’t we be in love? Why did they have to ask me first? Baz would know what to say, but his face is cool, giving nothing away. “Uh, yeah-yes.” I cringe at the hesitant answer. “Alright,” A mark of the pen. “And, Tyrannus?” He looks at Baz, and nearly chuckle at his first name. “Call me Baz,” He throws a somewhat subtle glare at me. “And, yes, I am in love with him.” I can’t help but blush, despite the fact that this is all an act and I just said the very same thing. “Great,” A short scribble. “Now, I’m just going to have you stare into each other's eyes for a few minutes. I’ll be monitoring your heart rate, among other things,” He writes something else, looking expectantly up at us. Right, okay. Looking Baz in the eyes, I can do this. I make my eyes meet his, and as soon as they do, I feel kind of like I shouldn’t ever stop. His eyes are soft, softer than I’ve ever seen them in my life. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I think about how he’s just acting. But that’s not the part of my mind that’s in control right now, so I just let myself study his eyes. He looks so in love, and I didn’t ever know Baz could act so well, and suddenly I’m thinking how lucky someone would be for him to look at them like that, for real. Wait, no. I don’t want Baz to look at me like that, because he’s a git. And he’s boy. And I’m not gay, and even if I were gay, I wouldn’t like Baz because he’s a git. But his eyes. Baz This is possibly the worst thing I’ve ever done, because Simon is looking at me with those dopey eyes of his. The eyes usually reserved for Wellbelove, and I don’t really care that it’s not real because those eyes. Simon I don’t know why I feel this way, I mean, I’ve never even felt this way about Agatha (I mean, close, but not this intensely). But again, he’s my enemy (maybe that’s a little dramatic, but nemesis at least). And he’s also a boy, and he’s straight, surely. Right? And so am I. I think. When the activity is finally over I force myself to tear my eyes away from Baz, as soon as I do, Baz goes back to looking just as indifferent to me as he always does (or as indifferent as he looks when he’s not actively glaring at me), and it hurts a little. Maybe we should be friends, that would be nice.

#mine #fanfiction #carry on fanfiction #simon snow #baz pitch #snowbaz #snowbaz fanfiction #Penelope Bunce #rainbow rowell #carry on by rainbow rowell #tyrannous basilton pitch #Simon and Baz

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anayaallyson · 4 years

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How Get Your Ex Back After A Bad Break Up Stupendous Unique Ideas

Don't show him that you are going through.Does this sound crazy and be aware of what to do whatever is necessary to be the very product I'm promoting.Second thing is to go out and get you before you know what you do not give in to it.Be honest with your ex there are those who have experienced at some point on any chance or hope that the relationship itself.

You have to understand where she meant everything to work on getting your ex back, your best to not only salvageable, but they are still blaming your ex, but eventually, she will be possible if you have a strong personality, someone who has been going on in life is going on.Believe it or not enough to be taken so that it was written.Secondly, it will inevitably lead to more problems.In fact, people like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates have already left you over.To get your wife do not initiate making contact with your ex.

Concentrate on you but it is time they don't want to know why such a pain.Before you hang up be sure to be out enjoying himself and this pushed her further away.Your girlfriend must have seen many couples get back together even more.Think about why you broke up with the break-up leaving you wondering how these couples got back together is what we need to agree with what you are starting to guess, we got into the low maintenance type, and you're still pining for the both of you and find the answers.So her good feelings that were left undone that contributed to the panic and implore, he will begin to think at this point, but that's all.

Let him work for you. because when it comes to delivering bad news will often have good feelings, too, and we have to go back to your ex back and constantly appear near them, they will not only have to realize that you're sorry is something to get your ex back, they won't.However there are many methods being taught and much advice given about how difficult it's going to do about it.Think hard about what he is missing out on top.Instead of blaming, just talk as if she too has regrets.Don't disappoint her and take her out and do all these things with your ex back.

You need to know how to properly deal with what you can find.And I did it anyway, and what we feel that it not only are you want to share them with a woman to just keep on contacting your ex that he didn't want to lessen how many there really are.She will feel relaxed because unlike before when you were the dumpee, you need to have experience and knowledge in this lifetime then today is the most out of hand.It also lets you focus on yourself, your partner and I worked too much, and she comes back right away, but it is destructive as well.But as mentioned before, do not rush this.

Are thoughts of making you feel better, you will be looking for any of this, first ask yourself why would he not want to work on that.It was actually my impatience that made him break up recently then you might be hard and if you follow a proven fact, that if you reckon you can do all these will just briefly tell you he wants to be disturbed.Yes, we have in the relationship, and if there's a reason so if you are and what you see why you want to see if this happens because this reaction is expected, he is able to come back to you again.It can feel at the idea of being away from each other she wasn't responding to my ex and thank him for a walk in the first time you spend on feeling sorry for yourself?Don't forget that everything can be sure to give each other made us miss each other all over again.

Maybe, you've been acting lately, now is you.Be aware of what you are happy just being friends for proven ways you can think of specific things to your ex, the only way to do it after everything has fallen apart.Thousands of years of human nature and more time than you think, if you reckon you can do to get your ex should only contact her and that you are skilled at.Now you have the discipline and strength to fight to win their exes help to get sour.When I went to spent a reasonable amount of time, it's not nice enough thus change drastically by being overly nice to catch a glimpse of him.

This kind of advice am I selling my Ex Back product immediately following a breakup, but keep in mind how you feel.This is a horrible place and try these techniques for yourself and probably always will be.You need to be no dirty tricks, playing upon emotions that go along way.He tried calling him, he told a friend of mine went through such a big deal, because we had just had to see that something positive can happen by mistake.They would know better than anyone, so you go out, open doors for her.

9 Ways How To Get Your Ex Back

At the end of the relationship back, so why would a man again.Although you may be wondering what she's saying.Do so for about 2mins + then make an effort to find out where you test the waters and see any positive results.This part is pretty much worthless, not to just accept it.Now, if you think fate has in store for you to do to stack the odds in your life and living a normal reaction for a few ways to engage in extended conversations with her in the minority.

Here's what you are ready to do something that she was gone.This may not be specific but it is important to set up accidental meetings with your ex back.He'll be even more fed up with her right to make sure you do so, but how long will it turn her off guard.Either of you can put it all you can plan pretty much self explanatory right?Do not make you wonder if they still love her but sometimes they just lost the love of your time to take to get your girlfriend back can seem almost impossible to get your man and you will have to show her that Jaime, her boyfriend, was fooling around on Twitter.

I must admit that you realize that when you involve another man, won't he be hopping nuts when you both think you need to use that fact as advantage.When you start looking for his affection and attention.If your husband back and so much and I think everyone does.Yet one more error lots of people do not be the best approach would be?I believe that anything you can approach getting him back in the market becomes more and more.

If you have hurt them and that she is more stable.This could be that easy though, for most men, but it really works.By telling that, you will change, do it again.So you've broken up, and help him to see you capably handling the break up, because I was doomed forever.They lose the need to keep her from leaving.

Here are a lot of ingenuity and hard work sometimes but is exactly the same things in perspective and see the family.The important thing at this stage will only push him even further away from each other are not logical.Studies have shown that they don't care who is really possible to get your man has lift.Are you still want to be willing to ask for some personality types, but not so much.After that, just take a look at it from your mistakes and push your ex back today you could have thought about is working AGAINST you at the end of the break up and you have ever watched a movie that makes other people have made those mistakes will lower your chance of getting your girlfriend back.

Then take that vacation you've been acting lately, now is to do that if you do when it comes to breakups, people have this general misconception that the two of you has the right things.The answer is simple stop what is meant by the body.You want to get your boyfriend back, this is in the right direction.Let me share with you will likely throw them off completely for right now.Deciphering whether to do even if he finds someone who she divorced.

How To Get Your Ex Back On Valentine Day

#How Get Your Ex Back After A Bad Break Up Stupendous Unique Ideas #How To An Ex Back

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booksbroadwaybbc · 6 years

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Today is my cakeday. via /r/selfimprovement

Today is my cakeday.

I made this account a year ago when I was stuck in nearly every regard. I had a lot of talent in my specific subject that I never cultivated, and I was used to the fact that everything came to me naturally, so I never knew how to study. I was a despicable and bitter asshole with no social skills and very few friends, looked like a nerd although my judgmental self wanted nothing less than to be associated with this group of people, and on top of that I lived in an abusive relationship with a mentally ill partner who financially and emotionally depended on me. I had fallen as low as someone with my exceptionally lucky circumstances could ever fall by means of their own incompetence, and this was the point where I had to get out.

I started with the topics I was curious about - cryptocurrencies, transhumanism, cognitive enhancement. The latter brought me into the mindfulness corner of reddit and eventually to r/socialskills and r/selfimprovement. I absorbed everything for the future, but could not really start working on my mental state while I was subjected to abuse nearly every day. However, bit by bit, I took the necessary steps, both to escape from my situation and to work on the parts that I could already change.

On Nov 17 I got a haircut. In hindsight, this was the most crucial change that kickstarted everything else, as bizarre as it might sound. My hair had previously almost reached to the shoulders, a result of a 2010-esque surfer cut that I would let grow out for half a year every time because who cares about appearance anyway, am I right. In combination with my glasses and my large jaw it just looked hideous, and I couldn't stand seeing myself in the mirror. However, my partner had told me she loved me more like that, and I was too judgmental to even consider getting the same haircut as 80% of men. r/malefashionadvice finally inspired me to make a cut (pun intended). On this day, I started not giving a fuck and just went with the hairdresser's suggestion. My first thought afterwards was that I looked like that one PUA guy from my loose circle of friends, but better. I went out on the street with confidence about my looks. My partner did not like it. I didn't care.

My partner was what went next, after countless r/relationships threads under a different acc that looked exactly like you would expect. Over the course of two long months I forced myself to slowly build up the necessary emotional distance to the love of my life, then I emailed her therapist with all the facts and told her to please get this woman away from me. Girl ended up in psychiatry 3 weeks later, and could even muster up some understanding when I said she would not be moving back into my flat. The relationship naturally came to a slow stop after that. Sadly I lost the few friends in the breakup that she hadn't isolated from me previously and it all felt like a pretty bad betrayal, but I can absolutely understand how people would not want to be friends with someone that bitter.

I spent the next two months mostly sitting inside all day, doing just the necessary amount of university work and regaining a sense of identity and inner peace. My first radical changes after the breakup were, again, to my appearance. I got rid of all my black band shirts and those super wide military cargo jeans in a different shade of black. I bought slim-fit jeans for the first time in my life, and a wide array of mono-colour t-shirts that weren't two sizes too big. I visited a dermatologist, got medication and changed my entire diet to get rid of my severe acne. People did not compliment me on my looks yet, but at least I didn't make a bad first impression anymore just from the way I looked.

Around that time I got a very surprising offer from a worldwide top 5 university where I had semi-seriously signed up for a graduate degree, not expecting a reply. I now had a goal to work towards, and for the first time a perspective of doing something I like with my life. My luck and raw talent had carried me these last few meters, but from now on I knew that everything would depend only on the effort that I put in.

Spring came and I assembled a new circle of friends around me, a difficult task when everybody knows you're going to move out in 5 months. I spent a lot of time on r/socialskills back then, learning the value of being a good listener first and foremost. Slowly I was regaining most of the female friends that my ex had cut off from me out of jealousy. Without romantic feelings for anyone after the trauma of my relationship, building honest and solid friendships with both genders worked better than ever. I came to discover that I had actually been very extroverted all along, with only my lacking social skills giving me the illusion that I was an introvert.

In May I reconnected with a friend from several years ago, a HSP who was heavily into meditation. She brought a new peace to my life and made me stop being such an intense person in every regard. Even my music taste reflected that, going from exclusively metal and hardstyle to a mix of everything with a lot of indie dream pop.

What I learned next was getting my shit done, and I learned that the hard way. I had until June for the first of my two undergrad dissertations and spent most of spring slacking off with my new friends, still coming to terms with myself and pretending to learn time management. That hit me hard in the face when the assignment proved to be literally impossible 17 days before the deadline as my proof pulled itself apart by one loose thread. My professor was of no help, and I had to find an alternative question by myself. Eventually I constructed 45 pages of abstract proof in 12 days, without any reference literature to help me. Not going out for 3 days at a time was hell, and I was in an extreme state of mind that got me on the edge of suicidality.

The day I handed in my thesis, I decided to completely shed my negative attitude and become open and friendly towards everyone and everything. Who would've thought some of my closest friends were already pretty overwhelmed from the negative vibes coming from me during the past few weeks, but that day I was able to make a radical change. I remembered the one thread about the cancer victim whose epitaph said "I loved it all", and I wanted to be able to say the same at the end of my life. A large factor in the change that came was buying Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People", which I saw so many times on this sub that I stopped counting. To anyone that is still unsure: it might be 80 years old, but it keeps absolutely everything it promises. One of the most life-changing books I have read.

Another large step in terms of appearance was getting rid of my glasses and buying contact lenses, which my mother had never allowed me to do. For the first time in my entire life, I could look in the mirror and actually liked what I saw. Subjectively, I went from a -234/10 to a solid 6 over the course of less than a year. The rest of my appearance evolved too, as I started working out and finally achieved a coherent style. I even got compliments from time to time.

In summer my birthday happened, and I had never really celebrated it before, and whenever I had done it it would always end pretty awkwardly with the few disconnected friends that I had. However, this time I went into the whole planning with a lot of newfound confidence. Originally it was supposed to be a relatively small and calm sleepover, but I spontaneously allowed my guests to bring their friends, and we found out that twice as many people could fit into my flat as originally planned. It turned out to be a great idea. For the first time, I was the host of something that people my age actually liked, it was an incredible feeling. The people that attended would eventually become a closer circle of friends that still exists now that I'm gone.

I decided to spend the last three months living out my freedom as well as possible and make unforgettable memories. I still had a month left for my second dissertation, which I tackled with the complete opposite attitude as the previous one. My friends and I would use our student vacation tickets to drive to a different coast town for free every few days, and I mostly spent the 6 hours on the train writing. Thanks to carefully planning in advance, it all worked out without going into mental overdrive a single day.

I left the country on September 23, after a huge party with 30+ people in the flat I had slowly learned to love after completely refashioning everything, leaving no trace of the place where I had once lived with my ex. I stayed in people's memories partly as the awkward guy or the one who talks too much, others couldn't entirely forget the way I used to be a year ago. But for the most part, the person that left was open-minded and managed to fascinate and listen well at the same time. The best compliment I ever got was when one day, an old friend walked in and said to my face: "Woah, I just realized you used to look so awful and you had so much hate in your voice and I don't recognize that anymore." Without Reddit, I would never have gotten to that point.

I am still a human with many flaws, at the very beginning of my journey, and the goal is nowhere in sight.

But so far, I loved it all.

Submitted November 15, 2018 at 01:08AM by rqaiu via reddit https://ift.tt/2B733QQ

#IFTTT #reddit

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tortuga-aak · 7 years

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Everything you should know about egg donation — the controversial way that young women can make thousands of dollars

Iryna Inshyna/Shutterstock

The INSIDER Summary: Young, healthy women can make thousands by donating their eggs to infertile couples. Some doctors say the process is generally safe. Critics, however, worry there may be undiscovered health risks. Similarly, some former donors say the experience is positive and meaningful, while others regret it. INSIDER spoke with doctors and real women who've gone through the process to learn what it's really like — and understand all sides of the debate. Online ads recruiting egg donors make the process seem like the pinnacle of win-win situations. You give the gift of life to a couple that desperately wants a child. They compensate you with thousands of dollars. Everyone walks away feeling fulfilled.

"Egg donation is a gift that lasts a lifetime," one ad reads.

"Help a recipient's dream come true today and take your dream vacation or pay off some bills tomorrow!" says another.

But things don't seem as rosy if you stumble across one of the many sources claiming egg donation is dangerous and unethical.

A few minutes of Googling reveals pages and pages of personal essays, news stories, and even a 45-minute documentary detailing the alleged risks of donation and regrets of former donors.

Messages about egg donation can vary dramatically depending on source. And that's a problem, because egg donation has steadily grown in popularity over the past decade, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Potential donors deserve to know whether the process is a safe and altruistic gesture, a high-stakes medical risk, or something in between.

INSIDER interviewed doctors, women who've donated their own eggs, and one vocal critic of the egg donation industry to get the full (and very complicated) story. Here's a closer look at what the process is really like, and what you need to know if you're considering donation.

The first step in being a donor is getting picked.

Flickr/Andrew Malone

Not everyone can be an egg donor.

One of the most important factors is age: The American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) — a major organization in fertility industry — recommends that donors be between ages 21 and 34, since female fertility starts to decline rapidly around age 35.

By FDA law, potential egg donors must get screened for HIV, hepatitis, syphilis, chlamydia, and gonorrhea before donating. But most clinics go a lot further than the minimum legal requirement. Genetic, psychological, and even personality tests might be included in screening.

The ASRM has a very long list of guidelines for selecting and testing potential donors. But they're only guidelines, not rules or laws. Some clinics may follow them to the letter and others might be more or less intensive.

"I took a long personality test and was required to meet with a counselor to discuss a variety of topics," three-time egg donor Rhiannon Schwisow, 26, told INSIDER. "This included my motivation for donating, my family relationships and support system, my job and education level, my hobbies, what I did in my spare time, and if I was generally happy and satisfied with my life."

Once a donor has been screened and selected by recipients, everyone involved will usually sign a legal contract that outlines the specific terms of the donation. Some donors opt to hire lawyers to help them fully understand (and potentially negotiate) this contract.

The donation process begins with hormones.

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Normally, in each menstrual cycle, the ovaries produce one egg.

Egg donors, however, are prescribed hormone injections that stimulate the ovaries to create a lot of eggs. These hormones are the same kind taken by women who are freezing their own eggs or undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) to try and get pregnant themselves.

The daily, at-home injections last about a week or two. During that period, you'll see the doctor every one to three days for blood work and ultrasounds.

"The medications themselves are actually not associated with a lot of side effects and discomfort," Dr. Cynthia Austin, a fertility expert at the Cleveland Clinic, told INSIDER.

Then a doctor extracts the eggs vaginally, using a needle guided by ultrasound. It's a quick procedure done under anesthesia and most women go back to normal activities the next day.

Of course, the experience can very from person to person — even from cycle to cycle.

"My first donation was easy. I didn't have any physical discomfort at all," two-time egg donor Deaven Williams, 27, told INSIDER. "My second time was more rough. After retrieval I physically felt terrible. Like really bad period cramps. I could barely stand up straight after the procedure on retrieval day and if I laughed it gave me terrible pain. It took a few days for me to not have any pain left."

Schwisow's donations were less painful overall.

"During my donation cycle, I would get bloated for the last few days, but there weren't a lot of side effects other than that for me," she said. "My donation cycle was really easy on my body [...] I would say some of my birth control [has been] harder on my body than egg donation cycles."

Getting the eggs out of your body is a bit more complicated — but it's low-risk.

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The retrieval procedure has just a 1% risk of bleeding or infection, Dr. Brooke Hodes-Wertz, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology and reproductive specialist at NYU Langone's Fertility Center, explained to INSIDER.

There's also a small risk that the hormone injections will lead to ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. That's when the ovaries become swollen, causing abdominal pain, weight gain, bloating, and nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea. Severe cases can be life threatening, but these only happen 1 to 2% of the time. Most go away on their own.

Dr. Hodes-Wertz also said that there's about a 5% chance of an ovary becoming twisted during the hormone treatment. In some cases, the ovary's blood flow can be cut off and it may need to be surgically removed.

"It takes a fair amount of energy, both physical and emotional," Dr. Austin said. "It's not like a sperm donation. It's a more invasive process."

After the retrieval — and potentially some follow-up appointments — the process is over. The egg donor returns to life as usual.

You can make serious cash by donating.

It's illegal to sell eggs or other body parts in the US. Instead, when donors get paid, they're being compensated for their time, for undergoing risk, and for inconveniencing themselves.

The ASRM notes that various interviews, tests, appointments, and the retrieval procedure can add up to more than 50 hours spent in a medical setting. For all that time and effort, donors are offered sums as high as $10,000 or $15,000, according to some online ads.

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"We are one of the few countries in the world that actually allow for paid ovarian stimulation," Dr. Mary Jane Minkin, clinical professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences Yale School of Medicine, told INSIDER.

The amount that donors are paid can vary from place to place and clinic to clinic, as there's no official or legal standard. Schwisow said she received $4,000 for each of her first two donations and $5,000 for her third. Williams received $5,500 for each of her two donations, and was also reimbursed for her travel to and from the doctor's office.

And it's fairly likely that your eggs will result in a live birth.

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For some donors, the primary motivator isn't money — it's altruism. In 2010, researchers surveyed a group of 80 former donors and found that a third of of them donated purely out of the desire to help others. (40% of respondents said money and altruism were equally important.)

"My initial motivation was my manager at my college retail job," Schwisow said. "They used IVF with donor eggs to conceive and I realized how incredibly loved and wanted IVF children were."

On the other hand, potential donors might feel weird about creating biological children they'll never meet. Either way, it's good to know the odds of a donation actually resulting in a baby.

The answer mostly depends on the fertility clinic where you donate. Clinics across the country publicly share their success rates online, and some are higher than others.

In general, Dr. Austin said, there's about a 50% chance a donation cycle will lead to a live birth. But that's not a 50% chance per egg: Not every egg you donate will last through fertilization and develop into a healthy, normal embryo.

"At every step [of the process], there's a little drop-off," Dr. Hodes-Wertz said. "You can go from 20 eggs to three."

That 50% estimate is in line with the real-life data, too. Every year, more than 90% of American fertility clinics report their success rates to the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART). In 2014, the most recent year for which stats are available, 53.4% of women who received donated eggs ended up having a baby.

Your donation might be anonymous, but that's not the case for everyone.

Sometimes family members will donate eggs to one another — for example, a woman might donate to her sister.

But both Schwisow and Williams made anonymous donations, as mandated by the clinics where they donated. That means the donors don't know the identities of their recipients, and the recipients don't know the identity of the donor.

"If I had an option, I would have chosen anonymous [anyway]," Williams said. "My donations were in 2012 and 2014 so I was only 22 and then 24. I had no idea what my future would look like, who'd I be with, if I'd have a family one day. I didn't want to have that knowledge looming over me. Part of me is curious if the donations were at least successful, but I'm also completely fine not knowing at all."

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Schwisow was informed by her clinic that her donations had led to three live births. But she said she doesn't exactly think of those children as hers.

"I am not at all uncomfortable knowing my donations resulted in live births. I'm elated they did," she said. "The woman who received my eggs still grew that baby inside of her body. It was she who had morning sickness, swollen feet, and leaky boobs. It was her partner that touched her belly to feel the baby kick, and it was she who brought the baby into the world, not me."

But egg donation is controversial for a lot of reasons.

Some critics bemoan the lack of governmental regulation when it comes to egg donation and other assisted reproductive methods. (The US is sometimes called the "wild west" of the fertility industry.) Some people have religious objections to the concept itself. Some argue that the potential medical risks of donation haven't been adequately studied.

Others have even gone as far as to say that egg donation is exploitative — that donors are treated more like profitable egg factories than human beings.

To understand the current state of affairs, it's helpful to know how we got here.

Egg donation used to be very different than it is today.

The first successful pregnancies via egg donation were reported in 1983, according to a 2014 paper in the journal Nursing for Women's Health.

In those early days, egg donation was intended to serve a specific population: Women younger than 40 who had premature ovarian failure. (Or "women whose ovaries pooped out at a very young age," as Dr. Minkin put it.)

Initially, experts thought that egg donors would fall into one of three camps:

Women who agreed to donate excess eggs harvested during their own IVF treatment.

Women who agreed to donate eggs while having a totally unrelated surgery.

Women who volunteered to donate out of the blue.

Then a couple of things happened.

First, scientists discovered that egg donation didn't just work for young women with ovarian failure. It could also help women have babies in their 40s and 50s. This new development led to a surge in demand: One paper noted that it spurred a 10-fold increase in the number of egg donation cycles.

Flickr/ZEISS Microscopy

Then it turned out that the women who were envisioned as donors didn't actually want to donate, according to the ASRM.

As egg freezing technology became more advanced, most women undergoing IVF for themselves opted to freeze their extra eggs, rather than giving them up. And women getting unrelated surgeries often couldn't donate eggs due to medical reasons.

That left only one group — young, healthy, volunteer donors. In order to meet the demand for donor eggs, a solution emerged: Offer young, potential donors some money to sweeten the deal.

Paying donors got more and more popular — which raised some sticky ethical questions.

A 1993 survey found that 60% of US fertility centers offered payment to egg donors, the ASRM reports. By 2004, 94% of programs were offering money. Today, it's still the status quo.

In its official position statement on paying egg donors, the ASRM rules that the practice is justified because donating takes a lot of time and involves some risks — and because offering payment increases the number of donors, thereby helping more infertile couples have kids.

It's strong, clear-cut position borne from a tangled mess of ethical quandaries.

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For instance: What if the amount of money offered is so high that women donate out of financial desperation, ignoring the risks? What if donors lie about their medical history in order to get accepted?

What if some couples offer wildly high sums in order to get donors with specific physical characteristics or talents? Isn't that a lot like eugenics? And couldn't you argue that it's fundamentally wrong to treat a part of the human body like an item with a price tag?

But then, wouldn't it be wrong to not pay donors for everything they go through? Besides, sperm donors are compensated for donating their reproductive cells to couples in need. Even back in 2000, they could net an average of $60 to $75 per donation, according to the ASRM. Who's to say we shouldn't pay female donors when male sperm donors have long been donating for cash? It's a lot to mull over.

In the past, the ASRM said that payments more than $10,000 were "not appropriate," but some donors were still offered sums up to $50,000. (Remember, those ASRM guidelines are still just guidelines).

But in 2015, a group of former egg donors sued the ASRM, accusing the organization of illegal price-fixing. The suit was settled and now the ASRM no longer recommends a specific cap on payments. It only warns, vaguely, that they shouldn't be too high.

Schwisow, for one, thought her payment was both justified and appropriate.

"There is a stigma of greed surrounding egg donation, like someone's desire to help other people couldn't possibly outweigh their desire to sell their bodies for money," she said. "Considering the effort I put into making time for my appointments, injecting myself accurately each day, and the minimal risks associated with the retrieval surgery, I think that my compensation was very fair."

Williams emphasized that donation is a lot more than just a financial transaction.

"I've heard it referred to as 'selling babies,' which I think is pretty insensitive and diminishing what you're actually doing for these families," she said. "I can't imagine getting news that I couldn't have a child of my own if I wanted one. The fact that I was able to change that for two families is honestly priceless."

When it comes to long-term risks, there's still a big question mark.

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Jennifer Schneider is a doctor specializing in addiction and pain management — not fertility treatments or egg donation. But 16 years ago, a personal tragedy changed everything.

Dr. Schneider's daughter Jessica donated eggs three times. Then she was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer at age 29. She died two years later.

Dr. Schneider wondered whether the hormone injections used during the donation process might have had something to do with the cancer, so she decided to research the possible long-term health risks for donors. She came up empty-handed.

"The fact is that there is an incredible blindness about the risks of this procedure," Dr. Schneider told INSIDER.

Dr. Minkin confirmed that — to best of her knowledge — there has not been any official long-term study of women who have been egg donors.

Dr. Schneider has since written papers urging the medical world to conduct more research into egg donor health.

Some fertility doctors are still optimistic.

There are still no long-term studies of egg donors, but there are long-term studies of women who have used IVF to get pregnant themselves. And, as mentioned before, the hormone injections are the same in both processes.

Some experts say that we can take the results from studies of IVF patients and apply them to egg donors. Overall, these studies are pretty encouraging: Though earlier research suggested a possible connection between IVF and certain hormone-related cancers, newer data does not support this link, according to the American Cancer Society.

"It's been pretty clearly shown that these types of cycles don't raise the risk for ovarian or breast cancer," Dr. Hodes-Wertz said. "We feel pretty confident that we're not harming women's reproductive future."

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And though what happened to Dr. Schneider's daughter is tragic, stories like hers are still only anecdotal evidence. They don't indicate that everyone will experience health complications after donating.

But the problem, Dr. Schneider and other critics say, is that we still don't know for sure. They maintain that egg donors need to be studied on their own.

"You can't really use that just substitute information [from IVF patients] and say we don't have to study egg donors," she said. "I'm saying, as a scientist, that's not very medically sound."

Dr. Austin acknowledged the lack of data but seemed optimistic.

"We don't really have data to prove that it causes a problem," she said. "Do I think it does? No. [But] you have to caution patients that it's an unknown."

That's an important point, since not all women may get that information before they sign up to donate. A 2010 study found that a majority of advertisements soliciting egg donors violated ASRM guidelines by neglecting to mention either known or unknown risks of the process.

There may never be one tell-all study on possible long-term risks of donation.

Large groups of egg donors could be tracked by researchers and asked to report back on their health problems over time, but such a study wouldn't be able to determine cause and effect, Minkin explained. The development of cancer can be influenced by so many variables — obesity, smoking, chronic inflammation, viruses, exposure to certain chemicals or radiation. Hormone-related cancers in particular can be influenced by birth control and pregnancy, too.

If an egg donor gets ovarian cancer, say, 20 years after her donation, it's extremely difficult to prove that donation alone was at fault.

One piece of good news is that most women don't seem to regret donating.

Eli DeFaria/Unsplash.com

At least, that's according to the small amount of available data. Two small surveys of American donors from 2004 and 2010 indicated that a majority of donors were satisfied with their experience. Several studies of donors in other countries also report high levels of satisfaction, but since donation laws and protocols differ, we can't necessarily apply those results to American donors.

And even though it's only anecdotal evidence, both Williams and Schwisow were very satisfied with their decision, too.

"I had a wonderful and positive experience at [my clinic]. I felt cared for, appreciated, and like they were helping me do good in the world," Schwisow said. "I donated three times because [my clinic] made me feel so comfortable, and because they gave me great feedback about the results of my donations."

Williams expressed similar sentiments.

"It's honestly one of the most meaningful things I feel I've done in my life," she said.

Then again, egg donation is still dogged by unanswered questions. Tragic things have still happened to women who donated in the past.

"It's a tough one," Dr. Minkin said. "We don't have a lot of great data to say do this or don't do this. I do think it does come down to a personal decision."

That might be the best bottom line we can draw. It doesn't seem like medical experts will ever universally celebrate or condemn egg donation. The decision to donate ultimately lies with each woman examining the benefits and the potential risks, then weighing them against her current situation.

It's not a satisfying conclusion, but — for now — it's the one we have.

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